[Podcast] How to Build a Powerful Personal Brand with Rob Levinson

What makes a powerful personal brand and how can you build one that endures?

We outline all the steps you need to follow to craft an authentic brand narrative that will help you get noticed, remembered and results.

Rob Levinson is a seasoned brand strategist who’s worked for global consumer brands such as DeBeers, Rolls-Royce, BMW and more. Now he’s the principal of Leverage Advisors which helps grow middle-market B2B businesses, as well as a Personal Brand Coach which helps people to develop brand stories that get them noticed & remembered. He’s also a lecturer at Boston Uni, and a former Wall Street Journal online columnist.

If you’re wanting to improve & grow your personal brand, this episode is for you!

 

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Show Notes

• Rob Levinson’s website
• Leverage Advisor’s website

 

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Transcript (Auto Generated)

Hello, and welcome to JUST Branding, the only podcast dedicated to helping designers and entrepreneurs grow brands. Here are your hosts, Jacob Cass and Matt Davies.

Hello, and welcome to JUST Branding. Today, we have Rob Levinson with us, who is a seasoned brand strategist. He’s worked for global consumer brands, such as DeBeers, Rolls-Royce, BMW, and more.

Now he’s the principal of Leverage Advisors, which helps grow middle market B2B businesses, as well as a personal brand coach, which helps people to develop their brand stories and get them noticed and remembered. He’s also a lecturer at Boston Uni and a former Wall Street Journal Online columnist. Today, we’re going to be discussing how to build a powerful personal brand.

So Rob, welcome to the show.

Thank you, I am thrilled to be here.

Awesome, so we’re going to discuss brand, but it’s important to know what lens we’re seeing this through. So could you give our listeners a bit of an understanding of how you personally define brand and brand in, perhaps why it matters?

I think the best and simplest definition of brand is by Jeff Bezos, who famously said, a brand is what people say about you after you leave the room. So the way I try to look at that is, I could come out with messaging and positioning and think that I present myself a certain way, but if that is not felt by external people, it really doesn’t mean a thing. I love to give the example that I might think I’m tall, dark and handsome, but if no one else does, am I really?

That’s the question.

So why do you think brand matters then?

Brand matters because people join affinity to brands, whether it is the cereal that you buy, the car that you drive, the clothing that you wear, or the people that you choose to associate yourself with. Because you’ll look at something, whether it’s an inanimate object or another person, and say, I belong in that sphere. That’s who I am.

That feels comfortable to me.

So we’ll get into how to actually do this, but I know you have a little story about a Toyota Venza. Can you share us that story?

Yeah, this is when I started my personal brand coaching business. So as you mentioned at the introduction, I’ve had a corporate branding firm for over 20 years. And I’ve helped rebrand companies in financial services and technology, consumer products, the whole thing.

And I’m not a young person and I have a nice reputation. I’m pretty proud of that. So I was always a BMW driver.

It was just my thing. I just, it was my little corner of the planet and I loved it. And then several years ago, I decided, you know what?

I’m over the BMW, you know, enough. It’s time to just get a good practical car. So I traded in my BMW for Toyota Venza, which I thought was a perfectly nice car.

And then the strangest thing happened. I was pitching business with an advertising agency and it was at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. And we all met at the hotel.

We gave our pitch. And when the pitch was over, we gave our tickets to the valet and all the cars started coming out. And my car, my Toyota came out first.

And the principal of the agency said to me, is that what you drive? I said, yeah, I love it. And she said to me, well, don’t let the clients see it.

It’s a terrible reflection. And I thought, okay, she’s a jerk and I let it go. And then about five, six months later, I was picking up a client of mine to go to a conference.

And I said, I’ll just meet you in front. So I’ve been doing a big rebrand for them for about a year and a half. He gets into my car and he said, is this what you drive?

I said, yeah. He said, huh, I wouldn’t have thought that you’d be in a Toyota. Okay, that’s strike two.

And then about four or five months later, I was meeting a client from New York and I drove up from Boston. He took the train to Connecticut. We went to our event.

We were going out for dinner and I picked him up in front of the hotel and he got into my car and he said, wait, Rob, I thought you were driving up from Boston. I said, I did. He said, then why do you have a rental?

I thought, that’s it. That’s it. This car is costing me business.

And the reason I tell you that story is just when you don’t think that people are judging you, they really are. But they saw me as their coach, as their guide, and they didn’t understand why I was associating myself with that kind of brand. And that’s when I started my personal branding business.

Yeah, and the brands really do reflect, that’s why people buy, right? They do have meaning behind it. And that perceived meaning is different for each person.

So in this particular reason is status, right? You’d buy a car for a status and that’s being reflected on you.

Well, the fact is that when you are a brand strategist, it’s an image. It’s an image brand. My whole career is advising corporations and individuals how to put their best face forward in the world.

And I was getting feedback from my people that I wasn’t doing that. So, you know, I took that Toyota Venza and I went to the BMW dealer and said, get me out of this car.

I was going to ask, what are you driving now? You’re back to the BMW.

I’m not proud to say, but I am back in the BMW.

Don’t you think, really, in a way, it’s funny, because, you know, the car you drive shouldn’t be a reflection, shouldn’t really, in material sort of logic, it’s not really a reflection of the value that you bring just from a machine. It’s a machine that’s outside and you jump in it and go from A to B. But the perception of the brand, the power of the brand of the car and the value of the car and the experience of driving that car, all of that contains and packs away in it meaning.

And so even if you don’t care about the car you drive, other people care. And I think that’s quite an interesting insight, Rob. By the way, it’s Matt here.

Hi folks and hi Rob, welcome to the show. But I just find it really interesting.

What car do you drive, Matt?

We are kind of fickle. I’ve got, well, out of choice, I’d be a BMW, I’ve got a Merc outside at the moment. But yeah, I think it is a bit fickle, to be honest.

No, but that was so revealing to me because just when you think that this stuff doesn’t matter, every single thing matters. And when I think about personal branding, I think about doing things with intention and doing things with purpose and really trying to determine what stage do you wanna be on. And when I put myself on the stage with Toyota owners, my clients rejected that notion.

