Building Your Personal and Business Brand on LinkedIn from the Ground Up. Guest Michelle B Griffin

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: Welcome everyone to the Good For Business Show, which is also doubling up today as the launch party in ANZ for The LinkedIn Branding Book. And I have my co-author here with me, Michelle B. Griffin.

Michelle B Griffin: Oh my goodness. Good to be here. I'm M one and you're M two. We're Michelle Squared, so it's a double party today.

Michelle J Raymond: I know and people often say, why M1 and M2, it's easy because it's in alphabetical order. It's much simpler for everyone to remember us. So we just answer to most things these days, and as you always say, we finish each other's sentences, so it makes it really easy. But for people who for some reason have not come across you, who are you, what do you do, and who do you help?

Michelle B Griffin: Oh, I love those simple questions. So I'm Michelle B. Griffin. I am a personal brand strategist, which that means I really focus on the strategy part. So if you are confused and have no professional clarity and really need that grounding clarity work to know who you are, what you stand for in your professional life, either as a business entrepreneur, I'm the person who gives you that personal brand plan, because as you know, foundational personal branding is the way to go. So there you go. That's what I do.

Michelle J Raymond: You sure do, and I am probably exhibit A, because you have helped me over the last two and a half years, behind the scenes where people don't often see the work that you do, because a lot of what you do is working one on one with clients. It's not about posting on the platform, that's not personal branding.

What is personal branding to you? And then we'll jump into some of the bits about the book.

Michelle B Griffin: Well, thank you for asking because as you know, I get gritty because personal branding has gotten a bad rap, and I know on this platform it gets misconstrued as, posting social media management, content and that's a fraction of it.

So personal branding is the intentional and strategic, the word strategic way of dialing out who you are, what you stand for, positioning yourself. So that you do become top of mind, you're known and the thing about it is as a brand is created, we do what we can to communicate. But at the end of the day, it's our people that know and like us based on their perception. So it's a perception, it's a promise, but it's being intentional. I'm one of those people that do not believe this cliche that everyone has a personal brand, okay? We say that in the book because a personal brand is an intentional and really directed way to, you know, communicate who you are to the world.

Everyone has a reputation. Absolutely right. Sometimes good or bad. And as Warren Buffet says, it takes 20 years to build it in like these days, five seconds to ruin it on social media. So there's a huge difference, and I'm excited because in the book we wrote together, The LinkedIn Branding Book, we get to really expand on that.

Michelle J Raymond: For those of you that are gonna be listening into this podcast, if you are going onto Amazon, it is the hot pink LinkedIn Branding Book. So why did we make it hot pink? Michelle? Tell people cuz it's deliberate. Nothing that we've done in this book has been by accident. So why choose hot pink for a LinkedIn book?

Michelle B Griffin: Oh my gosh. Cause that is our brand. We wanted to communicate who we are. We actually originally started as a LinkedIn audio show for women, and we just wanted to be vibrant and fun and bubbly and approachable, and we just love that. That's our two brand colors combined.

We also stand out, you go search LinkedIn books on Amazon, we are the only non blue one. You know, we are pink, we stand out. There's some white ones, but we want it to be top of mind. We wanted to communicate fun, approachability, relatability, and hopefully that is coming across so far, so good.

Michelle J Raymond: Now, one of the things that I know if I wanted to press your buttons when it comes to branding, and obviously I work with clients now building business brands on LinkedIn, but if I wanted to press your buttons, I would say, well really Michelle, that's all branding is branding's just picking some colors and a logo. So that's probably the first thing that pops up. So let's just get that out there, that that is not branding. So what is branding to you? What other pieces of the puzzle do people need to consider?

Michelle B Griffin: Oh my goodness. Thank you for bringing that up. It's just one part, you know, I talk about in the book, or we both talk about in the book, and I especially get really excited, is the brand trifecta.

Michelle J Raymond: We've got three parts to creating our brand and the visual aspect is just one of them. One of the things that we do in the branding book is just talk about how that's where my level of branding started. Back in the beginning it was literally colors. It wasn't even a font. I didn't really design the logo. I just palmed it off. But what are the other bits that I should have been thinking about?

