Ep. 191 Personal branding with multiple businesses

*Resources mentioned during the episode*

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Personal branding with multiple businesses

We’re back with another #askanna episode. So this is when I answer a question that’s come in from Psalm one here in the podcasting community in my Facebook group on a workshop that I’ve run. If you have a question for hashtag, ask Anna, you can email me at podcast at one step outside.com. You can message me on your favorite social platform where we’re connected Instagram, LinkedIn, or if you’re on my email, whatever. So this is your opportunity. There are no stupid questions. If you have the question. I’m sure somebody else has it too. And I’d love to either answer the question, you know, it could be a quick email, I’ll send you a voice note. It might be a full podcast episode, a video a workshop? Who knows? So please, I’m here for you. I’m not just talking into the for for my own sake, I want to be giving you content that’s valuable and answering your questions. So please, please, please let me know if you have any questions for the next ask Anna episode.

Now, the question that came in from somebody in one of the workshops I did recently on personal branding was, how do I manage my personal brand?

When I have and I’m kind of anonymizing this, I’m elevating it up when I have more than one business more than one job, right? So this specific question came from someone who has a legal business and background and then moving into politics. But of course, it can be many things. And I’m a huge fan, as you may know, a portfolio career, you know, being a marketing consultant for charities, and also an adventure photographer, or being a yoga instructor, and also a finance advisor, whatever that is, right? Even for me to some extent, you know, by definition, in fact, coaching, consulting, writing, speaking, it’s kind of a portfolio career. So how do you manage your brand when you don’t have that single minded clarity of I do this, I do this one thing.

As a very personal example, when I first started, I was reluctant to post about coaching on LinkedIn, right? And also not just online, but in person, how do I introduce myself, it was really tough to own the whole coaching it felt so airy fairy if I was talking to corporate people, I still clung on to my previous work, oh, I, you know, I used to work at Procter and Gamble, there’s that ego still, or I’m a digital marketing consultant, I still to be honest, put consultant on all of those formal forms I have to do because that coach or I’m beginning to think I’m gonna say Coach and writer or something like that, because the writing, I’m really sort of leaning into that. But it takes a bit of confidence to say that right. And for me, especially because I talked about quitting your job. Escaping the nine to five, I felt really conflicted about post coaching, posting about coaching, I’m trying to say, on LinkedIn, a professional channel where I also had corporate business clients who I was working with on other things. However, once I started tentatively, and then wholeheartedly showing up on LinkedIn, I could do so as so much more integrity, authenticity, I felt really aligned. And I’m now myself across all touch points right? Now, that doesn’t mean I say the exact same thing to everybody, I’ll choose to curate, I guess an image or pitch myself, and particularly depending on who I’m speaking to, which is always powerful anyway. But I have an understanding of, of who I am as a whole person, I have kind of an umbrella mission. And then I do various things under that. So my general advice is, you know what, go for it, people will actually and this is what I found value at. And I even got, funnily enough several corporate clients.

In fact, some people in those companies have worked with me as individual coaching clients and others have given me amazing feedback, and maybe even asked me to come in and do workshops, and so on.

Right, so I’ve even seen positive results from it. Now, again, when it comes to introducing yourself in person that say, It’s true that I always recommend having a really clear elevator pitch, you know, X Y, Zed, I help corporate professionals quit their job and start a business so that they can create more freedom, flexibility and fulfillment, for example. But this is flexible, and it should be adapted to the audience, the person, I’ve modified it a little bit for different channels like Instagram, bio, LinkedIn, website, Facebook, et cetera. Also, depending on who you’re speaking to, actually in person, right. So even within my One Step outside business, if I’m speaking to someone in corporate, depending on who I think I’m speaking to, I can either talk about helping people in corporate side of business, or I can talk more about the work life balance, integration, personal branding. If I’m talking to people who’ve already started a business, I might focus more on helping them achieve sustainable success, build their personal brand, the five pillars. And again, you know, taking a step back, I might choose to focus more on again, most personal branding, work life integration workshops, or speaking, if I think Gangrel of that kind of piece would be more relevant than the individual coaching. So as management guru of the 80s 90s, Stephen Covey said seek first to understand, then to be understood. So one of the answers to how do you manage your brand when you have a few different strings to your bow, that portfolio career is that you need to understand who you’re speaking to, and then you can Give them kind of the and I say pitch.

But really it’s just a conversation introduction, let’s say, give them a relevant answer. And also, by the way, most people don’t care. So if I say I work for myself, most people go, Oh, great, and move on. So simple. Second, you want to try to elevate beyond your specific roles and businesses to find that umbrella theme. And I think I did a full workshop on this a few years ago. So if you’re interested, let me know, podcast at one stepaside.com, or message me on social. But who are you? What do you actually stand for? What do you want to be known for? That’s the whole point of a personal brand, it lives above and beyond any specific business. So you know, I always give the example of Richard Branson who yes is obviously a massive example. But he if he had only, you know, branded sort of Virgin Music, etc, he could never have gone into Virgin Galactic and everything. And certainly he as an individual is kind of no Typhon.

Whatever else he stands for, right, he’s got a very clear personal brand that lives above and beyond and his Twitter, following, of course, is massive compared to any of his specific businesses. So that is the whole point of personal brand, you are a whole person. So really tried to think of your values, your strengths, your skills, your mission, what you want to be known for. That’s really critical. And yet, of course, it depends a little bit on the nature of your different roles and business. If they’re conflicting, if they’re actually conflicting.