They didn’t want the guy driving the Toyota to advise them. They wanted the guy in what they perceived to be a nicer car. And that’s really what was the foundation of my starting the personal branding business.

These things matter, evidently.

I do think we are pretty fickle as human beings, Rob, really, frankly, but as you say, it’s so important, isn’t it? We have to accept the reality that a brand, and for example, in the example that you gave, the car that you drive is a reflection of, an extension of your identity. And so, managing that, and as you say, being purposeful about that is something that executives today have to be really, really focused on, and not even just executives, but all of us in a way.

So what are your thoughts on that? Would you agree with that statement? And that’s obviously the game that you’re in, but it’d be interesting to hear any other thoughts you have on that.

Well, this is a trend that I’ve noticed for years and years on both the corporate side of the house, but also the personal branding. People don’t read that much anymore. And the way we get most of our information, it’s via our telephone, and we’ll see a picture come across with a headline, and then a line or two that is a hyperlink to a larger story.

So what that says to me is people have a very short attention span. So if you don’t grab them like that with some sort of headline or some sort of message, they’re not going to be interested. So even though I tell my clients personally, I’m very long-winded, what I’m really, really good at doing is helping someone make their long story short and really figuring out the one or two or three word associations you want people to have.

So when people think of Jake, what do they think about? What do they think of Matt? What are the one or two things they think about?

And the more you focus on your personal brand and develop your own narrative, the more you’ll steer people in the direction you want them to go.

Yeah. And as you’re thinking or speaking then, I was thinking of other like signals that people get, like the car is one, but the clothes that you wear, the shoes that you have, the suit that you’re wearing, like the brands and all of that, they all go towards your personal brand. So are there any other signals that you, I guess, want to explore apart from that car experience that is important for a personal brand?

Well, one thing that I talk to clients a lot about right now, given where we are in the world, so much of our communication is just like this, is via a Zoom call. And people don’t always give enough consideration to what is the message that they’re putting out there. So for example, what I’m doing right now, which feels very awkward, but I know I have to do it, for me to make eye contact with you, I’m looking at the camera.

I’m not looking at you, because if I look at you like this, I’m looking down. But to look at someone and to make eye contact, you have to look into the camera. So this is such a silly little trick, but I always tell my clients to put a little post-it behind the camera with a smile on it.

So you bring the energy, you bring the enthusiasm, and you look into people’s eyes. It’s also very important that you set the stage for how you want people to perceive you. So a lot of times people use sort of the fake Zoom backdrops, which have a varying degree of success.

Some are really weird. I mean, I’ve spoken to people and you don’t know they have a backdrop, but then they’ll move and have their Facebook kind of disappear. So you should think about the environment that you’re showing.

You should have lots of light coming down, because if you don’t have light coming across your face, you’re sitting there in the dark. And it’s really important to bring a lot of energy. I think the most important thing with the personal brain is not only to obviously be authentic and to present yourself with purpose, but it’s energy.

That is really what people resonate with the most. And if you can bring some energy and bring some enthusiasm, it really is infectious, because if you’re not enthusiastic about yourself, no one’s going to be. And for someone like me, who’s been in marketing my whole life, and obviously I’m an extrovert, this is very easy for me.

For a lot of people, it’s totally frightening, because you really are, you’re the star of your own little show now. And when you’re on a Zoom call with a hundred people, people are looking at you, and you have to realize that it’s always show time.

100%. And with that Zoom trick, yeah, I also experienced that. So I had a really large monitor, and I have your face sitting underneath the camera as well.

So it doesn’t look like I’m looking at the distance, but it’s not exactly in the camera. So people watching this video, I’m looking right at the camera now, but this is a little bit further down. So I can’t always 100% do it, but I think that’s a very good point.

And that energy that you talk about, this is really true for Matt and yourself. I can see that energy. Matt, that really does bring it to the room.

That’s his experience and his personal brand. I’m probably more in the other camp. So it’s really interesting to hear your perspectives there.

Oh, Jake, that is everything. I learned this lesson. It was early in my consulting career, let’s say the early 2000s.

And I had rebranded a global executive search firm. And usually when I work with corporate clients, my deliverable is a brand blueprint. So I go through a process where I do qualitative research and do competitive analysis.

I do a communications audit. And when I’m done with my work, I give them a brand blueprint. And the way I talk about that is it’s a document that will express to, anybody charged with expressing the brand has their blueprint.

So it’s got a brand voice, a mission statement, a vision statement, key messages, an elevator speech, tagline, so on and so forth. And that’s what I’ve done a thousand times since starting my practice. So I was doing this global executive search firm.

And I think one of the reasons why clients love the work that I do is because I speak to their clients. So I bring the voice of the consumer right into their boardroom. And I finished my engagement and the CEO said to me, can you present a truncated version of that presentation to our annual meeting?

I thought, okay, sure. So there were 500 people in some hotel, you know, podium, little, you know, Madonna had set right here. And I’m like, give me my presentation.

And when I was done, the craziest thing happened ever. I got a standing ovation. And I’m like, what, I don’t, what is going on here?

I’m a consultant with a PowerPoint. And here’s what I learned that day. That I always thought as a consultant, my job was to educate my clients about branding and then inspire them to what they could become.

But there’s a third leg on that school and that’s engagement. And I brought the energy, I brought the enthusiasm and it resonated with them. And that’s when I realized, gee, I’ve got to turn up the volume on the whole engagement piece because that’s what I think will differentiate me from somebody else who does the same thing I do.

Yeah, Rob, I’ve got very, very similar experiences to that. You know, when I’ve actually had clients say to me, like CEO say to me, Matt, like I’m hiring you for your energy. You’re like, my energy, like how do I bottle that and scale that?

You can’t, right? It’s just, it’s in me. And I think that’s probably, I’m a bit of a freak sometimes, but you know, at the end of the day, like, I mean, I’m not complaining, but like at the end of the day, I think you’re right.

I think that engagement piece is crucial. Like sometimes, like I’ve just been hired by a company to take quite a big brand in the construction industry in here in the UK. And literally, it’s an engagement piece.

