Why You Need To Humanise Your Brand: Demand Generation Takeover

It’s Time to Elevate Your Brand & Put Yourself Out There!

Are you ready to put yourself out there and attract your ideal clients?
If so, this is an event you can't afford to miss.

In our latest instalment of The Demand Generation series, we’re getting personal about the power of professional branding with insights from some of the industry's most influential PR and Influencer experts.

I guess you could say we’re putting a little marketing spin on the hit show "Celebs Go Dating," because just like the show, we’re bringing in the experts and putting them to work. They’ll be breaking down the basics on attracting the perfect leads and revealing how to make yourself more desirable in the market, by putting your best self out there 😜 AKA helping you humanise your brand and make it IRRESISTIBLE to your audience.

Get ready for, a marketing makeover event designed to give you the tools and advice to attract HOT leads and boost your brand.

Meet Your Experts:

Katie Street, Founder and Managing Director of Street Agency is a visionary leader in marketing and tech. Katie has helped countless brands elevate their presence and connect deeply with their audiences through authentic and humanised content. Street Agency is renowned for its innovative strategies and commitment to real, impactful branding.

Sunny Bird, a dynamic entrepreneur and branding guru, founded Reaching Millions to empower businesses and individuals to amplify their voices and reach their fullest potential. Sunny’s expertise in personal branding has transformed the visibility and engagement of numerous clients, making her a sought-after name in the industry.

PLUS, there is another special guest who we will be announcing soon… so keep your eyes peeled.

What You’ll Learn:

The Power of Personal Branding: Understand how personal and professional branding intertwines and why it’s crucial for success in today’s market.

The How & Why Around Humanising Your Brand: Discover practical strategies to foster genuine connections with your audience, making your brand more relatable and engaging.

Real-World Success Stories: Hear inspiring examples and case studies that show the remarkable impact of a personal touch in branding.

Why Attend?

Gain Expert Insights: Learn from Katie and Sunny, two industry leaders with a wealth of experience and proven success in brand humanisation.

Actionable Strategies: Walk away with practical tips and techniques to immediately apply to your branding efforts.

Inspire and Connect: Network with like-minded professionals and leave inspired to take your brand to new heights.

What are you waiting for, save the date for this transformative event!

It’s your chance to learn how to humanise your brand, connect authentically with your audience, and scale your business. Embrace authenticity and personal connection to elevate your brand to new heights.

It's a not-to-be-missed unique opportunity to gain a competitive edge in today’s market. Reserve your spot now and get ready to attract your ideal clients like never before.

Connect with Katie Street:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/
https://www.instagram.com/streetmate/

Follow Street Agency:
https://street.agency/
https://www.instagram.com/street.agency/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/streetagency/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Personal Branding and Guest Speakers
• 1:50 Sam's Three-Step Process for Building Personal Brands
• 5:23 Katie's Observations and Sunny's Input on Value Proposition
• 9:36 Sam and Sunny's Approaches to Defining Value Proposition
• 21:38 Tactics for Amplifying Personal Brand
• 23:06 Consistency and Content Formats
• 39:39 Converting Followers into Clients
• 44:46 Common Mistakes in Building Personal Brands
• 51:23 Final Thoughts and Actionable Advice

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Hello. So welcome everyone to fifth edition of the demand generation, and this we're going to be digging into everything personal brand. As you all know, it is more important than ever to take a human first approach to your marketing, and that means, as individuals and businesses, lots of B to B businesses are still showing up with boring, generic marketing content that people just don't want to engage with. So Sam, not only is an influencer and someone who's done a fantastic job with his own personal brand, but he also runs a personal branding agency that just happens to have made famous, and looks after some of the my previous podcasts on marketing and the madness. So Sam really knows his staff. He has really helped a lot of people, especially up on LinkedIn, kind of raise their post personal brand and help them attract and win new business by taking a human first approach. And I also have the fantastic sunny bird. So sunny and I have been friends for a long, long time. Sunny also used to run her own agency, but has, more recently, I guess, got into writing books and doing PR well. Her agency was a PR agency, but also now working with us at street. So Sunny is kind of famed for helping both B to C, brands and individuals, raise their awareness, reach audience and attract you know, because of that, lots of attention leads and opportunities. Today's live is actually everything that I preach, everything that I believe in. It's where we see the best results when we're able to humanize the businesses, the brands and the people that we work with within the businesses, whether they're small or large, it's where we see the best results. And today, we are going to be exploring exactly how you do that. Now, Sam, I'm going to come to you first, because you've got quite a special approach at how you do this and how you structure it for, I guess, your clients, which I think we're going to use a framework to work through. We're going to try and share as much as we can with you guys today, tactics, ideas, strategies. So there's loads and loads of learnings for you all to take away. So Sam, over to you, talk to me and be about your three step process that you run through with your clients. Yeah, you're absolutely