Michelle B Griffin: So your foundational strategy. There's a whole core thing of like who you are, your internal dialogue of who you are, your missions, your values, all the things that you wanna communicate and what you wanna stand for.

And that is dictated by the verbal and the visual that we bring out. So when you do the core part, You can expand out and it directs why you should pick colors, why you should have this kind of tone, why you should have this messaging. And it also comes into play of who you're here for, right? Because it's not just for you.

A brand is for others. It's a brand and a promise for others, essentially. So we get really gritty, and I'll give you an example. . I was looking for a client for something as an example to use. So I went on Canva and I just wanted to see if they had any like templates I could use for them to start something.

So I Googled in Canva brand boards or brand strategy or something. And of course Canva is gonna say this, but it was really irritating to me that all they had were colors, logos, and fonts and pictures. And it's like, are you serious? There's so much more to a brand and that's what we want to communicate now, you know why it's not fun?

Because it's almost the intangibility that you can't see and no one wants that. They want the fun stuff. Right.

Michelle J Raymond: As you know we share about this, I come from a sales background and in my mind, who cares about branding, who cares about marketing? Sales are the heroes of the whole story. Now, that's me two years ago, and of course I've had to eat humble pie. Shout out to our friend Brenda Meller, cause when it comes to pie, that's all I think about. That's her brand. Social media pie. But you know, I've had to learn that branding is actually the key that unlocks the door so that the salesperson can walk through so that you can have those opportunities come to you or open up the door where you can go and find them yourself.

And so I have been on a journey, I've obviously helped a lot of clients build their business brands on LinkedIn over the last couple of years, and there's a lot that I've learned and most of them, as you say, it's not posting, it's not, you know, the content that, that is so far down the track. But we wanted to write a book, and you and I had this idea earlier this year, and I'm sure that there's probably been moments where we're like, why did we do this?

Because it's not easy. If it was, everybody would do it. I'm proud that we kept going and I love that we've done it. But what's the idea behind The LinkedIn Branding Book? What was the reason?

Michelle B Griffin: The reason is it wasn't for us. I mean, we say it specifically. We wrote this book for you. We wrote it for the people on the sidelines who are held back in hidden and just really wanna get out LinkedIn and share their wisdom and their talents and just get out there to help people. And so we wrote it for them. Okay. We wrote it to help more people get out there and make a bigger impact on LinkedIn.

And we share our stories. We share our lessons, our failures, as you say. I think you wrote that line. I'll give you that ,warts and all. By sharing a journey, we wanna encourage those to come along and say, you can do it. We've done it. We are here to support you. And so that was our North Star, those nine months from idea to publication.

And I can tell you now that it's out, it's making it even more, um, a just a strong desire to make it even bigger and happen and do more things with it. So when you have your North Star, your why, for your brand. And there you go. That's actually our brand mission. We started that brand mission before we even wrote the book.

The book is now a tool to communicate that in a bigger way.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, cuz we would love to have a much bigger impact out in the world. So my mission for my business, besides, you know, doing good business with good people goes further than that. Because I want businesses to grow, to create more employment so people have choices. So we live in a better world. Like that's what it is for me. The more people I can reach and the more people I can help grow their businesses, then a better world we live in, in my mind and there's lots of different ways you can have an impact in the world. And for me, it doesn't matter what one it is, you can choose, but LinkedIn is the place I think that when you hold onto that brand, you can scale it to levels that you can't just do by yourself in everyday life. And that's the opportunity.

Let's talk about the actual structure of The LinkedIn Branding Book, because that's something that we started writing and then we scrapped it because neither you or I wanted to read the book that we started writing.

 That was something that I think was one of those pivotal moments, that has now created a book that I'm, excited, thrilled, proud that it's gonna go out to people. But how did we get to this version of the book?

Michelle B Griffin: Well, after a lot of weekly meetings and WhatsApps and just knowing that we want to make it simple for people. There's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of reports and this, and do this and do that. And we said, you know what? We're not breaking up everything. Why not bring the best of us, the best of what LinkedIn has to offer, combine it, cross pollinate it, and then find a really solid way to do it that's evergreen, right?

