86. Branding - The New Essential Career Search and Advancement Skill (Elevated Leadership Series)

[00:00:00] Patricia Ortega: Welcome to the daring to succeed or the uncommon career podcast, depending on where you're joining us.

[00:00:10] Julianna Yau Yorgan: I'm Julianna.

[00:00:11] Patricia Ortega: And I'm Patricia.

[00:00:12] Julianna Yau Yorgan: And we're here for another co hosted episode of Elevated Leadership, Balancing Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Execution.

[00:00:21] Patricia Ortega: And in these episodes, Julianna and I look at two sides of a career move or a situation where I'll focus a little more on the emotional intelligence strategies.

[00:00:29] Julianna Yau Yorgan: And I'll look more at the strategic execution.

[00:00:32] Patricia Ortega: And today we're going to be talking about personal and professional branding. It's a really interesting topic. So Julianna, I'm so excited to get into it.

[00:00:41] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Me too, and I really want to get started on it because I know when we were talking, we kind of- not just about branding, but about the whole concept of visibility and how that's not exactly the same as branding.

[00:00:56] And I really love that. Um, I don't think it [00:01:00] was a phrase, but you said something like just because you're seen doesn't mean that people see you as good. And I I'd love to lead off on that.

[00:01:08] Patricia Ortega: Yeah. No, definitely. You know, we were talking about visibility is not branding, And so often we start in the middle and we've talked about this previously, both on each of our podcasts, right?

[00:01:21] That we can't jump straight into a resume. There's so much that happens before that. And it's the same thing with branding because branding is a part of your professional package, right? It's your resume. In fact, it's part of your branding. And so visibility is not branding. Branding is all the work.

[00:01:38] Think of it like an iceberg. And a lot of branding is the work underneath the surface that most people don't see. So by the time you see someone, you know, on LinkedIn, if they have a solid brand, most of the work you actually haven't seen, what you're seeing is the results of all the work that's taken care of on figuring out your, personality, your perception, [00:02:00] what's your positioning, how are you, what's your strategy, how are you going to promote yourself, what do you want to begin with, right?

[00:02:04] So I agree with you wholeheartedly. Visibility is not branding.

[00:02:08] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, and I think it's so easy to get the two confused these days because like you, you had such a great list of all the things that make up your personal brand, where like you said, people just see that end result and they're like, Oh, this person is branded and they're visible.

[00:02:25] But a lot of the people I work with, when they start working on their brand, their gut instinct is to start doing stuff, start working on their resume. You're nodding a lot. You start working on the resume. Start posting on LinkedIn and start whatever dewey things that they hate. They can just start on right away, which is great because we love action takers.

[00:02:49] But there's really that first step of figuring out your goal, your personal career goals that people often skip. I think because it's so [00:03:00] obvious for themselves. Right. When they talk to themselves or when they think about their careers, they know what it is that they want, but linking that to the type of brand you want and the approach you take with your branding is so important.

[00:03:14] And I know you and I have both seen that with our clients, usually the stuff that they miss.

[00:03:21] Patricia Ortega: Yes. Yeah. It's that clarity of figuring out here's what I have to offer. Here's who needs it most. Right. Right. So there's the figuring out what I need to get clear on, what I actually want, who I am and what I want.

[00:03:33] And then there's the piece of who's my audience and what do they want. That I think is the part that's always missed. It's a skill really to talk from someone else's perspective, to have empathy, you know, and I heard someone say something like, I feel like I now need to get a degree in marketing just to go out and get a job.

[00:03:51] And the reality is that you don't technically need a whole degree, but you do need some foundational pieces because we're no longer in the [00:04:00] apply and get an interview, especially the higher you go in your positions. You might be able to do that in the first few positions of your career, but as soon as you go into leadership, you know who someone hires to lead the team, it's a very difficult tricky and, and time intensive and in some ways risky.

[00:04:17] So, you know, people want to be confident of who they hire and branding allows people to see you in some ways in the longterm, right? So whether you presented at a conference or built some relationships, or if you did go on LinkedIn and developed your branding there, there's a foundation of touch points that people can go back in time to see you, what, to see what you're like over time.

[00:04:41] And I think that branding is really important.

[00:04:43] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, I totally agree. And it's not even just about applying anymore. It's also about promotions because same thing as how with getting a new job, whether it's because you were one of the people who got laid off in the [00:05:00] last couple of years, or, um, maybe you're just looking for something better for yourself.

