One in a Billion - The Power of a Distinctive Personal Brand with Neal Veglio

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Michelle J Raymond: Welcome everybody to the Social Media for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and this week listeners, we have a treat because I'm bringing back the one the only, The PodMaster, Neal Veglio. Welcome back to the show.

[00:00:15] Neal Veglio: Thank you very much. Can you hear me? Just wanna check that I know what I'm doing with all this audio stuff.

[00:00:20] Michelle J Raymond: I'm hoping that you do because you're sure casting some content out there criticizing others. Some may say helping them really depends on which lens you look through. Take the blue pill, take the red pill, I think is how it works out. But I am having you on this time for something different.

[00:00:36] Michelle J Raymond: If people wanna know about avoiding rookie mistakes with podcasting, I will share the link to our first episode. But I didn't get you on this show for this one. I got you in because I wanna talk about the plague that is happening on LinkedIn, and I think it's a plague of blandness.

[00:00:53] Michelle J Raymond: And I wanna teach my listeners how they can be one in a billion, and it's the power of distinctive brands. And you have one. And I'm not sure that everybody really understands the power of this. Alright, so I'm gonna give you the floor now, but tell me, how do you define a distinct brand?

[00:01:13] Neal Veglio: Something that is unshakably you. What I mean by that is when you are doing your stuff, whether that be YouTube, podcasting, posts on LinkedIn, whatever it is, it's about having that style and voice.

[00:01:29] Neal Veglio: And not a fabricated style of voice. This is the important point I wanna make. And it's a style and it's a voice where if someone sees that being said, they immediately click even before they seen who posted it or wrote it or said it, they go, ah, that's Michelle, Company Pages. Why the hell aren't you people spending more time on your Company Pages? Ask Michelle. There's Michelle again. She's going on about Company Pages.

[00:01:53] Neal Veglio: And that is, for me, that's exactly what a distinct brand is. It's somebody that can actually take the thing that they're an expert in. And sometimes the things that you know, you say within that brand are not entirely popular. But for me, the whole thing is as long as you stand by what you are saying and you're not faking it, and this is the key point here, I think a lot of people when they're talking about personal branding and distinct branding, they're talking about logos, they're talking about colours fonts, all that sort of stuff.

[00:02:20] Neal Veglio: How you show up on, on screen, how you sound in your audio, and that's not what that is. What it is, is how you define the things that you talk about that you are not willing to shake on. And the good test of this, you'll know that you've got this.

[00:02:36] Neal Veglio: If people come at you in your comments and they try and counter what you're saying, they challenge you on it. And if you are able to say, okay, I take what you say, appreciate your viewpoint, but no, here's the deal, then you've got a definite, distinctive brand. And it's one that, like I say, unshakable. If someone can't shake that out from you, then you've done the work.

[00:02:56] Michelle J Raymond: I remember a time when I appeared as a guest on somebody's podcast and we were talking about Company Pages, we're rewinding the clock a few years. I knew at the time this person wasn't into Company Pages. In fact, most people weren't at that point in time besides me. And that podcast nearly like came to fisticuffs if we're in the same room. I think it may have, and thankfully we weren't. But it was one of those moments where it really did shake me to the core. It really did upset me in a way of, do I really believe in this? I've heard people say, is it the thing you'll die on a hill for? I didn't get it at that time. But fast forward a few years, I think I'm now confident enough to back myself and say, yeah, I get your points but no, this is why I want you to look at it different ways. And I think a distinct brand doesn't need to be contrarian. It doesn't need to be like aggressive. It doesn't need to be in your face, but it can be if that's who you are.

[00:03:56] Michelle J Raymond: Now, if I'm scrolling my feed and I see a post on Blue Yetis I don't care who posted it, I know you are gonna show up there. For those of you who haven't come across Neal right now, there are things that he is known for and his stance on Blue Yeti microphones is one of them. So just to let our listeners know.

[00:04:15] Michelle J Raymond: But Neal, why have a stand on something like that? It's just a microphone at the end of the day. Why go hard on it? How does that fit into this, distinct brand that you are creating?