They want me to help the leadership uncover their sort of their big idea, their brand positioning. And the ask is not initially to go to market. The ask is to engage all their stakeholders within their own company, through a number of kind of like workshops and stuff.

Then you just think, this is really strange.

Like, as you said, like, why don’t they do this, right? But for some reason, there’s a problem. They can’t easily do it.

They want an outsider to come in. They want that energy. They want somebody who has frameworks and tools and methods like we do as brand consultants to be able to add that.

And that’s got huge value because if you can engage and excite and ignite those teams to get behind the high level thinking, they can go away and execute on it. And I think that’s the power of good brand consultancy, frankly. What do you think?

I 100% agree with you, but I’ll add to that, that first of all, I’ll speak for myself, but I’m gonna include you in this as well. We’re subject matter experts. So we have a whole body of knowledge about something that they don’t have.

And we’re also objective. So we can come in and look at a company and marry those two things and deliver direction to them in a way that they are unable to do themselves. For example, I had a client years ago.

It was a medical imaging company. So basically they had this technology developed in the 80s that could look through people. So they would do PET scans and CAT scans and MRIs.

And that was their jam. And they used the same technology for airport security. If you can look through a chest, you can look through a suitcase as well.

So they were a tired company and they needed to update and they hired me to rebrand. So I did qualitative research with the management team. And I was asking them to give me some words to associate with their brand.

And they’re saying stuff like cutting edge and leading edge and innovation and leaders and all this kind of stuff. And one after the other, they all said the same thing to me. So I tend to believe my clients when they tell me who they are.

But then I went out and spoke to their clients. And I wasn’t hearing innovative and I wasn’t hearing cutting edge and I wasn’t hearing leaders. And after a couple of interviews of not hearing that, I started leading the witness.

And I said, when you think of this company, do you think of innovation? Do you think of leading edge? And one after the other said, well, they were like that 30 years ago when they had a disruptive technology.

Recently, not so much. So I had to go back to this management team and say, well, it’s lovely that you think that you’re cutting edge and innovative, but the market doesn’t see you that way. And unless you can give me some data points to substantiate that claim, we can’t go out there with that messaging because the marketplace will snicker.

So that’s an example, Matt, of taking your subject matter expertise and your energy and putting it through the computer in the head and telling them what they need to know.

Thank you.

Love that, yeah, and I think also, being an outsider, you can ask those questions of clients, steering groups, whatever, customer, the customer, because the customer may not be comfortable enough to tell someone within the organization that themselves, to their face, no, you’re not that innovative at all. No one really wants to say that, but they’d say it to you as a consultant, because they’re like, you’re not gonna grass them up or not gonna sour the relationship. So yeah, that’s huge value.

This is my favorite example of qualitative research. So, you know, I will ask anybody anything, because sometimes they’ll answer the question. So I was working with these three guys that were starting a research firm, and they’re literally three guys, and I helped name the company and position them, and they had been sort of knocking about individually for years, so I spoke to some of their clients.

One of their clients was IBM. So I said to them, well, what do you think about these guys over here and the work that they do? They said, oh, these guys are great, they’re strategic, they’re highly responsive, they’re really smart, really enjoy the relationship.

So I said to this person at IBM, it was a very specific niche there, I said, well, what percentage of your research budget, no, I said, what is your annual research budget for this particular area? And she said to me, it’s about a million dollars. And I said, well, how much are you paying these guys over here?

And she said, oh, like 10%, not much at all. Okay, that question was none of my business, but I asked it and she answered it. I went back to my clients and I said, you want the good news or the bad news?

They said, give us the good news. IBM loves you, you’re smart, you’re strategic, so on and so forth, what’s the bad news? You’re leaving 90% of their budget on the table.

Within two years, they had quadrupled their billings to them. So that’s why I always tell clients, the qualitative research piece of any engagement is very, very important. And whether you’re doing it for a corporation or an individual, that’s when you see what the market thinks of you.

And that’s when you can also learn what they think of you and what else they’re willing or interested to buy from you.

Nice. So can I ask sort of shift gear a little bit here, Rob, and just to ask you around, how did you get into, obviously, you’ve got a background in corporate brand strategy, but how did you get into the personal branding space? Like what happened there and what are the differences that you found?

The way I got into the personal branding space is I had a client who I had done a stem-to-stern rebrand. And after I was done, the CEO was really happy with the process and the deliverable. And he had a very large sales organization and he felt as though his salespeople, they were reading from their scripts and they were doing their job, but they weren’t connecting with their prospects or their clients.

And he said to me, can you do anything, again, I just rebranded the company, do you do anything about personal branding? And that’s when I realized, Matt and Jake, that the same tenets one uses to brand a corporation are actually appropriate to do an individual as well. Because the same way I talked about creating a brand blueprint for a corporation, we need them as well.

So we need our key messages, we need our elevator speech, we need to create associations around ourselves. So I basically took my process for corporations and I refined it a bit and made it appropriate for individuals. And so what I started doing are these personal branding workshops for corporations.

And they were like half day workshop things and I loved them because it was a deviation from what I was doing. But really the reason why I ended up launching Brand You Better earlier this year was about five or six years ago, a professor at Boston University in the graduate program heard about my personal branding workshops through a friend who was at one of the companies who had engaged in one. And she asked me to speak to her class.

So this is graduate level students at Boston University, which is an excellent college. So I was basically giving my personal branding workshops to these students who are about to graduate and looking for jobs. And after I would finish the presentation, these kids would swarm around me afterward and they want to connect with me on LinkedIn.

And they say, you know, do you ever do one-on-one personal coaching? Which honestly guys, I never thought about it, but I thought, of course I do. I’m happy to do it.

And that’s when I created a whole module around helping recent graduates to create their own brand narratives and the differentiation so they could get a job. And that’s when I really started. So it was with recent graduates, but I work everything from recent graduates to mid-career executives trying to level up a bit or someone who’s not been in the workplace for years and years.

I always say I’m the same wherever I go. And I think that for the right individual, I am the right flavor. For somebody else, maybe not, because I have a very, as you guys obviously do as well, very informal, very conversational.

And I don’t hesitate to give tough love. For example, I had a recent client. He had been, this is an interesting story.

