EntreLeadership - How Do People Experience You? with Tim Newton

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Humans are social creatures. We need the love and respect of our network if we want to live well-rounded satisfying lives. But how do we know our status within our network? Personal brand. This is what people say and think about you when you’re not around. In this week’s episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with Ramsey Solutions’ Senior Creative Officer Tim Newton. He gives us the step-by-step process for identifying what your personal brand currently is and how you can improve it. Stick around after the interview to hear Tim take a couple of calls from small-business owners looking at changing their personal brands. He walks them through his framework and gives tactical advice you can use as well.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Ramsey Solutions’ Website Learn more about our EntreLeadership Conferences. Download the Personal Brand Identity Map. Schedule a call with Tim, the Producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gazillionaire Jeff Bezos is widely quoted with saying this. Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room. We all know that building a brand is an important part of growing any business. But what about your personal brand as a leader? How do you know what it is? And what if you don't like what you see? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits.

I'm your host, George Camel, and in today's episode, we're talking about building your personal brand, which connects to our business driver of, you guessed it, personal. Our guest today is Tim Newton. He's the senior creative officer here at Ramsey Solutions, and he's an expert in the field of branding. I sat down with Tim to talk about what a personal brand is, why it's important, and the steps you can take to build the personal brand you want to have.

Then after our interview, Tim is going to coach some small business owners as they call in with their personal brand questions, so you don't want to miss that. Up first, let's jump into my conversation with Tim. Tim, thanks for being with us today. Yeah, man, no problem. Happy to be here.

This is going to be fun. I love talking about branding and marketing, and you are the king of branding in my heart, at least. Well, I don't know about that, but I appreciate it. I like hearing that from you. So a lot of people, rightfully so, maybe have concerns about their personal brand and how they're perceived. Obviously, my personal brand is being really rugged, handsome, and intellectual. Would you agree? I can see that.

I can see that. You can tell just if you're listening on the podcast, you feel it. feel that. That's how I experience you. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Sweet. Well, I want to just get the definition out there because people have a lot of feelings about what a personal brand is. So how do you define personal brand? Well, personal brand really is someone else's perception of you. Like, it's basically what it is. It's important. Like, the thing is, I talk about personal brand all the time because the reality is we are always making decisions about everybody around us just based on how they walk, talk, dress all. They're all unconscious decisions, but we're always making

decisions about each other. And so that's why personal brand is important. I've had team members tell me, man, we talk about personal brand. Is it really that necessary to talk about personal brand? Like, is it really that important? And I'm like, well, I see where you're coming from. But if people are making decisions about us every day, then there's something to personal brand. And when it comes down to it, if it's people's perception of you, a good personal brand equals opportunities. And it is. If you have a good personal brand, you have more opportunities. You had a bad personal brand, you get fewer opportunities. So whether we like it or not, we have a personal brand.

Every one of us has a personal brand. So the choices, do I intentionally make it what I want it to be, or do I just let it be what it's going to be? Because you are going to have a personal brand, but it comes down to opportunities because it's everybody else's perception of you. Does it feel icky to a lot of people? When I hear brand, you think like, okay, a business is a brand. I've got to work on my brand.

And then you're talking about people being a brand and having a brand. I think a lot of people, they feel, this tension of like, that's icky, that feels salesy. I'm not going to try to be this version of myself. What do you say to those people? And I get that. Well, I totally get where they're coming from, but I want to make a distinction. When I'm talking about personal brand, I'm not talking about making a caricature of yourself. I'm talking about understanding what's deep down in you and expressing that. And the outcome is a good personal brand. And that's the difference I'm talking about. So I want people to understand what deeply matters to them. So what's

being expressed to the world is the thing that really matters, what's truly, truly them. The outcome is a great personal brand, but that's the difference. And so I know that it can sound icky because we are talking brand and all that, but I love talking about personal brand because when it comes down to it, it's not really about personal brand. It's just elevating who you really are because the outcome is a good personal brand if you're truly being you and not trying to be a caricature of you, if that makes sense. Yeah. And we're focusing this on business leaders today. Yeah. Why does that matter as much, if not more for the business leaders listening?

