The importance of personal branding for business owners

Your Dream Business

English - December 26, 2022 00:00 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: The mistakes I’ve made in business and how they’ve changed me

Next Episode: How to build a supportive online community

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Claire Bahn, serial entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of Claire Bahn Group (CBG), a strategic marketing communications and branding agency.

We talked all about personal branding, how important it is and how we can make it authentic to us.

As always, I’d love to know what lightbulb moments you take away with you and what you think, so please feel free to connect with me on my social media!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

What personal branding is and why it matters
Why your personal branding is never one and done
How a great personal brand is a foundation for a successful business
Why you need to get out of your comfort zone and take action

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE
Personal branding is so much more than a logo! Every tiny little bit that goes into you and
your business is your brand, including how you speak to people and how you show up.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Claire Bahn Website

Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast and I hope you have the most wonderful Christmas cuz at the time of when this episode's released, it's just gone Christmas 2022. So I hope you had a wonderful time and you enjoyed the rest with your family. Are they saying that, Sometimes it's not a rest, is it?

Cuz sometimes she's mad busy doing all the other stuff and the children are hyper and there's like a whole rush. Anyway, that's done now for another year we don't need to worry about it.

So this week is the last episode that I have recorded and then I'm taking my break. I don't know how long for, I don't know what it's all about. I'm just fancier to having a break from recording episodes. So this is the last one I've recorded and it's with the very lovely Claire who is talking all about branding and how important branding is and how we can make it authentic to us, and I really enjoyed this conversation. It was a nice one to finish on. So I don't think there's anything else for me to say. I'll hand over to Claire.

It is my pleasure today to welcome the last guest for a while, actually, which is exciting. The lovely Claire Bahn. How are you doing, Claire?

Claire: I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me and, and I feel so honored, not, you know, to be your, your last guest. So thank you so much for having me.

Teresa: My pleasure, my pleasure. We had a conversation a little while back when I was on your podcast, so I wanted to make sure we got you on mine cuz it was a great conversation about a lot in common, which is funny. And we ended up talking about all sorts of random stuff.

Hilarious, which will not surprise my lovely listeners because I do digress at times. And Claire we always start exactly the same way when you explain to my audience who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.

Claire: Okay. Well, basically I'm a, a personal brand strategist and I'm the CEO and founder of Claire Bond Group. And we are an omnichannel strategic marketing agency and basically how it happened, I mean, literally it was so organic started out doing marketing and 4- 500 companies in New York. I decided to go into acting cuz it was always a dream of mine, funny enough, and during the last recession and that I basically used all of that marketing knowledge into marketing myself.

Then my acting friends were like, I need you to do that for me. So that's really just how the whole personal branding really started for me....

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Claire Bahn, serial entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of Claire Bahn Group (CBG), a strategic marketing communications and branding agency.

We talked all about personal branding, how important it is and how we can make it authentic to us.

As always, I’d love to know what lightbulb moments you take away with you and what you think, so please feel free to connect with me on my social media!

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

Cuz sometimes she's mad busy doing all the other stuff and the children are hyper and there's like a whole rush. Anyway, that's done now for another year we don't need to worry about it.

It is my pleasure today to welcome the last guest for a while, actually, which is exciting. The lovely Claire Bahn. How are you doing, Claire?

Claire: I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me and, and I feel so honored, not, you know, to be your, your last guest. So thank you so much for having me.

Then my acting friends were like, I need you to do that for me. So that's really just how the whole personal branding really started for me. It was like, oh, I need to make sure that you know, agents and casting directors know who I am just by looking at my photo and things like that. So that's really how it started.

And then I founded another business where we basically personally branded people for online dating and LinkedIn. While it was in 2019, while I was pitching my business up in San Francisco, I was actually on a podcast by, with a pretty well-known angel investor up there named Jason Calacanis. His podcast is called This Week in Startups, and basically, he came up with the idea of Clair Bond Group.