[00:04:27] Neal Veglio: It's interesting that you say it's just a microphone because I mean, it is like on the face of it, if you're looking at it in two-dimensional terms, it's a bit of plastic that people buy on Amazon.

[00:04:38] Neal Veglio: It's not the cheapest mic either, which I always find staggering. But for me, it's not about the microphone it's about the wider approach to what you are doing. I always know someone's attitude towards podcasting. There's gonna be a lot of people gonna get triggered by this. That's fine. If you wanna send me hate mail or you wanna message Michelle afterwards and say, I didn't like that guy you had talking about podcasting. How dare you insult my Blue Yeti? That's absolutely fine.

[00:05:01] Neal Veglio: But I always know when someone's lazy and are not really invested in it when they've gone and bought a Blue Yeti microphone, because what it means is they've done very surface-level research. They've probably taken bad advice from someone that doesn't know what they're talking about, which means, again, they haven't done the research.

[00:05:19] Neal Veglio: They're just going in. They're like, I'm just gonna plug in my microphone and talk and publish it. Look, that's valid, if that's what you wanna do, that's absolutely valid. But here's the key point here. This is what we're talking about. You are not my person if that's who you are.

[00:05:33] Neal Veglio: If you are the person that goes and buys the first microphone you come across, doesn't bother researching, doesn't care enough to actually find out what the right microphone is for the use. Find out what's, the importance of what you're doing here with sound quality.

[00:05:49] Neal Veglio: It started out as a kind of guy, seriously, the Blue Yeti is not the right microphone for you. Over time I started to realize, people are clicking with this, they're getting it they're understanding the vibe. So it's a way of actually generating awareness of quality, which is all part of this wider personal branding thing.

[00:06:09] Neal Veglio: Neal's, the guy that doesn't like going cheap. Neal's the guy that doesn't like going easy with this stuff. So over time, when people start off thinking, oh, Blue Yeti, he hates those. This works on two levels. Number one, they're gonna in their head, think should I get a better microphone? Maybe I need to look a little bit more into this. And then if I do that job, that's great, that's my job done.

[00:06:29] Neal Veglio: But then sometimes they'll go well, he was right about that actually 'cause I've got the microphone now. What else is he right about? And I think that's what not enough of us do, is actually put out that information of, okay, this fundamental thing that you need to do within the space, you're not doing it. If you do it, it's only gonna help you.

[00:06:48] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the concept here is distinct brands attract the right audience and repel the people you don't wanna work with, and this is the real power of it. This is why I'm a huge fan. I wasn't always on board the branding train as you know, until I realized the opportunities that come, when you stand out for something and you own your own little space in your own way. You are not trying to be something that you are not. And that's why I'm getting to speak on two international stages this year.

[00:07:21] Michelle J Raymond: And this is the opportunities for businesses and individuals who want to grow, is if you try and be someone else that you're not, you just blend in with everyone else and we end up in the world's biggest game of Where's Wally or Where's Waldo, depending where you are in the world.

[00:07:37] Michelle J Raymond: But you don't just build your own brand. You are working with clients, in the podcasting space, and I'm sure that you are giving them advice on how to create a podcast that stands out. And this I'm sure translates just as much across into content that happens on LinkedIn.

[00:07:53] Michelle J Raymond: What are the main challenges that you come up against when you are trying to get someone to go maybe a little left of center or a little bit different or embrace being themselves? What are the challenges that you get and the pushback that happens and how do you get around it?

[00:08:08] Neal Veglio: This is something I learned in my days in broadcasting actually is that, you have a lot of power when you have this tool, called a digital audio workstation, it basically turns you into an Audio God. Because then what you can do is you can say to people, you can say to personalities, presenters, podcasters, YouTubers, you can say to them, just do what you do. Just be you. Unfiltered, unapologetically you. And of course there is this whole thing of, people when you do that, then the demons are unleashed and sometimes they go into sort of slightly dark places and you have to sometimes, understand that them saying something publicly might not be in their best interests, but at the same time, you don't want to water them down. And this is where I feel podcasting has a benefit that broadcasting is losing now, I think as more people become aware of the art of podcasting and YouTube and content in general and broadcasting is losing ground because everything is so considered and you've gotta think about what you're saying in real time and you can't step outside of the lines because then you're gonna get in trouble, you're gonna get fired.

