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Personal Branding

Personal branding, raising your profile in a crowded marketplace where the almighty referral isn’t as powerful as it used to be can feel disheartening.

But today’s guest, Liz Harr, is the co-author of The Expert Revolution which has tips and strategies for how you can reach a wider audience than you ever imagined and position yourself as a buyer’s top-and sometimes only-choice.

What You’ll Discover About Personal Branding:

* The power of authenticity in personal branding

* The first step everyone needs to take that’s essential to personal branding

* How to make your thought leadership visible

* The two things holding you back from more personal branding

* How to be authentic and still be professional

* Why your personal brand is about your audience, not you

* And MUCH more.

Guest: Liz Harr 

Elizabeth Harr is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive specializing in brand management and growth strategies for professional services firms.

A managing partner at Hinge, she leads Hinge’s client service team, helping businesses solve critical marketing and brand-related challenges. Prior to joining Hinge, Elizabeth co-founded a Microsoft solutions provider company and grew it into a thriving organization that became known for its expertise in Microsoft customer relationship management.

Elizabeth has co-authored several books and reports published by the Hinge Research Institute.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Economics from Columbia University in New York and a B.A. from University of Missouri – Columbia. Elizabeth is a recognized Visible Expert®. She recently co-authored the Amazon bestselling book  The Visible Expert Revolution: How to Turn Ordinary Experts into Thought Leaders, Rainmakers, and Industry Superstars.

Related Resources:

If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy our other Branding episodes.

Contact Liz and connect with her on LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Learn more about Liz’s work at Hinge.

Check out her latest book: The Visible Expert Revolution: How to Turn Ordinary Experts into Thought Leaders, Rainmakers, and Industry Superstars

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MASTERING THE ART OF PERSONAL BRANDING TO ACHEIVE EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS

Hanna: Personal branding, raising your profile in a crowded marketplace can so feel disheartening. But today’s guest is the coauthor of “The Expert Revolution,” which has tips and strategies for how you can reach a wider audience than you ever imagined and position yourself as a buyer’s top and sometimes only choice. Stay tuned.

Announcer: This is Business Confidential Now, with Hanna Hasl-Kelchner helping you see business issues hiding in plain view that matter to your bottom line.

Hanna: Welcome to Business Confidential Now, the podcast for smart executives, managers and entrepreneurs looking to improve business performance and their bottom line. I’m your host, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, and I have a fabulous return guest for you today. She’s Liz Harr.

Liz is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive specializing in brand management and growth strategies for professional services firms. She helps businesses solve critical marketing and brand-related challenges as a managing partner at Hinge, where she leads Hinge’s client service team. Liz also has coauthored several books, the most recent being the Amazon bestseller, “The Visible Expert Revolution: How to Turn Ordinary Experts into Thought Leaders, Rainmakers, and Industry Superstars.”

Personal branding is such a powerful skill to develop and master, whether it’s to enhance a resume or build a business, and that’s why I can’t wait to learn more about the research that went into her new blockbuster book, “The Visible Expert Revolution.” So, let’s have her join us now. Welcome to Business Confidential Now, Liz.

Liz: Thank you, Hanna. It’s great to be here.

Hanna: It’s so good to be with you again. Your new book about personal branding, “The Visible Expert Revolution,” sounds fascinating. What trends or changes in the marketplace did you see with regard to personal branding that prompted you to write this book?

Liz: Well, we wrote the original version of this book a couple of years ago, and this is actually an updated version, and there are some changes in the marketplace that caused us to say, “Now is the right time to bring an updated version of the book to the fore,” and those changes were, one, this onslaught, some people might call it that, of AI and how automated, if you will, content and “opinions” and “expertise” is being put out there through AI-generated content.

And because of that, it is even more and more and more important that authenticity be brought to the table because that is what people are looking for. And another very opposite end of the spectrum sort of marketplace condition that has really been plaguing the industry for a long time is the war on talent. It’s been harder and harder and harder to not just attract but also retain top talent, people who really have true, genuine expertise, and so firms are more and more willing to go out and secure that expertise through an outside consultant, an outside voice.

And so, all to say that real, true, authentic expertise is more and more important more than ever in today’s marketplace, and that really caused us to want to update this book with new research and new findings.

Hanna: That is so interesting, this whole idea of authenticity, not that the concept is new but its increased profile. Tell me what you mean by authenticity and how people today in your research and experience are evaluating it. Because you’re right. I think people are scared of AI. Things sound really great, and how are you supposed to judge it?

Liz: Yeah. That’s really the million-dollar question. So, in the research, one of the things we explored with participants in the research were the top benefits they perceived from working with an expert, and the very top benefit was around “Experts helped me think of a new way to solve a problem that had never occurred to me before, never occurred to our leadership, never occurred to our board,” and that type of expertise cannot be unleashed through AI. AI is only as smart as it’s told to know, right?

