Transcript
Sid Meadows:
Welcome to 10 to Win. I’m excited to welcome our special guest host today, Chris Vaglio. Now, Chris is a business and branding coach that helps creative business owners build rockstar brands so that they can get noticed, feel confident, and bring in more clients. Chris is an amazing entrepreneur, and I’m excited for him to share his insights with you today on personal branding. I hope that you enjoy today’s episode.
Sid Meadows:
Hey, friends. Welcome to the club. We are a community of entrepreneurs focused on you, your growth, and the growth of your business. In this podcast, we highlight amazing entrepreneurs, giving them a platform to share their story. Including valuable insights, tips, and advice from their journey and all the things they’ve learned along the way. Get ready to be inspired and informed, and let’s go on a journey together to build the businesses of our dreams. I’m so glad you’re here and part of the amazing Entrepreneurs Club.
Chris Vaglio:
Hey there, amazing entrepreneurs. My name is Chris Vaglio, and I am the owner of Rock It Growth Agency. I am a business and personal branding coach that works with creative professionals to help them build a rock star brand, so they can get noticed, feel confident, and bring in more clients. Welcome to 10 to Win, and I am your host for this week’s episode. And today, I’d love to share my thoughts with you on personal branding, and why it’s so important to have a personal branding strategy for not only just for yourself, but also for your business. With that, let’s get going. Why should you have a personal brand?
Chris Vaglio:
Let’s just draw the distinction really quick between a company brand and your personal brands. While it’s super important for you to invest in your company’s brand, your personal brand needs to encompass more than just your business. Your personal brand is a reflection of you, your beliefs, and how you conduct yourself professionally. A company brand, just to define it, is a unique identifying symbol, trademark, company, name, et cetera, which enables a buyer to distinguish a product or service from its competitors.
Chris Vaglio:
The big question is: why should you even have a personal brand? And for me, it always comes back to the one golden rule. People do business with people they like and they trust. Your personal brand is the bedrock foundation of who you are. It’s a reflection of you, your beliefs, your values, your interests. When you lean into your personal brand, when you create that and put that out there, it’s going to set you up as the go-to person in your network. It’s also going to help you expand that network, too. You’re going to be able to expand your reach. And that’s going to be able to give you access to more and more people. The right people you want to be in front of. And most importantly, your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in a room. That’s a really key thing I want everybody to remember. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
Chris Vaglio:
Five reasons to have a personal brand. Number one, it’s going to help you stand out. When we’re in our whole sea of competitors … Listen, in my industry in particular, there’s about a billion other coaches. But what makes me stand out from the rest of them is the things that I lean into about me. Who I am. The things that I’m about. The things that I encompass. So, it helps me stand out. It also is going to help create opportunities for you, because you’re going to be more memorable because you’re going to stand out. It’s going to position you and put you in front of more of the right people. The people you want to be in front of. So, you’re going to create more opportunity.
Chris Vaglio:
It also inspires trust. It establishes trust within your network, all your relationships, your current clients, everybody you’re surrounded by. It’s going to establish authority. You’re going to be known, once again, as the go-to person on that topic. You’re going to be the authority expert on what it is that you specialize in. It’s also going to strengthen the relationships you have. Your current relationships. We focus so much on constantly creating new business and creating new relationships, but let’s not forget about the years and years of relationships that you’ve already created. We want to strengthen those relationships, because that’s where we’re going to get … once again, get in front of more people and create those opportunities that we’re talking about.
Chris Vaglio:
It’s also going to help you gain access. If you want to meet certain people, if you want to be in front of more of the right people … well, the way to do that to gain that access is to stand out. To be trustworthy. To be an authority expert in what it is that you’re doing. Having that confidence to lean into yourself is going to help you gain access to the right people you want to be in front of. And if you’re looking for work, or if you’re just looking to onboard more clients, it’s going to increase your chances of being hired. Because once again, you are standing out. You’re inspiring trust, and you’re establishing authority within your own network.
Chris Vaglio:
Here’s going to be some quick tips on how to get going to create your own personal brand and start identifying those bits that are going to help you stand out. Number one, what makes up a personal brand? You got to ask the question: who are you? So, here’s some quick questions to ask yourself. Now, take out a pad and paper, create a Google Doc, take notes on your phone, whatever it is. But these are the questions you want to ask yourself.
Chris Vaglio:
Who are you? What things/hobbies make you happiest? What are the things that truly just make you happy? That you want to talk about? That you want to discuss? That you want to produce content around? What are the things that make you happiest? What are you interested in? What are the things that you’re interested in? What are you really good at? And what makes you feel most like the real you? The real person?