Unknown: 2:21

right. So this is a process that we've developed probably in the last like three years or so, because we basically noticed that, like all of the most successful personal brands that we built, had three very simple things in common. So this is like a framework that anyone can use for building their personal brand and becoming a thought leader that's tried and tested pretty reliable. And the first thing you have to do when you build a brand is not actually jump to posting content and getting out there online, which is what most people want to do, right? It's the it's the cool thing to do. It's like the sexy part of building a personal brand. But actually, before that is something that we call positioning. And positioning is really, really important to make sure you're actually building the right kind of reputation. If you skip this and you go straight to just like chucking content out there or trying to land media features, it's, it's kind of like getting in a car and driving without putting a destination in your sat nav. You're never going to get to where you want to be, and you're probably going to move 100 miles an hour, but there's a good chance you're going to go in the wrong direction and not build the actual reputation that you want or need to build, right? So if you think about the goals that you have in your business or with your personal brand, there's probably a reputation that you need to build in order to achieve them. Positioning really is about defining that and understanding the kinds of things that you need to be seen as, as an expert in, the kinds of things you want to be known for, etc. So that positioning piece is really, really important, actually something that a lot of people, I think, Miss and forget or either they don't know how to do it or they can't be asked to do it. And actually, we ran a survey recently, and we surveyed nearly 1000 people. 76% of them said they feel overlooked, despite having a lot of value to offer, which suggests to me that a large proportion of three quarters of people, despite probably being very good at what they do, don't actually have the reputation that they deserve online, because they're not positioning themselves in the right way. They're not making it clear to their audience why they're credible, what their value proposition is, etc. So that positioning pieces is the first piece really, really important. And then, of course, it's It's the fun stuff, publishing content, getting out there, posting on social media, landing PR features, features in the media, which is a really, really good way to build trust with your audience at scale. Get in front of lots of the right people. Easy to overcomplicate this, I think, but ultimately, it's about just get in front of the right people as much as possible and build trust with them. And I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more in this about how you actually do that and some of the tactical things that you need to bear in mind. And then once you've do you've done that, you've got an amazing opportunity, because you've got lots and lots of people that know who you are, see you as an expert, really trust you and really like you. And with that, what you want to do is the final thing, which is conversion, actually convert it into opportunities. I don't know about you guys. I. I'm not doing this whole business thing for the clout and the likes and just just to get fame right. I actually want to build quite a successful business. I think probably most people on this maybe want clients who want to make some money. That's why, conversion standpoint, if it's not clients, it might be landing speaking engagements. It might simply be like building a newsletter or getting podcast listeners. Those can all be sources of conversion, but it's really important for making sure, you know, you don't have 100,000 followers but an empty bank account.

Katie: 5:26

And you know what? I see that a lot. It's actually quite ironic, because I I've got quite a niche following, LinkedIn and but I get pretty much all my leads. My audience, it's smaller than a lot of influencers out there. I wouldn't say that my influencer, um, but essentially, I have met a lot of people that are posting a lot of social on social and have got fantastic following, but they don't know why they're posting, or they don't, you know that there's no point. They haven't really understood what they want from posting and what their audience needs from the posts that they're putting out, so therefore, it doesn't really deliver them any value. So, you know, we often look at people go, Oh, they've got so many followers, but actually, it doesn't do anything for them. It's kind of pointless. It's the ones that have actually sometimes, I think, in today's world, that have got, you know, micro influencers, that have got a niche audience, but people that trust and listen to them and engage with their content because it's useful. So I think that's kind of where I'd like to start. Sam and Sunny is, how do you and we've all got slightly different approaches to this, but I think you know, coming at it with the same lens. I think that, for me, there's kind of two things in that, in that upfront piece. One is understanding what value you provide to your audience, and what you want to talk about and what you want to be known for, and then secondary, what you've got to map this against, and says what your audience actually want and need right now, if those two things don't map together, the whole effing thing falls flat on its face. You've got to understand the value you provide and the value that your prospects and audience needs before you do anything. Because if you can't marry what you do and how you help people with something the market actually needs right now, your prospects need right now, then the whole thing's falls flat in its face. So I would love to explore Sunny. I know you've been doing a little bit of this this week, so maybe we come to you first, and then Sam, like how you and also sunny with your past your PR hat on how you go about defining that value proposition,

Unknown: 7:26

it's really having a look at where one where there are gaps in the market, where you you stand out. So you know when you define the proposition, it's very clearly what you're offering against your competitors, to what your customers are really looking for, customers, prospects, target audience, whatever you'd like to call them, what their needs are and what their challenges are. And then it's almost like putting that all together into a package, and you can look at the summary of that and create your own value proposition. But I don't think it's always about what your customers needs are. It's also what your customers are interested in, in hearing or part of sometimes it's creating that community, so they're a part of that journey. And I think that's key when it comes to if you're especially if you're going to profile yourself, it's not just about your business. It's about why. Why would your prospects or customers want to hear what you're saying, like they understand what you offer as a business. Why would they why would they build, like, invest in you personally, not just your business. And I think that's really key. I think there's a difference when in our reaching millions courses, we talk about how to profile your business, how to PR your business, but when it comes to you personally, it's almost a little bit of a different entity, because what you're offering is different to your business, and you need to understand what your clients are going to want to get from you that's different to what they want to get from your business. That's a

Katie: 8:52

very good point, actually, Sunny. Something that you've raised there, which I think a lot of us grapple with, including me still Sam, is, you know, people want to buy into the person. So you've got to you've got to lace in some of that personal content that shows who you are behind the scenes. Like, you know, I'm a business owner, and the value I provide to my clients is around lead generation and helping them build engaged audiences of prospects. But I'm also a mum, a woman, person like so that when I'm thinking about my LinkedIn strategy, I and often the best performing posts, which probably don't provide that much value, are the kind of posts that people where people can connect with me. So I'd love to hear from you, yeah, of course, how you define the value proposition, but also how you craft a strategy that pulls in all of those different things, because there's quite a bit to think about. Yeah, I want about.