He had graduated from college and went into his family business, which was a very remunerative, very boring manufacturing business. And he was there for about 10 years. And he decided to leave the family business, get his MBA.

And when he called me, he was interviewing for the first time ever in like 10 years. So I’m talking to him over Zoom like this, and he’s sort of telling me his story. And I’m interested in trying something new and spread my wings.

And I’m like, I’m not buying this. I said, come on, just between you and me, who leaves a remunerative family business after 10 years? I said, were you miserable?

He said, 100%. I was miserable every single day. It was really old school, working with a bunch of old backward men.

And I needed to, I couldn’t breathe. I said, okay, that’s what I thought. So what you need to do first of all, is you need to sit up in your chair because you’re so low energy and you’re so depressing and depressed, you’re putting me to sleep right now.

So if you get a job, like suck it up and tell your story. And what I came to discover is he didn’t think he had a story. I said, are you afraid that your only qualifications is being the boss’s son?

I said, he said, that’s exactly it. I said, well, you know, I’m a reasonably intelligent person. I’ve looked at your resume, I’ve looked at your LinkedIn profile.

I’ve heard you talk about some of your successes. And there are some, these are the three things I recommend that you focus on. So we ended up developing some key messages for him.

We did an elevator speech. I did some mock interviews with him so he could answer the, why are you leaving the family business question in an authentic way. And I updated his LinkedIn profile.

I did a resume reboot. Long story short, I got him, I met him in early October. By December 1st, he had his dream job.

But you know, I could have held his hand and made it easier for him, but that’s not how I am. I think it saves time. Yeah.

Could you let us know what else happens in these workshops? Like what’s the process you go through to get them from A to B?

Okay, so the first thing, the first thing that I recommend people do in creating their personal brand narrative is first of all, to do a self audit. And by that, I mean, you know, take a hard look in the mirror and make a list of what are you good at? I mean, I’m not talking necessarily about you as a person, but what are your skills?

What are your qualities? What differentiates you? And be very, very, very honest with yourself.

And then also in the next concept, well, here are areas of weakness. Here are things I have to work on. Here are things I have to market against.

And once you have done a very hard and serious assessment of yourself, I recommend doing a survey monkey with people in your world whose opinions you respect. And you make it anonymous and you ask them to answer questions about yourself. For example, here are the questions that I always recommend people use.

So Matt, if it was you, the first question I would recommend you ask your constituents. When you think of Matt, what are the one or two word associations that come to mind? No, no, no, no.

What do you think Matt is best at? Nothing at all. If they were to make a movie about Matt’s life, who would play the lead character?

If Matt’s an automobile, what make him model would he be and why? If you could give Matt some anonymous advice. So ask all these very precious questions and then a story emerges.

So when I ask who would play you in your life story, it’s not who do you look like, but who has your aura? Who has your essence? What box do people put you in?

And then of course, you’ve asked yourself these questions and you compare and contrast what you hear in the marketplace. And the truth is somewhere in the middle. It also gives you an opportunity to sort of mark it against yourself.

So for example, not that anybody ever once told me this, but if someone said, Rob, you talk too much, I would say, okay, well, that’s something that is happening in the world. I need to like dial that down. So next time you’re doing a podcast, for example, when you finish your story, just stop talking and let them ask you a question.

So that’s why it’s knowing yourself. It’s doing that self audit.

It’s like a self awareness system.

Yes, that’s a hundred percent it. And then there’s another exercise that I love to do. And I do this with the students at Boston University.

I ask people to write two or three hashtags that best describe them.

Be it.

The reason I say. Sorry.

I say everything.

You’re kind of a one note. So I ask people to do a hashtag. So for example, your hashtag is not your entire story, but it’s enough of an insight into you that you can use as a springboard to tell your story.

So for example, my personal hashtag is long story short. And someone says, what the hell do you mean by that? And I was launching to even though I’m personally long-winded, my expertise is making a long story short.

I can get a corporation or an individual’s brand narrative down to two or three word associations. So if you sat down and did three or four or five hashtags that you think best tell your story, and then use that as a springboard to tell a further richer story. So that is sort of the step one, do yourself audit.

Any questions about that? Does that make sense?

I was brilliant. I love it. Keep going.

Okay, step two, and this is where the rubber hits the road. Step two is when you take, you basically the qualitative research that you did and the competitive analysis, looking at what else is in the marketplace. So you always have to ask yourself.

So, you know, Jake or Matt, if they don’t hire you, well, who are they gonna hire and why? So if I could just digress for one minute. One time I was called in to pitch a piece of business.

It was a big corporate rebrand and the prospect did the worst thing imaginable. They had reduced the engagement down to three firms and they had all three of us sitting in the reception area at once. And then one by one, they went in there and gave our presentation, which is just awful.

But luckily, I was the last guy up. But, I mean, I walked in just, you know, myself. But these other firms, they came in with like young girls with short skirts and they had visuals and all this other kind of stuff.

And again, I’m just like a guy with a PowerPoint. So I go in there and I give my presentation, I give my capabilities, I give some case studies, I tell some anecdotal stories about other clients that I’ve worked on. And when I was done, one of the COO raised his hand and said, Rob, you know, you are saying the same thing as those other two firms.

Why should we hire you? I’m like, bring it. I love that question.

And I said to the COO. I said, if you hire those other two firms, you’ll do just fine. They are top firms and they’ll get the job done.

I said, as a matter of fact, I have no delusions that you couldn’t get a queue four blocks long of firms capable of doing this assignment. But what I’m asking you to consider is having just spent an hour listening to me talk, you have to ask yourself, do I like his vibe? Do I like the sound of his voice?

Do I want him in my office? Am I going to listen to him? Do I think he’s smart?

And if you say yes to any of those questions, like I’m your guy. And if you say no, well, choose another flavor. And I said, you know, it’s not like I could say I’m taller or I have better technology.

I mean, it’s a personality thing. It’s a connection thing.

Well, PS on that story, they hired me, and I come to discover that they asked the other two firms those same questions about why hire us, and both of those firms bragged about their technology. So there you have it. So, Matt, you hit the nail on the head, people hire other people.