He said he was a, one of the original investors in Uber, and he said, you know what, you started at Uber X. You need to start at Uber Black. He's like, I need you to, instead of helping you know the masses, you need to, you know, go up level and he is like, I want you to, you know, he is like, go and find, you know, million Dollar Listing those guys that are on that show on Bravo, if you guys watched it in the UK.

Those are, those are your clients. I want the, that's what I want you to do. My very first client at the end of 2019 was an angel investor. He's still a client today and that is how we started. So it was like literally someone suggested it. I was like, I know how to do this cuz I'm a marketer and yeah, that's just really how it started. So it just kind of, Snowballed and yeah.

Teresa: So there's so many, like you just skimmed over this story that touched on like, this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing. So I've gotta go back to the acting. So what did you do? Why did you stop doing it? Like, was it always your dream?

Claire: It was always my dream. I was like, that kid that would like talk to myself in the mirror and I would be accepting my Oscar, and that was me. So it was one of the things that it, it kind of was kind of pushed into it. My, I lost my mother in 20 2006, and it was kind of like you, when you lose someone that's very, if you've ever lost anyone, it's like so important to your life, obviously, as your mother would be, as a 20 year old 20 something.

And so I just was like, you know what? I can't like, my can't life can't end with me having these things that I've never tried, these dreams that I never went for. I can't, that's just not how I wanna live my life. So that's what really was the impetus to do it. And then obviously it got laid off , so then it was like, okay, well yeah, no one's hiring me cuz it was 2009.

So that's really just kind of how it started, and I did. That's actually what kind of made me move here. I moved here in 20 2012 cause I was like, more TV and film was being shot here than in New York. I was in New York at the time. That hasn't change yet. The world has just changed. Things started moving to, to Vancouver, moving to Toronto, moving to, you know, Atlanta has a lot of the, what used to be the Los Angeles.

Like workers, like one of our, our friends who was interesting cinematographer, he literally, he like split his time. His family lived here in, in Los Angeles and he was living in Atlanta because his, his kids were in high school. And he is like, I don't wanna uproot, you know, move them to Atlanta. They need to finish high school and then, his wife moved out and yeah, it really, so the, the industry changed.

So that's kind of why I stopped doing it. The industry really changed. But funny enough, I, I do have my team queued up. I found my, I got it it did a target commercial. It was for the like a holiday commercial in like 2003 13 actually.

And so I have, I have them, they're gonna post that I did like a Walmart commercial. Like I just, it, it was fun and I really enjoyed it. But the sad part is, is that, I mean, because everything was turning to be non-union instead of sag, you really didn't get paid what you were worth, what people used to get paid, and you could no longer live on what you made.

So I was like, I was not satisfied. It's really hard to be satisfied if you're doing something and it doesn't pay your bills. It doesn't, you know, and, and you feel kind of..

Teresa: You've gotta love what you do. You've gotta be paint.

Claire: Yeah. And the other thing that kind of bothered me is I felt, I felt used.

They used me. They use my face. They used me. And I, yeah, I just felt used. I was like, here you are, you know, do your thing. I'm gonna pay you nothing. Yeah that's used. So that's how I felt. So I was like, I don't wanna do this anymore. So the very last thing I did was a Nissan commercial. So anyway, I don't wanna do it anymore.

Teresa: Who was the most famous person you met while doing acting?

Claire: The first thing I ever did, I was background for Sex of the City too. I didn't meet them, but I saw, skin in the bathroom, but that's not anything. The thing that I think was most interesting is one of my friends, Adrian Martinez, he has gone on, he was my, like someone in my class and he was gone on to be in a lot of TV shows, been in movies with like Will Smith and her name is escaping me now.

