Build a Personal Brand to Beat the Trust Recession with Laura Higgins

Why in the world do you even try to build a personal brand? I don't know if you've noticed, but any platform where you hang out, it is fluttered with AI. Most people are producing AI Slop. It feels like, oh my gosh, ChatGPT wrote this or Claude designed that. It doesn't look that good, it doesn't feel that good, it all starts to feel the same. And so I think the only way we can beat that is we can't be in the messy middle, the vanilla spot where everyone else is. And I think in the age of AI, our point of difference is that we are human. The thing that gives you an edge is your perspective, it's your story. It's like the way you view and see the world, and for so many business owners, especially the creatives that I work with, a big piece of their point of difference is their taste, their style, their vibe, what they like, what they don't like. But I think a lot of the time we can hide behind the company name, or we can hide behind the logo and be like, I'm going to speak in the Royal Wii. And I'm not going to put myself out there because I don't want to get criticized, because I don't want to be the face of my brand. But if you want to cut through in this day and age, in the age of AI, a personal brand is the biggest piece of leverage you can build. You're listening to the Story Brand podcast, based on Donald Miller's best-selling book, Building a Story Brand. The Story Brand framework is made up of seven key elements, all of them anchored in one powerful idea. Your customer is the hero, and you are their guide. Each week on the podcast, you'll get exactly what you need to craft clear messaging that connects with more customers and grows your business. Now, let's dive in with your host, Donald Miller. Our guest today is Laura Higgins. We're going to talk about how to build a personal brand. And I have personally watched Laura's rise. She is a seven-figure business coach, has thousands of creatives, photographers, designers, following her, keynote speaker, sought after all over the world. And we're going to learn a thing or two about how to build a brand. Before you get so big that you won't even come on this podcast, I think that's the goal. Laura, great to have you with us. Thank you for having me. This is going to be fun. I know how my life has changed since I've built a personal brand. How is your life changed for the better? I mean, what's the motivation to do it? I mean, it's more important to stand out from AI. But why do it in the first place? Like, a lot of people, they like their privacy. They don't want to put themselves out there. What's the motivation to actually really get out of it? Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, I've been running my business since 2017. So almost 10 years now, my first few years of running the business, I was running an agency. Like a marketing agency? Yeah, yeah. So I ran that under a different name. It was called La La Social Club. It was, I was kind of the face of it. But it was also, there was a team and it was, it was not my name. As soon as I changed to my name, in 2023, I decided, okay, I'm going to, I'm a business coach now. I, like, my business model has changed. People actually buy coaches, right? They don't actually buy from a brand, per se. They're actually buying you. And so when I realized that, I was like, actually, I need to show up as the founder and the face of this. And so you don't have to make it your name. But I think when it is your name, when it is your face, it's an easier connect, right? Because it's like, cool, I'm talking with Donald Miller. And you are the founder of Storybrand. You have immediate authority. Yeah. I remember asking Dave Ramsey this, who's built a brand based on him. And it's a massive brand. But I also know he's tried to launch other personalities. He tries to get this thing. And I, I wondered if he regretted it. I wondered if like, do you regret building the brand? He said absolutely not. He said a brand without a person at the top of it, whose public is like a brand without a soul. It's very hard to connect with. And it's much harder to build. It was interesting to me that he didn't regret at all building the brand around himself. And obviously, he makes a lot of money. Yeah, he knows what he's doing. Well, apparently. But the other thing is, maybe once a week or something, I get just these delightful encounters, where somebody comes up and says, hey, not to bother you, but thanks for your books or things. None of that is the books. That's all Instagram and YouTube. Yeah, because if you read my book, you don't know what I look like. And I think there's a familiarity there. And familiarity breeds trust and trust creates orders. Yeah. So you can actually spend hours with somebody without ever even meeting them. And that you have their trust in whatever it is that you're going to put out later. It's, I mean, gosh, it's got to be a thousand percent increase in just orders. Because people are familiar with who you are. 100%. And we're seeing this across multiple different industries too. It's not just in service-based or a coaching industry in product-based businesses, e-com brands, with a face where the founder is talking to their customers. Like, when else have we ever had that kind of access? Where people can see what you're doing in a day. And they can see your home or feel connected to you. And I think we underestimate the value of that. And if I think about you, I was thinking about your personal brand before we had this conversation. As someone who followed you for a long time, I knew things about you that made me like you. So I knew, okay, he's got great taste. Like, I loved seeing how you did your studio set up. It was like, cool. He really invested beautiful things. There's a little enneagram for vibes of like, you know what I mean? So like, I knew these things about you. And even seeing Goose Hill and the House and seeing like Betsy, Emmeline, these parts of your family, they actually all build a picture of who Don is and why I should work with you and why I should want to be around you. Yeah. And so even though those things don't directly make me go, oh, he has like, I love his style. I love how he's done his house. I love his tasting music. That doesn't make me go, okay, I'm going to click now and buy from you. But they all build a picture that make me trust you and make me feel like, oh, cool, I kind of know Don. So when I'm thinking of, okay, I need to sort out my messaging. You're at the top of the list because I feel connected to you. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, again, going back to the reason people buy from you or from your brand is because they trust you and just being known, especially if you have some sort of common ground or if you, if I find somebody online and they think like I think then all of a sudden I'm going, okay, whatever this person recommends, they recommend a restaurant. I'm going to go, what do you need to do to get started? If there's somebody listening to this podcast and they're saying, you know, okay, this is the fifth time I've heard this. It feels like I'm being nudged here. You got nothing. You don't, you don't, you got an iPhone. You got an Instagram account. Walk me through just how you get started building a personal brand. Yeah, and I think, I think a lot of people are quite building a personal brand with being an influencer. And so the first thing you need to know is that you do not have to show your outfit of the day. Don't, I'd love to say you do that. No, you don't have to do that. You don't have to be an influencer. You don't have to show your family if you don't want to. And so actually taking the pressure off to begin with, you get to choose what you show. Right. So I think being really strategic on. Did you sit down with the list and say, here's, you know, I remember because we have story brand Instagram account. We have Coach Builder Instagram account. We have my personal one. Story brand is all about messaging and marketing. Coach Builder's about building and coaching business. My personal Instagram account is about some of that and also my family and just kind of put myself out there as a human. But we actually sat down and said, okay, here's the things we want to highlight. You know, family man, business man, messaging guy, that's kind of it. And we just said, okay, everything has to fit into one of these three categories before we put it online. There's things that I want to talk about my 1978 FJ 40 or whatever. And it's like, no, that's not, we're not going there. Let's do something else. And it's worked out pretty fantastic. But we did have some parameters on it made it easier made in terms of content creation. Say, well, you know, I can talk about this because we've decided this is the part of my personality we want to show online. Yeah. And I think knowing what you don't want to show as a first step is really valuable. The second thing I would say is I think we can kind of sanitize our personality. We can take our edges off because we're worried about what people will think. We'll clients resonate with this, will they not? And I don't know if you follow Rick Rubin. But I think I do because I get chills up enough on my feed. You would, he would be a great podcast guest for you. But he talks about the idea of, you know, when we create, we, it's like so counterproductive because when we're in marketer, we're thinking about the customer. We're always thinking, okay, how can I create with the customer in mind? But he talks about if we want to create something truly beautiful and magnetic, we actually need to create first from the place of all, what do I want to talk about? And what's resonant for me right now? What are you passionate about? Yeah. And so a lot of the time we don't actually know what that is. And so I would encourage anyone listening, sit down, put a like 10 minute timer on your phone, put all like any distractions away, slack, email, like put it all away, and just get your notes app or get a piece of paper and just splurge your thoughts. And just go, okay, here's what I'm thinking today. I'm not going to edit myself. I'm not going to like try to make this perfect. I'm just here to splurge and think about, okay. what are my clients asking me right now? What are the things I'm frustrated by right now? What are the things that I'm excited by? And just start to build the muscle of actually reflecting on what's in you already. Rather than looking outward, oh, this trend's cool, I should do this. Or, you know, I should talk about this. I should do, here's how to use Claude in three steps. Like, you don't have to do that. Actually starting with, all right. I know what I don't want to talk about. And now I just need to actually unlock what's already in me. What I'm already, what I'm already kind of stewing on. And I just need to build the habit and the muscle of splurging on that and seeing what comes out. Because I think somebody who's a perfectionist and they, you know, I have friends who wanna write a book or, you know, do all these things. And they literally can't do it because they're such a perfectionist about the way they're coming off. When the reality is, they are so freaking interesting that if you just put a camera in their face without prompting them, they would actually probably have an enormous brand. And what do you say to somebody who's just sort of wired that way? - I think this is probably where the Rick Rubin thing is interesting because we have to detach the outcome from it. And I think in social media, we can go, oh, this post popped off. I should do something else like that. And the posts that do pop off are often from a place, I know for me, they're from a place where it's like, I'm ranting about something. Or I'm like, oh, I had this conversation with the client today and he's what I talked them through and he's what I think would be helpful for you. And it's resonant. It feels like it's fresh. It's from something that's sitting right here that I'm like, cool, I've gotta talk about this. And I think when it comes from a place of, I've gotta do content, I've gotta show up, I've gotta create this thing. They told me I should do this three steps to X, Y, Z. When we create from that