And you’re not gonna resonate with everybody. But what you can do is give people cues about yourself, and it could be the way you present yourself, the words that you use, the way that you dress, even the car that you drive up to that meeting, and they’re gonna say, yeah, I like his vibe, or, ugh, not for me at all. So the second part, after you do your self-audit, and you speak to the marketplace about their brand perceptions of you, the second thing is to build your brand story.

And the first step in doing that is by creating your unique value proposition. So this is kind of insider baseball. I know you guys know what it means, but a unique value proposition for those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a statement.

It’s not copy, it’s not prose, it’s not to end up on your website or sales materials. It basically describes who you are, the skills that you offer somebody, the benefits they derive by choosing you, and then your point of differentiation. And your point of differentiation doesn’t mean that you cure cancer, but what do you want to do to make yourself stand out among other people?

So armed with that information about your own self-awareness and your qualitative research, you develop this unique value proposition. And from that, I recommend you develop key messages. And by key messages, by that I mean, if you have the chance to say one thing about yourself, what’s it going to be?

So for example, my first key message is that, I am a seasoned brand strategist who work with both corporations and individuals seeking to get noticed, remembered and results. That’s what I do. That’s my key message.

So you know what I do. The benefits of one derives from working with me. When you work with me, I will create a positioning and narrative view in the marketplace that will differentiate you from your competitors or from individuals who are vying for the same work that you are looking for.

And then finally, the point of differentiation always is what’s it like to work with you? So if you work with me, you’re gonna get somebody who is extremely knowledgeable, extremely passionate and extremely honest. That way in a very time and cost efficient way, we’re gonna get you to a narrative that will help you to articulate yourself in the world and help you to achieve what you wanna achieve.

So that was quickly off the top of my head, but everyone needs those three messages. And then from those key messages, that’s wonderful. You’ve got to weave it together into an elevator speech.

And an elevator speech, I don’t know, do people still use that terminology anymore?

Like I’d say elevator pitch, but you know.

Elevator pitch, right, right. But for those who aren’t familiar with an elevator pitch, basically it came out of Silicon Valley in the 90s, when you get trapped in an elevator with a venture capitalist and you wanted to be able to tell your story and you’ve had the length of time that it took to get from the lobby to any number of floor. So it’s just a matter of telling your story in a very tight, concise, memorable way.

So that is sort of the second step. So you do your audit and you create your brand story. And it’s really important when you create that story to test it with the marketplace because you don’t want it to sound too studied or too rehearsed and you want it to be authentically you.

So that’s why doing any sort of networking or meeting with people and giving a chance to express yourself, it’s a wonderful opportunity to tell your story. So that’s the second step. Then the third step in building a personal brand narrative is how you express yourself.

And basically, the way we express ourselves mostly these days is through social media. So, I mean, for me, professionally, the most important place hands down to be is LinkedIn because these days when you speak to somebody, if it’s a business prospect, while you’re on the phone, they write your LinkedIn profile and they wanna see how you position yourself, what you’re, where you’ve worked, some of your accomplishments, who you know, all that kind of stuff. So when you have your key messages and your elevator speech, the first thing is go to LinkedIn and make sure your profile is as powerful as possible.

And I recommend there that when you have, for example, the about section or even the title that you use to describe yourself, to express yourself in a unique way. So for example, if you go to my LinkedIn profile, I describe myself as a no-holes-barred brand strategist. So the reason I describe myself that way is because when I say no-holes-barred, that means that people will know what it’s gonna be like to work with me.

I also say I’m a needle mover, I’m a confidence builder. And it’s not just a state title that doesn’t mean anything to anybody. And then of course, you have your experiences, but the most important part of the LinkedIn profile, I think, is the about me section.

And that’s when you have two or three paragraphs to talk about not only your professional expertise, but also how you want people to view you. So LinkedIn is certainly very important, but the way you have a powerful personal brand is to be consistent across all social media platforms. So obviously there’s LinkedIn.

A lot of people make a great use of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and now Clubhouse. Are you guys all familiar with Clubhouse? That to me, I don’t know, do you like it?

Yeah, I’m loving it.

Jury’s out for me. I’m not sure, but yeah.

By the time this one’s out, the Twitter version is gonna be up and running as well. So they’re coming out with a similar platform.

It’s just noise.

Thank you.

We could talk about this off air, but there’s so much value in it.

No, when I found out about, and truth be told, I found out about it through my 20 year old daughter who has an internship at a marketing firm in New York. And she taught me about Clubhouse. I thought, oh, one more thing I have to learn.

And so I sort of, you know, I got my little profile up there, the whole thing. But the weird thing is like I’ll be sitting here and all of a sudden I’ll hear voices coming out of my phone. It could be a whole conversation.

So anyway, I guess it’s a thing and I think you have to know it, but yes. So you need to have a consistent voice tone and messaging across all your different social media platforms. And then of course, you know, there is in real life, which I imagine is coming back slowly again soon, but you just want to have a consistent presentation, a consistent message.

So when people come in contact with you, that’s when they’re seeing your consistent presentation and the story that you’re telling. Because a lot of times people will perceive you as you tell them you want to be perceived, right? So you can’t leave things to chance.

Actually, speaking of that 20 year old daughter, this is when I realized the power of social media. So I’m divorced, and from a very young age, after I got divorced, I would take my daughter away for trips, just the two of us. And I really, I took her all over the world, and we had wonderful vacations together.

And I did that because I thought, well, if I don’t carve out private time with this girl, we’ll have nothing. So as I said, we went all over the world. And one year we were in California and it was February.

And this was the trouble years, like 12, 13, 14 years old. She wanted like nothing to do with me. Anyway, we were in Malibu on a gorgeous beach, but it was February.

So we’re all bundled up in our sweatshirts and our down vests and everything. And we’re walking down the beach and she turned to me, she said, dad, would you take my picture? And I thought, okay, interaction, I’ll take it.

At which point she whips off her hoodie and she’s got a little teeny tiny bathing suit on. And then she goes, stands in the water and she starts posing. And she’s got her hand on her hip and she’s a beautiful girl and she was just posing at this beautiful beach in Malibu in California.

