#TDSU Episode 270:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:02 - The power of personal branding

00:03:28 - Foundation of professional growth

00:03:47 - JP's LinkedIn journey

00:05:46 - Two-step branding process

00:07:58 - Communication before clarity

00:09:00 - Aspirations in personal branding

00:10:50 - Final thoughts and takeaways

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with Andrea Wojnicki:

Andrea's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

[Andrea] (0:00 - 0:27)

I have this small phrase that I use about what personal branding is, it's being yourself on purpose. And being yourself, I mean your true, best, unique self. So that's where you do the work in step one, right?

And then the on purpose is unapologetically, in a strategic and disciplined way, communicating it. And I don't think you can do that if you don't spend most of your time focused on the creation or the articulation step one.

[Dillon] (0:36 - 0:49)

What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success and business ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, can you say hi, please?

[JP] (0:49 - 0:50)

Hi.

[Dillon] (0:50 - 0:56)

We did it right that time. And we have Andrea with us.

Andrea, can you say hi, please?

[Andrea] (0:56 - 0:57)

Hey, everyone.

[Dillon] (0:58 - 1:03)

Hey, hey, and I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. Andrea, thank you so much for being here.

Can you please introduce yourself?

[Andrea] (1:04 - 1:32)

Sure. Thanks, Dillon. And thanks, JP.

My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please call me Andrea. I'm an executive communication coach at TalkAboutTalk, where I coach ambitious executives and yes, many customer success executives to communicate with confidence and credibility.

And I have a podcast and I do boot camps and workshops and one-on-one coaching and I'm delighted to be here. I just want to say thank you.

[Dillon] (1:33 - 2:01)

Oh my goodness. Well, you're welcome. But thank you for gracing us with your presence.

You have a phenomenal voice, so I'm so glad that you have a podcast. Cool. So you do all the things, you do touch on customer success, but here's what I'm going to do.

Whether you know it or not, we only ever ask one question here, and that is what is on your mind, parentheses, regarding customer success, but you can take it in any direction you want to. So why don't you tell us what that is for you?

[Andrea] (2:02 - 3:27)

So what's on my mind is how powerful and how much traction that folks in many industries, including customer success, can get in terms of traction in their career and their progress and establishing their professional identity by doing some relatively easy things and turning on their awareness in terms of their personal brand. So when I'm talking about your personal brand, I'm not talking about establishing yourself as a social media influencer and garnering followers. I'm not talking about monetizing your brand.

I'm not talking about all those things, although you could. I am talking about doubling down on your unique strengths and passions and really thinking about them, focusing on them, articulating them, taking the time to actually write them out, prioritize them, and then showing up every day with these things in the back of your mind in an unapologetic, strategic, and disciplined way. And I've seen countless times over and over again in my communication skills coaching practice how, as opposed to other communication skills which are legitimate, like focusing on overcoming imposter syndrome or listening skills or formal presentation skills, how this exercise of focusing on your personal brand will provide you with greater returns than just about anything else.

So I'm really excited about this topic.

[Dillon] (3:28 - 3:32)

It feels like the foundation everything else must be built on, right?

[Andrea] (3:32 - 3:33)

Very well put.

[Dillon] (3:33 - 3:45)

Yep. I have so many questions, but before I get to them, and for fear of boxing him out, I actually want to give JP an opportunity to ask any questions he has first.

[JP] (3:47 - 5:46)

Well, I do agree. And I think that's why it came to me because he may have something, but I really agree with this idea of personal branding. I think that it's one that from very early on when I began sort of utilizing LinkedIn more as my platform, I really thought about, hey, not going to try to be a thought leader.

I'm not going to... Because I remember when I started, I didn't have expertise in CS. I don't even know if I'm comfortable saying that now, but I knew that I still had a perspective.

I knew that there was still connections to be had. I knew that I could still... It could be iterative.

I could use this as a way to connect with people and also really show who I am because I thought that was really important. And I think as I began, as I continued it rather, I began to see that LinkedIn for me just as a platform became a place where I could really signal who I was professionally. And what I mean by that is I don't have to appeal to everyone.

I wanted to have more of a resonance with people that I felt were like-minded. And I wanted to build a community that way instead of, as you said, trying to sort of garner a whole bunch of followers or do it because I wasn't really interested in that. But I was interested in, I think, almost community more than networking and where I was sending out these sort of smoke signals, for lack of a better word, that would maybe attract like-minded folks where it would make the platform, I think, more enjoyable and useful to me than it's just a place where I go to try to find work when I need it or ask someone for a favor.

[Andrea] (5:46 - 7:57)

Okay, so you said many things there, JP, that I also want to jump on. But there were two words that you said in particular that stood out for me. I love the smoke signals too, by the way.

