1529 – The Reason Why Someone is Going to Support Your Business with Gritmon’s Christine Gritmon

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0:58with us right now it is personal brand strategist and my personal friend christine gritman christine you are found on the web at gritman.com that's g-r-i-t like grit mon like hey mon m-o-n.com christine thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for having me josh i'm very excited to be here. And if you've anyone who has seen you, if you follow on social, we'll have some video clips of Christine. Christine, you practice what you preach. I love your content. I like, you're just, you're just a fun person to connect with on social and follow. And, you know, I just really appreciate that about you.

1:48Do you recall like where we originally connected? Was it a podcast conference or social media marketing world? It was social media marketing world. And I think, I think it was, did you speak in 2017? Cause I think it was 2017. You're actually one of the first people I met. I was new to the social media industry and you talked about personal branding and visibility in a way you're responsible for all this, Josh. There we go. Well, Christine, talk about the work that you do today, like who you work with and what that looks like. Absolutely. And that has really evolved over the years. When I got started running my own business, Christine Gritman Inc., I started out wanting to help small businesses leverage the power of social media.

2:33And over time, this evolved. And now what I do now is I help professionals of all sorts with their personal branding, really just stepping into that professional spotlight that, you know, maybe they didn't think they were good enough before. Maybe they were hesitant. Maybe they were worried they'd, you know, threaten their employer by stepping into their personal spotlight. All nonsense. We're the only ones holding us back. And I really feel like there's so many people doing truly incredible things out there. And there's people who need to find those people. So I really help that come together by helping people just stand in that spotlight, point it right on themselves, saying, here's what I bring to the world.

3:16Here's what I bring to you so that the people who need them can find them. And who would be maybe some examples of folks that you've worked with or use cases or projects or challenges that you've been brought in to solve? Absolutely. Well, that has also evolved a lot. Again, because baby steps with the brand Evolution, I started out working with small business owners to say, you know what, you're part of the story. The reason why someone is going to support your business is not because it's better than other businesses necessarily. It's because they want to support you and be part of your success story.

3:51So I still do that a little bit, but I have moved more to working with more seasoned professionals, not necessarily older, just people who are doing kind of different things. So either they work for a company, maybe they're an executive or something, and they're recognizing that there's thought leadership opportunities out there in their industry. And they've been spending all this time just being amazing at their jobs. But it's time for them to kind of get on those stages to become someone who other people in their industries look to as an expert and to follow. Another group that I help is entrepreneurs, because when it comes down to it, who's going to invest in you and your business if you don't really have a track record of being this impressive expert person in this thing that you're trying to do?

4:38So I do help entrepreneurs with that. In fact, I'm working with one right now where she built this incredible social media following, which was great. She did build a product line off of it. And now she's about to launch another business that won't have her name on it. And so she just needs help detangling those three threads. You know, there's a lot of overlap between her product business and her own presence online. She's a different person now than she was when she started. So she's kind of ready to have herself in there in a bigger way. So we're figuring out, you know, what do we combine? What do we separate out so that we're kind of clear with the messaging for different reasons people would follow her?

5:20And then for the new business, we're figuring out the part that her personal brand plays in launching that versus making sure it stands on its own as a separate thing. So I help a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, really just kind of detangle those separate threads and figure out how they can stand in some clear messaging there. But yeah, that's a big part of what I do is just take people who know their stuff and help them realize that other people can and should and need to learn from them. Yeah. And Christine, you know, I know you've got your ear to the track on all things social as well.

5:58Did you go to Social Media Marketing World this year? I did. Yeah, it just happened. What would you mind giving us a recap? Well, I'll be honest. Or just things that stood out for you. Yeah, my presence there this year was honestly mostly to meet up with my people. I originally went to San Diego without a ticket for the conference just because I said I need to be with my people I need to learn from them. And you know, it's just a big old, you know, it's like summer camp people say. And I also know that I knew that I was at a point in my business where I'm going through a shift right now and I needed insights that I knew that I'd get less from the stages and more from conversations in the hallway.

6:39I've really learned that having experts in your life who you can talk to is just incredibly valuable. But as it happens, I did wind up getting a ticket. So I was able to see some sessions as well. And yeah, I really I really got a lot of insights. But again, the primary value that I got was from those conversations in the hallways. And that's, to me, the beauty of events. It's an opportunity to actually connect with the people you admire, like, say, you, Josh. That's how I met you. And also an opportunity to become known by some of those people. I mean, you know who I am because we met there and we kept the relationship going.