place, it doesn't resonate and then we don't get the result and then we stop doing it. And so it creates this loop of, well, that didn't work. I didn't enjoy it and I didn't get the results anyway. So why should I keep doing that? And so as a perfectionist, it can feel really challenging to even when you're producing content to not make it slick and polished and beautiful. - There's a movement sort of against that. It's almost like the slicker it gets and we spend a bunch of money on sets and now it's like, yeah, don't use a set just sitting in your car. I'm like, that would've been a lot cheaper. - I wish I knew that. Yes, did that. (laughing) - 100%. And I think-- - It's easier than ever. - Yes, yeah. And so, but it's funny, it's easier than ever, but there's still not a lot of people doing it. And that says something about this resistance that we feel and this fear of, what if I look silly? Or what if that person from high school that I haven't seen in two decades is like, oh, who do they think they are? It's like, why do you care about that person? We actually need to think about it like, I'm sitting across from my ideal client and I'm having a conversation with them about, hey, this is what I'm working on right now. This is what I'm really passionate about right now. This is the problem you probably have and here's why that sucks and here's a way to move forward. And so I think when we take the pressure off and we don't look at, like, sometimes we can also look at everyone else and be like, oh, Don's doing this or Homozi's doing this or whoever and look at all these people and try to do it like them. But the problem is it's kind of like wearing shoes that are the wrong size. It's like, oh, if I try to be Homozi, it's not going to feel good. It's not going to feel aligned for me or for my audience because they just want to hear my perspective. - I think there's something psychological and it was true when I was only writing books. The books that I enjoyed writing the most and the books that honestly sold the best were books when I wasn't trying to be somebody different. And really what I mean by wasn't trying to be somebody different was trying to be somebody better than who I actually was. And there's this sort of mantra that I have to tell myself before creating content of like, hey, if you try to, if you try to be John Steinbeck, you're going to look like a fool. You are not as good as John Steinbeck. You never will be as good as John Steinbeck. Let it go and settle for the talents you have. - Yeah. - And go for it. And when I tell myself that, it's just like, it's just so easy to go. I don't have to win the Super Bowl here. I just have to show up here by myself. And my audience, my small little audience will love it. - Yeah. - But look, I'm 54 years old. I'm still having to tell myself that it's not given to the temptation to go and try to be somebody that I'm not. - Yeah, and I think that the other thing I would say is that it's very helpful if when you try to build this personal brand, it's helpful to take the expectations off and go cool. What if I just showed up like I was sitting across from my person having coffee with them? How would that person show up? How would, what would they need from me today? And I think when it comes from a place of service and less about what results can I get and who else can I imitate. We're more magnetic when we like that. And so you try to be John Steinbeck versus you being Donald Miller. You are way more magnetic when you are just yourself. - Well, I don't know. I think if I was John Steinbeck, I'd be more magnetic. I hold to that. I can't do it. I don't have the talent. - But it's this interesting thing that- - It is true that people who are themselves are incredibly magnetic and it's just an extremely hard thing to do. It's easy to do with when you're with friends or loved ones, but as soon as you put a camera on it, sitting in front of a computer and trying to write something, you try to be somebody you're not, it's just crazy. - I also found that for me when I was starting out, and I still struggle with it sometimes, is like a camera would come on and I'd put like, my voice would change. (laughing) - I had like a weird performer voice and my team would be like, okay Laura, let's do that again. Just ditch that weird voice you're doing. I'm like, okay. - I love that you have that team. I love that we're telling. That's just a lot about you that your team would be able to criticize you and you don't think it's a question. - Yeah, I'm like, yeah, no you're right. I did have that weird performer voice. But I think like the other thing is, if you think about these brands, I really admire Taylor Swift. I think gosh, she's built an incredible brand. I think of her as like this beautiful mix of artist and entrepreneur CEO, and she just has this balance of these two things that can sometimes be in opposition with one another. But the weird things about Taylor Swift are what make her fans obsessed with her. Like she showed up to do the cover of Time magazine and she was like, can I bring my cats? And so she has her cats in the photo shoot on the cover of Time magazine. So like weird little quirks about her are actually what make her endearing and likable. And whether or not you love or hate her, it doesn't really matter. Either way, her brand has an impact on you and it either attracts you or it repels you. That is what a good brand does. And so I think the mistake a lot of people make is that they don't want to repel and in not repelling, they also don't attract. - Yeah. - Because they're so worried about, well people wouldn't like me and it's like, well, the right people won't love you unless you're prepared to actually. - Yeah, that's probably a big reason that so many people don't do it is you just can't put yourself out there in any way without inviting criticism. And you've just got to get it. And people online are just, they're so mean. But I have noticed that the posts, if you will, that I put out that do really well are the most loved and hated. They're not just the most loved ones. - Yeah, it's fascinating to me. - Yes. - And people