This is almost like how to hack the algorithm, do it with the system, because before we even get on LinkedIn, it's like halfway down the road. We are starting first with we call it the Brand Squared System. I guess we should come out and say that we, Michelle Squared, created Brand Squared. The power of two is our tagline, and that's another thing, part of our brand, because what did we tackle first Michelle? Something that I really had a problem with when I first met you two years ago.

Michelle J Raymond: It's mindset, it's the first step and I got the opportunity to go out and meet some people last night. It was my first time, face to face to actually talk to people and the book came up that it had just launched and it was really interesting cause I was surrounded by people who work in comms and marketing and digital agencies and all of them were petrified about writing on LinkedIn.

That is exactly our ideal avatar that we wrote this book for, because a branding book that doesn't address mindset straight up, you might as well throw the rest of the book in the bin, because people won't take action. Now you and I have a podcast together and every week we talk about actions people can take because we don't want this to be something where you just sit back and listen and go, oh, isn't it nice? It's good for Michelle and Michelle. Uh, but you know, it wouldn't work on me. Well, actually it does, but you've gotta take the steps. So tell me how Mindset came into it for you, because you share your story, our stories are so different, but what is it that mindset had the biggest impact for you?

Michelle B Griffin: Mindset really took me too long and I don't want anyone to waste the time I did before I even left my job in, in getting on LinkedIn, I had to realize that nothing was gonna happen, nothing changes unless nothing changes. So I had to take action. So I sat on the sidelines far too long and I realized no one's gonna give me permission.

I don't need perfection and the only way to get what I really wanted was to take that baby step. Now, as we talk about, for me, my baby step was a huge jump off a cliff. For others, as we talk about in the book, you can make a little micro impression to get out there, but as cliche as it sounds, action is, I think there's a quote I shared in the book.

Action brings clarity, courage, okay? First, you have the courage. When you take action, you get courage, and then you get some clarity and then you get the confidence. Now, what changed things for me is, you know, me, I, I went. I'm all or nothing, right? So last year in 2021, I decided I was gonna post every single day.

Now that's a crazy leap, right? But that ingrained in me the knowledge that I can do this and not that anyone has to ever, ever or should they post every single day? That was nuts. But when I take action, things started making sense faster. And so we get back into the mindset by first identifying your fears cause there's a lot of 'em.

And then your excuses. Because when I realized those six months, the advantage of six months waiting in 2020, I was really self-aware by the time I met you, Michelle, I was at that end of that six months and I think shortly after that, I think I started posting because I was so self-aware and I just had to, just had to go.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah and I'm gonna say it's probably a bit of my, influence on you, and I'm gonna take the credit for some of it because I'm completely the opposite to you. I am diving in the deep end with those sharks, as you always say, and that doesn't come without, its, ups and downs just as much. The reason that you and I shared our story, so I'm the opposite.

 I quit one day out of the blue. Had no intentions until something happened. It forced me to quit my job and then I say I'm never gonna work for anyone else again. And then I set about trying to work out what that business would be, not knowing. I didn't have a clue. I'm not that person that's been sitting there planning for five years like you were. It was literally the big bang. Wake up the next day. I'm not working for anyone. Off you go. You're now a business owner. Now, that was one hell of a learning curve and one that I'm still on today, like a few years down the track. But the thing is that we wanted to share with people that mindset piece.

For me, it was like the doubt that came up. Would people pay me? Did I know enough? I have a thing that I didn't study at university, so what gives me the right to be able to teach other people about this stuff, I felt like a fraud. Um, so things like that came up for me. Other things came up for you, but it doesn't matter, as we say in the book, whether you're a CEO or you're a Gen Z, having your first job out in the world, the same things come up universally for everybody.

And so that's why we started with Mindset. So we wanna get you in the right frame of mind, then we're gonna move on to Foundations. Your next favorite part. Talk about foundations because I think this is the part that people like myself, when we're diving in that deep end, we jump over that step to try and get busy to try and take action and if I could rewind the clock two years, that's the step that I would go back and pay more attention to. So why is foundations important?