Unknown: 9:43

Yeah, 100% there's there's when we build this out with clients, there's three things that we always look at. The first is that value proposition. I think every business owner should have a personal value proposition. We call it a mission sometimes, but it's basically a value proposition for your personal brand, just like probably. Everyone's built one for their business. Absolutely need to build one for your personal brand as well. And that is the reason why people care, like that's giving the audience what they want and what they need. But you're right. There's an element of, there's probably lots of other people providing that. Why are people going to come to you over everyone else? And for that, we have what we call a message, which is essentially like a statement of what makes you different from everybody else, or why you're better than everybody else. And that's not why people should care, but that's why people will come to you over everybody else in the industry. And then the final thing we have, actually, that backs this up, is like a frame which is basically third party proof that you're really good at what you do. Because ultimately, people are going to be wondering, why should I listen to you on this topic? Why are you out of everyone in the industry? So you need to have some sort of third party social proof that you're good at what you and that might come from results that you've achieved, career milestones, places that you've been featured, clients that you've worked with, etc. That's really important for kind of backing up the value proposition and the message and making them more believable. I think when you get those three things, you have a brand that speaks to your audience, and you go from being a choice to the choice people buy

Katie: 11:12

people. At the end of the day, none of us want to be marketed to by a faceless marketing team, really. I mean a little bit different when it comes to products, but there's a reason that brands on the B to C side then get influencers to help them drive their products. We've got a huge opportunity in B to B, I think, where so many businesses aren't utilizing their people, their thought leaders, to drive out their business. They're still relying on old school posts, content reports that don't really help them show up as people, and the research is just, you know, flying at the moment in the direction of people. Want to buy from people even, you know, we did a little review yesterday for one of our clients, looking at content for their competitors, and all of the competitor content that was performing well was when it profiled people front and center, human centered content. They don't want the thing that took you, like, you know, two weeks to design with your graphic design team. They just want to photo a person. It honestly is that bloody simple, but still, you know, most B to B businesses still reverting back to that kind of more old school approach. I have another question in terms of, kind of defining that, that go to market, kind of value proposition, obviously, Sam, you've done this for yourself already. How, how did you do it for you? Give me the give me the SAM backstory, you kind of you started and sunny, I want you to answer the same questions as well, because you've both done very well at positioning yourselves in the market. How? Why? You know? Because that's then both help both of you then go on to launch businesses that are associated. Back to you just doing that. How did that come about? What did you do? Was there a big idea, or did you just start doing stuff like, yeah, give me the give me the download. Yeah.

Unknown: 13:04

Mine was quite natural, to be fair, because I guess my interest and and work in personal branding came out of not having a personal brand. I was, I was a young student trying to get freelance marketing projects. Depending on who I speak to, I either tell them I was trying to boost my career prospects, or I wanted extra beer money for uni, I changed the story depending on on where I am. So I was kind of, I was reaching out to loads of business owners around Boeing myself at uni, and I was constantly met with the same response, which was like, Who the hell are you? You're just this 19 year old kid. Who are you to to teach me about marketing? And fair enough, right? I was, I was a 19 year old kid, but I probably knew more about marketing than them, so I resorted to the most businessy place I knew, which was LinkedIn. I started posting the things that I was learning, the things that I knew, to prove that I did actually have at least a little bit of expertise. I wasn't claiming to be the world's top marketing expert at 19 years old, of course not, but I knew a little bit. So I started posting. And actually, what happened after I started posting content was more people would reach out to me. Rather than me reaching out to them and getting ignored, they were literally coming to me saying, Can you help me with this, which is really interesting. And over time, people started asking for help with their own LinkedIn profiles. And that's really how I got into the world of personal branding. I found clearly I had a bit of a knack for it. And more and more people were asking for support with their personal brand. So it came out of not having a reputation or having a, I wouldn't say, a bad reputation, maybe no reputation at all. I really just reverse engineered the kinds of things that I would need a business owner to believe about me, and posted things that would create that impression. That was as simple as that, really?

Katie: 14:41

Yeah, it plays into something that I love saying. So if you're not fucking there, no one's going to find you. Like, it's so true, isn't it? Like, if you don't show up, you can't stand out, so stop expecting to do nothing, and loads of leads and opportunities come to you. Oh, it's not working, yeah, but you've not done anything, so you're not there, you're not. Present. How are people going to find you if you're not there? So I think that's really important. Sunny, I know you're a huge believer in this, so tell me a bit about your story.

Unknown: 15:10

It works two ways, isn't it? So when I launched my first PR agency, I want to hold on now, a good 17 years ago, a good when I say 20, actually, really 20 years ago, as soon as we started showing up on social media, our leads came in three times the amount, and that was before, you know, people started to show up on social media. And we looked at it quite differently. Back then, we were looking at what our clients is, what your clients care about, what your prospects care about. And back then, when we did our research piece on us as an agency, our clients really cared about results. Because in the PR world, as you'll know, Sam, it can be seen as fluff. Oh, they write press releases, but actually, what monetary value does that piece of coverage bring? So our focus was really displaying the results we got, not just in Oh, we got you in vogue this week. You know, it was like on the back of this feature and these tactics and this strategy, we increased the client sales by 4,000% and that's how we led with our positioning. And then we went one step further. So on the back of this, on the back of PR, I'm all about supporting small brands, supporting entrepreneurs who can't also afford PR, because I've been in that position, I've launched other businesses. We launched reaching millions to help smaller brands to teach them how to do their NPR. But actually was quite interesting. Someone said to me in one of the courses, but you don't have a consumer brand, Sunny. And so I set ourselves up a task, and we launched an innovation hub where we launched our own fashion brand with no mark, with no background in fashion, and we did exactly what we were telling our clients to do. It was almost like a pudding piece, a proof in the pudding piece. Like, if we can do it with very little investment, taking the exact steps we're telling you to do and showing you our results, then we, you know, clients would love that, because it's almost like they're following a, you know, a go to approach. And so we launched a fashion brand called perfect dress company. We tapped into really what our customers wanted. We did some research, first saying, what's missing out there in fashion, what is missing, and the research came back when women didn't feel heard. They were fed up with like skinny models being shown. Lots of research, but we so we would like to the research, and we launched a brand, and our brand was all about dresses that flattered and fit, even if you went up or down a few sizes. But we every step of the way of launching this brand, we showed what I personally showed up to our audience, and I had much what you're saying. And Katie, I didn't have a huge following on my social media, on my LinkedIn account, I think at the time, I had 3000 it's probably now up to 8000 followers. But we talked every step of the journey, from the development stage. We got them involved. We talked about what they cared about. We knew that they cared about the sizing, and how sizing was so important to them, and how in different shops, sizing is different. So we talked about that. We just kept on showing up. And that's something we talk about. Katie being consistent, but telling your journey being authentic. And by the time we launched pre sales, we had pre sales six months within the business. Business, we turned over half a million and that's just based on that business took around about 12 months to launch, with the research that we did all the way through. And that just shows like the consistency showing up being authentic, understanding your cut, what your customers really want, what they care about, is the key thing you mentioned care Sam earlier, that care piece. And actually, I feel like that's one of the most important pieces. If you don't understand what keeps your customers up at night, what they care about, what their challenges are, it's gonna be very hard to position yourself.