[00:09:17] Neal Veglio: If I was to turn around and say something extremely controversial. One of two things is gonna happen. Number one, this is gonna go absolutely viral for all the wrong reasons. And number two, you're gonna kick me off and never have me on your show again. So there is that sort of consider. Yeah. Bye-Bye.

[00:09:30] Neal Veglio: There is that consideration of, you'd still have to sort of apply a little bit of sensibility here. You still have to be a little bit sensitive to, making sure you don't bring brands into disrepute. But you do have that ability to say to, certainly for me, for clients, okay, so you're angry about this thing. Go off on it, do it, say it, get it off your chest. Which is why a lot of my podcasters, they sometimes say to me, God, it's like being on the therapy couch because you get to vent, you get to not only share your passion, but also share the things that anger you and the things you wanna improve. And so when you've got that all laid out for you in video or in audio, you then have the ability to go, right okay, so this part here is brilliant. This really talks about who they are.

[00:10:10] Neal Veglio: This part, they might be going a little bit fast, so we're gonna slightly trim that down for their own good. We're not censoring. That's the key point. I wanna make this really clear. It's not about censorship because this is about understanding the fine line and the difference between saying something controversial and saying something that's really bad.

[00:10:28] Neal Veglio: Most people don't say stuff that's really bad. They just say stuff that they might regret immediately upon it becoming in the public domain. And that's where the work comes in where you say to people, look, this is your personal brand. You might, in the heat of the moment, now you've said that regret saying and think, oh, I should take that out. But actually, this is a way for you to connect at a far deeper level with the people that are gonna resonate with that point. And that's exactly about the intentionality behind what I put out there. It's not by accident, believe me it's not like I sit there for hours and hours on end planning it necessarily, but none of it is on accident.

[00:11:06] Michelle J Raymond: I totally get it, and that's why there are things which I'm not afraid to post, that there are things that press my buttons on LinkedIn because that is a part of who I am. I am the person that comes from a family of policemen that has a very strong sense of right and wrong and justice and following rules.

[00:11:26] Michelle J Raymond: That's just a part of me. As much as I love to go rogue and go and do things my own way and not be told what to do, so depending on the days, depending how I get there, but ultimately it's sharing from a place of I want my community to have the best advice possible. This is where we're trying to get to.

[00:11:43] Michelle J Raymond: I want my kind of people to show up and support me and it's such a two way street, but how do you balance the need to stand out and, I'm gonna say get attention, because I think there is a level of, we do need to get attention, we need eyes on us to grow our businesses on some level, with staying authentic with you know, living towards your values and, maybe the vision you have for your business. Do you find that that's a difficult line to, I guess walk, when it comes to creating content?

[00:12:16] Neal Veglio: Not, if you're doing it for the right reasons, not if you know what you're doing. Very early on I sat down and I mapped out exactly what I wanted to stand for. Not only as a business, but also as an individual running a business. All the things that I'm passionate about, quality, decent, entertaining content, helping people to achieve their goals. All those things, those surface level things, but also a bit deeper than that. You know what feathers am I willing to ruffle? What sort of people am I willing to challenge? What kind of, responses am I willing to deal with When those people get challenged. And this comes up a lot.

[00:12:51] Neal Veglio: When you are saying stuff that a lot of people are making money, from the opposite of, you are gonna come up, for challenges. And so for me, it's not difficult. I watched a YouTube interview with somebody who's quite famous on, on LinkedIn for personal branding. I'm not gonna name her 'cause it's not fair. This is your show, not mine.

