0 (1s):
Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Female Startup Club. Today, we'll be breaking down why, why personal branding is the future of marketing to drop these value bombs? I brought AJ Vaden into EOFire studios. AJ is the CEO and co-founder of the personal brand strategy from a brand builders group, as well as an eight figure entrepreneur international speaker and Co-Host of The Influential Personal Brand podcast. And today Fire Nation, we'll be talking about what industries personal branding has the biggest impact on some specific examples.

0 (46s):
We'll talk about which titles carry the most credibility in the marketplace and insider tracks on marketing tactics that we should be focusing on and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors as a small business owner paying and taking care of your team can be tough. That's why Gusto built easy to use payroll benefits, onboarding and HR tools. And right now you'll get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation, wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnout tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

0 (1m 25s):
Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast , wherever you get your podcasts, AJ say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 41s):
Oh, I love this question. I like to be controversial. So I would say something I believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with is that I think you need to own your tax knowledge. I know so many people who think that just hiring a CPA or whatever is the, what they should be doing to own their financial situation. And I just really believe as an individual, as a business owner, entrepreneur, whatever that you really need to be just as in the loop into taxes as your CPA is,

0 (2m 15s):
Or you can just move to Puerto Rico, Fire Nation and never pay taxes. So it's like one of the two either get really deep in taxes or just move to a place where you don't pay taxes. So, as I mentioned, we're talking all about personal branding and why is the future of marketing? And I want to get the Dietz right now. AJ on what Americans let's look get specific on the U S population. Like what do they have to say about influencer marketing? Break that down for us?

1 (2m 45s):
Yeah. So I think one of the things that's really fascinating about this whole concept of influencer marketing and personal branding is there's a lot of misconceptions out there about what is an influencer and what is a personal brand. And I think most people assume that you have to be an influencer or an online celebrity or a TV personality to have a personal brand. And that's just not true. And so, as you know, our company brand builders group, we launched a huge nationwide study. Earlier this year, we spent almost six months. We hired an independent research from the center for generational kinetics and we went out and we wanted to know like, what are the impacts of personal branding of what does that mean to individuals and to companies right now?

1 (3m 29s):
And one of the biggest things that we wanted to know is what do you consider a personal brand? And the majority more than two thirds of Americans said that they simply see a personal brand as someone who is recognizable to them. Now, why is that significant? When it comes to influencer marketing is because really this is not about being an influencer. This is about being trustworthy. And as we went through this study, there is an underlying currency right now of what it means to have a personal brand. And it means that if you have a personal brand, we are more likely to trust you.

1 (4m 10s):
And it's got nothing to do with how many likes or follows or subscribers or engagement you have. It's are you trustworthy?

0 (4m 19s):
It's just five simple letters, Fire Nation, T R U S T. But it means so much. Are you trustworthy? What are you doing to be transparent about what you're doing in business being open, honest, generous, think about those things and think, you know, with yourself in the shoes of your perfect listener or a consumer of your content or purchaser or client or customer, what are they viewing me as? Are they viewing me as trustworthy? Am I doing things this building up that trust? So AJ what industries specifically does. Personal branding seem to have the biggest impact on with all of your studies in this?

1 (5m 2s):
Yeah. This was fascinating to ask because as we kind of like discovered there's this underlying currency of trust being at the forefront of why personal branding has become such a hot topic, it's I would say it's not even trendy. It's a necessity. I really do believe that. And we went through and we said, well, Ben, what industries does it have the most impact on? And by far and large, the most impact that personal branding has are any industry that requires a higher level of trust. And so there was a ton of that, that weighted into the professional services categories, but there were, there were two industries specifically, I would say, even just, I would just call them even just positions.

1 (5m 49s):
But American said that the most important roles, the most important people that need to have a personal brand are doctors and lawyers. And the third one was your employer. So doctors, lawyers, and employers, and as we really dug into that data, it, there, there became a really simple kind of, I would just say a sum of what all of this really meant. It's like the more that this industry requires trust, the more established your personal brand must become. And when you think about it, it's like you better trust your doctor.