I thought to myself, well, this is interesting because we’re not really at the beach because it’s cold. We’re not really having fun. She’s with her dad, but that’s the story she wanted to tell the world.

She wanted to post on Instagram, here I am, February break at the beach having a great time. And that’s when I realized that’s what all young people were doing. They were creating narratives about themselves that they wanted the world to see.

And it’s really, this was eight or nine years ago. And now we are where we are today where people are giving tremendous thought to the story that they’re putting out there. And that’s where I guess the need for personal brand coaches come in because a lot of people don’t know how they want to present themselves.

And I help them to figure out what’s their boat, their best and most authentic story.

I love that.

And I want to go back to what you were saying about, how you express yourself on social media profiles and how you talk about yourself and how you talked about that people may have not picked up, but what you’re actually, you’re not actually talking about yourself. You’re talking about what value you deliver to the customer. So you’re a needle mover, you’re a confidence mover or whatever you said.

It’s more about what you do for them and not like, hey, I’m a brand strategist and this is my rap sheet. It’s like, I will actually help you move the needle and give you more confidence and grow your business. These are all benefits that you give to them.

And it’s not actually the service that you provide. It’s not just like, hey, here’s, I’m a brand strategist. I do logo design or whatever it is that your service is.

You kind of like just glossed over it, but you do it so naturally. So I just wanted to bring a light to that.

Well, thank you for saying that. This is the thing. When someone calls me, they have a problem that they can’t solve.

And they have the belief that I can solve it for them. But a lot of times they don’t even know what their problem is.

So what I help clients do is I understand what’s wrong, what is not working for them. And then I devise a strategy to help them answer that solution. When I first started consulting, and prior to consulting, I had worked in advertising agencies in both New York and Boston, and I had run marketing at three early stage technology companies.

And when I started consulting, I had a very hard time knowing how to position myself and talk about myself. And one thing I could never say about myself was that I was an expert. I just thought other people are experts, I’m not an expert.

Those are people who have more experience than me, who are smarter than me, who are older than me. And I just, I couldn’t say it. But then I started meeting prospects and clients and many other consultants.

And I realized many people have no problem at all calling themselves experts. So I thought, you know what? I’m gonna call myself an expert.

So two years into my consulting practice, I said, I’m an expert. And guess what? When you tell people you’re an expert, number one, they believe you.

And number two, they pay you more money. I like that.

You got to back it up though, right?

Well, I can deliver the goods, but it was the word. It was the word. I mean, you don’t work on brands like DeBeers Diamonds or Rolls-Royce or Timberland or Seagram without having a level of expertise.

So yes, I could deliver the goods.

The only reason I said that was just to signal to our audience, just be careful with that one. Don’t just show up and say you’re an expert. You’ve got to deliver the goods at the end of it like you can, Rob.

Oh, no, you have to be authentic. You have to be authentic.

I love it. I love it. So I had another quick question for you.

Go ahead. Do you ever, or have you ever got involved in CEO branding? Because I know that’s a big area.

If you think of the most famous ones like Elon Musk, right? Or you mentioned Jeff Bezos. I know he’s now left Amazon.

But these are leaders with big reputations that they want to manage. And as you mentioned this word, authenticity. And I kind of wondered what your thoughts were on the reputation of a leader of a business and the effects that that can actually have on the staff, particularly in bigger companies.

Well, that’s actually a really interesting question, Matt. And now that you mention it, that really was the genesis of my becoming a personal brand coach. So I had rebranded a publicly traded technology company, I don’t know, 12 years ago.

And when I did the qualitative research with their clients, I kept on getting these messages back again and again that the CEO had no vision, wasn’t really much of a leader, and their clients were felt as though that was a void. Now, but I didn’t hear this from one person, I heard it from half a dozen people, then I also heard it from some of his employees. So, you know, when you’re the consultant, and of course, when I’m done with my work, I bring it into the larger management team.

Well, I wasn’t going to present to the larger management team with the CEO in the room, saying that no one thinks you’re a good leader or have a vision. So, I went to this CEO privately, obviously, and I had to deliver that news to him. And here’s the thing about CEOs, and you’ve heard this before, but it’s really true.

They’re super lonely. They’re really, really lonely, because their job is to project power and vision and strength, and for them to admit any sort of vulnerability or uncertainty among their management team will dilute their power, so they don’t do it. I went to this CEO, and I said to him, you know, I want to just give you some feedback from the qualitative research.

And I started giving him some tidbits about the company just to sort of throw him off track. And I said, there was also some other feedback I really wanted to talk to you about. And he said, what’s that?

And I said, well, I’m getting the feeling from your employees and from your clients that they view you as having an understated leadership style. It was understated. And they were looking for something more proactive.

And by the way, guys, I thought that was brilliant to come up with understated leadership style because he had no leadership style. The truth is that this CEO, prior to becoming CEO of this company, he was the COO. So COO, head down, CEO, head up.

And he just didn’t have the, he didn’t have the personality for it. He was also a humble man, but you don’t want a humble CEO. So anyway, I said to him, I have an idea for you.

Of course, all roads lead to me, right? So I said, I think it’d be very helpful if we were to do a mission and vision workshop for your company. And that way we can bring in the whole management team.

We can make it very collaborative. And when we leave that workshop, you’ll have a mission statement, which reminds people why they come to work every day, and a vision statement, which would be your North Star, which will people see as a very positive reflection on you. And he said, oh Rob, that’s great.

Set it up. I said, actually, I said, I think you should set it up. He said, well, what do you mean?

I said, this is how this is gonna go down. I’m gonna write an email, send it over to you. You’re gonna send it out under your signature, inviting the team to a vision strategy session.

Then we’re gonna get to that vision strategy session. You’re gonna tee up the whole thing, and I’ll help you with messaging around doing that. You’re gonna tee up the whole thing, and then I will do the rest.

And throughout the course of the workshop, I will say, and as John said over here, and John and I were talking about this, and that way, I’m gonna present this vision workshop, you’re gonna get the credit for it. And that’s one way for you to counterbalance against your understated management style or leadership style. So, and that’s when I learned, oh my goodness, CEOs need help too.