[00:13:09] Neal Veglio: The whole point was that she's someone that's renowned in the personal branding space. And I watched the whole thing and I was like, you are not talking about personal branding, you're talking about getting attention, you're talking more about PR. And I think this is the problem is that a lot of people don't understand what the term personal branding means.

[00:13:27] Neal Veglio: For me, I absolutely to my core understand what it's about. It's about understanding who you are fundamentally as a person and then literally sticking to that. As long as you sit down and you figure out exactly what you are gonna stand for, you are not gonna have any problem with this because every time you get pushback, you're gonna go, that's part of it.

[00:13:47] Neal Veglio: These people are not my ideal clients. These people are not people that resonate with me. They've got a very different set of ideals, very different value system, and therefore they can go and do their thing and I'll happily stay over here doing mine. Thank you very much.

[00:14:01] Michelle J Raymond: I think sometimes when you stumble across people on LinkedIn and they can come into your orbit in all kinds of different ways, and it's not necessarily a deliberate search, although sometimes it might be, that I find often depending on the day, depending the timing, when they land on what Post they might walk into a blow up rant kind of post, or they might walk into the world's most helpful post. And I think this is where sometimes we either have to hang around for a little bit longer to understand or do a bit more digging. And I think the thing that's coming up for me, Neal right now is people are consuming content at face value and taking it as gospel.

[00:14:42] Michelle J Raymond: And I've been watching some YouTube videos as well. At first I thought, oh, why are these videos so popular? And it's almost because they tell people, oh, you really don't have to do any work. It's all so easy. You can have 10,000 followers without really doing anything. Just join this engagement pod or insert whatever, other thing that will press my buttons.

[00:15:01] Michelle J Raymond: And I just think that some of that has gotta come back. Yes, there'll be the innocent parties that are new to all of this, but some of them are searching for that kind of content and I just think they end up finding it.

[00:15:14] Michelle J Raymond: And I think part of having a distinctive brand that, you are really clear around which side of the fence you sit on.

[00:15:20] Michelle J Raymond: Cause I found for a little while there, my feed was infuriating me. It was not something that I enjoyed having a look at. I was triggered more often than not. My solution to that was unfollowing people, and that includes unfollowing people who were commenting on content that I knew if I saw it, I was just gonna be like I'm gonna have to bite.

[00:15:42] Michelle J Raymond: Now I have to confess listeners that is something that I deliberately do to Neal in the background. When I see a Blue Yeti post, I deliberately send it to him and watch him go. Just 'cause it's a bit of fun, but obviously, we're being respectful of other people in this whole process. It's not about trying to publicly shame in most cases, unless you're, running these big engagement pods.

[00:16:04] Michelle J Raymond: The rise of AI content, everyone's blending in. The rise of automated tools, which are just templated messaging. It's just all becoming so bland, and it's just boring and boring is just driving me crazy. It's like the scourge of LinkedIn right now.

[00:16:22] Michelle J Raymond: I wanna find those people who stand for something that's personally what I enjoy. I wanna find people that know their stuff and I learn from, and that's pretty much every podcast guest that I've always had on the show.

[00:16:33] Michelle J Raymond: But can you share about a specific, maybe tactic that you have used personally that's helped you, build your audience on LinkedIn that has repelled the wrong people and attracted the right people. What does that look like you know, In an everyday Neal's on LinkedIn spending time. What does it look like that you do?

[00:16:53] Neal Veglio: It's really interesting that you bring up AI because I think this is a really key point for me and it's certainly it's lending itself to why people are getting frustrated with the platform.

[00:17:02] Neal Veglio: It's not a small coincidence that, you know, the moment you started to see posts from people that have been on LinkedIn a while saying, oh, I'm really getting annoyed with it now, I'm thinking about jacking it all in, that it literally coincides with the moment when AI went mainstream and everyone suddenly started finding out about this thing called ChatGPT.

[00:17:19] Neal Veglio: And of course, because the free version is widely available, for free, people are using the very basic level of this AI for their posts. And therefore, because they're using the very basic level of AI, they're not investing in the more enterprise level of it where you know you can actually use it more in line with your own brand and with your own stuff and your own content and train it in a way that it actually works more beneficially for you as an actual virtual assistant.