[00:05:05] Yes, absolutely. You can't just apply and get the job anymore, but with promotions, they're harder and harder to get. And we're no longer operating in this environment where if you've clocked in the right number of years, whatever that random magical number is for that company, or. you have quote unquote knowledge that's not enough anymore.

[00:05:30] People need to know and trust you before they put you in those critical roles like you said of leadership or, um, even senior specialists that are influential within a company and not necessarily managing people.

[00:05:45] Patricia Ortega: Yeah, and those people skills are going to be even more valuable, especially as we start to automate more things bringing I and all of that whole other conversation. Um, what it reminds me of is. Well, some of us might start driving before we map a route, but I [00:06:00] don't typically like to start driving before I map my route.

[00:06:03] So I'm like, okay, where am I going? Do I know where to turn? You figure that piece out or when you build a house, right? You're not going to grab some wood and start nailing it until you have the blueprints down. And if you do, that house is not going to last very long. So it's a very similar type of situation where if you don't have the blueprint of here's what I want.

[00:06:22] Here's where I want to land as far as like, here's the company I want to appeal to or persuade or, grab their attention. And then there's like, okay, now what's the plan that's going to give me the biggest advantage, the highest opportunity.

[00:06:37] It's not a formula. You're not guaranteed the advancement or you're not guaranteed to land the offer, but what you're doing is you're increasing your chances and then you're preparing so that when that opportunity comes, you're ready to go.

[00:06:51] Julianna Yau Yorgan: And, and that, that really is it. That last little bit you said about how, when that opportunity is there, you're ready for it because that [00:07:00] brand that you've built is basically equity that you've built for yourself, for your career. And that doesn't happen overnight.

[00:07:08] People don't know who you are just from a few articles that you publish or the one conference you attend. It's something that you have to do over time. And of course there are ways to accelerate that if you need to, but in most cases it's a reputation and a brand that you've built over many years.

[00:07:28] And that needs to be in place when those opportunities come up, not, oh my gosh, I just saw something posted, or they're considering promoting somebody in the company, I better work on my brand right now. Again, we can accelerate that for you, but in most cases, it's something that happens over time.

[00:07:47] Patricia Ortega: Yeah, it does.

[00:07:48] It takes time to build this. So why don't we get into, uh, I'm sure if you're listening right now, you're like, okay, great. It takes time, but what do I do? So Julianna, how would you frame [00:08:00] building a brand? What does it look like start to finish?

[00:08:03] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, I think when we were talking about it, we kind of got similar concepts and I always like to reverse engineer my plans.

[00:08:13] So starting with the end goal and sort of mapping out what is the ideal path to get there before we figure out what that plan is. So I'll, I'll take an example of someone I've been talking to about wanting to either get promoted or get headhunted into another company. And she's a Salesforce expert.

[00:08:35] For her, building that brand is very specific because she already has her goal, but her audience is the most critical piece because she can't just talk about Salesforce in general. She can't be talking to people who want to learn it or people who want to use it. She needs to talk specifically to the people who are going to be the ones hiring her or giving her [00:09:00] opportunities.

[00:09:01] Which means she needs to think about, what it is that they need. Like you were talking about before, knowing your audience and what is meaningful to them and speaking to that. Because if she just creates content about how great Salesforce is, well, she may be selling everyone on Salesforce, which is awesome for them, but not a lot for her own career, right?

[00:09:25] So it's about understanding where are those decision makers? Where are those key executives who need her specific talents and knowledge on Salesforce? And getting in front of them, whether it's at a conference, whether it's, writing industry. Publications that are meaningful that they will read. Not necessarily on linkedin where so many people are drawn to as kind of their first step

[00:09:51] Patricia Ortega: Oh, i'm so glad you brought that up.

[00:09:53] i'm so glad you brought that up. There's a really good book. It's called the third door. And that book is [00:10:00] specifically around not taking the front door, meaning back in the day, the front door was the apply button. Slowly LinkedIn is becoming the front door, right? And so it's important to acknowledge the change that's happening.

[00:10:14] And I think a lot of people are going on to LinkedIn for it. And I agree right now, it's still, I think it's still really important to have a brand on LinkedIn. Because when you reach out to hiring managers, when someone hears of your name, you're not there. If you're not there in person, they're going to go to your LinkedIn to check things out.