But anyway, but yeah, been in a lot of stuff and so he, that one was, was kind of cool. And like sometimes we still like DM each other on Instagram and things. But yeah, that was actually kind of a fun one that you see the people that you know. Actually do well and you're like, yay.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I was saying to you before we came one that my friends live in LA and I made the mistake once of asking him, he's been in LA they've been there like 16 years, and I made the mistake once of saying, have you, have you ever seen really famous?

Now they were my husband's friends and I, this was the first time I met them and he went, no, not really. And then for the rest of the week that we were there, literally, oh yeah, no so this person. Oh yeah. I've been biking with this person. Oh yeah. To the point where I wish I'd never asked. Cause it was like, alright, now you can stop telling me all the people you've seen. But yeah, it's so funny.

Claire: It's, and yeah, you, you do, you just hear them all the time. Even in New York..

Teresa: That, and honestly, it kind of blows my mind. It blows 'em on. So we went from acting and then you started the personal branding and you started personal branding for people, for dating sites. Like how did you get into that? Did you have to like do the DMing for them? Like..

Claire: No, no, no, no.

Teresa: Because that would be very, very interesting.

Claire: So we're still around, we're kind of debating whether we just shutter it cuz Claire Bond Group is really just taking all of our energy. Yeah, it's called Online Profile Pros and basically they would come to us and they would book a photographer, dating coach.

It started out where they would just book a photographer and then we kind of folded it into a whole package where they would get a dating coach, you know, wardrobe stylist, the whole thing. So we kind of upleveled it a little bit from there. But yeah, so it would just be like the photos and your profile and that kind of thing.

So we never got into the whole like, I'm gonna chat for you or things like that. That was not what we did.

Teresa: Imagine could you imagine like, and that's so interesting because actually I think that's, like when it comes to personal branding, that is personal branding like it is. You know, it's not the kind of stuff that people maybe always think about paying for.

But like, so I, I don't know if I've told you this story about but my, I met my husband online and I had been married before and I got divorced and he had been married before and was going through a divorce and my husband evidently did not bring someone in to help him with his profile because his photos were selfies, but they were like looking down.

So he had about five chins as he was doing it. And because I'm a nice person, he didn't look all that right? But he was really nice to talk to when I was like, do you know what, I'll meet him. But went and met him and it was like being catfished, but the other way round.

My husband is hot, right? He's a good looking guy but because he took these dreadful pitches, and like his profile was not all out like I won. Like I seriously won in that case because lucky I am, I am not like the type of person to go, oh, you are horrible. But yeah, cuz he just didn't have to do a dating profile cuz obviously he like I had never had to date.

Because we'd be married and you know, we got divorced, so, but I love that. That's great. That's so interesting. Okay. So, let's talk about personal branding then, because Yes, when people like, so I came from big corporate marketing and like talking about branding and all the conversations around it. It was huge and it's big and it's important and they spend millions and powers and all that sort of stuff.

Claire: The colors and the theory behind the colors. You're like, oh my god.

Teresa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The detail in it. But what I find is talking to business owners, personal brands, the other side, like it's almost from one end of the spectrum to the other. It's like okay unless I'm this big, massive company with millions to spare and a big team brand isn't important to me.

Like, yeah, I'll just shove a logo up and it's fine. Like how do we, how do you explain to people the importance of having a strong brand.

Claire: I mean, it's actually funny cause I'm kind of getting, I'm putting together like a, uh, an upcoming speech that I'm doing, so I'll give you kind of pieces of that.

Basically, I feel like it's not like a PC thing to be like people are judgmental but we are, we are always you, everything that you do because, you know, I have a, I have a coach that, that said, you know, when you say yes to something, you say no to something else. So when I say yes to doing this, I can't do anything else but this.

So therefore I have to judge whether being on this podcast is a good idea for me. That is your personal brand that, that, you know, that is it cut and dry. It is because you have a strong personal brand that I'm on this show. Do you see what I'm saying? And the reason that I'm on your show is because you made a judgment call that I was worth having on your show.