[00:17:43] Neal Veglio: And that's what's happening is these people, they're getting this AI tool and they're churning out content. And that's not a small coincidence. The thing is, we've got this thing in built into, we've had AI for years within us. A lot of people don't realize this, but we as human beings have our own inbuilt AI tool, and that's called actual intelligence.

[00:18:01] Neal Veglio: And the thing is, it trumps artificial intelligence because when you see these posts from people where they're churning out this nonsense that they've just, oh, write me a post about how I can do, x and then this absolute nonsense content gets spewed out that is so middle of the road. You could find it on probably a blog post from 2005.

[00:18:22] Neal Veglio: We can see through it. We have things in our brains that, that are able to disseminate.

[00:18:27] Neal Veglio: You can tell by the style and the standard of what they're saying, whether or not they're real, authentic people that are putting out real authentic content. And to answer your question directly about is there a specific post that, I've put out that literally speaks to this whole standing out thing.

[00:18:43] Neal Veglio: Yeah, 100%. About three weeks ago. And some people watching this are probably gonna remember the post. I saw this whole thing about, everybody on LinkedIn that had been in engagement pods and some that were claiming they weren't. They'd been given blue badges.

[00:18:55] Neal Veglio: We had all these people going, I'm delighted to be been recognized by LinkedIn as a top voice. And I've got this little blue badge now. I made this post about, the fact that these people that had been given these LinkedIn badges, they didn't necessarily deserve them because they were probably artificially inflating their visibility and therefore should they really be bragging about them.

[00:19:19] Neal Veglio: And of course I knew damn well loads of people were in my network and also outside of it with the connections I had, loads of people with those badges were gonna see them. And sure enough, people with those badges were showing up in the comment saying, how dare you? I earned this. Not one person when they were commenting about how horrible it was that I was calling this out, not one person said, why do you feel the way you do?

[00:19:43] Neal Veglio: And this is the interesting point. Whenever I'm seeing something that I disagree with, I don't just go into the comments and just trash them. I'm asking them, why do you feel that? I think the Blue Yeti is the best microphone ever. Okay. Why do you feel that? Because then that opens up a dialogue and a conversation, and I knew that there were gonna be no people coming to me and saying, Neal, why do you feel that?

[00:20:03] Neal Veglio: They were just gonna get really incensed and angry and come into comments. Personal branding, it's not necessarily about you. It's about them. And this is the key difference that I think a lot of people don't understand. What it did for them, for the people that were seeing this content was, ah, Neal's got a point. He thinks like me. Why are these people bragging about the fact that they've got a badge that they've artificially gained from being in engagement pods?

[00:20:26] Neal Veglio: And I think that's the thing, is when you can actually get to a point where you understand your audience, you understand who it is that you want to attract and appeal to, then what you are posting matters less because then it's about making the connection with your ideal viewer, listener, reader on social media.

[00:20:45] Neal Veglio: And it was really interesting to me off the back of that one post, you can go back three weeks ago and see the post it's where I'm literally ranting about LinkedIn badges and it's got hundreds of comments because a lot of these people were getting upset.

[00:20:56] Neal Veglio: I can tell you now at least three people per hour were DMing me off the back of it and saying, I loved what you had to say. I've been feeling the same. It's awful. I'm getting really annoyed with LinkedIn. By the way, I see you do podcasting services. Can we have a chat at some point? Been thinking about it.

[00:21:11] Michelle J Raymond: I'm not gonna go down the path of talking about the blue badges 'cause I, I don't wanna get us off track.

[00:21:15] Neal Veglio: Spoil Sport.

[00:21:16] Michelle J Raymond: I know. Did you see how if you watch this back on the video, you'll see the amount of self-control that just took. Because I want to go there, but I'll save that for another episode listeners. But I wanna stick with the thing, right?

