But obviously every guest that I have on just says how valuable LinkedIn is.
In fact, it’s how I’ve met pretty much all of my guests, right?
We spend time on the platform talking about business, and again, you kind of connect via values.
I feel like we connected because I was horrified by the story that you put on there.
I was like, wait, what?
That’s awful.
Let’s have a chat.
I think it’s been a great platform.
I want to touch on that because I think everyone I speak to is like, how do I build my personal brand?
LinkedIn is a very important platform, but how do I do it?
You’ve been doing it for a few months now and you’ve really grown your brand.
You even went crazy viral at some point, which you’ll talk about because I feel like it’s not always a good thing.
Can you share a bit more about how you’ve been sharing your journey?
Yeah.
I guess I would have said that I was using LinkedIn a lot, but in reality, now that I’m where I am, I would say obviously I wasn’t.
I had it since I was 18 and I really just used it to stay in touch with people and, as I said, share my wins.
When I was doing an event or speaking, I would promote it.
But I didn’t think to use it for thought leadership.
Then I guess when I had my first baby, she’s three now, I was writing about what it was like to be a working mom and running your own business and how I navigated maternity leave.
In Israel, you get three months of your average salary from the past year if you’re running your own business.
You get three months’ pay based on your yearly salary, which I think is really good.
But it also means after three months you’re left with, well, now what?
Am I going to put my kid in nursery full-time?
How am I going to do it?
Also, a lot of people have grandparents around, whereas me and my husband don’t.
All the grandparents live abroad, and all of our siblings live abroad.
So really, our community is our family, which is a little bit different as well.
Essentially, I was writing about the juggle and what I decided to do, which was actually give her a nanny two days a week.
The rest of the time she was with me.
For those two days a week, I was full-on with clients.
For the other days, I would do things while she napped.
Essentially, I wouldn’t book any face-to-face meetings.
I wrote about this and people were like, oh my gosh, I need to hear more about this.
It was unconventional.
People don’t really think outside the box when it comes to these sorts of solutions.
I needed that out-of-the-box solution.
So I started writing about that originally, but not consistently.
Just when something happened with the kids that was relevant.
People really gravitated toward it and were really invested in that subject about being a business owner, being a woman, and having young kids.
So I started writing about that more.
Even today, a core part of my audience is working moms.
That part of the conversation, creating a safe space, has become important.
I’ve organized a lot of events in Israel with a friend of mine for women who are having kids on this subject of how the hell are we meant to balance it all.
That’s one area.
Then what I really realized is that people were starting businesses.
We’re in a crazy space now where people are doing this all the time and going out on their own.
So I was like, right, I’m going to write more about what it’s like to do a proposal, how to set your pricing.
I was speaking for free to freelance communities through different things.
Sometimes it was a Slack channel I was a part of.
Sometimes it was just being asked to host a Zoom for someone, mainly in the UK and America.
From there, people would say to me, and I would talk about all these things I wish I knew when I was starting out.
How to make sure that you take a certain amount upfront.
Basic things.
How to make sure you have a great contract.
Really invest in a lawyer at this point.
What’s the point of branding?
How much should you invest in branding in the beginning?
People kept messaging me afterward saying, wow, can I have a one-on-one?
I was like, sure.
I was doing this for free.
Then I started feeling like, wow, there are so many people.
I can’t keep up with the demand.
That kind of became another avenue that I started doing in January from LinkedIn, where people were reaching out.
It wasn’t even my main offering.
The other thing I do is obviously run a branding agency.
So I started writing about how I built my own brand and also what I was doing for clients.
When we’re talking about personal branding, the way that I think about it is kind of different from the way people think about it now.
Most commonly, I feel like people today are saying personal brand is all about what you’re doing on LinkedIn.
It becomes synonymous with LinkedIn, but it’s not exactly.
It’s so much bigger than that.
It depends on the industry because a lot of people only do Instagram.
It’s not just one avenue.
I’m thinking about it completely differently.
About a year ago, people started saying to me, listen, I was previously only building company brands.
Then people started saying, listen, I’m the CEO of my company.
I’ve left the company.
I’ve exited.
I want to be a thought leader in my own right.
I was like, okay.
They said branding agencies are not taking individuals on.
I was like, really?
That’s odd.
Who doesn’t want to brand a person and not a company?
That’s really where the magic happens.
They were like, branding agencies don’t want to do it.
I was like, great, I do.
So I started offering branding for individuals as well as businesses.
Then I was thinking about it.
I was like, surely it’s the same kind of system.
We start with brand strategy, which is essentially 15 hours on who are you, what’s your offer, and what do you bring to the world.
What’s your best day looking like?
You’ve just left a meeting or workshop with your team.
What value did you add?
How did you add value?
What are they saying about you?
It’s very personal.
You can’t hide.
The second part is once you finish with the strategy, I build out your tone of voice.
Think about how much content you’re writing as a business owner.
Whether it be a newsletter, LinkedIn post, Instagram post, or website content.
You’re always having to train new people or freelancers on how to do the content.
Imagine if you had one guide that clearly says how you speak.
You’ve said your value is that you want to come across as friendly.
What does this mean in practice?
I would create a 15-page guide on how the person speaks so they could hand it over to anyone writing their content.
Then it’s visual.
Visual in terms of what all the content needs to look like.
What your logo looks like.
What your icon looks like.
What your Instagram icon will look like.
How your social media will look.
Everything.
That’s again about a 40-page guide.
Obviously included in that is a LinkedIn banner because that’s really part of the social aspect now.