Michelle B Griffin: It's you're everything. It's like carving out your core. The best analogy is to say, it's like building a house without a blueprint or a foundation. You wanna just rush to decorate it, pick the paint swabs and new couches. All the pretty things that we rush to and we say, you have to do the work. And I get it. It seems like why would I wanna do that? But when you absolutely have clarity on who you are professionally and personally too. It's just so much easier. You're not gonna waste time, you're not gonna waste sanity, you're not gonna waste money.

You know, the five years that I suffered, I had too many ideas, I had too many things, and if I had just found someone who would help me pick out the ideas and the things that I needed to know, we're so close to what we do. Michelle, on the personal brand side, it's. So hard to be the consumer of our own brand.

So getting the clarity as a business, as an employee brand, as a side brand and whatever. We absolutely know who we are and like identity is everything. So then you can translate it and it makes sense to then go into the, the pretty stuff, the colors, the content. Who are you writing for? Get some guardrails. In fact, we have a workbook because action is so important to us, and this foundational part is so important to us.

We want you to take what you've learned in the book and with some things that we've put in there to get those guardrails so that you have a foundation to know where you stand and then you can align because that's the next step.

Michelle J Raymond: I would describe my brand as the Frankenstein brand. I've come up with a word for it. We're gonna take pieces from everywhere and bolt them on as I grew, and then eventually I'm like, here's my brand. Or maybe it's the Michelangelo theory where you just, you know, chip away everything until you're left with the statue. Um, I don't know which way it is, but I feel like it was more the Frankenstein, you know, kind of relatable to me because I didn't know what I didn't know, and that's why I love that we spent time on Foundation in the Brand Square System because for someone like me working in sales, I worked in corporate, there was always another team that handled all of that stuff. It wasn't my job. I didn't have any involvement in it. It was all just handled.

And as far as I was concerned, I dumbed down their job, down to, I don't know, organizing stuff for the exhibition booths at conferences, you know, like make them look pretty, make sure we've got giveaways I've apologized to lots of marketing people, for my thoughts, and I'm sure it's the other way around that marketing people think sales don't do anything.

It's something that you have to learn and grow into. So setting up the foundations, we've got those sorted. And then what was important to us, so we've got our mindset sorted in the Brand Squared System as step one, step two, we go into Foundations. Step three we're gonna go into Fusion.

And so Fusion for me was bringing it all together. keeping everything in alignment because I realized what I was doing, Michelle is I wanna try everything, you know I do. So I wanted to work out how do you do a YouTube channel? How do you do a podcast? How do you do a newsletter? How do you do a company page newsletter?

How do you do this? And I worked it all out. But then I realized that there was bits and pieces. That I forgot to go back and update and one thing looked one way, one thing looked another way, and they weren't actually driving everyone down the same path for my brand and it's not just about what they look like.

It was the words I use, it's the strategy behind each of those tools. I didn't set myself up for success, and that's something that I'm planning as we're coming into 2023. That's what I'm planning to do, is to actually take a minute. Sit down and go, what's working? How can I bring them into alignment?

And you know, one of the points that we raise is refining over time because brands aren't set in stone, right?

Michelle B Griffin: We grow and you know, that's one of my favorite phases too. Because after you get that strategy, then you're ready to implement it before, just like Foundation. We start with, let's assess where you, who you are, where you are, and where you wanna go.

The fusion is the same thing. Now that you have your strategy, we're gonna take your personal company brand and we hope that you have a company brand. If not, this is a great time to start one, right? And so we, we do a little, let's see where we are because we always have to assess that baseline.

So we do that and then we show you how, the top level stuff to do, but refining, I even say that in the workbook. Hey, none, none of this is set in stone. We want you to get out there with this, but we want you to pay attention and measure what matters. You know why you're gonna pay attention not to you, but to the audience you're here to speak.

What resonates with them, what they are really into. That's where you need to go deeper and stronger. So that's how you grow, because nothing is worse than complacency. Right. As they say, the expression, we've always done it this way, is probably the kiss of death, right? And so we never want to stay in our comfort zones as a personal brand or business brand. That's, that's boring. That's, that's not growth.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah. The word that you use often is clarity. And I think when you refine it and you bring everyone on board on that journey, whether you're an employee reading this book, you know this book works for you. Whether you're a business owner, the book works for you because you can look at it from those different perspectives because you're all playing on the same team.