Katie: 18:42

I love that. And I think as someone else, I know Arianne tomazo. She runs a social media influencer agency. She's huge on Tiktok, like nearly 200,000 people, but she launched her own flower shop to test, to test things like, you know, we do this for street everything we do for our clients, we do for ourselves. We want to test anything. We do it with us first. So I think that's a really, you know, great testament to your entrepreneurial attitude as well, but also something that we all need to do, you know, test, if you've got an idea, test it, do it, try it. People are going

Unknown: 19:12

to trust you more if you show them the failures, right, in personal and in professional, something Stephen

Katie: 19:16

Barton has probably talked about quite a bit, and I truly believe everyone shows up with the celebratory, fun stuff. But the reality is that actually the hard work and all the failures that you've had to get there people, for whatever reason, don't share. Now, if you actually start, I'm a big fan of like, if everyone else is zigging zag, if you actually start to talk about the crap and the bad stuff and the things that weren't bad. People can empathize it with that. Because, let's be honest, a lot of the time they've had a load of crap happened to them as well. A bit more kind of not that we want to wallow in self pity, and, you know, see other people doing badly, but we do want to create content that empathizes so that's kind of what I want to talk about next. So Sam, I want to talk about. Tactics, like, I love your three step process. So obviously, that upfront piece is value, and then the next, the next piece of what do you call it? I've forgotten what you called it, amplify. Yeah, amplification. So amplification, how do you set a plan you've you understand your value. You know the different you know, content pillars and the things that you want to talk about. Now, how do you then devise and plan so that you show up consistently to amplify your message? Yeah, so

Unknown: 20:33

there are, like, there are 1000s of ways you could amplify your message, right? Like you could buy billboard space, you could you could get carrier pigeons carrying around your message if you really wanted it to. But the most effective things that we've found are social content, because it's widely accessible, and things like PR landing features in the media because of the instant authority that gives you. I'd say the next one after that is probably putting ad spend behind the content that you produce. But I would always start with social media and then PR, and there's really like one universal content strategy for social media that is going to work for absolutely everyone, no matter what your offer is, what industry you're in, who you're targeting, what your goals are. If you do these three things, I am 99.9% sure it will work for you and you will get towards your result. The first thing you want to do with amplification and like social strategy, specifically, you can apply this to LinkedIn, Instagram, Tiktok, any channel you like, is you need to get in front of the right people, right and of course, we mentioned earlier, like a bigger following isn't always better, but all other things being equal, having more people know who you are is only going to be a good thing, like if you retain good positioning, you're not like making a mockery of yourself. You're not like sacrificing all authority to grow your audience. Having more people know about you is going to be a good thing because it's a bigger pool of people that you could potentially build trust with and then sell to in the future. So the number one thing, the first thing you want to do with your content is try and reach new people, people that didn't know you existed previously. The second thing you want to do is build trust with those people, because lots and lots of people knowing you is useless, but they're not going to just chuck money at you and buy your products or buy your services if they don't like you or trust you, or if you don't solve the problems that they experience. We've been talking about that through the positioning process. So building trust is the second phase. And then once you've done that, you've got a big pool of people that know who you are. They like you, they trust you. Ultimately, you want to convert them, right? So that's where the final stage of content, which is get them towards the next step, towards working with you, whether that's like visiting a product page, whether it's booking a call with you, joining a newsletter, downloading like a guide, whatever that next stage is for working with you. That's the final thing. So really, in summary, the only three things you need to do, get in front of people, build trust with them, and convert them. And if you do those three things, you're going to grow your business through your personal brand. That is all you need to do. So simplify as much as possible and just focus on those three things, and you can publish content that does each one of those

Katie: 23:00

tactics, are there or content formats when it comes to the actual types of content, whether it's like video SlideShares, lives, are there any that you see that work harder than others, or that are trending at the moment, or any kind of tips On type of content. First

Unknown: 23:22

thing I'd say is like, do what. Do what suits you. Like if you're really good on camera and a terrible writer, don't write content. Do video. If you're terrible on camera but you write really well, just write like, stick to your strengths at the start, a few things we're noting at the moment across platforms. Obviously, vertical video is huge right now. Platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and even YouTube shorts like vertical video is just such a widely consumed format of content that it's natural for people to consume it. LinkedIn are actually testing their own vertical video feed only on some mobile apps at the moment, if it's successful, which I can't see it not being successful. Given like how conditioned people are to consume vertical video. It's going to be a success. When they roll that out to all profiles, they're basically going to pump the views on videos. They're going to like reward you for using videos, because they want users to adopt it. So I think video is going to be huge over the next 12 months, especially on LinkedIn. The benefit is a much richer communication than just text. Text obviously slightly easier if you're doing text based content, always try and include imagery, especially on LinkedIn. Next time you're scrolling your feed, just look at the screen space that's taken up from a text only post versus a text and image, whether that's like a graphic, whether it's a photo, whether it's a carousel, including some form of image, is going to take up loads more screen space, and it's basically more screen real estate that you can use to capture people's attention and get them to consume it. So I'd always say, try and include some sort of imagery where you can with text. But ultimately, it comes down to, what are you best at? If you're great at text, do text? If you're great on video, do video.