I like that one. But you said signaling, which is huge in communication. And you also said iterative, which I believe is one of the strategic principles of really establishing a strong personal brand.

So there are really two steps that I advocate people focusing on when they're developing their personal brand. And most people, I believe, focus far too much in terms of a proportion on the second step. And I advocate focusing far more on the first step.

So the first step is creating or articulating your brand. So like right now, if you're listening to this, think in your mind or even write down, what is your functional expertise? What is your industry expertise?

What is your leadership style? What is your personality? What credentials do you have?

Right. These are all positive, unique and relevant things about you. Those are the criteria.

Positive. We're not talking about your development areas here. Positive, unique to you.

This is the magic sauce of personal branding. If you can identify your unique skills, traits and passions, then you're going to be golden. So unique and relevant, relevant to your professional identity.

So you start listing these industries, functions, credentials, things that you're proud of, your superpowers, your credentials, as I said, listing all of these things down, the things that people tell you stand out about yourself or the things that you know make you stand out. Once you've done, at least started this list, then you go to step two, which is the communicating. So this is when you go to LinkedIn and you've got this list, this amazing list, this focus list.

And you don't feel arrogant because you're not saying you're good at everything, but you're sure that you're good at these things. So you're consistently reinforcing them. And then, JP, you said the word iterative.

So there are two steps, but it is definitely iterative. You're going to constantly be updating your brand. So that's kind of how I think about it.

And I say we should be spending two thirds to three quarters of our time on step one. And then step two is way easier. It's way easier.

[Dillon] (7:58 - 8:17)

I laughed because I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for what number two was. And I love that it was like, you know, maybe not bitter, but a little bit calling folks out of like, maybe they're talking too much before they really understand what their viewpoint is.

[Andrea] (8:17 - 9:00)

Exactly. That's exactly what it is. If you, if you go online and you search, you know, personal branding course, personal branding trainer or something, they almost immediately jump into step two.

And I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Back up, back up. So I have this small phrase that I use about what personal branding is.

It's being yourself on purpose and the being yourself. I mean your true best unique self. So that's where you do the work in step one, right?

And then the on purpose is unapologetically in a strategic and disciplined way communicating it. And I don't think you can do that if you don't spend most of your time focused on the creation or the articulation step one.

[Dillon] (9:00 - 9:40)

You, my question was going to be, and I do believe you have answered it, is the, when you open this up, your description sounded almost fully baked, like you do this thing and then you, that's it. Versus my question was going to be how much of you defining all of these things you talked about, how much of it can be aspirational? Are you allowed to say, well, this is the leader I want to become versus this is the leader I am today.

And how do you view those two? How do you communicate both of those? I'd love to hear a little bit about that with the time we have left.

[Andrea] (9:41 - 10:50)

I love that question, Dillon. Somebody else asked me this question in a workshop recently. And so what I said to them is what I'm going to share with you, which is the criteria for what belongs in your personal brand.

I call it template. It's the list of positive, unique, and relevant traits. Those are the criteria, positive, unique, and relevant.

And I would say current is another of the criteria. So that said, if you have aspirations, there may be two new themes that you can add there, right? So one of the themes may be, I'm an aspiring, you know, customer success leader, or I'm an aspiring, that could be one of your themes.

And the other theme that you could add to your list is that you have a growth mindset. You're a lifelong learner. You're ambitious.

You're focused on self-improvement and development because if you didn't have these, you know, aspirations, then that wouldn't be the case. So my answer to that is you want to be talking about yourself here, today, and now, but today, here, and now you have aspirations. So that can be like, I'm just repeating myself, but one of your themes could be describing your aspiration.

And another one is that you are focused on self-improvement and self-development.

[Dillon] (10:50 - 11:17)

I love it. Andrea, you doubted us. You weren't sure how this episode was going to go, whether we could get anything valuable out of it, but that is our time.

And I think we have accomplished that. I'm going to attribute most of that to you, I will say, but I love this. I love this a lot.

And I'm sure JP does too. He's a little bit more on this spectrum than I am. I'm getting better.

I'm getting better, but that is our time. We do have to say goodbye. Come back in the future.

I'd love to talk about this more.

[Andrea] (11:17 - 11:30)

I would love to talk about it as well. I just want to end with one thing, which is a little bit of effort goes a long way. Most of us spend zero time thinking about this.

So just, I strongly encourage you to think about your brand.

[Dillon] (11:31 - 11:32)

Thank you so much, Andrea.

[Andrea] (11:32 - 11:33)

Thank you.

[VO] (11:39 - 12:15)

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