 This is what I'm trying to say to people, you can build personal brands and you can build a company brand and you can both grow together. That's what we talk about, the power of two. Rather than cutting off opportunities and just going, look, the company's gonna go this way, and individuals are gonna go that way.

Why not bring them together? And everything about you and I, and this is probably the theme that runs through this book so strong is how do you bring things together? Fusion is definitely, that space for me is it's taking the best of the best, having a look around what works for you.

 If you are someone that wants a prescription and you want #MichelleSquared to tell you what to do on LinkedIn, sorry. This is the wrong book because we refuse to tell you what to do because we don't know your resources. Mm-hmm. , we don't know your goals. We don't know what you'd like to achieve. We don't know where you're at in your LinkedIn journey, but if you do the work and follow the workbook that we've put together, that comes, attached to this already amazing book and if you listen to the podcast episodes that are also scattered throughout, you will be able to define it for yourself and I think our thing that we're trying to achieve here, Michelle, is you actually won't need us you know,

Michelle B Griffin: That's the plan, right? Because we wanna get more people out. And so we need volume here. We need more people to learn on their own and do those brilliant things they're here to do. So that's why it's a very important diy. And the beautiful thing is a workbook. We want you to take action. We're not gonna tell you what to do. The one thing we'll tell you what to do is take action. So on your terms, your way.

Beautiful thing is our workbook even has four episodes, companion episodes that go with each phase of the system. So if you're one of those people that really like hearing us chatter and talk and get gritty and non cliche, we do it right?

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that leads us into step four of the Brand Squared System.

So we've sorted our. We've set up a really strong Foundation in step two, step three, we've brought it all into alignment. Our personal brand, our company brand, our other social media platforms, our website, like they all have to be going down the same path. But that brings it, I think it's probably my favorite.

Step, is the multipliers. Because multipliers for me is the one where you can outplay the algorithm. Algorithm who cares about it? When you build relationships at scale, you don't have to read a 57 page report that I know there's been a lot of work go into it, but. If you worry about hashtags more than you worry about people, your brand will become stagnant.

That's when you have to worry that you're not getting as many impressions. People that build relationships at scale are not worrying about their view numbers right now because they've built a community and community based branding for the next, you know, five, 10 years I think is what we're gonna see.

So talk about multipliers. So finding your partners. Building a community and amplifying your brand by bringing personal and business brands together.

Michelle B Griffin: Well, it's crosspollination borrowing other people's audience and just building people up at scale. And it is a powerful force that you can't almost build your brand.

Partners who are gonna build your brand faster than you can do it alone. We need community and we need other partners. Good examples of that and we add a lot in the book Power Partners. We call 'em referral partners in the book, but power partners are what you and I just, you know, we didn't set out to be our power partners.

We had just so much alignment. So much resonance together, that we just, you know, took it to a whole new level. Now that's not something like a brand you find overnight. You've gotta be out there looking and nurturing and dropping the seeds and see what grows. So that is going to be a way to build your brand and amplify it, multiply it.

Now, community. Gosh, community is something that's been a core value of mine ever since I was, you know, 10 years old and formed these little stupid clubs for the day or whatever. So, um, community is the place that you're gonna have brand ambassadors, you're gonna have people lift you up and you're gonna just again, as a like-minded group, cross pollinate each other and we give you some wonderful examples. How to build well they're LinkedIn groups officially, but you and I call 'em communities, which I love that term better. And uh, we give examples of our communities and then multiplying other ways. You know, that's so important. You're gonna get into other opportunities to have partnerships to get off LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is your launching pad. Think of it as amplifying your brand is LinkedIn is gonna elevate you to even more like outside speaking, podcasting, a little bit of PR if you will, media placements. That's all happened to you, Michelle, in the last year for being known as one thing and building your personal brand and company band very strongly.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, it was amazing. And you know, we talk about, I'm guilty of Googling my own name. I can't be the only one. Right. But when I started doing it two years ago, I would, you know, pick someone else that was in the industry and Google their name and they would have so much stuff come up and I would be deflated.