Katie: 24:59

Love that. I love. Of the video stuff. It's always great to hear, because now I know what we need to be doing for us, like what's coming. Because when the platforms guys, when the platforms do launch new types of content, they want to see people using it, and they therefore will promote it. So if you know, new features etc, launched, and that's across all platforms. But you know, Sam's just given us a great tip for LinkedIn video and you know, you doing vertical, you know, tick tocky, Instagrammy style reels and video posts, that is, you know, do it now, because when it comes you're it's going to help you. If you've got that backlog of content and you've already been posting it. PR, sunny, this is a world that I've dabbled in, but never one that I have probably nailed as well as I could. And forgive me for probably being one of those people that think, Oh, it's too fluffy, it's up there, doesn't get the impact, doesn't get the results. How do you design a PR strategy that is actually focused on driving proper leads and opportunities.

Unknown: 26:04

I think it's exactly the same as personally, because I with PR and social media, I feel it's the same as social media. It's the same as looking at your social media strategy. So I get what Sam is saying by, you know, showing up with a thing that you feel most comfortable with. But for us in PR, we say that as well. So if you're not comfortable in front of the camera, great, but let's trial that. But for us, it's all about testing as well. So what we'll tend to do is we'll look at the opportunities that are out there for our clients, B to B or B to C, the best way to get in front of them, and then we'll break that down, and we'll almost like trial. So it's good to trial different things, but evaluate them and test them. So we all put together. So based on your particular client, how do you get in front of the audience? Is it through social media, getting them on other people's podcasts, getting them at events, speaking at events? Is it with collaborations? Collaborations are key to help drive your building your audience, and also to get other people to bind you and and taking other people's audience off of them. So we all do a lot of testing, and we'll tend to put we'll look at all the different ways of reaching an audience, for our clients, getting in front of their audience, and then we'll test and keep on testing. And it's about being consistent as well. It's about showing up. You don't have to just show up on one platform. If you can consistently show up on other people's platforms, on different platforms, it's just about getting your message out there. For some people, it will take them, you know, up to, I think, for NPR, we say up to, like, eight times before they even go to your website. So you've got to be showing up in different places, not always in the same place, but there is such thing as spreading yourself too thin, or doing something and not doing it well because you're spreading yourself too thin. So that's why we continually, continuously test where we're putting ourselves. You can say, right? You know what? That area is not really working very well. Let's not put much effort there. It's a waste of our time. Let's put more resources in A, B and C. So I feel for us. We'll have a look at, just to summarize, we'll have a look at all the options out there, test them, evaluate them, and then you can really hit home your actual strategy and tactics from that. Yeah,

Katie: 28:16

I love that. There's two things that I love about PR. One is, I'm going to call it. This is probably the wrong name, but social proof. It's that credibility. If you've had an article published in trade press, or you're a media platform that you know your audience love and trust, one, you're going to reach them in a place that they you know, that they already go to, that they already consume in two, feed the connections that you already have. It might get some of them to stand up and go, oh yeah, great. Actually, yeah, I really trust that platform. Wow, there. They've been interviewed in, I don't know, the grocer, if you're a retailer, whatever it might be that it gives you that kind of social proof. So for me, there's those two elements of, you know, reaching your audience, and also there's the element of that kind of proof in the pudding. Actually, that's you that you can trust these guys, because we wanted to talk to them, because they're awesome. Sam, obviously you also do PR, anything else to add from a PR front,

Unknown: 29:10

I'd echo that. That's like, exactly the angle that we look at it from. It's like, yes, you're going to reach potentially 1000s, 10s of 1000s, or even millions of people that are targeted. Like, if someone's reading the grocer, you can make some assumptions about the kind of person they are and the kinds of things they're interested in, right? They're not interested in motorsport necessarily. You can reach a very targeted audience, but then, yeah, it's like you're worth featuring. If you're seen as someone worth interviewing or worth featuring, it just makes people so much more receptive to like everything you say In future, if, like me, Forbes is, like, the most extreme example in the business world, right? If you're featuring Forbes people like, Okay, you're credible. It's just that it's that instant, like thinking in their brain, whether it's conscious subconscious, people just instantly see you as worth listening to, which I think goes a long way longer than most people would think. Yeah, so. Totally

Katie: 30:00

I love that. Oh, my God, there's so much more I want to ask. I'm going to stick with tactics for a bit, because it's my favorite thing, consistency, Sam consistency is, I think, the most important things. And I've seen a real step change, like even from posting three times a week to now trying to post every single day. Personally, how consistent do you have to be? Are there different times that, like, I'm going to keep this about LinkedIn, because I think if we talked about every platform would be here all day. But when it comes to LinkedIn, same what? Any kind of cadence, recommendations, timing recommendations for where to post, what? What does Sam the expert, say? Yeah,

Unknown: 30:41

I'd say, like, there's no universal rule. A general rule of thumb is three to five times a week. Is like, a good guide for most people. If you're I wouldn't go any less than two, like, if you're doing once a month, it's not going to have a huge impact. I would always try and do probably at least two posts per week. We typically advise all of our clients somewhere between three and five posts per week, depending on their goals. If you're looking for leads and you're a bit more lead gen focused, I would up it to five a week, because it's just more touch points, more opportunities, working for you in the background, basically acting like a salesperson for you. So you just want to increase the number of posts you put out as much as possible. For some people, like three, four is is fine. Time of day, again, depends massively in the audience, typically for UK based clients, we found a morning slot is the most engaging. So somewhere between 730 and

9: 31:29

30am tends to be the big slot. I guess the thinking is people are scrolling the phones on the way to work, scrolling the feed, or they're just sitting down at the desk and having a quick scroll through LinkedIn. So that typically is the highest performing time period, but that's just from our experience. If you're going after an audience that maybe aren't based in the UK, you're going after us. Audience, for example, you probably want to post slightly later in the day, because, you know, 7am UK time, hopefully most US people, apart from the ones with obscene morning routines, are probably asleep. So you've got to think about like, who you're targeting, where in the world they are. Generally, I'd say for most people, that morning slot 730

to 9: 32:06

30am three to five times a week is like, a good rule of thumb for posting and make it a priority. You'll have time to be consistent. You just need to make it a priority.

