S3E6: Is Your Personal Brand Future-Proof?

0:00Welcome to Brand You, the ultimate personal branding podcast. I'm Kaz Grant and I'm Toby Lee. Together we're here to help demystify personal branding and to make it accessible and effective for everyone. Follow along as we guide you through creating your own personal branding journeys. So let's get started. Let's brand you.

0:25Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Brand You podcast. podcast we'd like to thank again our sponsors spark house for supporting the podcast if you're looking for an office space in the center of lincoln be sure to check them out in the show notes below in today's episode we're talking about is your personal brand future proof so what does that mean because i feel like it's something that people post about a lot we read about a lot make sure you're future proof business what you're doing but I think this is quite a good topic if you're trying things to build your personal brand that perhaps uh maybe going to generate short-term results but actually we need to be looking at long-term results don't we yeah absolutely and that's the thing get clear on what your longer term goals are as well as shorter term ones that you can kind of hit off the bat with it.

1:24But again, personal branding is all about the longer term gains. You'll very rarely kind of go on for a month on your personal brand, stay consistent, and then after a month, you'll see a return of any way. So almost future-proofing it is looking at it over the long term. Is it going to help you hit those long-term goals as you go along? But also, is it going to do that without you chasing those short-term wins with it? Yeah. Not getting too focused on, you know, the likes going viral, all of that kind of instant win kind of stuff where you think, oh, I'm doing really well or I'm really not. Actually, none of that matters short term.

2:06You want to future proof it. You need to be thinking about the long term value that you're offering and those long term relationships that you're building and cultivating with it. So I think that's what we mean by future proofing it, looking longer term than instant virality or instant likes, instant hits of things. Because you're going to be so tempting to kind of see a trend and think, well, everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon. I should as well. You know, or if you're looking to grow your audience with some pace to kind of think, well, this is the best way to do it. But whilst you might get followers in the short term, they're not going to be the people that you want in your audience long term.

2:45They're not the community you're trying to build necessarily, are they? Yeah. Yeah. So trends are cool and they're fine and it might help you to be part of the narrative. Some of them might not. So again, it's looking at it strategically and thinking, if I do this trend and, you know, create something along the lines of that trend. And first of all, we spoke about this just before, but you're already too late because by the time it's trending, you're probably not going to be one of the first ones that it's trending for. So you won't get much traction with it. But will that trend speak to your ideal audience in a way that you want to speak to the ideal audience about how, why?

3:24So if it is, then great. Do the trend. Have a bit of fun with it. Jump on it. but actually if it's nothing to do with speaking to your ideal audience and your long-term goals probably instead of recreating that trend could you put your time and energy into creating something that is you yeah you're doing I think that's a great point because I think sometimes there's a bit of a cringe factor when you click on a business's Instagram and they're doing TikTok kind of style trend videos but it just feels so unrelated to the rest of their branding it's not that they shouldn't be doing it or they shouldn't be sharing it because I think sharing that human side of your business and the your employees having fun that's brilliant we need to share those things but sometimes it's the it just doesn't fit in with the rest of what you're sharing what you're trying to be online you know so it's trying to just make sure it fits in and you've got kind of a law firm or something or a lawyer yeah serious serious serious serious serious serious serious serious serious serious random trend tiktok dance not aligned to anything you've never done it before yeah but i thought that would go viral out of place yeah but actually if every friday you shared like a lawyer fun reel or something and it was tied into again what you do what you offer or something the narrative ties in then actually maybe that's fine you might not go crazy with it you might not again go viral but it plays in with what you're creating and the story that you're telling over time because we do actually at quirk i do a one every friday to try and keep it light-hearted and just do something maybe a bit funnier maybe a bit less serious yeah in the mix of things but again it's aligned to yeah it's about personal branding there's something there's something in it there's a lesson there's something that is talking to our ideal audience our ideal clients there's something that's aligned to it yeah and on a previous episode with regards to putting like personal things into your content you gave the advice of like one in three didn't you of like was it one in three the ratio one in three but like you know every three posts let's do something personal it's maybe not business related and i think that ratio probably kind of typically works for the more viral trending sensations as well if you are going to fit in sometimes I sometimes if I follow a business even on like LinkedIn or something and they post a video and there's in the thumbnail you see there's a face there talking to camera and I instantly go oh I want to watch that but then they're just lip syncing some quote or something and it's like oh no I really wanted to hear from that individual about whatever they might have to share you know because there is a want and need to kind of connect with people who you either haven't met before or you you didn't expect to show up on your feed that day because you didn't think they would be the kind of person to do a speaking to camera video and then i'm always like oh no it's just a yeah but again if you then got in the flow with it if they did have then from that you were like oh what's that and then you scrolled off that onto another piece of content and they were actually again yeah speaking to you you were their idle audience yeah we're connected that would then work wouldn't it yeah and then again you'd be like oh yeah they are really funny actually they'd be fun to work with.