[00:21:30] Michelle J Raymond: So Neal, on one hand, there are so many things that I know when I'm scrolling my feed that you are gonna stand out for different types of conversations. And obviously I am drawn to that type of content.

[00:21:42] Michelle J Raymond: I like when people call out the BS that's going on. So your branding has come up, or your name has come up In conversations that I've had with real people that I'm connected to. I'm gonna say three times in the last forty-eight hours. And this is a true story and I haven't set you up with this one so you don't know what's coming. So one person is loving what you are saying, right? They are, oh my God. Did you see Neal's rant the other day? He's really doing that. And I was on Team Neal and that was one person. Second person was, yep, I've seen that, not quite so enthusiastically was on board, but was just nodding in agreement. The third person was a bit. Oh, you mean that guy that rants all the time? And I'm like no, no, no. He's this really amazing podcast guy and we went through that conversation about why I love you and all the help that you've given me to make this podcast better.

[00:22:34] Michelle J Raymond: So the danger can be if you become too distinct, maybe known for certain things, those people that don't get past that first post, who might still be your ideal audience. Is there a risk that comes that you alienate those?

[00:22:50] Michelle J Raymond: I just wanna play devil's advocate. You know, I love it 'cause it's good for the conversation, but I think just in those real life scenarios, did the first person, are you happy that they're there going, yes, they notice me. Or do you want them to notice you more for your subject matter expertise, which is how amazing you are at, podcast strategies.

[00:23:09] Michelle J Raymond: I'm just curious how this lands with you because I think there's, you know, Is it about getting the balance right? Would you say that you get that balance right all the time, or I'd just love to know how you judge this as my brand is distinct and it's successful. Is it just the number of clients you get? Yeah, I'm curious.

[00:23:27] Neal Veglio: We're back to that, that a few questions ago where I said to you, it's not difficult if you know what you stand for. And this is the icky part of, marketing that a lot of people have a lot of trouble with, and that's why a lot of really gifted and talented people don't get success because they get stuck at the ick.

[00:23:44] Neal Veglio: And it's that whole, it's scary. Honestly, standing out is scary. You might not like Elon Musk. A lot of people don't. I'm not sure what I feel about him, to be honest with you. But there, there's one thing you cannot say about Elon Musk is that he stands for stuff. You can't say he's boring. You can't say that he's not clear about what his intent is.

[00:24:04] Neal Veglio: He 100% is an outlier, and I'm a big fan of outliers. I always have been. I've been drawn to outliers. People that stand for things absolutely draw me in. And I think this is the key point here, is that when you are an outlier and you understand the outlier approach, which is, I don't care what you think about me, honestly. I'd love it if you liked me. Of course I'm a human. I want to be liked Who doesn't?

[00:24:30] Michelle J Raymond: I like you.

[00:24:30] Neal Veglio: But I don't care if you do. You're saying it now. You're gonna DM me in an hour?

[00:24:34] Michelle J Raymond: No, I'm just gonna edit that part out. Of course.

[00:24:36] Neal Veglio: Exactly. What doing, come on. It's about understanding that, when you are standing for something, you don't really care whether people like you or dislike you, at that point. You hope that they will, but if they don't, that's fine. And here's a really interesting part of this. This has been going on for decades with any sort of public figures.

[00:24:57] Neal Veglio: You get Presidents, you get TV personalities, you get radio stars, you get actors, you get pop stars, and they are the original personal branders because they've had to understand that people are not necessarily gonna like them all the time. They don't worry about whether or not people personally, necessarily like them. All they care about is selling their albums, getting people into the box office to watch their films, which is why when you see big scandals around Hollywood actors, they disappear for a few months and then they're back with another movie.

[00:25:26] Neal Veglio: If you come at me in my comments on LinkedIn and you say, you are a terrible person, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's one thing I know about you. You are now aware of me, and it's not even just about the attention thing, which is where a lot of people stop.