[00:10:30] But going off of LinkedIn is also so important in person communications. There's just no substitute for it. You know, they talk about know, like, and trust, right? As someone who creates content, writing alone is the quote unquote lowest level. And the lowest level of communication and the level of communication that builds know, like, and trust, meaning someone's going to know you, they're going to realize that they like you or would like to work with you.

[00:10:59] And then [00:11:00] finally over several points of contact, they're going to realize, Oh, you know what? I trust this person to be able to get the job done. Writing provides the lowest level of I guess persuasion at that level, then you have audio, then you have video, but what throws it all out of the water is in person.

[00:11:19] So I really appreciate that you brought that piece up as sort of stepping outside from behind the, what is it? The fourth wall stepping outside and getting into these in person networking events.

[00:11:32] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, and maybe it's a little bit with just the natural evolution of the internet and probably a good dose of the pandemic and they're pushing us all behind our screens.

[00:11:45] But there is really no replacement for that brand building that reputation management in person, even if it's a live video, instead of like, physically face to face. [00:12:00] Um, because there is a connection there that you can build with people that doesn't exist with like you said, just writing things and putting them out there for people to somehow stumble upon and take time to read.

[00:12:13] Patricia Ortega: Yeah, definitely. I feel like, so, to kind of back up a little bit, we were talking about frameworks, right? Um, so if I were to frame things for someone who is maybe new to branding and wanting to know how to go start to finish, um, I'd start first with what's the purpose of your brand. Is it to get a job?

[00:12:31] Is it to get clients for a business? Is it that you want to become a thought leader for something in the future, in a specific area, right? You want to find out what the purpose is for your branding first. I actually saw a video just a week or two ago from someone that was really well done. I was, I was like, okay, this is impressive.

[00:12:48] Like this person is going to get hired relatively quickly by the way that they're presenting themselves. But then, then I went to their LinkedIn. And what I saw, um, I know I was like, Oh no, what I saw [00:13:00] was that they were not on their LinkedIn. Once I landed on their page to kind of check out more about them, who should I connect you to all that?

[00:13:08] Um, they weren't sure what they wanted. So then I messaged them and I was like, I can't tell if you're looking for freelance. I can't tell if you are, looking for clients, like you're starting your own business, or if you're actually looking for a full time W 2 job, um, which in the U. S. W 2 is like what we call those nine to five, right?

[00:13:25] Um, and he was like, I'm open to all the opportunities. I'm so excited you're reaching out, you know, and I just kind of felt like, Ooh, there isn't a, you know, most companies are going to read that and say, he needs to get clear on what he wants first, right? And so that's the first piece. What is the purpose of your branding?

[00:13:42] What's your immediate next move? Um, then it's figuring out who you are and what you want. And this isn't just, I want a job or I want this type of job. It's figuring out who you are in terms of your personality, in terms of your X factor, right?

[00:13:56] Like what makes you just a little bit different on a personal level, but then [00:14:00] also what you want. And this is culturally, which. You can be a company in nearly any industry and have, varying levels of what some people would consider good culture, others would consider not so good culture. Some people really enjoy structure and routine and others feel so constricted by it.

[00:14:18] So figure out who you are and what you want and then figure out who's your audience. If you are looking to build a business, your audience is clients, which means more likely than not, it might be end users on LinkedIn, or it might be business leaders, whether it's on LinkedIn or off LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, then your audience are hiring managers.

[00:14:39] And again, they may be on LinkedIn, but they may not be on LinkedIn, right? And then finally, there's that component of creating your brand, both on, like Julianna said, right on and off LinkedIn. And there's a static piece of, resume, LinkedIn, you know, your profile itself. And then there's the dynamic, more active piece of curating your LinkedIn, posting on LinkedIn, [00:15:00] commenting, reaching out to people, networking, and of course, going to conferences, going to networking events and all of that in person stuff.

[00:15:06] Um, so. And when you look at that entire piece, the actual writing and posting content or going out and sharing a presentation at a conference is actually at the very end, because you want to plan out, you know, how do you want to insert persuasiveness? We talked about that last episode, ethos, pathos, logos, and all those things that come with it.

[00:15:28] How do you want to insert it and sort of guide everything you're doing towards that new role that you want.

[00:15:34] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, you've covered so much. I don't really even know where to start with summarizing it for you because you're also so good at doing that yourself. But if I think of everything we've covered so far, maybe the biggest takeaway for people here is that you really do need to start with your goal before you take action and, and really plan out what it is that you want to achieve with your [00:16:00] brand.