Chris Vaglio:
So, those are four quick questions to ask yourself. And write those down. This isn’t something that you’re going to just figure out in two seconds. Take the time to sit and think about these things. A mentor of mine always told me from day one, 20+ years ago. That one thing people don’t do enough is to sit and think. These are the questions that you sit, and you think, and you write. There’s no wrong answer here, because this is about you. Who are you? And so this is the foundation of building up what makes a personal brand.
Chris Vaglio:
Okay. Next exercise when figuring out your personal brand is … again, we’re still asking the questions of: who are you? So, really think about what is your DNA? What are the things that are just so inherent to you that you firmly believe in? The things that really make you who you are? Make a list of your core values and what you stand for. I’m going to repeat that one more time. Make a list of your core values and what you stand for. Things that are most important to you.
Chris Vaglio:
Examples: family, honesty, attitude, integrity, self-reliance, ability, humor, professionalism, happiness, service, trust, weirdness, whatever they are. It’s your core values. Those are the things that are … like I said, what is your DNA? They’re just such a part of you. They’re ingraining you. They’re bound to you. Those are the things that you really want to make a list of. And you can make as many as you want. There’s no set limit. It’s what are the things that value most? What are your personal core values? What is that?
Chris Vaglio:
Okay, next step here. This is one of my favorite parts of this process is … once again, in figuring out who you are. Because what makes up your personal brand is to pick five people who know you really well, and ask them what they think your strongest attributes and best character traits are. And I love this exercise, because this is the moment where you will often find something out about yourself that you never realized was a strength of yours. I love this so much. And this is such a great exercise to do. And oftentimes too, the things that we find out that we may think are weaknesses of ours, we actually find out that they are true strengths.
Chris Vaglio:
Once again, pick five people who you know well, and ask them what they think your strongest attributes and best character traits are. Then as a thank you to them for taking the time to do that, you’re going to do the same for them. And that’s how you’re going to thank them. By doing the same for them. Because everybody should know what their best attributes in character traits are. Everybody should know what their strengths are.
Chris Vaglio:
The next part of this process, I love. This is about expert knowledge, right? We all know something, right? There’s something that we all specialize in. So, write down at least five things that you’re knowledgeable about. They should be topics that you can confidently speak about. Things that make you happy and that you enjoy doing. If I was to say, “Hey, can you present tomorrow? I need 15 minutes on whatever topic.” For me, it’d be like, “Hey, Chris. Can you come on tomorrow? Can you come on a show? I need someone to talk about personal branding,” or, “I need someone to talk about networking or relationship building.” These are things that you should be able to confidently speak about at any time.
Chris Vaglio:
I may say, “Hey, I’m doing a thing. Can you come on and talk about Star Wars for 15 minutes?” Absolutely. I can talk about Star Wars for more than 15 minutes. But once again, I think you get the drift. Think about the things that you could speak about confidently. Things that you’ve thought. Things that you have expertise, and write those down, and have that in front of you. Because once again, what we’re doing with all these exercises of building up your personal brand … who you are, what you believe in, what makes you happy. These are all the things that we’re going to lean into, because this is what’s going to help you to stand out and become more memorable within your network. Remember, people do business with people that they like and they trust.
Chris Vaglio:
As I’m wrapping up here, I want to thank you all for joining me today. This was a wonderful experience. I want to thank Sid Meadows, and everybody in Amazing Entrepreneurs Club, for having me on as a guest host of today. Hope you all found this information very helpful. And I’d love to welcome the opportunity to connect with all of you, if you can. Please feel free to reach out to me directly. I’ve made it really easy. All you have to do is text the words [“letsrock” 00:10:31] to 88500. That’s the words “letsrock,” no spaces, to 88500.
Chris Vaglio:
And from there, you’ll have all my contact information, as well as links to connect, links to take my personal branding quiz, links to my free personal brand checklist. It’s all there for you, easy and accessible. Just text the words, “letsrock” to 88500, and we will get connected. All right. Thank you all everybody once again for your time today. Thank you Sid in the Amazing Entrepreneurs Club for inviting me and having me as a guest today. I hope to all connect with you soon. Have an amazing day, and always remember to rock it!
Sid Meadows:
Thanks for joining us today. I hope you got some amazing value out of today’s episode. Be sure to hit that subscribe button and follow us along this journey. And don’t forget to visit our website at amazingentrepreneurs.club for additional information, and tools, and resources to help you grow and your business grow. Go out there and make today great, and we’ll see you next week. Take care.