Oh, man. It's a big deal for leaders because, okay, so. personal brand, if it's important because of opportunities, as a leader, it's even more important because three reasons. One, the opportunities you have is the opportunity to actually lead your team. So what I mean by that is people allow you to lead them. If you have a bad personal brand, people aren't going to open up to you. They're not going to trust you. They're not going to tell you information that's deep down in them because they have to respect you. Yeah, they have to respect you. They have to respect your personal brand. If you have a good personal brand, they'll open up to you a lot easier. And so you get the opportunity to lead. You

people if you have a good personal brand. Another thing I'll say about personal brand for a leader is with a leader, your team takes on your personal brand. So it's not just about you anymore. Your team takes on your personal brand because other people around, they're looking at your team and they're associating your team with you. And so whatever personal brand you have, they're taking notes. The team is going to pick that up. Yeah, it's true. And, you know, I've been on teams before where the leader didn't have a great personal brand. Like I can think of one specifically, great person. I really liked the guy, but I found out later, I'm on his peers, didn't have a great personal brand.

And we didn't get as many opportunities as we could have as a team. But then the leader switched, and we got some great opportunities. And years later, I looked back and I was like, what happened? And I realized that was the case. Like, our brand as a team was a reflection of our leader's personal brand. And so as a leader, you want to take it seriously and understand what is my personal brand, because my team is going to take that on, you know. And so the third thing I'll say about why personal brand is a person,

So I'm talking about personal brand is expressing what's deep down in you. Like that's how I like talking about it and the result is a good personal brand. If you understand who you are, what your brand is, how you're wired, that also gives you the opportunity to let go of the other things. And so as a leader, a lot of times, we feel like we have to be great at so many things. And that's just not a reality. It's impossible. We're not meant to be well-rounded like that.

We are wired specific ways and we're also wired to rely on community. rely on the people who have strengths where we're weak, and they rely on us where we're strong and they're weak. And so if you know your personal brand, you know what matters to you, what you're wired for, it gives you the freedom to let go of that other stuff and delegate that stuff because you know who you are. This narrows the focus. It does. This is how I'm wired. These are my strengths.

This is what I was made to do. Yeah, makes you a better leader. That's so good. So here's the big question. Can you change a personal brand? Yeah, it's a great question. Yes, you can, but it takes time. It takes time.

Brand, when it comes down to it, is meaning and trust communicated through experiences. That's what brand is, whether it's a product or service or a personal brand, that's what brand is. Meaning and trust communicated through experiences. And so you need experiences, multiple experiences, to communicate that meaning because the trust that comes with it takes time. Trust is consistency over time. And so it takes time. It takes experiences for people to understand you and to see you. And so it does take some time.

Jack Galloway, one of our board members, he said before that it takes about six months to change a personal brand, like for people to see you a different way. It takes about six months. But that's because you need multiple interactions and multiple opportunities for people to see your consistency. We trust people who are consistent. We trust people who are predictable. And so if you're changing your personal brand, you want to be consistent in that brand that you're creating with multiple experiences with somebody. But then it does change.

Like I had a pretty rough personal brand about 10 years ago because there was a time I was pretty angry. Some life stuff happened. I was pretty angry. And I had a pretty rough personal brand. I did. I look back and I've asked people, how did you experience me back then? And they were like, man, you were angry. We didn't really trust you with a product.

You were quiet. Didn't really talk to a lot of people. And my personal brand was in a rough place. But I was able to turn that around. Like, I woke up one day and I was like, what have I been doing? And I started just going a different direction and started thinking, no, I want to be perceived like this. If I want to be perceived like this, I need to do these things.

I did those things. And my personal brand did change. And what people say about me now is very different than 10 years ago. But yes, it can change. It just takes time. And you've got to be ready for that, but it takes time. So there's some self-awareness. There's some intentionality.

You don't accidentally have a much better personal brand. Not accidentally. I mean, you can, I guess. Like the things that happened to me, I was angry about certain things going on life. That anger went away. and so that anger wasn't part of my personal brand anymore. So there are things that can change circumstances and all that that can just change how you're experiencing things

and your outcome could be different. But if you're intentional about it and know what you're going after, you can create the personal brand to some extent because it's still other people's perception. You can't control all of that. But to some extent, you could be intentional about it. Because I remember when I woke up from that fog, I remember thinking, what am I doing? I wanted to be a leader in this stuff. I want to be lit. I'm not acting like I woke up and I had a vision for what I wanted to be.