6:40That was quite humorous. But now they also actually know what they're talking about. Yeah. They know exactly, like they are the expert in this field. I'm going to go to them. Yeah. Not only are they going to make me feel comfortable, not stupid, but also because they've got that fun side about them, but also they know what they're talking about. So as long as they're not hiding behind. So, well, here's a challenge. So if you're hiding behind these kind of lip sync videos, you're showing your face now, but you're hiding behind getting on one of these trends, please just follow it up with some sort of valuable video at some point yeah because it's great to have a mix as well like sometimes it is good to happen i'm not saying we can't have fun yeah yeah and if that's aligned to your goals and who you want to portray yourself as as well that's great lip sync do the crazy dances do whatever if that ties into the narrative but again it's that so i guess it ties down to individuals doesn't it in a way like if you are that type of person and that is your personality that would be great people would expect on a viral on a trend or something like that then go for it do them be them if that is so against your character your personal brand your goal anything you want to achieve and who you really are at your core then really doing that is just adding to the fakery of you it's not gaining people's trust or respect or anything it's it's just showing you as fake and people are gonna see a disconnect with that so you need your content to be more you and timeless yeah as opposed to just what's trendy and in the moment right now and all the kids are doing yeah i guess the point of having a social online presence is to build authenticity isn't it and trust in you and what you do.

8:28It's got to back up what your business venture is about. So I agree with you there that you don't want to do stuff that's just going to take away or feel like you're trying to emotionally buy people by making them laugh. Do you know what I mean? Buy their interest or buy their follow because you did some funny sort of viral style video. And again, they go and then work with you and meet you in person and you're like the most boring person ever yeah super serious super serious it's really dull really boring and it's like that's fine if that's what you portray and that's your personal brand people will go to you because they know you're serious and you're on it and all the rest yeah but if you've tried to be the funny viral man yeah woman whoever and then they come and see you yeah and you're not that it's like oh well yeah and it's also trying to find your own unique way of being funny isn't it like be inspired by these things but don't necessarily like have to copy them just for the sake of maybe getting a couple of views have you come across the the drip cake guy no what's the drip cake i don't i don't know if we'll keep this in or whether it's funny or not um he's he makes drip cakes you know like the one where it all yeah like the chocolates all coming out he makes this amazing like four tier cakes but his videos are him going oh I've been asked to make another effing drip cake and god I hate drip cakes and as he's doing all the piping and it's him moaning for like 60 seconds while he's making this drip cake and then at the end he'll say something like oh it's actually not bad is it or something like that but he's like seething all the way through it and you know the amount of times I've kind of come across his videos going oh god he really hates these he's serious you know he's genuine but clearly he's just found his funny spin on something and way of doing things and like but there's so much personality and like he's memorable and he's you know and I'm going to want to share and tell people about him you know because it's funny and his cakes are do look amazing you know so yeah it's trying to find that challenge of like that's kind of timeless in a way it's not a trend that that's going to go out of action because he's kind of come up with it yeah um and it's timeless that even if he evolves to not do that kind of spin on videos in the future when you scroll back on his thing it's gonna kind of fit in with him still and his brand and what he's about and i'd love to know his backstory with that like whether he was literally just doing a cake and moaning and his missus came in and was like god you're always moaning about this yeah that would be funny that's what you want to show the world and he was like oh hold on okay yeah let's do that and then literally he was like oh i've got loads of traction on that one maybe i'll do another one that's it yeah and again that was just his personality and he showed it the real side of it yeah because normally what would kate people do they'd be like oh i don't want to show you the moaning side of it because then no one will buy my cake well that's it yeah he wasn't thinking christine or he was just thinking well this is my personality this is what i'm gonna do i'm gonna show the real the real life behind the things of it i'm not copying anyone else this isn't a trend like you say it's he's created it now it's a trend yeah that's it i'm gonna see if I can find one to show you and if you can get your instant reaction.

11:45So for those of you who don't know, Headshot Toby's studio is based here in Spark House in Lincoln. They offer flexible office spaces, business mentoring, and even have virtual offices if you're not quite ready for a full-time desk. As a sole trader and a photographer with lots of equipment, it was really important I found somewhere that had space for me that was affordable so that I had plenty of room to grow my business in a way that was scalable. And Sparkhouse may just be the perfect solution too for you. Get in touch today by emailing sparkhouse at lincoln.ac.uk and you'll also find our email address in the show notes below.