7:21I stayed visible on social media. You know, we engaged. I engaged with your content. You engaged with mine. So events are really incredible place to define and develop your personal brand, which to me is the version of you that exists in other people's heads. And Christine, you know, on that note of social media, what trends are you excited about right now? I'm really excited that it's getting more real. And this has been happening for a long, long time. I think when social media first started, there was an immediate split between people who were using it very half-assed and very kind of messily and people who were all glossy and perfect.

8:06And, you know, that gave rise to, you know, the perfect social media influencer with, you know, the perfect houses and the perfect professional pictures and the perfect messaging. And I love that now it's become so democratized, which it should have been to begin with, where people can show up and we don't trust the super perfect and glossy. We trust people where we see something that we can latch onto within ourselves. We trust what resonates. And I'm really excited about that because, first of all, again, it opens up the playing field to anyone who's willing to step on it, which I think is huge.

8:41but also it means that resonating is mattering more than you know sleekness and I think that that's really important because it is all about relationships it's all about humans it's all about you know genuine people connecting with genuine people that's how you make a difference that's how you actually wind up helping people that's where the value is it's in those genuine relationships and people, not just the kind of perfect glossy looking at it from on high, you know, situation. So I really like that it's getting more real. I like that it's getting a little less perfect. That does make it less predictable.

9:20It means the best practices are kind of up in the air on some level because you never know what's going to resonate with people. But, you know, it's an interesting time. That's always a new creative challenge. And that's one thing I love about social media. There's always a new thing to figure out. Yeah. And also, you know, as well as kind of keeping up with the what's going on, what would you say? And I would imagine branding kind of follows that same thing. It's just very authentic, very human to human. But what other things are you seeing in regards to personal and just personal branding and then branding overall right now?

10:00Well, again, speaking to the genuineness, I think that there's kind of a recoil now against the phrase personal branding, which is unfortunate to me because I don't like any of the alternative phrases better. So I still say personal brand. Me too. Yeah. But people have this impression that it's almost like playing a character. It's like creating this fake image, creating almost a mascot, you know, that you now have to play the part of. And it really should be kind of the opposite of that. It should be taking what you actually are, really diving deep down into what that is, what lights you up. It shouldn't be too, you know, tied to a specific task or a specific position or a specific application of that brand, because then you don't have flexibility.

10:48And then it's a little bit less human. You're more, you are more of a mascot then. Really look at throughout different applications, throughout different times of your life, throughout different circumstances, what are the common denominators of those circumstances that have really lit you up inside? What are the times where you feel you are your most you, where you're performing your best? that's the core of your brand so it's not something you invent it's something you uncover and it's something you nurture and it's something you really encourage to grow and to glow so that other people can kind of be drawn to that light so that's really what it is it's not something that you get via you know market research you can do some market research to certainly make sure that your message will get across in a more effective way but again market research is not what determines what the message is.

11:44It's just you have to make sure that anything external, that data exists to show what's effectively getting it out there. But it really has to come from within and go outward. So again, that plays really nicely into things getting a little less glossy and polished and manufactured and realer. Because again, if you're branding as a real fully dimensional human being, so much less pressure. You can be honest about your struggles And people will connect with that because that will resonate with them. You can be honest and say what you don't know. And that will be honest. And they'll trust even more that when you say you do know something, you mean it.

12:23So, I mean, it's all about trust when it comes to the personal brand. And you can't have trust if you're playing a manufactured role. Yeah. Christine, what is it like when people, like when you're having a conversation initially, How does that customer engagement usually look? Like, where do you start? What questions are you asking? And then, like, where do you go from there? It is surprisingly vulnerable work. I like saying that the beginning is like a therapy session, which is, you know, I don't take a person and say, okay, here's my 10-step framework, and we're going to jam you into there. It starts out really by me asking them the right questions and asking them to ask themselves the right questions is a more accurate way of putting it.

13:14I lead them down the right paths to uncover the parts of themselves that we're going to need to pull out and work with. There's a lot of fear around personal branding. Sometimes people fear putting themselves out there. A lot of times people have some imposter syndrome at play. They say, I don't want to put myself out as an expert because they don't truly believe that I am. Or they worry that they'll be seen as, you know, bragging. They're like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to make a whole big thing of myself. I don't want to be like, oh, look at me. But ironically, that's selfish. I help them get out of their heads and out of their concerns about how they're going to look and help them think about the receiving end.