who don't or who have sort of a thick skin about that Taylor Swift included, they go the farthest, they're fascinating to me. - Yeah, I think, and you touched on a really good point and this is, again, what I think about what builds this, we've got the like little idiosyncrasies, the things about you that aren't necessarily tied to your business but they make you use. So your example of your home, of your family, of your taste and your style, those are all like, they kind of sit on the periphery of, well, the core business is this. But these things make us more likeable, they make us more endearing and they make people lean in and feel like, oh, I'm friends with you. So that's great. But then on the business front, when we're thinking about, well, what content could we produce that will give me an edge? One of the simplest piece of content that you can produce is a hot take, which is a piece of content that is like-- - Responding to somebody else's content. - Yeah, yeah, responding to someone else's, or going, hey, here's something weird that I believe in relation to your service. Here's something weird that I believe, and I'm gonna tell you why. An example for me is I did a post where I was like, and again, my audience are creatives and typical people pleases, struggle sending invoices, struggle, like-- - Charging for nothing. - Charging for their worth, all these things. And I was like, hey, here's what I did when I had my agency. I set up a fake employee. And there was Steve from accounts who would chase the people for the invoices. I always made it a male that chased the people for invoices 'cause I didn't wanna do that. So Steve from accounts is like pestering for the invoices. And then I had Nancy who would be like, hey, you haven't signed your contract. Like Nancy was like doing all the onboarding stuff and it was all via email, right? - It's good cop bad cop. - Good, yeah. And then I was just the talent. Even though I was Steve and I was Nancy, right? you're a pretend to be Steve. when you're on the phone. Hello. No, no, they couldn't call Steve. They couldn't call Steve. They couldn't have a meeting. If they ever wanted to meet Steve, I'd be like, oh, he's out of town. But he's always out of town. I don't know. Anyway, he's pestering somebody for money. He's just a baseball band trying to chase someone for money. But it was funny because I just thought, oh, this is what creative people do. Like we hate conflict. We hate asking for money. And the percentage of people that were like, the large majority were like, "Lord, this is brilliant. I'm so happy. I'm going to steal that." Or, "I already do that. I love it." And then there was this loud minority that were like, you are unethical. Yeah, you pretend to be Steve from accounts. And initially, I was like, "Oh, I didn't realize this would rub people the wrong way." But people really got upset about it. And I was like, "Oh, maybe I should turn the comments off or maybe I should delete this." And I went, "No, no, no, no. I'm going to keep it." And it's had over a million views from that one post. We got this negative, a bit of negative pushback. But I got over a 9,000 new followers from that one post. Can I give you my theory? Tell me. It was vulnerability. Yeah. You shared something that people could use against you. There's an artist named David Wilcox. I don't even know if he tours anymore. He was a singer-songwriter. And he asked, "Why are you so vulnerable in your music?" And he said, "It's a strategic move." And he said, "When I share with you something that you can use, with which to hurt me, I am handing you a gun. And if I'm handing you a gun, you have power over me. Therefore, you perceive me as safe. And we've connected." I've trusted you with something that I wouldn't trust with anybody who I didn't respect and admire and trust. And he said, "Of course, some people misuse that trust, but the ones who don't connect with you." Yeah, that's amazing. And he's built his career connecting with people. And I listened to that interview. When I wrote my second book, Blue Like Jazz, I shared that I was a bedwetter until like seven or eight years old. I remember this. And I put it in there as in the first few paragraphs of the book. I put it in there, and I deleted it. Put it in there, deleted it, put it in there, deleted it, heard that interview, and put it in there and left it. And that book ended up being one of the best selling books I've ever written. And it was a strategic decision to say, "Okay, if you're going to spend time with me, I'm going to give you something right away that you can use literally to make fun of me." That, by the way, would hurt if you did it. First of all, nobody ever did it. I'd never like showed up a booker in that bedwetter. That never happened. So I might book bedwetter. Did you wash your hands? Yeah, like no. But it was, you know, and it was like a decision. And I also think like even that's an extreme example, probably, of vulnerability. But if you think about some of the Anlamat and some of these authors, they're so freaking vulnerable. They just put themselves out there and they take a beating. But they also connect with people in this really incredible way. Do you ever wonder why some marketing instantly grabs your attention while other marketing you just ignore? It's not about luck, it's not about a bigger budget, it's that the marketing that works actually follows just a few simple principles that actually makes it easier to understand, makes it memorable, and most important, impossible to overlook. That's why Story Brand has a free guide, the four rules of messaging that will teach you those principles. In just a few minutes, you'll have a simple framework for evaluating every message you create from your website and emails to your ads and sales conversations. Download your free copy of those four rules today by clicking the link in the show notes. I actually recently shared last year I went through this massive season of burnout. And as a business coach, I felt really like, oh, like, I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be burnt out. I should be fine. And I should be