But that vision, it wasn't something that was unachievable. Like that vision was knowing how I was wired. And when I knew how I was wired, I saw a vision for what I could be. And I said, no, if I'm going to be that person, I need to make changes. Like, I need to dress different. I need to act like this. I need to act like this. And so, yeah, you do need to be intentional.

And if you're intentional about it and you have a plan, you can create a good personal brand. But again, it's more just lifting what's naturally in you, how you're willing. wired and what matters to you, what really gets you going in the morning. Yeah, and it seems like once you have that vision, you can't really unsee it. It's hard to go like, well, I'm just going to ignore that. And so I love this whole idea of creating that vision and changing that personal brand. I bet many people listening, if they're honest, they're not where they want to be. They may not have a terrible personal brand, but they may go, there are some tweaks I need to make. I really need to dial in and focus on how I'm wired. So I want to walk through this process, this framework that you have to help

the listeners walk this out. So let's talk about step one. Okay. One thing I will say is what's interesting about this is I started digging into personal brand, you know, because I lead team members, and I was thinking about personal brand for years, but I've studied brand for product and services for a long time. And I realized, you know, it's a lot of the same psychology when it comes to brands for services and products, and when it comes to personal brand, there's a lot of the same psychology that comes along with it. And so, you know, if you're asking about the steps, the number one step is you have to take an audit of yourself. Because you were saying before that some people,

they know they don't have a good personal brand. I'd say there's a lot of people that don't even know that they don't have a good personal brand. They're problem unaware. Yeah, they're problem unaware. That's right. They're problem unaware. And we all have blind spots.

We all have behaviors and we all have things that we do that people experience in certain ways that we might not even know about. And so there's a lot of people that I think there's parts of their personal brand. They don't even know is there. And so the number one thing you've got to do as far as, steps is take a personal audit. You know, when it comes to products and services, whenever we're doing any kind of brain refresh, that's always the first step we do, too, is we take an audit of

where do we stand today with our brand. You know, we'll take everything we have out in the world, landing pages, ads, any of that stuff, and print them out. And I'm talking print out and don't look at them on a computer, print them out so we can take them on walls and we can write notes on them. But we just take inventory of what do we have in the world and what are we really saying? Are we expressing the things that really matter to us, or is it expressing something else? because it can easily just be what you don't want it to be. Same is true with a personal brand. You want to take a personal audit and just to understand where do I stand today?

How are people experiencing me today? You have to know that because you need to understand what do I need to get rid of in my personal brand and what do I need to keep and elevate and do more of. You want to know both of those things. And so the best way to take an audit is simply ask the people who work with you. This feels difficult, Tim. As you're saying it, I can feel the tension leaders going, I'm not about to ask my team members what they truly.

think of me. Yeah, it's not fun. And how do you get honesty out of it? Yeah, it's not fun. Yeah, it's not fun. I'll tell you that. I'll tell you, I actually did this a couple of months ago. I just wanted to understand where do I stand at this point, you know? And so I wrote an email. I picked a group of about 10 people that I worked closely with from different disciplines around the company, but who know me really well. And I blind copied them on an email, and I sent an email of questions. And I just wanted to hear back from them specific things about how they experienced me. We can go over some questions, but what I want to get across is when you're asking people, you're talking about people being honest and making it safe to be honest. What I would say is when

you're asking people honest feedback, do not push back and don't try to defend yourself. Don't do any of that stuff. When people give you feedback, say, thank you so much for your feedback. And that's it. Just stop there. Thank you for your feedback. That's really hard for a lot of the hard driving leaders out there who are like, but wait, I can explain. And I can't believe that's how you, What do you mean by that? And so you have to just kind of let go and say, you know what? I need to take this maybe with a grain of salt, but also take it seriously. Yeah, because all you looking for is the truth.

And if you want people to be honest with you, make it safe to be honest with you. How do you do that if you're a leader? So I'm the team member and I work on your team and you're asking me for feedback on you. I don't want to say, hey, Tim, you're a real jerk. Mm-hmm. Because that's going to hurt my opportunity on your team. So do you ask it from team members or do you ask it for peers that are a real jerk? on your leadership team. I asked peers on my leadership team. Actually, I did a mix. I asked a couple of

the leaders that I lead and then my peers also, because I just wanted to get a mix of, because they'll experience me in different ways, and those two groups of people. And so I just wanted to get feedback from all of those areas. And so in the email that I sent, I was super kind, and I just said, please be honest with me, because I need to know where I stand. There was a way that I worded it that I hope made it safe, to be honest. But it was more with me being authentic and just saying, I need to know where I stand. because I think there are some things about my personal brand that I want change, but there are blind spots that I have that I can't really see, and I really would value your feedback.