Katie: 32:18

Yeah, I was like, I'm too busy. No, you're not too busy. It's just not a priority. That's the truth. Let's be honest. It's just not a priority, and it absolutely should be. I think those that make it a priority now are the businesses and the people that are going to win. This doesn't just help your business attract and win new clients. This is hugely important for you and your career. I think I've always been highly present on social media, slightly different tone of voice, maybe on Instagram to LinkedIn, but probably not that different. But, you know, I've always made it a priority, because I know the importance of my network, and I think that's becoming ever more important. People do not. I mean, this is something that I talk about a lot, so apologies for anyone who listens to me who's really bored of me saying this, but people don't even go to Google anymore to search for, you know, products, services that they need in their personal or professional life. They go to their social networks. My daughter plans our holidays on Tiktok. If I want to buy something, I buy on Instagram. I don't, you know, sometimes in platform, I'm not even really going on to the websites anymore. So if your business isn't showing up in a human way on LinkedIn, someone else will be, and your audience and your prospects will be listening to them, and that, I think, is just going to become ever more present. People go to their network on LinkedIn, we do this kind of research all the time. They go to LinkedIn, to their network, or when it comes to B to B, if you're a CTO CMO, head of digital, you're going to go to your friends, to your network, to the people, to get them to give you recommendations, which will often be on the amount of times I get looped in on stuff on LinkedIn. Oh, you should speak to Katie or my clients, even introduce me to other potential clients on LinkedIn. That's dialed up now by people just seeing me and seeing my content and therefore understanding what I do, introducing me to other people, because I'm present, if I'm not there, not going to get recommended. So think about your I like to kind of frame it up as your go to Network strategy, not just your partners and because that's a whole other piece, but social media is your network. It's where we all go to search for things now. So don't forget it. Don't you know, spend loads of money on PPC campaigns on Google anymore, because I don't think, sorry guys for those running PPC Google, not saying it's totally dead, but I promise you, if you do this stuff right, there will be a lot more value that you can pull back to your business. So we

Unknown: 34:46

found these recently, right? We did this survey like over the last few months. So this is like, hot off the press. We've not even announced this. The stats on this are absolutely crazy. So our research found that 98.2% Five of people say expertise of senior leadership team influences their decision to purchase from a service provider. 26.5 of those said it's moderately influential. 28.3 said extremely influential. And 38.9 said very influential, which is just nuts, like the amount people are considering your expertise, which you can show on LinkedIn, is crazy. The other one is that 76% so pretty much three quarters of people, are moderately or strongly influenced by senior leadership team, personal branding when comparing competitors. So if you're in like, a pitch battle against a competitor, let's say, for argument's sake, your pitches are like on par. They're exactly the same, but your team are publishing content on LinkedIn every day that client is going to be seeing that content, and they're way more likely to choose you because you're publishing it. The stats on this are just ridiculous. We've never found any stats that show this doesn't positively impact your business. It's crazy. Yeah,

Katie: 35:55

it's such a good point actually, like you know that people forget? Yes, not only does it attract and make, ensures that you have more leads and you've got more opportunities to go for. It actually makes your opportunities much easier to convert that you're talking to when you're in that pitch proposal scenario, already feel like they know you because they're connected with you. They've been engaging with your content. You're three, four steps ahead of the people that aren't doing that. So why would you not do it? Not saying it's laziness, but think lots of people are scared, or they think it's too much effort and they just don't do it. So, yeah, you're not doing it. You need to take today away and start doing it.

Unknown: 36:32

I think people also want to buy into your team as well. Katie, you know, so you can't just have, like, the business being out there and having lots of social media, you know, clips about the business at the end of the day. That you know, if a company sort of come and work with you, they need to understand that your team are also experts too. So that's why it's so important for your your leadership team, your team who are working with the client, so also be putting themselves out there on social media. Yeah, 100%

Katie: 36:58

share your clients stories. Interview clients like there's so much that you can share, taking this person first approach that will be extremely valuable. One question I have Sam, which is kind of linked to that. So Sam recommended that we post between three and five times a week if you really want to generate leads, and you're not just doing it for fun, which is, let's hope, I hope most of you are listening. If you're doing this for lead gen yet, three to five times a week, ideally, first thing in the morning. I totally concur with that Sam, you know, 730 and 930 we have seen, you know, sometimes post I have, I have tried recently, doing posts on a Sunday night. And I do think it's sometimes interesting to trial different times of day, because different people might be engaging, let's say not just different countries, but different people might be engaging at different times. So, you know, do maybe one day a post at 730 then the next day, do one at nine, then the next day, do one at I don't know, a different time in the more in that 730 to 930 gap, and then maybe do one in an evening or just test it. I think that that for me. Sam, your view on posting on weekends in LinkedIn, I'd like to know previously