able to carry all this and have the capacity. I should be fine. And like, I can't tell my clients because then they'll be like, oh, we don't know about her. Is she legit if she's, if she's actually burnt out and like, crying every morning and struggling to do her job? And I got through that season and ended up sharing on my podcast. I was like, hey, like, I haven't been able to talk about this because I haven't been through it. And I wanted to make sure I had something valuable to share, but this is where, this is where I've been. And I really didn't want to share that podcast. Like, everything in me was like, ah, like, can't you do it in a way that's a bit more glossy, that kind of like, skims over it. And it's like, anyway, I'm back. And I'm good now. And he's like, five key tips or whatever. But it was like messy and raw. And, and like, I cried in it. And I'm like sitting in my studio recording me being like, with snot. You know, I mean, like, it was not, it was not like a glistening to it. It was like, no, this was actually really painful. But the, when I did share that and everything in me didn't want to, but I knew that it was important because I knew that actually this will connect with, it's not just about the vanity metrics of, oh, this will be engaging content. It was actually like, no, I don't want to share this. But I think this is going to be really valuable for the person who I serve, who was probably going through that or may go through it at some point. And to see someone be real about it, not in a glossy way, but actually I can kind of a real and raw way. It makes people lean in. And the response to that was like, I had so many messages from people being like, I felt exactly the same as you. I felt really seen by you. Like you, I would never have known blah, blah, blah. But the thing for that was, I think it's a good lesson and like, your bed wedding story. If there's something that you, you bride out and then you delete it because you're a bit afraid, it's like, okay, that's actually a good litmus test of something you should explore. And obviously you want to be vulnerable in a safe way. Yeah, you don't want to air your dirty laundry, but are too much of it because that gets exploitative for sure. But I think if I think if it look if it embarrasses you a little bit, it's probably gold. Yeah, yeah, probably gold. And you know, and I think like done online, there is so much, there's so much like look at me content. Yeah. And that's what I think people go, oh, a personal brand equals, I've got to be on a private jet or have a Lamborghini or this type of content that's really showy. Or I've got to do this fake vulnerability. And I've got to like post myself crying on Instagram to get attention. And I think you don't need to do either of those things. You can share what's not working. You can share what you're working on. You can share your wins. You can share your losses. And all of those things actually make you more believable. Yeah. And we are in we've all heard it said, but we are in a trust recession where trust is such a high value thing. And if you build trust with someone, then there is even if they don't personally buy from you, they might refer someone to you or they might they might engage more with you. And that is so, so valuable in a in a market with low trust. Yeah. What are some no-nose? I mean, we're talking about who will be vulnerable. There's a person that I know who has a brand and there's an opportunity to sort of consult with them. And I haven't had this conversation yet, but I don't know if I ever will. They they're so negative. They're the only ones who are right. Everybody else is wrong. Their product is superior. Everybody else is inferior. And I'm just kind of like, but everybody else is not inferior. Like I really like your product, but you know, and I don't know how to say to them, gosh, I love your product, but after getting to know you and seeing your online presence, I don't feel like your product likes me. So I have a emotional tension with your product. And I'm trying to reverse engineer of like, why? Why do I not think this person? Why do I have a mixed, you know, it's like horse shults who really sort of scaled up the Ritz Carlton and created, you know, who knows. But it was a big part of creating that that my pleasure sort of mentality. And you know, gave every employee $2,000 to solve a problem without asking for. Love that. It's amazing. But he said the reason I do that is is once somebody turns against your brand once you wrong somebody, they will become a terrorist against your organization. They're not interested in just not, they want other people to not buy you. You have to be very careful of that. Are there, are there places, are there dangers online that you would say, hey, listen, we're not saying go say anything. Like maybe we'll all feel a little bit safer if you just say, okay, well, just don't do these. Like I don't publicly criticize people by name. I, you know, I've written 15 books. I've probably made, I don't know, 10 critical comments if you add them all together. And then I just won't name you. It's just not, it's just a decision I made is to not put pain in the world. But are there other things that you've seen? Here's a rule. Like if you're over 55, don't dance online. You've still got, how are you 54? That you've still got a year? No, did I say over 55? So yes, I think there are rules. I had someone ask me that this recently, because I was talking about this hot take content piece, and people can get a bit alarmed because they're like, "Oh my gosh, she's going to ask me to do this clickbait piece of content," or call someone out, and it's not that at all. It's not attacking a person. I think about it as, "Okay, and you talk about this all the time. There's a villain in the story, and let's pull that out here of an idea or a belief rather than a person." I'll do that all the time. Hot, full beliefs, harmful ideas, ideas I disagree with. We hold them out here, and it's never personal. I had someone ask recently, they were like, "You know, I want to attract clients of a particular political party. Should I be doing