1 (6m 29s):
Your life is in their hands and you better trust your lawyer. Your freedom is in their hands and equally you better trust your employer because your livelihood is in their hands. And it's all, all these front facing components of do I know you do I align with you? Can I trust you have a lot to do with, will I spend my money with you

0 (6m 51s):
Foundation? Think about it. I mean, whenever you hear somebody saying, man, I need to go get this, you know, incredibly dangerous or potentially life-threatening surgery. They never say I'm going to like the person down the street. They're like, I'm flying cross country. I'm going to this person. Who's the most world renowned individual. Cause guess what? That person has personal brands. They have trust. They have the ingredients that we need to really put our life in. Individual's hands, our freedom and individual's hands. And that's a great takeaway. Now, Asia, we do love examples. So can you share some recent case studies on how companies are actually leveraging personal brands to gain market share in their vertical?

1 (7m 35s):
So I can give a couple of really good examples and then a couple of like when you don't have it, what happens? But I think the best case study right now about this is at Victoria secrets. And so if any of your listeners Victoria's secret, they are doing something really phenomenal right now. And whether or not you're fans of them or not is not here nor there. But earlier this year they launched one of the largest corporate rebrands in recent history. And over the last decade, Victoria secret has been losing pretty significant market share with the upcoming brands like third love and these online brands where they can ship and do it too at home.

1 (8m 15s):
And there's just been this consensus of Victoria secrets is really becoming synonymous with a certain look and feel, right? So earlier this year they said, we are going to eradicate the angels. We no longer want to be synonymous with Victoria secret angels. And they completely got rid of that. That's a big deal because that had become a core part of their iconic brand over the last 10 years, it's a really big deal. And instead, like I said, we're not going to keep doing what we've been doing that hasn't been working, which is dumping tons of money into corporate advertising and marketing. And instead they said, we're going to go out and we're going to hunt for a select few individuals, women who are known for their accomplishments more than their measurements.

1 (8m 60s):
And we're going to take these women who have a very trustworthy audience and a very large digital following, and we're going to make them the faces of Victoria secret. And you've got people like Priyanka Chopra. You've got people like Megan Rapinoe. You've got all these really well-known established individuals, but here's the thing is they're all very diverse. You've got a famous soccer players. You've got Hollywood actresses, you have tech investors, you have photographic journalists, you have activists, you have refugees. And they're doing this intentionally to reach the markets that they're no longer penetrating. So they're taking these established personal brands, making them the face of Victoria secrets.

1 (9m 44s):
So they have access to these loyal followings of these individuals. And if you just take one person, you just take Priyanka Chopra who is also married to Nick Jonas, and you actually look at her following and she's got approximately three times the online following of the entire Victoria secret brand. Just one person

0 (10m 7s):
That is mind blowing stuff, Fire Nation. When you can just say today, that one person can have such a larger impact influence size of an audience than an entire brand that's been around for decades and decades. I mean, that's just something to really ponder on. So AIG bond rock.

1 (10m 27s):
Yeah. I would say, well, in addition to that, it's like kind of on that same concept. So Coca-Cola right. Coca-Cola is a super iconic brand. And I haven't been around for decades. They've been around for almost a hundred years, right? A very long time. And earlier this year at that, this is, I am not a super soccer fan. I am new to soccer. I do Peewee soccer with my toddlers. So I know just enough to be dangerous here, but because of this case study, I've become very acquainted with at least one soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo and Christiana. Renaldo is the number one Instagram user worldwide. He has more than 500 million followers just on Instagram.

1 (11m 12s):
Y'all, there's only 350 million people who live in the United States. He has 500 million followers. He like it's an entire continent, right? So he was at a press conference earlier this year for the Euro 2020 match that they were doing in June. And Coca-Cola was one of the sponsors of this match. And he sat down for this press conference and sitting in front of him where two bottles of Coke right now, backstory, Christiana Rinaldo is famously known for his strict diet and nutrition regimen. He's incredibly disciplined. It's a huge part of his platform, his personal brand, what he talks about, what he believes in.

1 (11m 52s):
So when he sits down and he sees these two bottles of Coke, he doesn't say anything. He puts his hand down and shoves them out of the way and sets down a bottle of Disani water. Also owned by Coca-Cola locked away, but he sets it down. By the end of that press conference Coca-Cola stock prices. Their shares had gone down 4 billion with a B $4 billion. So you see the power of one individual who this is not just about influencing our purchase decisions. Our, our engagement, right? This is, this is influencing share value and stock prices of a hundred year old, iconic global brand.