Unknown: 38:08

saw a big difference, like a year or two ago, weekends were like dead, like no one was on LinkedIn. But now, actually, the engagement and views are pretty similar across the two. And I actually think competition on weekends is far lower. There's far fewer people posting. I don't think the caveat, I think, is, I don't think people are necessarily in a buying mindset on the weekend. So I would never publish like a case study or a really in depth post on the weekend. I would probably keep it slightly lighter and focus that weekend content on the stuff that grows your audience. It's a little bit more like lighthearted, easy to engage with, more fun. So yeah, we've seen great performance. I just wouldn't do your most in depth content, or your case studies or anything like that on on Saturday or Sunday. I think weekends also work really well when you're pitching to national newspapers, because there's less there's less competition out in there. You haven't got as many PRs working over the weekend. So if you want to get in in a national newspaper, great time to pictures on a Sunday, because actually there's less emails coming in. That

Katie: 39:07

is a really good point, actually. And again, something that you know, I often think about when you're you know, you need to take a multi channel approach, but show up on the platform that you're most likely to get noticed on at a time that you're most likely to get noticed on. Like you say, sometimes people, you know, it is worth trialing posting or, you know, sending messages on LinkedIn, or whatever it might be at in the evening, maybe when people aren't tied to their desk. So depending on what you're trying to, you know, do, then trial doing it at different times a day. Because I think different tactics work at different times a day. Um, I want to move on to Sam's third pillar, which is that convert bit. Now lots of people do a great job, hopefully at the first two defining their value, understanding who they're for, who they're talking to, the problems they're helping solve, posting consistently, but then they forget to convert. And make it easy for people to buy them. So we've got some strategies around this at street. Sam, I'd love to know what you do and how you help plan for conversions. Yeah,

Unknown: 40:10

so our thinking around this, right is probably north of 90% of people that are consuming your content on LinkedIn aren't ready to buy from you right now. Some will, and these people, they'll reach out to you, that's an inbound lead, right? They'll reach out to your LinkedIn. They'll ask, like, can we get on a call? I'd love to talk about your services, and you get that, sure, but probably 90% of your market will either never buy, and that's okay, or they will buy in the future, but they're just not quite ready that. They need to see a little bit more. They need a bit more trust. And if you think about what it's like for someone to consume your LinkedIn content and engage with it, it's a very it. It's a very low commitment interaction. They can do it on their phone from the comfort of their own home with a cup of tea on the sofa. Very low commitment, investing 345, maybe six figures in working with you. Very high commitment. So there's this massive commitment gap between the two and people, not everyone is ready to make that jump straight away. So what we've got to do with conversion is provide kind of stepping stones, I guess, that gradually increase the amount of commitment people are willing to make and to the point where they are ready to make that full investment with you. That's pretty much what we're looking to do with with conversion. And there are loads of great ways to this, like, I mean, live sessions are a great way, newsletters are a great way webinars basically producing what are typically referred to as lead magnets, which are slightly more in depth pieces of content. You're probably going to exchange a bit more of someone's time or someone's email address, or maybe a small fee for these sorts of things, so you're increasing the commitment they make by requiring them to sit down and read a guide which is going to take effort, or give you their email and name, which is kind of another form of sacrifice that they have to make. Ultimately, it's gradually increasing the commitment that they make and the trust that you build with them, because you've got a much better opportunity in an hour long live session, a webinar or a lead magnet to show your expertise and build trust. And that process is basically how we take someone from a follower to a client if they're not quite ready to make the jump straight away. And I've

Katie: 42:05

got one to add to that sunny which is probably 80% of the work that we do at Street, which is events in person, events like that, is where we possibly see the most engagement, most opportunity, because they're really giving up time. We're putting a dinner on a breakfast event where maybe you've got some peers or thought leaders in the room that they really respect and want to hear from. They're giving up their time to come and spend time in a room with you. They're committing and giving you their time to come to an event. And I think that plus having what we call gateway products, which are branded after gateway drugs. Not that I am, anyway, advocating gateway drugs, but, you know, having packaged up like you say, Sam, small things, you know, so we do, you know, the content, the outreach, the lead generation side of things, through social, predominantly LinkedIn, then we're trying to, you know, get the people in a room with us at an event for our clients, and then after that, it's going, right? You've done all these things. We can see that you're engaged. You're obviously interested in what we're talking about. Do you want to buy a little mini version of that with us? Because we can. We've done you, we've proven to you, we've shown you in a room and spoken to you about our case studies, and you've seen the interviews with I don't know which brand Ted Baker, Pepsi, whoever it might be. Now, do you want? Why don't we show you how we can do that for you, and making sure that you've got these really easy to buy gateway products that you know, people can kind of go, Yeah, cool. That's a way for me to try working with you. It might not be the big 500,000 pound, 100,000 pound, 5 million pound project, whatever it is that you sell your projects for but it's a way to start working together.

Unknown: 43:44

I think I feel the reason that your events work, and because I've been following been on this journey for you, like the last you know, six months, is you've got that nurture piece at the beginning where they don't know who you are, so you're educating them with the messages that you know hit home with them, and then you're nurturing them on the journey. They're having that consistency, you're keeping you're showing up more or your social posts or your direct messages to them. They feel nurtured. They feel like it's personalized. It's tailored to them. And then the final piece is you get them in front of someone, a real human, which is key to what we talk about in marketing and PR, people buy from people. You've done that education piece, You've nurtured them, you've made them feel loved and cared for, and then you've got them in front of someone who they've already built that trust with, because you've done that whole journey, Katie, and then they're face to face and that they already know their pain points because you've already done that part of the journey. And so they're having conversations, which is how you then convert them into a sale, which is what you guys do really well. Thanks,

Katie: 44:43

Sunny. Nice little stand for approval there. So we've got a question, Sam, in your experience, what common mistakes do individuals make when trying to establish their personal brand, and how can we avoid them?