I'd value your input on how you experience me, so I can see the truth and change, you know, and change wherever needs to be changed. And so I sent that email, I got a lot of good feedback. Some of it was pretty rough. I did not enjoy it, but I emailed back and I said, thank you so much for your feedback. I really appreciate that.

You did it with a smile on your face. Yeah, I did. So would you ever consider doing an anonymous service, so that the team feels like, hey, you know what, they don't know who's saying this. Yeah. Is that worth it? Or do you just say, hey, you know what? I'm just going to tell the team be honest with me versus trying to get them to be honest anonymously. Well, I think you could do it both ways. I like hearing specifically from them and knowing who's saying what, mainly so I can go talk to them and dig in deeper if I need to. Like, why do you experience me that way? Not to push back

or defend, but just if there was a general kind of answer and I want to dig deeper, I want to know who I could talk to to get that, you know? But the whole posture, that I have when I'm talking to people is, man, I really appreciate you telling me this. I can see that that's something I need to work on. When have you specifically experienced me that way, just so I can understand more, and just continue saying, man, thank you so much for being honest. That takes a lot of humility. It does.

You've got to swallow your pride as the leader and go, okay, I'm not as awesome as I thought I was. That's true. And that's okay, and I'm excited to grow. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It does take a lot of humility, but also being a leader takes a lot of humility. If you don't have the humility, maybe leadership's not the right place for you. That's so good. Okay, so we've done the audit. We've sent the email. We got some feedback.

Before we jump further, I have a list of questions that I think are helpful. Ooh, do you have them right here? Yeah, I got them right from me. This is perfect. You're so prepared. I brought them just because I know this helped me a lot because I had to really sit and think, like, what are the right questions to get what I really want to find out, you know? So what I said is there's two questions I love from five dysfunctions, and one is how to almost contribute to the team and how to almost detract from the team.

Detract? Yeah. Negatively. Yeah. Okay. So one's positive, one's negative. I really like those questions. I asked us, what are my behaviors that hold us back?

And what are my behaviors that lift us up? So I want a negative and a positive. And I asked, how do you experience me? Good or bad, but just simply, how do you experience me? I like the word experience because it makes it to where when they give feedback, they don't feel like they're attacking me. If you say, well, I experience you like this, da-da, da, da, instead of you're...

We're not defining your character traits. We're just saying, this is my perception. Yeah, exactly. This is my personal experience, my opinion. Yeah, when you use that word experience, I think it makes it safe for the team because they're not attacking. They don't feel like they're attacking you. And so I like that question specifically, how do you experience me? Good and bad, just how do you experience me?

Simply that. And that list of questions, I got some really good stuff from that list specifically. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay, so we have this level of self-awareness with the audit. That takes a lot of humility. It does. It may be a gut punch.

But again, this is leadership. Yep. This is the big league. So once we have this audit, what is the next step we've got to do? Okay, next is actually making the plan. This is where the fun stuff is making the plan. There's three parts to this. And I can go over the three parts, and then we can go into detail.

Okay, I like that. What it takes is, number one, you have to uncover what really matters to you. You just have to uncover that. If you're a leader, if you're working the job, what matters to you? What gets you up in the morning? That gets you excited. Like, what is that? How has God wired you?

What do you want to be known for? It's these kinds of things like what truly, truly matters. And you want to dig in deep because you don't want to make up something that's not truly you. You really want to sit and think. This is not aspirational. It's not. This is what I would like to be in a perfect world. This is the core.

Yeah, at the core. Because that stuff doesn't change very much. And you're a wide or a specific way. So you want to dig in deep and really understand what truly, truly matters to me. That step is so important because everything branches out from there. So you got to understand it matters to you. The second part is, if that's what matters to me, then how do I want to be perceived? If that's what matters me, how do I want to be perceived in context of that thing that matters?