I'd be like, Oh, I don't have any of that comparisonitis is my, like one of my fears that kicks in that everyone else is better than me and whatever. We kick her to the curb as fast as possible. But what I noticed is over time, because as you helped me, I'm known for one thing company pages, now B2B branding and community.

But what happened was, now I get invited on guest positions on podcasts or lives, or, I've got a couple of books now that I've got out there and over time chipping away again cause it's not overnight success. There's nothing that we put in this book that is gonna give you, an overnight amazing result.

It's not, it takes time. Like, let's be real good things take time. So now when I do it, my name pops up in lots of different ways and it's something that I can be proud of and I seem to be finding myself using the word proud a lot in the last week. And as you know, me behind the scenes, it's not a word that I typically associate with myself, it's just I'm a hard marker on myself especially.

But when I look at it, and I think this book has been a great moment for you and I to stop, to look back, see where we were, my gosh. See where we're. And it is,

Michelle B Griffin: it's hard to believe it's, it's, and you know, we're doing this and the end result of course is us. But at the end of the day, I'm just really thrilled.

This is not a cliche and this is not just, you know, bs. I really know that we're making a bigger impact and that's what lights me up, that's why I left my job for entrepreneurship and my branding, cause I had such an inner calling Michelle to use my gifts and talents. Connect people and build communities.

I mean, connection is my top core value because that's what we're doing and we're just using LinkedIn as a platform and tool. But what a brilliant place. We're hovering a billion people globally. You never know who I mean, look at, we're 15. Well, Probably five. How many miles apart do you I was

Michelle J Raymond: taking a miles again, like, come on.

Michelle B Griffin: No miles, kilometers, or whatever the heck you call it, . 15 hours in time zones. That's pretty significant.

Michelle J Raymond: Pretty much. You couldn't be any further away from me if we tried, I think. And that is just incredible. And another, bit that has just made this book even more special because no matter how far away we are, we've never met face to face but our hearts are in exactly the same place. Like they are two parts of one. The fact that we've had so many people support us. Lil Is There and without her, I'm just gonna take a moment to say thank you.

 She will hate this, but I wanna thank you for everything you do for me in the background that no one ever sees. Like when I'm having the bad days, the good days. The ones where I don't know if this is gonna work out. She's the one that's there keeping me on track, keeping me on task, and she's my accountability partner to make sure that I keep doing the things that I need to do.

And typically they're the things I don't want to do. so I just wanted to say thank you, thank help, um, The LinkedIn Branding Book, it is available on Amazon. Already. Now we had a few technical glitches, so if anyone listening into this got a pre-order that was canceled, I'm sorry, you'll need to reorder.

It was Amazon, not us. We tried to bring the date forward and they canceled it instead. Please do reorder it. It's available, we promise. We also have a paperback, Michelle, your copy will arrive. I, I think Santa Claus is bringing it. Um, and probably , but we also have a full color hardback copy, which mine's coming I think, for Christmas. Cause it's gotta come from the US but it's a book that I think is easy to read. It's a pleasure to read and I've had to read it, how many times have we read it? I don't know about a million so far to proofread it, but to me it's not like any other branding book, and it's not like any other LinkedIn book.

So why should people buy this book, Michelle?

Michelle B Griffin: Because it's not a how to generic book. It's our stories. It's us conversationally. If you enjoy hearing us banter here on the podcast, it's just that in a book form we're being your helpful, friendly cheerleaders. Sometimes your action butt kickers in a lovely way, of course, and you're knowing you can do it at the end of the line.

Each chapter, there's Michelle's take Michelle M1's take and M2's take. So you've got two. The power of two. Double your advantage to get through the book and get on LinkedIn. In fact, you read the sales page and the back of the book and it will tell you right then and there. This is not the book that you would expect with a LinkedIn name on it.

Michelle J Raymond: Another thing that I'm proud of is that we stayed true to ourselves. Mm-hmm. , and that is what branding is about. Branding is not creating a fake version of yourself that you try and live into.

It is really how do you wanna appear to other people at your truest sense? Remove those filters, remove those layers. I call it your Digital Twin. You know, and I talk to, they're so busy trying to be a LinkedIn version of themselves. We wanna take that burden off you. We wanna encourage you to literally just be yourself because people are unique. You're amazing. You have a voice that we want other people are LinkedIn to hear.

