Source:
https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-pq3dv-15138c2

You make sure your clients are developing and working on their personal and corporate brands but when it comes to you and your solo practice, well, do as we say, not as we do. Does this sound like you? In today’s episode we dig in on personal branding and its value.
Let us know what you think at soloprpro.com.
 
Transcript
Michelle Kane (00:02):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever steady co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. We're all the savvy smarties gather. Hi Karen, how are you?
Karen Swim, APR (00:23):
Hey, Michelle. I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Michelle Kane (00:26):
I’m doing well. Can't complain. Can't complain. Here we are. By the time this episode airs, we will be in December. Oh my gosh.
Karen Swim, APR (00:34):
Yeah, that's a little scary. It's that time of year. It is that time of year.
Michelle Kane (00:39):
Yes. All the dates kind of cascaded upon each other and oh my goodness. We all have just an extra layer of things on our minds as we're trying to wrap up work and make sure we don't miss any holidays. And there's always family members and people with birthdays in December too. I don't know how they allow that, but
Karen Swim, APR (01:00):
I know
Michelle Kane (01:01):
It's okay
Karen Swim, APR (01:02):
Not to mention the layers of extra clothing and extra tasks for those of us who live where it rudely snows. So yeah, there's all the things and it's all happening so fast, and I just want to make like a bear and hibernate.
Michelle Kane (01:21):
So while December is being all extra, we're going to talk a little bit about the extra of personal branding today. How's that for a segue way? It's important. I was just skimming an article from Forbes saying that yes, you needed to stand out, and I think it's the Gen Xer in me, or I don't know, the introvert, whatever. It's like, oh, do I have to? And the answer is, yeah, you kind of have to.
Karen Swim, APR (01:48):
Yeah, we've all, for many of us, we obviously we're in public relations, and so we believe in personal branding as well as corporate branding. We have probably helped many executive in our careers to ensure that their executive brand was as polished and as thorough as the corporate brand. And we build thought leadership programs to support and amplify that. But when it comes to us and looking at our colleagues and our peers, I know for me it's easy sometimes to become jaded when you've been doing this job for a long time. It's like the way that we feel about email marketing. We know that it works, we know the right way to do it, but we don't want to do it ourselves because we struggle with inboxes that are constantly overflowing because we have to, as per our job, we have to have a lot of information coming at us.
So sometimes when I look at personal brands, I do, I'm like, “Ugh, everybody's perfect. Everybody's smart, everybody's winning, and you feel a little exhausted.” So I guess what we want to look at today is looking past our own fatigue at what's really working in personal branding, and is it really effective anymore? It seems like everybody has a brand. I mean, 10 year olds have a brand, they're adhering to their own brand guidelines and everybody's got perfectly polished Instagram worthy photos, and everybody seems to have a platform and they've all got their stuff. And in a world where personal branding is super accessible in terms of the visual look and feel, and even with content these days, which used to be the differentiator, everyone has access to be able to create content that aligns with their personal brand, is it all worth it? How do we stand out? Do we want to stand out? Do we care?
Michelle Kane (04:03):
No, I know what you mean. And I think it's especially difficult for us because we work in branding people and places and things that we can see it a mile away. We can see it when it's so shiny. And not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but I almost feel like we are all craving, audiences are craving a lot more authenticity. And I know that buzzword’s been around for a while, but I mean real, keep it real, because we've all seen the templates and we all know sure have the photo shoot, that's great, but I feel like we're at poised on this next layer of personal branding of, no, I really want to know what you're about. I want to know what truly makes you different. Not just, oh, well, oh, she's lit really well. Oh, okay. Everything's saying all the right things. And I think the additional differentiator is going to be letting more of yourself show, if that makes sense. I want to know what makes you tick what you're about. If it's a situation where I'm looking to work with someone, show me the warts, I don't necessarily need to see the sheen.
Karen Swim, APR (05:30):
Yeah, I think we've