So when people are like, oh, I, it is not important, it totally is because you have to make a judgment call you whether it's your intuition, your gut instinct, whatever it is, you know, you will make that, that you know judgment, first impression, all that kind of stuff. So do you want to leave a good first impression?

Do you want someone to always say yes to you? Then work on your personal brand. That's just it, it's human nature so we can go, we can say it doesn't exist but we all know it does cuz it's human nature. So we can be like, it doesn't matter, but it does.

Teresa: But it does and it does. When I started my business, I was, I was really fortunate that, obviously I've been in marketing a long time and I knew designers and I knew website builders and I knew, so I did have a pretty good brand from the beginning. Because the designer who did it knew me really well, so therefore it was very easy for him to convert me into a brand. And then I've always used a branding person since like, but because I was helping and teaching and supporting other business owners, I had to look a certain way.

I couldn't be saying to my members or my students or people I'm working with a few people in my 90 day program at the moment, who are just starting. I couldn't say to them. Yeah. You know, just like you've gotta spend time working on a brand if mine looks dreadful or if I didn't show, show up properly.

Claire: Yeah. But I think also part of it is you kind of while the branding is super important, I don't think it has to be perfect. I don't think it has to because sometimes people are so focused on that, that they are like analysis paralysis and all that. They won't actually do anything, they just don't do action and you need to actually do something.

And another thing well, how you kind of look is really good, but how you actually show up and this is actually really, really key. And I actually, we, we have really put this into place in our sales calls when I do our, our, you know, for initial onboarding after sales call, I just reiterated over and over. You have to, your personal brand has to be led with altruism.

If it is not, people will know that you are not authentic and you are faking it and you know, and you cannot fake being on video people. No. They know if something is off and the the crazy thing is we had this, this client that we, we decided to part ways with, because we could not get this person to see our way.

And it was always like, buy my book. Buy my book. I literally did a podcast where it was like, how to get, you know, how to sell your book. Like, I literally was like, buy my book. Buy my book, buy my book. Don't do that. You know? So there's this kind of a you have to, things have to look good, look cohesive.

But truthfully, you can, people will forgive a lot of that if you, you know, if you are actually authentic, if people think that you actually are want to help people and it's not a lie if you are faking it or I, I don't know. There's a lot of people out there they have this kind of, you know, like they, they talk down to you.

Oh, a little person. I am going to help you. You are so dumb.

Teresa: Because you can't do this without me and therefore I'm the savior here. You know, hate that.

Claire: I've been told that I have to give you this information. You dumbass. You know, you're like, what? Then you have the opposite of the person that's like, even better than them, even higher level. That's just like, here's all the information. God speed. Those are the people that will actually excel.

Teresa: I think you're right. I think, like you said it, you know, and again, I'm working with these people who are just starting out and it's like, okay, you do, you know, we need to create a brand for you and I do not sell my brand slashes, you know, I coach people, I help you.

But obviously the first point of these two businesses is they need a something, okay, but I literally gave them time like they're doing it themselves so they don't have the budget to bring someone in. And I said to them, right, I'm gonna give you two hours. You are not allowed to spend more than two hours researching what you like.

And then you're not allowed to spend more than two hours creating something. Because if I give you all the hours in the world, you are gonna spend the next six months making something beautiful. And I said to them, and also it changes like literally today as we are recording this, I am introducing a new Cutler into my palette because it just doesn't quite feel right anymore.

So, so I've been mess and I've been doing it myself, although I do have someone do my branding, but I want to mess around and see what colors I liked and see how it was working and so it tweaks and changes all the time. It isn't one and done is it.

Claire: No, I mean we changed our colors. I think it was this year I used to have like a different purple that I was using and I now I've gone to a much deeper purple that I kind of felt I, purple is my thing and purple is creativity and a lot of those kind of things. But I felt like the darker color was kind of more luxury, more kind of my brand, especially kind of the clients that we have and things like that.

So yes, it evolves...