1 (12m 38s):
One person did that. And then you've got the examples of people like Elon Musk. Great. And this has nothing to do with Tesla, but Elon Musk has also become quite synonymous with Bitcoin, right? And I, if you just follow cryptocurrency and the Bitcoin values just in 2021, you can literally trace them back to Elon. Musk's tweet, right? It's like in January, 2021, he starts and he changes his handle like to hashtag Bitcoin, right? Prices just go skyrocket just a few months later, talks about Tesla, maybe taking those as a type of currency payment for Teslas.

1 (13m 20s):
Then he changes his mind and he reverses it. And you can literally see, this is fluctuating up, down, up, down, up down. So you've got people influencing purchase behavior. You've got people influencing markets, and now you have MP people influencing entire currencies because of this very established personal brand where people go, I trust you because I like you. I follow you. I align with you. So I'm going to do what you say.

0 (13m 47s):
This is really interesting stuff. Fire Nation, when you really dive in to everything that Aja is sharing. I mean, when somebody who is running a car company, Tesla can now go ahead and tweet something about doge coin or Bitcoin, or fill in the blank, even politics sometimes. I mean, he had a really interesting tweet the other day about politics. It can literally move mountains. I mean, mountains are being moved on tweets on posts on actions like were noddles action of just shoving away. A couple of Coca-Cola cans. Mountains can be moved. Billions can be made or lost. It is absolutely fascinating. And we're going to be diving into a lot more details when it comes to all of this.

0 (14m 30s):
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0 (16m 36s):
We are back. And this is an audio only podcast. Or you would have seen me physically push away Coca-Cola cans as well, because I gotta be honest not to go on a little bit of a rant, but to me it is mind blowing. When you have like real professional athletes or people that promote health and wellness literally align their brands with something that is so unhealthy for you, like a sugar water or something like that. So a person personally, like I applaud when somebody like run all those steps up and says, Hey, like, I'm not going to have this associated with me. They're not going to like try to sneak in a brand association with me because I'm in the same camera frame as this. If I could have anything to say about it.

0 (17m 15s):
So kudos to that. And what does that do? Fire Nation that builds up what agent I were talking about earlier. Trust. I trust AIG. I trust AJ of course, cause she's on the show here, but I trust Rinaldo more now because he did something like that. Whereas if I see an athlete promoting some kind of sugary cereal as the breakfast of champions, I'm like that person's a sellout that person's sold out. Now everybody does like a little flex AIG. Let's be honest. Can you share what titles carry the most credibility in our marketplace

1 (17m 49s):
Today? Yes. This is a huge, interesting aha moment for us. Cause we, we wanted to know two different things when we did this study and one is, we wanted to know what were the most important deciding factors to someone when they were making a decision of whom to purchase from. And then we also wanted to know simultaneously what type of titles, right? Positions hold the most credibility in the marketplace. And so this is kind of like a two-part answer here, if that's okay. The first part is like, okay, when you're making a decision to hire someone, we wanted to know what is most important to you in making that decision.

1 (18m 30s):
And so in this study we asked Americans the pick, the top three things that were most important to them. And it was a list of like 20 things. And it was anything from having a viral Ted talk to a YouTube show to a very large social media, following social media, following lots of engagement. Is it important that they have a podcast or a book or a blog or a nice website, should they be speaking and consulting and training all these different things? Here's what was fascinating. It was none of those things, right? It just completely blew our mind. 62% of Americans said the most important factor to them when deciding whom to buy from was whether or not this individual had third party testimonials, like it's crazy.

1 (19m 17s):
And here's why it was so crazy to me is like, this is the cheapest, fastest, easiest thing that we can do. Like if anyone is listening to this podcast, you could literally get out of this podcast, get out of your car, stop, whatever you're doing. And by the end of today, you could have testimonials video and writing, right? But you could not launch a, a well-known podcast. You could definitely not launch it. You knew her time's best-selling book. You may not even be able to write a blog, but you could get testimonials. And what Americans are saying is like, I want third-party validation from other people who have worked with you or bought from you to confirm that you are who you say you are and you do what you say you're going to do.