[00:16:00] Patricia Ortega: Mm-Hmm.

[00:16:00] Julianna Yau Yorgan: And then what's the best way to get to your specific audience?

[00:16:06] Patricia Ortega: Yeah, That's huge. Knowing what you want in the beginning, it kind of gives you that ability to go to find a third door. You know, that not typical way.

[00:16:17] And that's where strategy comes in. Because if you find the third door, no one else is waiting at that door, which is the cool part. It's the fact that it's unexpected. It's the fact that, you know, when there's a thousand LinkedIn messages, or maybe there's a thousand emails, I think more and more emails are going to start to get flooded with more of those messages.

[00:16:35] And. Yeah. You know, don't get me wrong. Like I still help my clients to get an email system going to track their emails, to reach out to hiring managers. How do you keep the conversation going? I still help clients to do that and it still does work. But I do think over time we're going to need to continue to evolve it even more and put more of an emphasis, like you said, on those in person communications and in person contacts, it's interesting how it's evolving, you know,

[00:16:58] Julianna Yau Yorgan: it is.

[00:16:58] And, and I think that [00:17:00] evolution is why it's so hard for people to keep up with their personal brand and it's probably because they're just- there's so much to choose from in terms of what you can do with your personal brand. And I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier as well about how it's so easy for one of us from the outside, whether it's a coach or a hiring manager, recruiter, anyone who needs to know what your brand is to pick up almost immediately that there isn't one. Being open to everything, not having a cohesive story.

[00:17:36] I remember when I was hiring people, that was always one of the things that kind of dissuaded me from taking a candidate to the next step because it's like, well, I don't know what this person wants. And I don't know if I can give that to them in terms of a career when they land there, whether it's your LinkedIn profile, your resume, your reputation internally, if people don't know what it [00:18:00] is that you're about, but what that X factor, like you said, is, or, or what you're looking for out of your career, it can be really hard for them to even picture you in that place for them.

[00:18:12] Patricia Ortega: Yeah, definitely. That's that longevity piece, right? The more you share information on and offline, the more you have a repository of of content for people to go back and say, okay, this is what Julianna is like in this situation, this is what Julianna is like in this other situation, so it is nice to have a blend of content on LinkedIn, a presentation, maybe a picture, uh, You know, some event where you've gotten awards and now you're seeing little snippets.

[00:18:41] And I think this is where, you know, if I were to share a little bit of the static piece. On your LinkedIn, there's a featured section that most people who are end users don't use.

[00:18:53] This is where some people will post their resume, but that is probably not the best thing to do because your LinkedIn is already [00:19:00] kind of your resume, right? But I've seen some folks and I've helped some folks to create resume videos. Those have gotten a lot of traction, a lot of compliments, a lot of, just a lot of people checking out their profile.

[00:19:12] And here's the interesting thing. So. Well, let me back up and give you all the places where you can go and then I'll tell you what, what happens with this. So your video, you can, your profile picture, you can actually put a video in there. In your features section, you can put video or other media there and each of your experiences you can add media.

[00:19:29] And this doesn't have to be really complex. This can be like, a picture of you getting an award, the link to your website, a link to a product that you've helped build. You know, it's an outcome or even an infographic that you create yourself that summarizes some of your key accomplishments as a, as a pie chart or some other simple graphic, um... those pieces help bring your brand to life.

[00:19:53] And what happens is now you have people, especially the profile video, for some reason, the profile video gets a lot of [00:20:00] attention because nobody does it again, third door, nobody does it. So. One of my clients created one and at first she was like, I don't know if I want to do this. Anyway, we created a video for her.

[00:20:11] She got a ton of compliments and what she didn't realize is that everyone who saw and was complimenting her video was actually people who were giving her LinkedIn profile traction so that when she posted, those people may not have hired her, but now it's going out to other people in her feed. So that was a good opportunity for her.

[00:20:28] So what you're doing is looking at where are you going to focus your attention? For her, it happened to be LinkedIn. But if you're going to go out into conferences and it's figuring out, okay, which conferences do I want to go to? Where is my audience? Because so many of us will think, oh, I'm going to go to this conference because this is where all my peers are.

[00:20:47] This is where I normally go. But where you normally go is probably not where your leaders are normally going, right? So that's the big difference.