12:28So, you know, the cake looks stunning. It's fantastic. That is such a good thing. But, you know, the fact he's just throwing those things on there and it looks like there's no care. The presentation at the end is just immaculate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is going to be so much spit over that cake. I can't get my food hygiene hat off and be like... Well again, memorable, isn't it? Definitely memorable, yeah. And how simple, because he's doing that anyway. He's in his kitchen, he's not anywhere specific or anywhere curated. He's just there in that moment. He's probably not even got a stand at first.

13:04His phone was probably just propped up against the side of the kitchen. like it's genius isn't it but it's finding I guess what that is for you and I think if you're this is the hard thing about it isn't it because if you do sit down to try and figure out how to be the most perfect timeless personal brand ever and be unique and do all this stuff like you'll probably never find it yeah yeah the finding it is in the messy middle where you're doing it and you do something funny or something trips up or something happens and then you just think I haven't got time to create anything else I'm just going to post that and that does really well and you're like oh my audience likes that okay yeah I'll recreate that again and again and again and that works for my audience and me yeah it's imagine it's crazy isn't it to think about it but having to try and do that strategically for people who aren't marketers, who haven't got the degrees in here, who haven't got that side of things.

14:08I feel like just trying to empty their minds of all of this in a way and stop trying so hard. Because I guess with that you're going to come back to something that feels comfortable as well and that's the important bit for being consistent going forward with things. Whilst you might ask friends for their views on what you could be doing or you might have marketing friends, their suggestions might not sit with you authentically you know if if they suggest what you need to go and record yourself speaking to the camera about this isn't that if that's not what feels comfortable to you you're only going to come across shy nervous timid yeah awkward and not the things that you want to align with your business so yeah yeah it's hard isn't it sometimes and I think this is like a difficult thing for us with this podcast is trying to simplify everything in a way as well and not giving our listeners like so much more stress yeah to try and get some of this done and created and do things perfectly because it's like you're not marketers probably listening to this you've got lots of other stuff going on it's like how can you take some of these concepts for yourself yeah and turn it into your personal brand not the viral personal brand that you maybe want but your own personal brand and again it comes back to a little bit of that gut thing again like I know I talk about this all the time maybe this is more of a woman things we do have that intuition about us don't we like trust your gut like us women know stuff we know stuff but it is that like trust your gut like what also feels right to you in alignment with the goals and your ideal audience as well so like positioning all those three together what feels right to you what is going to be right for your ideal audience what goals do you have right does everything align to those that viral thing yeah doesn't align to all of those or not yeah probably let's get rid of that then and let's just consistently chip away again at the timeless constant creation of consistency that we're doing yeah and trust that over time that will be fruitful and that will deliver what I want it to deliver in two seconds yeah yeah no that's it that's a good point yeah there's always going to be elements of change aren't there that are out of your control it might be that within your business actually you want to change which is your in your control you know so how do you keep your audience with you there's environmental factors things that go in on in the world that are changing things you just mentioned technology you know with AI coming in that's changing a lot of things yeah and like things like new platforms coming along as well so there's always new social media platforms as well as in there and it's like oh the shiny new thing do we jump on that and go on that as well and sometimes it can be quite hard to know what to do or not to do especially when it is times are changing and things are changing but again I guess if you've got your goals and your ideal audience and you know who you are you can adapt with them to a certain extent like I think yeah we've spoken about AI before haven't we but AI as an example yes it's a new thing but we can't lose ourselves in it still so it's great for idea generation or it's great to maybe use to create some content for you templates if you've prompted it well if you've got your AI agents set up well and everything then yes they should be speaking like you maybe a bit more than just if you just step straight on to chat gpt and be like create this place for me it won't sound anything like you um but again it's keeping you at the core of everything it's your personal brand so again it's it's keeping everything as human as you can do with that changing technology that's coming in it's when you see a shiny new platform yes it's you know it's tempting because you've spent so much time potentially tick instagram facebook but so much time plowing into those and it's like so much time so much time and you still only made a bit of a dent in it yeah so then when tiktok comes along and someone says i got 25 million followers overnight it looks like oh i'm just on the wrong platforms let me go here yeah yeah yeah it can be tempting shiny lights syndrome yeah yeah future people your brand also looks like not burning out in it as well so again not taking on too much so not going for the shiny shiny one over there maybe or maybe can you use some of the content you're already creating for the other platforms and share a bit of that on there if it fits so you're not creating extra exactly but you're just sharing it in more locations so it's I guess looking at it how it works for individuals and how you stay true to yourself for the long term over time and how that then will future proof you yeah because as long as you don't lose yourself throughout all of the changes as long as you're still true to you your ideal audience and your cause your mission what you're trying to achieve your goals yeah it doesn't matter what comes along you can utilize ai to help you it won't change anything for you it'll just help you do something or you can use tiktok to help you amplify your voice but you're still doing the core things that you need to do so it's not going to take over or take you away from that it's just going to be an addition that might help yeah i think that's a good way to look at tech change what are some of the other ones that you said about that well i think i find interesting when businesses or personal brands look to pivot within what they're offering so say you've decided actually this isn't the direction I want my business to go I want to be seen as this in three years time so I need to start moving towards there now you know how do you keep your audience that you've already got or do you want to take them with you do you actually need to start building a new community so does your does your content change the kind of content And you're putting out, you know, whether you're doing funny, personalized videos or personality led videos.