And so, genuine expertise, on the other hand, is that – the ingenuity that’s brought to the table and the ideas that flow as the conversation unfolds, and that is what people are hungry for. And I will tell you, this AI-generated content, I think that AI certainly has a place when it comes to generating thought leadership. It can help with outlines. It can help get the creative juices flowing, so to speak.

But it certainly does not offer an end product that is genuine and authentic because, thankfully, there are some things that only humans can still do, and that’s something that only the humans can do. So, that’s really what I mean by authenticity, is just that real, raw thinking and that unique perspective that others are not articulating and that new way of solving a problem that really has never surfaced before.

Hanna: So, it sounds to me like AI is a little bit like a three-year-old that repeats what it hears but doesn’t really understand it.

Liz: I think that’s a great way to characterize it.

Hanna: [Laughter] Okay. Someone who’s an expert in their field that has the credentials and experience to back it up, how would you recommend that they raise their profile and improve their personal branding? What, say, two or three things should they be doing?

Liz: Well, I’ll tell you, the very first thing they should do before they even think about where am I going to build visibility and what techniques am I going to employ, the very first thing they do is to nail down their niche, and a lot of people think they are – they have a specified expertise, but all they have to do is go around and look on LinkedIn and do some Google searches, and they’ll see that, in fact, they have a large volume of competition that at least says that or purports to have the same expertise.

And so, really laying a stake in the ground around where you specialize, how you specialize is the very first thing to do. It will keep you differentiated and it will help you rise above the noise, because then, when you move to the other aspects of building your profile, which is creating the thought leadership and making it visible in the channels where your audience is reading and learning, you will show up as a differentiated and important, relevant voice.

So, finding your focus, defining your focus, that is the number one thing. And I would say the other things you do after that, number two, is make sure that you have studied where your audience is studying. Don’t be on all social media channels if they’re only on LinkedIn. Don’t try to get on all speaking platforms if your audience doesn’t attend the conferences anymore and they’re more inclined to listen to a podcast. So, understand where your audience is learning so that you can focus building your profile in those channels.

And then number three, speaking of where your audience learns, how do they learn, how – what kinds of words do they use to articulate the thing they’re trying to learn about. If you can inject their language in your language, that’s how you really connect and align with your audience.

And so then, when your audience sees an article you’ve written, they’ll say, “You know what? Nobody else is talking about this in the same way that I have. I’m going to invest my time and check this person out.” So, I would say those are the focus. Learn the channels where your audience is gathering information and learn how they articulate their problem.

Hanna: Three great pieces of advice. Thank you for that.

Liz: Yeah, absolutely.

Hanna: What do you think is holding more people back from engaging in personal branding? I mean, it – what you’re describing, it makes perfect sense, and it sounds – I’m gonna put simple in quotes because I’m sure the actual implementation is not that simple, how do you go about finding their language, how do you go about making sure what channels they’re using. So – and I think, we could spend a whole podcast probably on that, but even before you get to that, people aren’t necessarily doing that. So, what’s holding them back?

Liz: Yeah. I think it’s two things, and I love that you asked this question because these two things that hold people back are certainly things that people can overcome. So, the first is this notion of perfectionism. People are really reluctant to get their opinion out there until it’s perfectly polished and rinsed – wash and rinse and repeat five times. That’s really not the authenticity.

Back to your original question, that people are looking for, and I’m not advocating that you go out and just put a bunch of fluff out there and it hasn’t been well-researched and just adding to the noise. I’m not talking about that, but I’m also seeing that this feeling that “Hey, if I put anything out there at all, all of a sudden, I’m open to criticism, so I better get it perfect.” There is no perfect.

So, dispel this notion that you have to get it perfect. It just needs to be relevant, accurate, and authentic. Perfectionism, just throw that out the door. We all know that that holds people back. And the second thing that really keeps people from building their personal brands in a successful way is one thing and that is discipline.

Discipline to stick to a plan. This is not a get rich quick scheme. This is – there’s nothing about building a personal brand that has a one and done characteristic to it. This is something that takes time. And what I see a lot of times, Hanna, is people will do this for two to three months and they’ll go gangbusters on putting content out there and they’ll be really disciplined about looking at their LinkedIn profiles and answering and commenting and really engaging.

And then at the end of the three months, they say, “I haven’t gained a new client. I’ve got two likes. This isn’t working. Let me try something else.” This is something that takes 6 to 9 to 12 months to really get velocity around your brand and really build visibility. Now, occasionally, you get that one-time client that just you were in the right place at the right time, but that’s really not what you should expect.

So, having the discipline to stick to this and set expectations that this is a long-term plan, this is not a short-term thing, that’s the other thing that I think holds people back.

Hanna: Very good. This concept of being authentic and authenticity, there seems to be a thread here in what you’ve described in our conversation here. I’d like to have a little better understanding about what you mean by authenticity when it comes to personal branding, because sometimes I get the feeling people have to put on a mask or a facade of what they think others are wanting and maybe are little afraid to be too authentic.