my hot take content about that?" I was like, "What's your offer? Is it related to anything to do with a political party or is this your preference?" She's like, "No, no, no. My offer has nothing to do with politics," and I was like, "Okay, it's helpful to think about, okay, this might be something that I'd talk about at a dinner party, but is it helpful or useful for me to talk about publicly?" An example for me would be, "I'm a Christian, I have a faith, and I don't really talk about it publicly. If anyone asks me, of course, I'm happy to talk about it, but it's not a part, it informs how I run my business, but it's not a key piece that my client needs to know in order to make a decision to work with me. I don't publicly talk about that in all of my content. However, if I was only working with Christian organizations, then that would be a big part of my strategy. I share that example just so that you can see, "Is this relevant to my niche or is this something I should just go on Reddit and have a little rant about?" There is a distinction there, and I think really thinking about your ideal client, ideal customer, and thinking about, "Well, is this going to move them toward me or away from me?" I want to move my ideal clients toward me. I'm happy moving the wrong people away from me. That would be my kind of rule on that. I also think if you wouldn't feel comfortable with saying it in front of 20 of your closest friends, maybe you don't put it out on the internet. That's kind of a bit of a filter for me as well. Just like the world has changed so much. There's a guy, Palmer Lucky is. No. Palmer Lucky is, I mean, he looks to be maybe 30. He has a mullet. He wears shorts and like a Hawaiian shirt. He has like this 100 billion dollar company that makes weapons. Wow. Yeah. I mean, the guy's killing it. The guy's literally killing it. I mean, he's somewhat of a controversial guy because he speaks very loudly about American foreign policy and how we need to sell weapons to Taiwan and we need to sell weapons to Ukraine and kind of keeping autocrats and check around the world. That's a dirty, dirty, hard thing to talk about. But I mean, you literally, I mean, think about a guy who should be so tempted to be buttoned up like to get it perfect. He just goes on Joe Rogan and you're just like, "Wow. If this guy's brand is doing fine, by the way, and it's just very, very comfortable being himself. The world has changed a lot." Yeah. And you're right about that buttoned up thing. I think where a lot of small business owners get stuck is they didn't start their business to be a personality online. You didn't start that for that reason, right? You started it because you have a product you really love or you have a craft that you deliver or service that you provide that you're really, that's why you did it. And so I think that's where the challenge can be that I've got to present something that's actually different to who I am. And then there's a gap. And I feel like I'm performing out here instead of just being myself. And so if anyone listening, my encouragement would be, what would it look like if you could be a bit more yourself online, a bit more honest, a bit more, a bit more brave in what you shared. And it doesn't have to be political or anything like that. It's just, hey, these are ideas that I've been thinking about. And this is what's resonating for me. And another prompt for creating content around a personal brand is, what is the hill I'm willing to die on? So if we think about your content, there'd be probably multiple things that you're like, this is a hill I'm willing to die on. An example for you would be, well, I believe that you are the guide and the customer is a hero. That is a hill that you would die on. And so thinking about, well, okay, what are those hills? There might only be three or four things that you're like, I will die on this hill. For me, it's like, I believe creatives can make amazing money, have freedom, and also get, like, do beautiful work at the same time. It doesn't have to be one or the other. And so thinking about what is the hill that you would die on? What is the belief that, like, hand on heart, I believe this, and you can't convince me otherwise. And it's in relation to your service. It's not like random stuff, like macaroni and cheese is the best. It's got to be related to your service. I'm curious about, you sell yourself. I sell myself. We sell consulting services or various on demand products, those sorts of things. I'm thinking about a couple of brands that I really admire, a couple of artists, they literally sell like paintings, like fine art paintings, but they have fantastic content. And what do you say to somebody who's not selling themselves? They have a small business, they're a plumber or whatever. What do you say to them? How would, how would you, if you were consulting with somebody like that, what would you say is a place to get started, content to get started? I mean, I even love like the running of fencing businesses really hard here, three things that are just kind of very difficult about. And then you're sort of promoting the fact that your fencing business will be, you're also, your business that makes fences, but you're also putting yourself out there as a person, you're sharing a little bit of vulnerability. Now, here's, I don't think, I think you should be very careful about being vulnerable about your competencies. 100%. I don't hear us say, you know, I just had, I just made this terrible fence for a client and killing kind of bad. I wouldn't, I would go fix the fence. I made the worst principle of time today. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, just in movies and stories, the guide in the story can be incredibly vulnerable about mistakes they've made, past issues that they've had. You know, I'm thinking of like the Hunger Games and HeyMitch is an alcoholic. It's interesting about that is in their area of expected competency, there are no vulnerabilities. He knows exactly how to get you through the Hunger Games. Right. Mr. Mayagi knows exactly how to train you to win a karate tournament, even though he's tortured about his past and the, you know, the loss of his way. That's the one area where you need to be good at what you're selling. And it's very, very important that you don't break that rule. And if you're not good, you need to get good before you turn on your camera and talk about it. You're not going to be the best, but you got to be good. And this is probably the thing when I was in my burnout phase last year. I was like, I'm not going to talk about this because I'm not through it yet. And end. Yeah, that's a good rule. And that like competency thing is super important. We do need to be savvy with, okay, does this make me look like an, like an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing? Right. And that should be a little checkbox. If it's yes, don't post, like, right. But if it makes me vulnerable, but I'm through the other side, there's, there's definitely power in that. And I think that that distinction is so important. Yeah. Not being vulnerable about your competencies. Well, because if you, even if you're vulnerable about a past and competency in the area that you provide expertise. Yeah. The beautiful thing about being vulnerable, a past mistake in the area of your expertise is you've learned from it, you've processed it and it is no longer a liability for the customer. Also, and those are, those are great stories to tell. And I think when you have, there is a degree of, and Dan Martell talks about this, actually, this idea that nobody really cares about your story until you've made it in a way. And so if LeBron James says, oh, I used to really struggle with this piece. I don't know anything about basketball, whatever it is, free throws. That's the one thing I know. If he was like, I used to really struggle with this. And now you're like, the guy's the freaking gut. Like it doesn't, he can say he struggled with anything because he's, he is the best. So there is an element of, okay, what are we doing in the messy middle of when we're not maybe the best yet? How do we show? Maybe there's like micro competencies that you can show where it's like, okay, cool. He works with a client on this. Here's what we fixed. Here's where the problems, the problems they were having. Here's exactly what we did. And I'm actually going to show you behind the scenes of how we did it. Like actually documenting your work. If you don't have the proof yet, why not just start documenting what you're doing so that you build the credibility and show the competency as you go. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. All right. How do you monetize social media, I mean, you know, we've got to pay our rent. What are some strategies that you would share with business owners on how to make money doing this? Yeah, so I think about, I think in the good old days, a funnel was kind of like this linear path, right? It was like, see social media posts, click on link, go to landing page, download a thing, go to thank you page, purchase, right? It was like very linear. And I think there's still, you know, a piece for that. But I do think that now more than ever, I view your funnel as like a web. So we're thinking about, okay, there's someone sees your Instagram posts. They might see your LinkedIn posts. They might be on your email list and see an email from you over here. They might get retargeted with an ad. They might purchase like a load ticket product from you or they might purchase something else. And that's this web of touch points that actually, this is how people consume now. It's not linear. It's sort of a familiarity and yeah. And this feeling of omnipresence. So you don't actually have to be on every single platform, but there are different routes and ways and channels for people to come into your world. I've heard that the more methodologies or places that you can show up, like if somebody reads your book, that's a place where they've interacted with you. And then on Instagram, that's a place and then on YouTube, that's a place. And then while you're from a live audience with a keynote, that if you can just get three of those, the familiarity like goes up by 500%. That makes so much sense because I think if someone listens, and I'm not sure if you're the same, but if someone listens to my podcast and comes to a sales call with my team, they're like 80% conversion rate. Just because they've heard me talking, there's this warmth, there's this trust there. So my whole thing is okay, if I could get people to consume over here, but then there's some people that don't like podcasts, they prefer YouTube or they prefer short form. They'll never watch a long form thing or listen to a long form thing. They just like the little sound bites. Even like more micro than that on Instagram, certain people might prefer carousels or they might prefer a really long caption or a video. So thinking about okay, different people consume in different ways. So that's kind of this idea of this web that people are coming from different places. What we do want to do is from each channel that we are hanging out with, we want to make sure that it's easy for people to take the next step. So on Instagram, using your DMs to actually start conversations to book sales calls or whatever the next step is for you, use that as the bridge between okay, we've got an attention on social media, use your DMs as like a little mini sales funnel to get people to book a call and then they're in your real like sales pipeline. So thinking about each platform linked in, people get freaked out about LinkedIn and think, oh my gosh, it's totally different to Instagram. The format's a bit different, but the marketing principles are the same. And so same thing, can we start conversations in the DMs? Can we use that to drive call bookings or whatever the next step is in the funnel? Email is the same. Like can you add to every like third email a PS at the bottom? Hey, when you're ready, here's how I can help you. Yeah. And just here's a link. So just thinking about where we've got loads of reciprocity because we're adding value, we're connecting, where we're showing up without any expectation of a return from this person. And just popping