[00:25:38] Neal Veglio: A lot of people, what they're doing is they're and this is certainly key with those awful people that use engagement pods and they're selling this service of you don't need to necessarily be that smart or any of that stuff. You need to get the reach. And so they'll set up these AI systems. Unashamedly, hack the system so that the visibility is there.

[00:25:57] Neal Veglio: Here's the problem with that, with the visibility being there. Yeah, you are getting into people's feeds. You're getting into people's eyes and ears, but you are not then doing the follow up work of educating because here's the key, when you're saying do you worry about if people don't, you know your first example, they said they like me.

[00:26:13] Neal Veglio: The second example was like, I get it, but I'm not sure if I like them. Person number two. If they stick with it and they understand, actually this guy, I might not agree with everything he says, and I think I'm talking about you here. I might not agree with everything he says, but actually I understand that he's got my best interests at heart.

[00:26:29] Neal Veglio: He's got the best interests of listeners at heart. He's got the best interests of the wider podcasting community at heart. He just wants to improve the space, and I may not agree with his approach because maybe I'm an introvert and he's a bit of a sort of a moderate extrovert. The point is. I like what he can do for me, and that's the key point.

[00:26:48] Neal Veglio: You don't need to like me, for me to be able to make you money. Does your bank manager like you? Probably not. They hate everybody, but they still want you to make money so that they can take more of that away from you. And that's, I think, the key point. It's not about like. It's not about adoration of people you are probably never gonna meet.

[00:27:08] Neal Veglio: It's about can they fundamentally at the core, help me achieve the goal that I need to achieve? When you channel in with people and make a connection, whether that be slightly abrasive and aggressive or pushing their buttons, you are making a connection with them. It's then down to you to prove to them, why them initially not liking you isn't a reason not to work with you.

[00:27:29] Neal Veglio: And a lot of people that didn't like me on first exposure ended up working with me.

[00:27:35] Michelle J Raymond: I have had to do a few conversations where I'm saying no, no, no, no, no his bark's worse than his bite. Ultimately I think the thing is, each of those three people now know you. They all know you because I've, obviously been engaged in your content because I enjoy it. They've now got their opinions. And we're not talking about any other podcast strategists. We are just talking about our theories on who Neal is and what he does.

[00:28:00] Michelle J Raymond: And I'm really clear. I like you. Don't worry, you can go and chop this out of the sound later and tell people that I said that. Ultimately the thing is I think we have to, as consumers of content, I don't care who's it is, start scratching the surface for our own good and either have a look past the rant. Or have a look past the everything's so perfect and beautiful and look how amazing these numbers are. I think that's where it's coming back to as consumers of the content.

[00:28:30] Michelle J Raymond: For people on the other side, building their own personal brands. I think there is, you have to find your way of standing out. You have to find your thing.

[00:28:40] Michelle J Raymond: And Professor Jenni Romaniuk was on the show just before Christmas, and we were talking about distinctive brand assets and the research that the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has done. And ultimately, there was one message in that podcast that really stuck with me, and it's when you create distinct assets, and in this case it might be yourself, that protects your brand in the long run. That is your insurance policy.

[00:29:03] Michelle J Raymond: And that lesson has stuck with me about how I am building on that. And it's the thing which I let go of my emphasis on Company Pages for a little while. 'cause I did get shaken and I did think, oh, maybe I should do this or that. And I came back to it.

[00:29:19] Michelle J Raymond: And what do you know? All of the opportunities start popping up again. I'm not saying that you know for listeners that it's gonna be easy, that you're gonna nail this the first time, that there is some of this stuff that comes with experience.

[00:29:31] Michelle J Raymond: Some of it comes from having those hard knocks and then having to get up and really question, do I believe in this or not? If you don't believe in it, it's too much hard work. Trust me. Just go and blend back into the background. But there is that attract and repel that goes on, which I think is so important.

[00:29:49] Michelle J Raymond: Now we could talk all day about this and I am doing my best to try and keep this thing under three hours. But my question for you, which I ask every single guest, is what's one last actionable tip that you'd like to leave the listeners about those that really should be creating a brand that is distinctive?