My provocative question for you is, should you actually be doing them?

So if there’s a disconnect and values, you know, if a client and one wouldn’t appreciate what you’re doing in the other? Should you really rather do you really want to be working with those clients? Because again, from my experience, you feel so much more aligned and wholehearted and authentic, you’ll get better results, you’ll just have so much more clarity, things will flow more if you can find a coherent, compelling way to bring it under an umbrella that makes sense. Now, it is possible that the situation is temporary, you know, for example, you might be continuing in one day job as you grow your side hustle. And then you might also not be able to because of conflict of interest posts, let’s say let’s say I don’t know your recruiter or something on LinkedIn, you can’t then perhaps also share a particular side hustle, but then consider different channels, right, you could start building, you know, for example, that charity consultant, I could build that business on LinkedIn. And I’ll do my adventure photography business on Instagram, for example, right?

So have a think about that. However, it or not, the example that comes to mind is Pete Ken, who you may have seen on Britain’s Got Talent recently, because he was on a couple of months back. He is a business owner, as a catering business. He’s won awards for that he’s that’s his sort of day job, as it were, of course, took a bit of a backseat during the pandemic. And he discovered laughter yoga, and he’s become known now as their laughter man. So he does that on LinkedIn, he went on to Britain’s Got Talent and share that a little bit, and he got some great airtime and coverage and so on. And he does that, you know, his catering clients, certainly don’t disrespect him, I hope. And don’t buy less from him just because he shares his laughter piece. It makes him more interesting and unique and, and exciting to talk to you. Right? So those are two totally, they’re not conflicting. But they’re certainly not related to each other being the laughter man and a caterer, let’s say, but it makes him so much more interesting. So really think about be a bit more open minded.

Don’t assume don’t project your own insecurities on other people, give them the benefit of the doubt, allow them to, to be interested in what you do, and so on. And yet, the caveat is, of course, if they really are conflicting, then a should you be doing them at all and be can you do them on different channels, at least temporarily. But that’s the answer. Really, right. So how can I manage it well elevate beyond the individual pieces, who are you? How can you bring that together? And in a way it sort of translates into a personal brand website? Right? There are different ways of grouping it so I’ve chosen on my Anna limbo.com Now to do speaking, coaching workshops, for example, you could have I mean, it doesn’t, you know, for let’s say for pecan he could have a section, which is Laughter Man, he could have then a link off to his catering business, because your personal brand, your personal brand website is you. It’s I haven’t chosen to do that. But it could be more personal. You can even share your hobbies and interests there. Right? If there’s a huge part of it, you know, you’re a really avid surfer or you have a campervan and so on that can be part of the content you share on social media. We talked a while ago about standing out in a cluttered mark. And that’s what that’s all about. Right. It’s about sharing your eccentricities, your your quirks, your personal interests, insofar as you want to share those openly and publicly, but it’s not as challenging as you think. If you disagree, if you’re really struggling, then I would like to hear from you. I have been doing calls recently just to understand sort of research for my sake. But also of course, I’m hoping to to help you to find that red thread through the different things that you’ve been doing over your career through the different things you’re doing now. I want to be doing. And first of all get you clarity and confidence on who you are and what you stand for. And secondly, find a way to present that in a compelling and coherent way, possibly for future employees or employers, rather, if you’re looking for another role, certainly for your different clients. And just generally, you know, feels so much better to be able to introduce yourself with confidence, even I keep giving examples at dinner parties,

if I go to dinner parties all the time to that would be nice. But to be able to go, hey, yeah, I do this and be really excited and passionate about it, and not being like, Oh, I do coaching, which is really uncomfortable, I kind of do this. And I also do that and, and then you lose people. So if we come back to you know, a few weeks ago, we talked about referrals and recommendations as well, you do need to be really clear on what you do. Again, remember, depending on who you’re talking to, you might introduce both or all three of your things. You might say, actually, you do a number of different things. You know, I do some writing, I do coaching and consulting. And then if they’re interested, they can pay more. If not, they’ll move on. Or I can choose to only talk about coaching, because I’m in a coaching world where I can talk only about the writing. And because I’m in a writing workshop, who knows, right?

So it’s not saying that you’re lying or being fake or in any way, but, but you’re choosing the most relevant pieces rarely.

And that’s fine, you get to choose what you share with whom so completely up to you. So hopefully, that’s reassuring and takes a bit of the pressure off, listen to who you’re speaking to understand what’s the most relevant piece and you can share as much or as little as you want to. But again, if you’re stuck, do send me a message. Comment below. If you’re listening somewhere where you can comment, send me an email at podcast at onestep i thought.com. Or send me a DM PM, whatever, I’d love to speak to you again for my own selfish purposes to understand the challenges you’re facing so I can really develop content that will help other people like you. And of course, I’d love to talk about how I could help you perhaps with one to one coaching, I’ve been toying with a small intimate personal brand, group program. So that’s an option as well. So do get in touch. But I hope that’s been reassuring insightful, I hope that’s given you something to think about when it comes to your diverse interests and projects. And I’ll see you back here next week when we have a pretty exciting interview coming up before our escaping the nine to five series. I’ll see you then. Bye for now.

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