Unknown: 44:56

Great question number one is the positioning piece that we mentioned at the start. I said like. Yeah, the majority of people completely skip this and go straight into publishing content without any idea of how they actually need to be seen, the kinds of things they need their audience to think about them, the kind of reputation that they want to build. So number one step you can do to avoid that is basically go through the phases that we mentioned at the start of this, around building out a kind of personal value proposition, a frame reasons why you're credible that's gonna basically set you on the right foot and make sure that when people come across you, they don't just see you as another person posting LinkedIn content, but actually someone that they really need to work with, someone that's gonna solve their problems. So that positioning piece, I think, is the number one thing. The second I think, is maybe chasing likes and views a little bit too much. As I said, I think there is merit in them this. I don't like this whole like vanity metric Convo, because there's definitely a benefit to having more views, more likes, more followers, for sure. But if you get caught up in chasing that too much, and you're just posting top of funnel vague content, it's going to get views, but you're not posting any of nurturing content, any content that demonstrates authority and shows you're good at what you do, you can have a really big following and a really small bank balance, which is not a good recipe. Can

Katie: 46:09

I add a few couple of my own bloopers in? It is true, though. I mean, I have done a few posts, by the way, where I do, where I do, say about the vanity metrics and likes for a load of poo, they're not a load of poo. But I was trying to probably be a bit of a controversial with that, but you do need to pay attention to them. But actually, sometimes when you look at the post, like when I put quite controversial posts out, or I talk about a lot about, you know, women leadership, women in leadership, and how, you know, men need to support us. Often, those posts get the most views, or the you know, the most visibility, but they don't get as many people liking or engaging because maybe people are scared and they don't know what to say or so. It is, it's it's always worth looking at both metrics, because you know that they both. They both have merit to a certain extent. The other thing that I bang on about a lot is the whole language piece, like, why do people stop talking like themselves, try to either cock all the people or turn into fucking corporate robots and lose all their personality, or like the content that does best is when I write like I talk. Literally, I write like I talk, and people read it, write it like a human No, like, take away the corporate jargon, bring it back to you showing up. And I think, I mean, we do that in everything, every piece of content we write, whether it's a, you know, description of an event on an event registration page, whether it's a LinkedIn post, whether it's an email, whether it's an outreach, outreach message on LinkedIn, whatever it might be, it's really human. It's very friendly. It's like we're talking to our best friend. It's not like we're using all this corporate jargon, because no one wants to be spoken to like that. So that's one big, huge mistake that I see people make. No, I feel like

Unknown: 47:51

this. There's, there's two, two issues here. You've got people who are scared of showing up, so they're nervous, and then you've got other people who are putting out content for the sake of putting out content, and it's pretty cringy and, and actually, that loses people's trust, because they're like, oh, god, she's posted again. That's a bit but, you know, and, but then you've got that those other people who who see that content and go, God, I don't want to show up that. You know, that friend of mine keeps posting daily, and it's pretty cringy. So it's trying to get that balance that we often say to clients, you know, you've got to start somewhere, and you're not going to be polished and perfect. But actually, it's not about being polished and perfect. It's about being human and it's about being authentic. So you are going to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. It's about being brave and putting yourself out there in an authentic way.

Katie: 48:37

Yeah, totally, and talking about things that matter, like, is it valuable? Is it helpful? Is it fun? You ask yourself those questions, right? We have officially two minutes left, which probably means we have about one minute left. Some leaving lasting, lasting, leaving comments for our lovely audience today. Sam, first you one thing, one thing that people should go and do or think about if they're going to go and sort out their professional, personal brand.

Unknown: 49:02

Okay? It's a mindset. Don't try and forge a reputation for yourself that you shouldn't have. Don't try and fake it. Just focus on framing the skills, experience, expertise and value that you do have in the best way possible. That is what building a personal brand is. So frame things, don't forward to them. Love it. Well

Katie: 49:21

done. Sam Sunny,

Unknown: 49:23

I would say, think about just being authentically. You being authentic, and don't show up talking about how amazing you are. Really think about your language, using the problem that you solve, the problem that you help solve, the problem that you're solving for your for your clients and your customers, when you're talking I think that's key. So it's not about boasting about, you know, how many awards you've won, or to try and build up your own personal profile and brand. I feel like it's just being authentically you and showing how you and you do in the business you work for,

Katie: 49:55

how it helps people love that. I'm going to add my own one in as well. For me. It kind of it kind of maps into exactly what you've said Sunny is focus more on how you can help people if you're starting this journey in survey, hopefully this starts to answer the question, which I see you've just put in as well. If you're starting out on this journey, really focus the majority. And I would almost go to like 60, 70% of your content being helpful, insightful content that is talking to the needs of your audience. The case studies prove it. Pieces and the you know how you people can work with you and how they can buy you can come later. Make it about, make it helpful, make it personal. And yeah, give give everything away. Don't be scared to tell people, because the reality is going to be, most of the time, people get scared that I don't want to give away my secret sauce. Don't want to tell people they're not going to be able to do it. They won't have time on their day job. Don't be scared to give it. I literally will show you inside. I don't know, everything, my luggage, my kitchen sink, whatever you want to see, like that. You know, be open and don't worry about oversharing because, but I don't know, maybe there is, we do go there sometimes. But yeah, overshare, guys, that's what, that's what I'm gonna say. Um, Sam Sunny, thank you so much for joining. Thank you to everyone who has joined us. Live today, um, will be posted, so yeah, please feel free to message me. But this will be posted. It will be available on the street agency page. Pretty much as soon as we end this, I believe, yeah, I just want to say a huge thank you to Sam and to sunny and to all of you for joining and sharing and yeah, I hope you've all found this very useful

Unknown: 51:42

app.