So they don’t always ask for it, but you know, I usually get hired by the CEO. I usually get hired by a CEO and then my executive sponsor is usually a CMO. And it’s a very tricky dynamic guys because the CEO secretly thinks that the CMO should be doing what I’m doing.

And the CMO is secretly really threatened by me thinking that I’m gonna make her look bad. So whenever I got hired by a CEO, I go to the CMO and say, okay, here’s the thing. I’m gonna do this work here.

We can collaborate. I’m gonna do the work. And when we’re done, I’m gonna give it to you and you can pass it off as your own work.

I don’t care. I have no ego. I have no pride of authorship.

My job is to make you look good. So that was just an example of understanding. I don’t wanna alienate the person who I need most in this company, but to answer your question again, this is me being super long-winded.

Yes, CEOs, CEOs do need personal brand coaching, and it’s trickier because very few raise their hands and ask for it. Over the course of our working together, I will say, let me help you with your understated leadership style.

Bye.

I love the insight that you just gave there of the CMO feeling slightly threatened and the CEO thinking, well, why is the CMO not doing this? I get that sometimes. But the other thing I find quite interesting is when you get the CMO, who secretly thinks the CEO, yeah, getting my O’s and my C’s confused, but secretly thinking the CEO should be doing it.

So you can get in a situation where there’s two people, they both think it’s each other’s responsibility to define the brand, you know, and that can get super, super interesting. And your job is to kind of, you know, listen to both, help both through that. And it’s a difficult situation.

Well, this was the greatest lesson I learned as a consultant because I started consulting in 2000. And prior to that, I was an employee at different companies. You know, when you’re an employee, I think that the inclination is to say, I did that, yep, that was me.

I led that initiative and so on and so forth. So, you know, I was always used to tooting my own horn because that’s the only way you got advancement and got more money and so on and so forth. And then I started consulting.

My very first consulting gig, I was pitching some small technology firm and there was a woman who was in the meeting and she didn’t really say much of anything. And after the meeting was over, she pulled me aside and she said, oh Rob, I’m just a consultant here, but I’m going to another company over here. And what you just described to him, I need.

Perfect. So she went to this other company and her first order of business was to hire me. And we did a full scale, nine month rebrand of this technology company where she was now the CMO.

And it was really the biggest project that I had done to date. And sometimes I work with CMOs and it’s very collaborative. Other times it’s very hands off.

Well, this woman who, by the way, I adore, basically let me go off and do the whole thing. We had very little collaboration. I gave her my work and she gave me a little bit of insight, but it was really a solo gig.

Anyway, when I was done, she took my work, she put it in her company PowerPoint, and she went to present it to the CEO. And she said, Rob, can you sit in on the meeting with me in case the CEO has any questions I can’t answer? And I thought, well, you can’t answer anything because I did all the work, but I didn’t say that.

I went to the meeting. So it was one of those things where literally Park Avenue, 40th floor, corner office, Oriental rug, mahogany furniture, brass all over the place, and the big CEO sitting behind the desk. So she walks in with me, with the presentation.

And I mean, I’m not a young person. And she said, oh, this is Rob. That’s all she said.

She didn’t give any context as to who I was or why I was there. This is Rob. So I sat there for an hour smiling and nodding when she presented my work.

And it was sort of awkward because as you can tell, I’m a chatty person, but I like, not one word. And after it was over, the CEO turned to her and said, you know what? This is brilliant.

What you’ve done for this company is amazing. You’re really gonna move the needle here. And for your first project to delegate, you have hit a home run.

And I’m sitting there like this, waiting. And do you know what she said when he said that? Guesses?

She said, thank you. Thank you. And I’m like, really?

But then I thought, oh my God, this is the biggest gift I’ve been given ever. Because that told me the role that I was to play to be successful. And that woman who has become a friend of mine, since I rebranded that company, she’s been to three more companies, I’ve done it for her three times.

That’s when I learned part of my personal brand is even though I’m a big talker, I’m very astute, I’m very intuitive, and I understand how to give people what they need when they need it.

But that’s the thing though, right? Because you get hired for adding value and if you get in with the right network of people and they know you, you’re doing fine. They’ll hire you, they’ll rehire you.

You’ll be fine. I had somebody reach out to me who I’d worked with four years ago to help them define their brand strategy. And suddenly I tried to keep in touch with him over the years.

Director watched him in his career and he’s gonna go off to a couple of other places and now he’s director in an awesome tech startup. And suddenly out the blue, Matt need you. And it’s like, as you say, it’s not about you blowing your own trumpet.

It’s about the value you can add to that person as an individual. They look awesome, they go off and then they’ll remember you. But if you try and take credit for your own work, ironically, that’s not gonna work for them because it’s about their careers.

So, hey.

Well, to build on that point, I’ve been consulting for 20 years and every single client I’ve had has been a referral. Every single one. And I found to be honest, because I’ve done this recently because when I launched Brand You Better about a year or so ago, I thought, gee, I should start doing some marketing, I guess, because I haven’t done it for so long.

And then I basically made a list of all the clients I’ve had over the last 20 years and then the source of where they came from. So my career for the last 20 years, I can reduce it to like four people. Four people.

Yeah.

And they’ve referred and referred and referred and people have heard from them and word of mouth and amazing.

Yeah. Yeah.

That’s all you need, folks. You need your first four people. You need to do awesome work for four people and then you can build a 20 year career.

Right. But you have to, I mean, you know, you have to have a distinct personality because, you know, when I, over the course of my career, I’ve done everything from working by myself. I had two partners for many years.

I’ve done a lot of strategic alliances. And very early on in my consultant career, when, you know, I basically take whatever I could get, there was a woman who called me up, who I very much respected. She was building a team for a big pitch.

And there was a PR person, an advertising person, a web development person, and I was the brand person. And I trusted this person. So when she said to me, Rob, you know, be at this address Tuesday at 10 o’clock, and the team will go upstairs, I figured, okay, well, I’ve done this before, I’m a professional.