Yeah, I’ve heard employees feel that way in the workplace that they can’t bring their authentic selves to the workplace. Now, that doesn’t mean showing up naked, but let’s put some meat on those bones. What do you mean by authenticity?

Liz: Okay. That’s a great thing to explore. So, it might be easier to start by what I don’t mean. What I don’t mean is on your LinkedIn profile, putting a picture. Let’s say you are a solopreneur and you have advisory services that you provide to the professional services space, so a very polished, professional hallway of experts and clients that you work with.

So, authenticity is not putting a picture of you standing in front of your boat with sunglasses on for your LinkedIn profile. So, I’m not talking about that kind of authenticity, and I bring that up because I do see that quite a bit. What I’m talking about is less about your personal, authentic self and more about your professional profile.

And so, when you break down the – what that means, think about all the profiles you might see on LinkedIn. And I’m using LinkedIn because it’s a place where we all play. And just think about the volume of profiles you see where you see the person’s picture, and then next to their title, you see their actual title that they play in the firm, and that’s it. Instead, talk about what you’re an expert in, what do you help people do, what do you help firms achieve, what is your passion professionally.

That’s what I’m talking about, that kind of authenticity.

That’s one layer. Now, how do you put authenticity into the expertise that you’re putting out in the world? Again, that’s about there’s lots of fluffy, overly polished just junk out there that is filled with industry jargon and like every acronym in the book. That just adds to the noise. The type of thought leadership that is really thought out is the one that has your authentic voice.

Like don’t use acronyms. Don’t use industry jargon. Use plain Jane language to describe your opinion, to put forth your thinking. So, that’s what I’m talking about. Bring it. Make it accessible. Maybe that’s another word that people can use, is make your expertise accessible to lots of different types of people out there who might be digesting it. You’re likely not – even if you are in a technical world, you’re likely not selling to the very technical person. You’re selling to somebody who makes decisions and runs companies and thinks higher level than that.

So, hopefully that helps define what I’m talking about when I mean authenticity.

Hanna: Yes, it does. I think it’s helpful, especially talking about it in layers and sort of distinguishing it from what goes on Facebook, ‘cause I’ve noticed a tendency for some people to get a little bit more personal on LinkedIn and some things are maybe topics better put on Facebook or some of the other social media sites because they’re really – they’re not focused on being professional.

And maybe that was their intent to try and be more accessible, if you will. And I’m using the word in a different way than you just mentioned as far as language but to try and make themselves look more regular. I don’t know what it is.

Liz: Yeah.

Hanna: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. You – the bottom line is you have to know your audience. I mean, I work with an expert who he – now, he actually does put some of his – some undercurrents of his political thinking woven into his thought leadership because that’s part of his personal brand and that’s what his audience comes to him for. So, he knows that, he understands it, and that’s part of it, and that’s acceptable.

But he can do that because it aligns with what his audience is looking for. If your audience couldn’t care less and doesn’t have patience for political perspectives woven into their professional lives, then you should be aware of that and avoid it. That’s really what we’re talking about here.

Hanna: Exactly. Exactly. I’d like to talk a second about your book, “The Visible Expert Revolution.” In terms of personal branding lessons that you’d want listeners to take away from reading your book, what would be the most important thing?

Liz: Well, as you say, there’s so many components to this, and we could talk about it all day. I think the most important lesson would be to build your brand for your audience, not necessarily for you, and that may sound counterintuitive. I mean, the word “personal brand,” that – it’s about you. But think about why you’re doing this. You’re doing it to build your book of business. You’re doing it to get more clients. You’re doing it to add value. You’re doing it so that you have a reputation for adding value.

So, I really counsel people to think about their audience. What is their perspective? What are they trying to solve? What’s important to them? What criteria do they use when they’re looking for an expert like you? Those who build their brands through their clients and prospective clients’ lens will be so much more successful in the end as opposed to those experts who say, “This is all about me. Here’s what I’m passionate about. I don’t really care if the outside world thinks this is important or not. This is important to me and I’m going to do it.”

That’s something that’s fine, but that’s not what we’re talking about when we’re talking about visible experts.

Hanna: Okay. So, it’s not about the pursuit of fame. [Laughter]

Liz: Yeah. It should be about the pursuit of meaningful visibility. So, not just fame and not just visibility for visibility’s sake, but it should be meaningful to the people you’re trying to secure business from. That’s really what it is.

Hanna: Excellent. Excellent. Well, Liz, thank you. This has been great. I appreciate your time today and sharing so many of these interesting tidbits about personal branding. If you’re listening and you’d like to know more about Liz Harr, her work at Hinge and her new book, “The Visible Expert Revolution,” that information, as well as a transcript of this interview, can all be found in the show notes at BusinessConfidentialRadio.com.

Appreciate you’re listening. Thank you so much. Please be sure to tell your friends about the show. Leave a positive review. Love to hear from you. We’ll be back next week with another information-packed episode of Business Confidential Now.

So, until then, have a great day and an even better tomorrow!

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