1 (19m 59s):
And so testimonials with far far and beyond 62%. So that was the most important. The second thing that I thought was fascinating on this particular data point was that you can have a blog, a self published book, a traditionally published book, or a New York times bestselling book. And those four things held the exact same weight when it comes to credibility and deciding whom to buy from. I'll just pause for a second because I know your notice, how long does it take to write a blog? And then how long does it take to actually write a book and then how much money, time and resources would it take to get it out where it would actually be a New York times bestseller and Americans are going kind of like the same thing it's blowing.

1 (20m 48s):
And it's like, the things that we think are really important. Aren't so much that important when it comes to actual dollars and cents. And then we said, okay, well, those are the factors. Well, when we think about ourselves as individuals, as professionals, right? Well then what titles hold the most importance to you? Like what titles have the most credibility? And so again, there were all different types of titles. They're probably like 15 different types of titles that we gave people the option to choose from. We said, pick the number one, but here are the top three. It was CEO, founder, an expert. And then at the bottom of the barrel at the very bottom of the list, there were things like coach trainer and host, but expert, founder and CEO were the three most credible titles of Americans going, Hey, if you want me, if you want me to see you as a credible resource of a credible individual, this is what holds a lot of weight to.

0 (21m 48s):
I just want to say, after hearing everything that you've been sharing AGA to me, it kind of just continues to come around to this theme that we're talking about, which is trust. It all comes back to trust. Like what can we do as business owners to build trust testimonials, video written? I mean, you know, these kind of things that people, most people don't even understand, like what a New York times bestselling book, like what it entails. They don't really get it. So they just don't necessarily put a ton of trust into it. So think about this, like trust is key and you can be going after the low hanging fruits that can build you almost immediate trust. Cause like AGA was sharing. You could potentially have some of this today done today.

0 (22m 31s):
Now let's talk about some marketing tactics that we should be focusing on to get the most impact for our business.

1 (22m 39s):
Part of this study was determining what are the impacts of personal branding, right? And what we found is that 74% of Americans said they are more likely to trust you. If you have an established personal brand and established personal brand to most Americans is someone who is simply recognizable. And so we really found that this entire study really boiled down into three really important things for all of us. One, we believe that personal branding truly is the future of marketing. Gen Z says that personal branding to them is not a thing of popularity and vanity, but it is a critical and essential part of doing business, not in the future, but today that's the first thing.

1 (23m 23s):
The second thing is that personal branding is highly profitable. In fact, 82%, this was the largest majority statistic of the entire research study. 82% of Americans say that companies are more influential and effective. If the founders or leaders have an personal brand. In other words, someone that we can see know and learn from, and then last but not least is that personal branding is a trust accelerator. So I'll take that to kind of answer this question and a huge marketing tactic is how can you become more well known for what you want to be known for?

1 (24m 9s):
Because at its core, that is a personal brand. It's a proactive approach to building your reputation of becoming known for what you want to be known for. And in order to do that, you have to be able to be seen, heard, and you have to provide value to people way before they ever want to transact with you. It's like we are seeing that, you know, trust is the new currency and people are going, no, I need information. I need value from you before. I'm willing to give you my money before I'm willing to commit myself to you. I want you to be giving me stuff way in advance. In other words, I want to be able to get to know you and learn from you way before I ever meet you.

1 (24m 51s):
And so we wanted to do some digging into, well, what does that really mean then? And we think one of the most important things that we learned through this entire study is what does it mean for someone to be able to see, you know, you and learn from you? And so I'll, I'll break those each of those down and like really quick highlight moments. So to be seen, right, there are two different ways you can build a personal brand. I E reputation. There is an online personal brand. So that's, you know, you've got podcasting blogging, you've got your website, you've got social media. I think those things are important. There is also another component to this though. It's your offline, personal brand. It's do you even know what you stand for and do the people around, you also know what you stand for.

1 (25m 37s):
So it's your employees or your employers, right? It is the local chamber of commerce in your community. It's the nonprofit that you volunteer at. It's the networking group that you go to. It's your local church, it's whatever, but it's, there's an offline component of this, of getting really clear of this is what I want to be known for. And I'm going to make sure other people know me for this. And there is an online part where there's social media and there's content and others, all that, but there's an offline part that costs no money. I just take some time and some strategy to get clear on what do I want to be known for and what do I want to be synonymous with?