20:25Is that consistent now with the new direction, the new goals, you know, in which I don't know what your advice would be, but mine would be. I agree with you what you just said in terms of stay true to you and what works for you. And you might find there is a drop off of followers or people engaging with your content as you start putting out different messaging. but you've got to go with what you need to do and trust that in that long term that it's going to be valuable and worth it rather than thinking oh I'm doing it half-hearted I'm dipping my toe in and actually I'm just giving so many mixed signals now I'm losing the people that are following me now anyway because they don't know whether I'm this or that with my business there's always going to be that middle period where the pivot yeah isn't there so future proofing is fine but in the interim of the future proofing there is going to be ups and downs and dips and different things along the way like you can't help that at all but kind of putting new foundations in place aren't you yeah sometimes you need those people to fall away so that the new ones will come in who again are aligned to the ideal audience you want to be speaking to and that's why we say like you know revisit your personal brand kind of every six months and have that good think about you know what are you doing now what do you envision now because nobody stays exactly the same always evolving yeah it's always evolving yeah so if it does start dipping like don't suddenly then revert back to some of the stuff that you were doing previously before your pivot because you're thinking or future i'm going down i'm going down this is bad like revert revert because actually it might drop down at first for you to lose the attrition with the people that are no longer aligned to that messaging and wouldn't be of benefit to them or you before it starts picking up with the new people then that do get it.

22:15And you know, this is why I always zoom out on my stats all the time. My stats are client stats. Zoom out because it is going to go like that with content like all the time. And I know like even when I get like a viral post, I'm like, oh, this is brilliant. I know it's going to drop after that. So I don't sit and cry then for the next few weeks because it's dropped after that i know it's coming yeah it went high and then it goes down but again it'll pick up again and over time when you stretch your stats and your analytics out the curve does sort of go like that but it's yeah been like that to get to it i always liken it to this it's the same with um maintaining weight so if you were just trying to stay at one consistent weight your weight will fluctuate but that through line or when you zoom out the line is pretty much straight but there will be days where it's up days where it's down same with um running as well you know yeah if you're trying to really improve on your 5k time for example your part run time sometimes you'll be quicker sometimes you'll be slower than you were last week you know but it will be going in the right direction overall doesn't mean that you stop your training you never go yeah you know what i'm gonna bother you know i'm not gonna bother with my diet anymore because actually there's no point i put one pound on like it's the bigger view it's the bigger picture same with your personal brand but they might just know that there might be that drop off in a bit but a drop off's fine with a pivot it's going to take time to rebuild it yeah it's all good but but even with the drop off though what's nice to know is that everything in life as well yeah you're not going right back down to day one where you had zero followers zero comments and likes or anything on your content, you've always got a little bit more than you had before and a little bit more.

24:01So yeah, just know that and know that, pull through that bit. Stick with it. Embrace the journey. Embrace the journey. Start picking it up again. Again, think long-term. Like not, oh, I'm losing likes or anything. Future-proofing long-term. Who are you helping in the future with what you're sharing now? Have them at the forefront of your mind all the time, not the instant things that are happening. the instance. So this week's action step is to have a moment of future-proofing reflection. So have a little think, where are you heading with your business, with your social online platforms, the content you're putting out?

24:39What is the end goal? Because that particularly is going to inform what you need to be doing now. So working back from that future goal, you can look at your content that you're putting out now and analyse, are you just posting to get by? Is your messaging sort of giving mixed signals because you're just sort of doing things on the fly? Or are you actually building towards a goal? And if not, you can start steering that now. So make sure you follow the Brand You podcast on all of our platforms that we're on, wherever you get your pods from, and also the Brand You group on LinkedIn as well. And please feel free to ask us any personal branding questions you have on that platform as well.

25:16And thank you so much to Sparkhouse for sponsoring our podcast. Here's to branding new.