[00:30:12] Michelle J Raymond: What's your piece of advice?

[00:30:14] Neal Veglio: I think the first thing that I would suggest anybody does this isn't limited to LinkedIn, but of course this is a LinkedIn platform show, and so the majority of people watching this and listening to this are going to be LinkedIn people. I think it's really easy. To be sucked into this. There's a lot of bad advice. I, when I first started on LinkedIn, a friend of mine who'd been on it a couple of years long, I'm quite late to the party. I only joined LinkedIn 20 18, 20 19. Then I ditched out of it after a year, and then I came back and the advice I got was, you can't be yourself Neal LinkedIn is not the place where you can go on and do your rant.

[00:30:49] Neal Veglio: And I was like, why? And I very quickly realized he, he had my best interests at heart, but he was wrong, absolutely wrong. And I think the moment I noticed things changing was when I went, nah, do you know what I'm in this haze of LinkedIn is this weird special place where things are different and it's not like normal social media.

[00:31:09] Neal Veglio: I think that's the key is you sit down and you understand, forget the fear, forget the judgment, forget people telling you bad advice about how LinkedIn works and how LinkedIn doesn't work. At the end of the day. LinkedIn is just like any other part of your brand extensions, any other part of your marketing.

[00:31:24] Neal Veglio: And I think if you sit down and you make a list of the things that you stand for, whether that be, let's be corporate about it. If we have to be, that's fine. But fair pricing, transparency. Our values. If it's something you stand for, if it's something that's really important to you as either a member of a team or someone that's actually a company owner watching this, you've gotta sit down and actually think how important are these things to me?

[00:31:50] Neal Veglio: Don't be afraid to come across as angry because actually it is those people that are willing to put themselves out there that get noticed, and it's not just about being noticed, it's about resonating.

[00:32:03] Neal Veglio: Nobody in the history of content marketing has ever gone viral with a post that takes the middle ground and says, what are your thoughts? It just doesn't exist. So the more you can do to stand for something and really grab that attention, forget these 50 hooks that will get you viral on LinkedIn. That's all self-interested. Garbage, here's what the hook is. The hook is your defining statement. I don't think anyone should buy a Blue Yeti microphone. I think everyone should be doing a company page on LinkedIn. I think insurance is really flawed or this thing that I believe in is illegal and should stop.

[00:32:45] Neal Veglio: And I think as long as you do that and don't be afraid, understand you're gonna get pushback. Of course you are. But remember this. Those people are not your people. Ignore them.

[00:32:56] Michelle J Raymond: They never were.

[00:32:57] Michelle J Raymond: And my words for all of that is create your digital twin. There should be no difference to what you're putting out on LinkedIn to, if we were to meet Face-to-face.

[00:33:05] Michelle J Raymond: What I want people to know from this is. Have a look around. Have a look at your feed. Find the people that are standing out and have a look at what they're doing, what makes them stand out to you? What are you drawn to? Not who's most popular? 'cause that's a whole other probably manufactured conversation that's going on the platform. But look for people who are doing things different to everybody else.

[00:33:30] Michelle J Raymond: And I think that's a, an amazing lesson that we I think we've covered pretty well here today. I appreciate you and for anyone that does not know Neal, I will make sure that all of his details are in the show notes. And if you are thinking about starting a podcast, got a podcast and want an amazing improvement in an existing podcast, then he is my only go-to resource.

[00:33:52] Michelle J Raymond: Why? Because despite what you may see or read on LinkedIn, he actually cares. And I'm just putting that out there on my podcast too. When I did a testimonial recently. I'm spilling the beans on you, mister, so bad luck. On that note, everybody, I'm gonna wrap this show up. I hope you've enjoyed it.

[00:34:10] Michelle J Raymond: Please reach out and connect with us. Let us know that you listen to this podcast. What do you take away? Which team are you sitting on? Are you prepared to put yourself out there? Or does it feel a little bit scary? I'd love to continue the conversation over on LinkedIn. Until next week, cheers.