1 (26m 18s):
Right? So there's this, you have to be seen part, but then people have to know you, right? And here's what I think is really important. As you think about where you're investing time and money and resources on the online part. One of the things that we've found is that the majority of all millennials, right, and millennials, you may not think you're a millennial out there and you probably are because we define, as millennials are age 26 to 44, that's right. That's 4, 4 44. You are probably a millennial and you didn't even know that you were surprised. You're welcome. You just bounced back a generation. So that's good. But here's one of the things I think is really fascinating is that they said that you are way more influential if you promote content and ideas more than products and services.

1 (27m 9s):
And so you've got to pause for a second and go, okay, like when it comes to content and ideas, I, how am I giving value that isn't just directly connected to my product or my service because we're looking for value, not just stuff to buy, right? So what, what can you educate me on? And then simultaneously they also hope said, and this wasn't just specific to millennials. This was across all generations. That as much as I want to learn about what you do, I want to learn about who you are. And this was the part where I think is really important for us. If you don't take anything else away from my time on here today, it's take, this is that it is more important for people to learn and know who you are than what you do.

1 (27m 59s):
And this is, again, the part that's free and cheap and easy is people want to know you as a person. They want to know what you do on the weekends, what you do with your family. It's like, I know we all think like, no one cares. If I'm eating hot dogs at a baseball game, but we actually do. That's the part that's endearing. That's the part that's humanizing. That's the part that's relatable. If all I do is see you in a suit and a boardroom, it's like, that's not, that's not who you are. That's what you do. But we really want to meet more of the human component of what you are. And so how do you do that? And I think you just have to be really intentional of going. There is a part of my life that I'm willing to share.

1 (28m 40s):
And I know plenty of us out there going there's parts. I don't want to share, but just be intentional. Have a plan, have a strategy. Like I tell people who want to follow me online. If you want to get to know me as a human, like a mom, a wife, a believer, someone who watches way too much, Ted I'm, somebody who like likes to dress up when they're going nowhere at home, they follow me on Instagram. Cause you're going to like get a lot of Halloween costumes and pictures of my awesome kids. That's what you're going to get. But you're not going to learn a lot from me on Instagram, this Bambi and real. But if you want to learn about leadership, sales, entrepreneurship, personal branding, I will inundate you with information on LinkedIn, but you ain't going to learn about me much as a human there.

1 (29m 24s):
And so it's like, I'm really strategic of going. This is how you get to know me. And then I've got a, I've got a plan of how to do that, but it's like, I need people to get to know me as a person, not just about what I do. And so when you think about marketing, like a huge part of what I want to is like, this is not about paid ads and boosts posts and tons of engagements and followers. I'm a big believer. You don't have to make millions of dollars, have millions of followers to make millions of dollars, but you do gotta be real and you gotta be you. And the more that you can do that, the better, this all works together.

0 (30m 0s):
Fire Nation. There's a lot that was shared today. And again, it's all circling back to where you doing to build trust in your community. So AJ take it home for us. I feel like the theme has been hammered home. I know you have a real cool call to action for our listeners. And then we'll say,

1 (30m 20s):
Yeah, if I would just say for anyone who wants to get more info like this, it's like, we want you to download this study. And I know that John's going to like put a show. He's going to put a link in the show notes, but here's my biggest call to action to everyone out there. It's like, when download this study, you need it. You need to read it. This is going to impact you and your business today and in the future. And if I was going to leave all of you with one thing, it would be, this is like, it is not about what you do. It is about who you are. So figure out what you want to be known for and then get a plan to be known for that thing. It will grow your business. It will grow your life.

0 (30m 57s):
What is the call to action for Fire Nation?

1 (31m 0s):
Yeah. Go to brainbuildersgroup.com/study. Get this study, read it, use it, implement it.

0 (31m 7s):
Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with A and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com and just type AV in the search bar. And her show notes page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about here today. Best show notes in the biz and Fire Nation, as always remember, say what's up to our guests on social. So check out AJ there and AIG, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bound content was brought to you by AJ and Fire Nation. If you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, the podcast journal is for you.

0 (31m 52s):
It is gorgeous. It is full leather and it will guide you step-by-step and both the creation and the launch of your podcast. In 50 days, that's five zero. Visit the podcastjournal.com the podcastjournal.com and I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, as a small business owner paying and taking care of your team can be tough. That's why Gusto built easy to use payroll benefits, onboarding and HR tools. And right now you'll get three months free. When you run your first payroll at gusto.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation, wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnout tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast , wherever you get your podcasts.