Well, I got into the elevator, and between the time I got into the elevator and the 12th floor, the person who, the PR person, I’m like, oh, I don’t, I don’t like this person. And it wasn’t like I didn’t like her personality. I thought, she’s not a good reflection on me, because you’re only as good as the person you walk into the room next to.

And once I figured out, you know, where she was from, the kind of work that she did, we were like this. I thought to myself, okay, note to self, I will never do that again. I will never walk into a room with someone who I don’t think lifts me up.

And I think that’s very important to know who your brand is and who you want to be surrounded by. I always like to be such as today with people who are smarter than me and more accomplished than me, because it makes me look good.

That’s very kind of you. Awesome, awesome. Let’s take a little bit here.

We’ve talked about some great examples, but maybe there’s some personal branding blunders that we can shine the spotlight on. Do you have any that come to mind?

Well, the person, very controversial person, who I think is the greatest example of how to mess up a personal brand has to be our former president, Donald Trump. Side story, this is really funny. My first job in New York, my first job ever, I was working for a PR firm in New York, and I totally repressed this, but I was part of the team that worked on the Trump Tower because the Trump Tower had just been formed in the 80s, and I was part of the team that brought it to life.

And I actually did press with Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana. And even then in the 80s, and I was a young man, they were considered very vulgar, and New Yorkers hated them because they were vulgar. But for certain people, they represented class and style and grandeur and gold-plated and fancy.

And so what people, I don’t think, realized then, they might realize now, that Trump didn’t actually build anything. What he did was license his name. And as we know, he’s licensed his name to hotels and golf resorts and vodka and steak and water and you name it, he licensed his name.

And there’s tremendous value, because for many, many people, being in a Trump property was considered fancy or prestigious or what have you. But now, because of what he’s done in office and really around the world, that brand image is completely tarnished. So instead of people clamoring to live in Trump properties, people who are living in Trump properties are petitioning to have the name Trump taken off the building.

So he’s in a whole lot of trouble, because if your entire fortune is based on associations people have with your brand, and those associations went from grandeur or elegance or opulence or money to the current associations with him, which are far more negative, that is how you screw up a personal brand. That’s probably the greatest example of a blunder ever.

Great example.

Is that a good example?

Yeah, I think this has been a great episode. I think we can start to wind it down, but before we do that…

I thought we were just starting.

You weren’t lying about the talking. It makes our job easy.

Can I just tell one story which really… Everything I learned in my entire career was the result of one event that happened in my first job. Because I think this might resonate with people.

So this is in 1985. And I was working in the PR division of an ad agency whose client was Quantro Lacure. Are you familiar with Quantro?

Yeah, it’s like an orange-flavored liqueur, isn’t it?

It’s an orange-flavored liqueur. So this is in the early 80s. And their market share was dying.

The only people drinking were always taking nips on Sunday night. So they hired my agency to reinvigorate the brand. And literally, Mr. and Mrs. Quantro flew in from Paris to come to the agency.

So I was the exact demographic of people they were trying to reach. I was young, I was single, and I had disposable income. And I was open to new ideas.

So I was part of the team that came up with the idea of adding Quantro to the ultimate margarita. And Quantro, even though it’s orange-flavored, is 80-proof, so it gives something a nice kick. Anyway, so the way I presented that is I took cases of Quantro and set up Quantro margarita nights, one in SoHo, one in Upper East Side, one in Upper West Side.

I invited a bunch of friends and we had Quantro margarita nights. Now, guys, this didn’t exist before we did this. Anyway, we did this Quantro margarita nights.

Then I go back to my office and I write a press release that says, Quantro margarita takes Manhattan by storm. And I sent it out to food and lifestyle writers across the country. So I’m older than dirt.

So this is before there was computers. So we used to literally type up a press release. We used to staple it to a photograph.

And the photograph was a hero shot of a Quantro bottle and a margarita glass in front of it. Sent it out to food and lifestyle writers across the country. And back in the day, before there was the internet, there were things called clipping services.

And these were companies that were hired just to read publications to see if your product was mentioned. So I send this out and I said to my boss at the time, this whole notion of quanta margarita takes Manhattan by storm, I said, that’s fiction. I made that up.

She said, run up the flagpole, see what happens. Well, in the weeks to come, we got clips from all over the country that quanta margarita is the hot new thing. So if you’re in New York, you’re like, yeah, right.

But if you’re in Duluth or if you’re in Peoria or if you’re in Dallas, look what they’re doing back east. Okay, gentlemen, this was 1985. In 2021, you can go anywhere from a fast-food Mexican restaurant to the finest restaurant in New York.

They will have a quanta margarita on the menu. Okay, why am I telling you this story? Because it was during that first assignment where I realized the power of storytelling, the power of creating a narrative.

So here we had this moribund product that people weren’t buying, but I created a new story around it. So instead of thinking about old days taking nips, you’re thinking of young, cool people in New York City with the latest thing. And I told that story again and again and again.

And it’s really no different than doing personal branding. So you might see yourself this way, but if you put yourself out in a different way, if you make your story timely, you make it topical and you make it engaging, people will see you in a different way. Everything I learned was in 1985, and here I am today on a podcast telling the story.

Oh, man, that’s a great story to end with. I love it. Matt, did you have any final questions before we…

Well, I suppose, I mean, first of all, thanks, Rob. It’s been awesome talking to you. I’ve really enjoyed the banter and the insights, particularly around consulting and your thoughts on that and then moving into the personal brand space.

Really interesting. I guess the kind of final question is, where can folks find you? If someone wants to get in touch with you, if someone wants to be coached by you, how do we connect with Rob?

Excellent. Thank you for asking. My corporate business is called Leverage Advisors, and that URL is let’s leverage.com, letsleverage.com.

My personal branding is called Brand You Better, just as it sounds, brandyoubetter.com. If you go to either one of those sites, you’ll find everything you possibly want to know about me, or of course, people can go to LinkedIn, and I’m always open to people who want to connect and have conversations, but that is how you can find me.

Brilliant.

Yeah, I loved this episode, so thank you for sharing all your wisdom, mate. It was really, really awesome to hear, so thank you.

Thank you.

It’s been wonderful. Thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed talking to you guys.

Thank you.