 Michelle, every week, on our show, the LinkedIn Branding Show podcast, we talk about actionable tips, and I do that on this show as well. So, actionable tip besides go to Amazon and buy The LinkedIn Branding Book. That's your first one. You'll be able to download the workbook and you can already listen to the podcast episode. What's your actionable tip for this week?

Michelle B Griffin: Oh my goodness, there's so many. Where do I begin? Okay, so I'm gonna always have to part with the personal brand side. Okay. We're knowing that if you're a personal brand, you wanna get out there in a bigger way and, you know, do it authentically in your real self.

But sometimes it's so hard to be the consumer of your own brand, right? Like, oh, I have too many ideas. Trust me. I know. So one of the things I can really help you is I actually can put in a link there are free online assessments where you can say, oh, that's why I do this. That makes sense. So when you start looking at those five across the board and you see some commonalities, it just reaffirms. Who you are.

You know, a lot of personal branding people say, well go ask someone this and go ask someone that. That's important too. But when you know on your own self and your own time, I'm gonna take these assessments and what really resonates with me, it's gonna make sense. I'll give you an example. In July, I took I the paid Clifton Strengths and I realized empathy was my number one strength, which is crazy, right? Number two is ideation .

Michelle J Raymond: When, when these come out, I was like, Michelle, I could have told you that.

Michelle B Griffin: I didn't know it'd be number one, but number two, I thought it'd be ideation cause I'm like an idea person. Like I'd rather have ideas all day than implement 'em.

Right. You know that too cuz she wrote a book with me. I kept wanting to have all these ideas, but anyway, um, it was the clarity. It's the clarity. Okay? We're looking for clues here, like brand forensics, right? We're looking for clues. So that's my long winded but very important tip for today.

Michelle J Raymond: Look, I think it's really important. So my actionable tip, if you own a business, it's time to start investing in your business brand and your employees.

And I'm gonna put it out there that people, even if they're good at their jobs, does not mean that they're good at LinkedIn regardless of what that job is. So it's gonna take effort and time that can be working with M1 so that you can set up strong personal brands to actually get clear before you even start anything on LinkedIn. That can be working with me after that so that you can do LinkedIn training so you empower people. Let's just not assume that people know what they do. So for those of you and I put it in the book, and I will put my hand up for this little piece cuz it will read like it's me anyway. Is the piece about, yes, LinkedIn's human to human right. Absolutely.

Neither Michelle's, disagree with that. We absolutely are on board. But don't ignore your business brand just because you don't get the same reach on a company page. For those of you who listened to me two years ago when I told you, start investing in your page and you grew it for two years and got a head start, there were people kicking themselves that they didn't get started. Back two years ago.

Now, don't be that company that doesn't invest in your brand now because in two years time, when your competitors are even further in front of you, you are going to be kicking yourself again. And in business that costs dollars. And if you give your competitors a head start, it's like a vicious cycle.

They win more opportunities, they've got more revenue, they win more opportunities, they become bigger and so it's really a lot at stake. And branding is the way that you shortcut this.

Michelle, we have made it. Thank you for everything that you are doing to bring this project to life with me. It has been amazing to actually see it, and I promise you it will arrive on your doorstep

Michelle B Griffin: Someday.

Michelle J Raymond: But it's real. It's out there helping people in the world. It's doing exactly what we wanted to do.

Michelle B Griffin: I'm always gonna be grateful for you leading the way since you wrote one the a year ago to the day almost. Together we're only just beginning Michelle. That's the beauty. It's just beginning, right? So look out everybody 2023. We might even see M2 on this side of the world. That's my hope.

Michelle J Raymond: Calling all sponsors. If anyone wants to sponsor a little Aussie to do a global book tour, at least a US one. I have lots of stops that I could call in and see some very cool people who are part of our community. So, and to everybody that's part of our community, we appreciate you.

We couldn't do this without you. Your feedback and support has been amazing. So, on that note, I'm gonna wrap this up cuz otherwise you and I will talk for two and a half hours. It's been cool.

Awesome. Thank you. And thank you to everybody. Cheers.

Michelle B Griffin: Cheers everyone. Bye.