in and seeding in those little action steps in every platform, every vertical that you have, that's how you take your content from, oh, like they're, they're a personality to actually know, this is a full funnel that is, that is actually functioning. And we, we drive them all to the same place. For me, it's drive them to book a call. And so for, for whoever's listening, like if you were thinking about, well, what is the ideal next step that I want people to take? Wherever you are hanging out, we're just driving them to that. And people consume in all different ways. And now we're just going cool. Let's just drive them to this. And then we can have this really dialed, repeatable process for that bottom part of the funnel. Yeah. I've heard you mentioned a few brands, a few people Taylor Swift, Alex Formozzi. I'm curious, are there one brands that you admire that you would say, look at, look at how good they're doing this and learn from them. And any clients that you want to brag about, who, who you've seen, those cool things. Person that I'm loving right now, I really love Layla Formozzi's content. I feel like, oh, yeah, she's kind of, she's kind of stepped up and building her own brand. That's not about Alex right now, which is really fun. Yeah. And I feel like she's got this cookie side to her that she's showing a bit more now. And I think, again, it's exactly what we're talking about. It makes you go, oh, like she's a bit weird and funny. And I, I really like that. I mean, she's weirdly vulnerable. She talked about going in and buying a Bentley, I think, which sounds, you're like, is that vulnerable? Yeah, that's pretty vulnerable because you're going to get attacked, you know, over you. And they just talk about how she, like, didn't like it, went back and got, like, some cheap car. Yeah, she has something really endearing about that. But she grew up, by the way, I think, was like a Range Rover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's really slumming it. But, yeah, I really am loving, she's a great example of someone who has the high production stuff, but also has the raw, scrappy, bi-phone stuff behind the scenes, sense of humor. She entertains. She shows her quirks. And I think that, I don't think she's always done that. I think that she's shifted in the last 12 months to really do that. And I think she's done that very well. I'm excited to see how her content shifts when they have their baby. And to see, like, what she is a mum will be like, because again, for me watching, I don't have kids. I'm like, oh, how is she going to do this? Like, I'm really curious about that. So I think she's someone who does this really well, very clear next step in the offer. And, but also very, very generous. In terms of clients, one of my favorite clients, she's actually based in Newport, in California, her name is Julia Meyer. She runs a branding and web design agency. And her, her tagline is like, we create breakneck brands. And the whole thing is like, she's like, your brand is boring. And I want your brand to like be so full of being against something that doesn't really hurt anybody's feelings. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, you don't have to be negative. It's like your brand's boring. And nobody wants a boring brand. So it's kind of like, oh, yeah, I don't want that. So she's doing really well. She's got some really fun content. And I love seeing how she's bringing her personality to her service because her service is the same as so many other brand and web design agencies. But by bringing and overlaying her personality, it makes you go, oh, I'll work with her because there's something likable about her. Okay. First step, let's just go all the way back to the beginning. If anybody has been inspired by Laura Higgins to go pull out your iPhone and start creating a personal brand, give us an assignment. What's the first thing that we need to do? First thing you're going to do is you're going to put your phone away. Wait, first thing you're going to do is you're actually going to set a timer for 10 minutes. You're going to put your phone away and you are just going to splurge. And you're just going to start by saying, okay, here's what's on my mind. And you're going to write. And by writing, you're going to figure out what's emerging for you and what's resonating for you. And then you're going to look at it and you're going to want to edit it and you're going to feel cringe about yourself and you're going to judge your work. But we're not editing. We're just writing. Then the next day you're going to come back to it and you're just going to highlight ideas that have come from it. You might go on a weird tangent somewhere that you're like, I don't even know what I was talking about. That's totally fine. You're going to just highlight, okay, maybe there's two or three ideas here that I could talk about. Then you're going to either film a video on one of them or send an email on one of them. You're not going to use AI in the process. You are just going to show up as yourself. Don't stress about hooks. Don't stress about like making production value good. We're just going to build the muscle of checking and actually going, okay, cool. I have something to say and it's unique to me. I'm not filtering it. I'm not looking at everyone else. What do I actually have inside me that I can say? And then we're going to start sharing that. Sounds like a good first step. I think everybody's going to nervous now. Yeah. Good. Laura, thanks for coming all the way from Australia to be with us today. My pleasure. Very helpful. Thanks for listening to the story brand podcast. No matter where you are in your marketing and messaging journey, get the tools, the training and the support you need to start clarifying that message at storybrand.com and don't forget to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you're watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and then leave a comment letting us know what resonated with you and what we can impact to help your business grow in a future episode. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next week. [BLANK_AUDIO]