13:56Help them think about who needs your gifts, who can benefit from your gifts, who needs Who needs to learn the things that you already know? Who needs someone to follow? You know, I mean, we all have things to bring to the world and it's actually selfish to hide. So that's a huge part of the beginning of the work. And getting people to that vulnerable place, I think, is one of my biggest assets in what I do, because I think a lot of them are expecting it to be a slightly less personal experience. but that's what gets it to a place where they recognize that I'm not imposing their brand upon them.

14:35I'm helping them, you know, bloom with what's already there. And then I help them figure out the vehicles for it. But first we have to figure out what it is we're uncovering, what it is we're showing to the world. And then I help them figure out the vehicles for conveying that, that are actually going to work for them. If someone hates video, I'm not going to tell them that they need to go do video. If someone hates writing, I'm not going to say, all right, you need a blog. You know, I think that what they'll be able to do comfortably and consistently is always what's going to work best for them.

15:06And that's very personal as well. So I, the way I work is very, is very individual based. Hey, Christina, are there, I've just got curious. Are there any books that you find are kind of your go-to like, yeah, I recommend this book, this book, and this book quite a bit, particularly, you know, it's fine if it doesn't have anything to do with branding, but you know, are there any that you're like, you're just really good standouts or kind of the go-tos? So I will fully admit, I don't read nearly as much as I would like to. I've got these shelves full of brilliant books by brilliant people, but I will say it's funny because these are friends of mine and they wrote this book so they could get on more stages.

15:48They like, don't think as highly of this book as I do, but my friends, Andrew and Pete in the UK. Yes, they have a book called Content Mavericks. And it's interesting because, you know, content mavericks, in theory, it's about what kind of content should you create? It's a Trojan horse. It's a book about your brand. And I told them this. I said, you know, it says it's about content, but it really is. It takes you through like I do. It asks you the right questions to ask yourself. It makes you get honest with yourself about what's actually working and what isn't what's genuine to you and what isn't.

16:23And I go back to it. Sometimes I go back to it periodically, just kind of as a brand check on myself. So content Mavericks by Andrew and Pete. I love it. And then you're very thin too. It's a very slim volume. I worked through it twice on a plane. I got it. I was on a plane ride from California to New York. I read through it once. And then I immediately read through it again with a notebook and did all little exercises. I like books like that. This is so media. Yes. So Christine, your website is gritman.com. And, you know, for folks that have been listening to our conversation, maybe they are already aware of you and they did some searching and they found this podcast and now they're kind of doing their due diligence on you.

17:11All right. Now they're like, okay, I'm ready for the next step in the world of Christine Gritman. What are some of those next steps that you'd recommend? One of those next steps is bringing me in to speak. I love speaking on stages. I actually, I'm on podcasts and I have a podcast. Let's talk about brand. You know, I do this stuff, but I really light up on a stage because again, there's that interplay of energy between the actual humans in the room. So bringing me in to speak about personal branding, about social media strategy, about the importance of engagement and relationship building. And I do that not only at conferences, but I also come into companies and can talk to you about why personal branding and why encouraging and nurturing your employees' personal brands so that your internal leaders can become external thought leaders is good for your company's visibility, reputation, employee retention, because people want to stay where they feel supported and grown, and even recruitment.

18:12Because if you've got the smarties at your party, other smarties are going to want to be there. And of course, another thing that I do is I do consulting. So definitely reach out to me for that if you want help detangling the different parts of your brand or even figuring out what your personal brand is and how to express it in a bigger, bolder way. And of course, another great way to learn from me is on my podcast. My podcast is called Let's Talk About Brand. It's on the Adweek Podcast Network. Every week I interview a different guest expert about a different element of branding. Yeah. And was there something as well that you were just something that people could grab?

18:53I wasn't sure if you had. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Good. Yes. So if you go to gritman.com slash brand guide, I have a guide there that you can download. And what it is, is it's just, you know, your guide to the branding opportunities on each of the major social media platforms that you may not be taking full advantage of. I see people all the time on LinkedIn, for example, where their headline is just, you know, their job title. That's not taking full advantage of that branding opportunity. If you don't have, you know, your cover image on something, that's not taking full advantage of those branding opportunities.

19:32So I go through a whole list for each of the major platforms of just that low hanging fruit that does the passive branding for you. Someone will hear about you on a podcast like this one. They'll go do their research. They'll look you up. They'll encounter your digital footprint. So this is making sure that those digital homes will really do as much passive work for you as possible in terms of educating people on the consistency of your personal brand. Christine Gritman, long-time friends, six, getting on six plus years. Again, your website, gritman.com. And Christine, thank you so much for sharing your time today.

20:12Thank you so much for having me and sharing your audience today.

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