But it’s also your email signature.
It’s also what a mockup of your website should look like.
I feel like that has really taken off.
Actually building personal brands.
What people do is take that package and say, listen, now I need someone to help me ghostwrite.
Or I want to write my own content, but I’m going to make sure it’s on brand.
So they take this package that I build for them, which is essentially what a company needs as well, and then hand it over to their team.
It’s people who are now going out and giving keynotes.
We work out what the consulting is going to be on, what they’re going to give lectures on.
It’s very intensive.
It’s a three-month process from A to Z.
That’s really it.
Then writing about it on LinkedIn as well.
How people should think about their brand.
Why they should think about tone of voice.
Because essentially, when we’re talking about personal branding, we’re talking about consistency.
Yes, consistency in showing up.
But we’re also talking about consistency in making sure that when I meet you offline, you’re the same person.
People think, oh, I’m just going to build something on LinkedIn and it doesn’t really matter if I’m not like that in real life.
Then someone asks you to speak at an event and suddenly there’s a huge inconsistency.
You’ve lost that credibility.
I agree.
We don’t talk about that enough.
This is something I shout about now a lot on LinkedIn because I’m so sick of the people who hire personal brand managers or get a VA to manage their LinkedIn.
They’re supposed to be building real connections.
How are you building any real connections if your VA is replying to all your comments?
It’s ridiculous.
If you’re not actually doing it.
For example, we connected because I dropped a comment on your thing, then you dropped me a DM, and then we chatted.
If that was a VA doing it, we wouldn’t have had that connection.
People build up a personality.
Then when you go somewhere, if someone comments on almost every one of your posts, you remember those conversations.
You’re building a little relationship every single time.
When I see them in person, I’m like, oh my God, how are you?
It’s like you’ve known each other for ages.
Imagine if that was someone else.
It’s so fake.
It’s ridiculous.
I don’t understand how that even makes sense as a business strategy.
When you meet them, there isn’t that connection.
People get disappointed.
Almost every person I’ve spoken to who met one of their favorite creators online says they’re so different in real life.
They don’t really have anything to them.
A lot of them are actually just really empty inside.
They don’t have anything to give because their thought leadership is not even their own thoughts.
It’s the most bizarre thing.
This might work short-term because they might land a few gigs.
Then word gets around that they’re actually not very good, and your reputation tanks already.
If you’re playing the long game, it’s a very terrible strategy.
When we speak about personal branding, people are very focused on LinkedIn.
What I find with my clients is the last thing they’re thinking about is LinkedIn.
Really, what they’re thinking about is what event should I be speaking at?
Who should I be pitching?
Where am I going to get my next gig from that’s going to make me money?
LinkedIn becomes a complementary source.
Most of the clients that come for personal branding are in that 40 to 50 age bracket.
They’re like, we’ve built our name.
We’ve done great things.
I’m going to use LinkedIn as a complementary source, but am I going to invest all my time in it?
Absolutely not.
People think personal brand means hiring someone to write their stuff and getting the word out there.
They think it’s going to bring in clients.
What they don’t realize is you have to be showing up in person.
You have to be working offline.
Booking one-on-ones.
Having meetings.
Building a network.
Realizing that LinkedIn is part of it, but LinkedIn is not the whole game.
That’s coming from someone who is very invested in the platform.
It’s just the reality of how I’ve built my own personal brand.
By speaking offline and showing up at events.
I totally resonate because, as I said, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn too.
But I’m obviously trying to spend less time on it.
My whole thing about my entrepreneur members club is in-person events.
That’s what I’m invested in.
I had so many people dropping into my DMs saying, would you like more leads on LinkedIn?
I was like, I think I do, okay, thank you.
Then they were like, spend more time on LinkedIn.
I was like, no.
I’m going to spend more time in person building real connections.
What I’ve noticed is that the personal branding space is largely people in their twenties.
They’re driving it.
They actually don’t do real connections in real life.
They do a few fancy dinners, but they’re not actually building real business connections.
They’re spending all their time on social media.
They’re building up this brand on social media.
That’s what they’re pushing as the agenda.
Like you said, the 40 to 50-year-olds are already saying, I don’t have time for that.
They’ve already got established businesses.
They’re already meeting people.
Taking people out for dinners.
Going to events.
Doing business in person.
Even the cliché thing of doing business on the golf course.
The reason that works so well is because you’re spending time in person doing something you both enjoy.
Spending hours talking to each other.
Having something to compete with.
You could be doing the same thing anywhere.
The point is, it’s not the same as spending all that time on LinkedIn.
You’re never going to have that close a connection.
People are missing this.
People are spending all their time on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn and not realizing that the magic belongs offline.
That’s what I’m focusing on with N0BS.
Everyone says, I don’t have time to come to London.
Unfortunately, we’re going to move events eventually, but I’m not just going to do webinars.
I don’t think they make the same connection.
I am going to do masterclasses inside the brand’s HQ because I think that’s quite special.
I think no one else is doing it.
I intend to be a little bit different.
For those who love it, they’ll love it.
For those who don’t, that’s fine.
It’s not for you.
I also think now because there are so far fewer things happening offline, they’ve become sacred.
People are much more invested.
They’re more likely to pay a higher price because there’s something unique about it.
We’ve reached this point where things feel online all the time.
Then when there’s something offline, you’re like, wow, okay, I’m going to make the effort.
I’m going to pay.
I think that’s really important.
It’s going to be high-level because there are fewer opportunities like that.
I think that makes a lot more sense.
I really want to ask you, though,