[00:20:54] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, I love that. And the idea of doing something different, I think, [00:21:00] is how people will get traction now that there's so much noise out there, because you're trying to capture the attention of people who are seeing the same thing over and over again.

[00:21:11] And I think just to kind of add and maybe start to wrap up, I would layer on top of sort of those tactics and the practical leg. What to actually do, whether it's with your profile or with picking up the conferences, is to have maybe only one or two things that you're talking about consistently so that you don't seem like you're all over the place.

[00:21:36] Like, let's say you are really into AI right now and you want to get into the market as a thought leader for AI, pick one element of that and something that you're passionate about anyway, and make that part of your core brand. You can always change that later as you evolve as AI or whatever topic it is [00:22:00] that you, you want to talk about evolves.

[00:22:02] But rather than this like scattered approach of I want to talk about everything to do with that topic or that industry. If you're known for one thing that you're good at already and that is super interesting to you, that's what's going to set you apart and really give you that like strong cohesive brand.

[00:22:21] Patricia Ortega: Yeah. And to get to that one piece, this is your quote unquote challenge, right? This is your next step. First, grab one sheet of paper, no more than one sheet of paper, and write down purpose, and it should be simple. It should be really simple to get a job in XYZ role. And if you can't answer that question, like, which specific role you're interested in. Then you do want to go a little bit back into the process and go into clarity, but what is the purpose of your branding to, you know, advance into X, Y, Z position? And then have the next sentence, who are you??

[00:22:55] What do you want? Or if you're following Julianna's structure, right, you're just continuing piece by piece, but you [00:23:00] want this on no more than one page and you don't want tiny writing. So you want to just literally. Imagine that you want this to be as short as possible. You only want five to 10 words per section.

[00:23:15] And that way you ensure that you're limited. So if you know exactly what the purpose is, who you are, I am a professional who blank in the blank industry. I solve blank problems. Period. Right. Something super simple. What you want, what kind of industry you want, two or three words that best define your culture.

[00:23:35] Those kinds of things are going to be really important. And then who your audience is, right? What industry, what size company, what geographic location, or does it have to be remote? Right. And once you have those pieces together, then it's like, okay, what's the one or two or three topics that.

[00:23:49] You know, imagine a Venn diagram that coincide where I'm passionate about, where I want to continue working. And that matters to the organization. That's like a [00:24:00] timing in the future. If you can get those things set, your, you know, quote unquote marketing plan is sort of written for you. And now it's just a matter of, okay, I'm going to go out and do this one big thing, present at a conference or present a white paper, whatever.

[00:24:16] And then out of that, guess what? That is all your content right there in terms of you have now a body of knowledge and now you're posting from that body of knowledge. And it just makes it a lot easier to kind of double dip, right?

[00:24:27] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah. No, that's so great. And I hope whoever's listening is either taking notes or looking at the transcript because Patricia basically laid out for you all the steps that you need to do to get that clarity on how to put together your brand and like she said, the content that you need to put out there to be known for that brand.

[00:24:50] So thank you for that, Patricia. That's awesome.

[00:24:53] Patricia Ortega: Yeah. Yeah. No, this has been really good. I mean, I, I like your, um your framework and I'm [00:25:00] excited just to see where people take this, see where people go in terms of, what next conference they want to present at, what opportunity they want to take to get paid to create content for their company. But also present it or to get paid to go to a conference and then also share that information on LinkedIn.

[00:25:16] Any one of those ways is going to help you to, um, double dip in some ways and take advantage of what's already content that you have created with the work that you do.

[00:25:25] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I'm so excited. And if you put any of these methodologies or tips into practice, we would love to hear what your results are and maybe help share and spread your, your brand out there for you.

[00:25:41] Um, so definitely look us up, connect with us. We're both on LinkedIn and we'll drop our websites in the show notes for you as well. Um, Patricia, any last words for our audience?

[00:25:54] Patricia Ortega: Um, just get out there, you know, like I promise you, brand is important [00:26:00] now. It'll be even more important later. AI is not going away.

[00:26:04] Mass application systems are not going away. People are applying to hundreds of jobs and getting one or two offers, right? You've got all these layers to go, even internal, promotions, people are interviewing for nine, 10, 11, 12 positions, right? So start now, even if you're not looking for a job, start now.

[00:26:24] Julianna Yau Yorgan: Great advice. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we will see you next time.

[00:26:31] Patricia Ortega: We'll see ya.

[00:26:33] [00:27:00]