How do I want to be perceived? When you have that list of how I want to be perceived, then you ask yourself, what actions do I need to take to cause that perception? It's just a three-part thing. What matters to me? How do I want to be perceived and what actions will cause that perception? And this is all, let me let the listeners know. It is linked in the show notes. So if you want to follow along, it's a great visual. And I want to call out, you're giving us the secret sauce here, Tim. This is the exact formula we use for all of our businesses, our personalities. They all go through this process to refine their identity.

And so this is huge. Thank you for sharing this with us. It's no problem. This is the reality. Every way that we dress, every way we walk, every way we talk, all of those things are an expression of internal values. Whether we're thinking about it or not, we are acting and dressing the way that we do based on internal values. That's just how it is. And so if you understand that,

and you understand that that's the psychology of it of what's going on deep down. You're just expressing what's inside, then understand what's inside. So what you're expressing on the outside is a good reflection of that. Because when it comes down to it, if people are making unconscious decisions about you all the time,

then you want to be intentional and try to make it to where they're making the decisions you want them to make about you. And you do that by understanding what's at your core so you know how to reflect it on the outside. And so that's all we're doing. That is a lot of psychology there. That's impressive.

Branding is an abstract and complex thing. And so there's a lot of psychology to it. But branding is it has to be very human for a brand to connect emotionally, and humans are abstract. Humans are complex. And so the psychology of branding, it is complex, but when you break it down like this and understand your core to know how to express on the outside, then it starts to simplify how to look at brand. So when we look at a business and you think brand, a lot of people think, okay, it's their logo. It's the colors they use. It's their website.

Yeah. But that's not how you see brand. That may be the expression of that brand. That's the final part. But we kind of have to reverse engineer that and go, okay, is there actually some heart behind this? Or is this based out of our values, our core beliefs, are people perceiving us the right way based on a logo and some colors we slapped on the website? So it takes a lot of thought and intentionality, even behind the colors that we use for Entree leadership or for Financial Peace University. So walk us through this kind of reverse engineering, and it all starts with these core beliefs.

So do you write these on a whiteboard? What's the process for getting these beliefs out there? Yeah, that's what I do is I write them on a whiteboard. And, you know, I have mine that I wrote down that I can share. This will help us a ton. Yeah, of what this means to me. But I do. I love sitting down with a team when I'm talking about brand

or sitting down with an individual if I'm talking about a person and just start uncovering what are those things that matter, you know? And one of my favorite questions is what makes you angry in the world? That's one of my favorite questions. Because, you know, Chip died. He talks a lot about emotions. And he says that anger is the only emotion that causes change. And so if you want to change something in the world,

then what's that thing that flat out makes you so mad? You know, if you start uncovering that, you can see, oh, probably because that matters to me a lot. That's one of my favorite questions. But how has God wired you? That's one of my favorite questions. Like, what do you know about yourself of how you are wired? That's a good question.

What gets you energized in the morning? What gets you excited? What do you want to be known for? These kind of questions. So when I dig into myself and I ask myself, those kind of questions. One of the main things that matters to me, I got three. And like I said, when the listeners, when they're doing this exercise, just try to come up with three. Don't try to come up with 20, because then it gets too complex, then what are you known for? But try to come up

with three. For me, for my personal brand, what really matters to me, number one is brand. That's number one. I believe in the power of compelling brands. If you build a compelling brand, you can change the lives of people if you connect emotionally with a compelling brand. So branding matters so much to me. The second thing that matters so much to me is excellence. I think we've talked about an enneagram on here before. I'm an enneagram three. I like winning. You know, I like achieving.

You want to look good doing it. Yeah. Excellence is a big part of that. And so when I really dissect how I am wired, excellence is really important to me. And doing things with excellence, really, really important. But the third one is serving. Like serving my team is so important to me.

I know that the team feels valued and that we get so much more done when I am serving, when I'm letting go myself in serving. I know that deep down in my core. So those are the three things that matter the most to me when it comes to my job. Branding, excellence, and serving. Those are three things core to me. So if I take those three things and I start asking, okay, if those are three things that matter most to me, then how do I want to be perceived?

So if branding and creating great brands is core to who I am and what I love, what gets me up in the morning, gets me going and how I'm wired, how do I want to be perceived if that's what matters so much to me? How do you think if you have a throw word out there? I think you'd have to be an expert on branding. Boom, that's exactly what I wrote. Expert. I want to be perceived as an expert.

If that's what matters to me, I want to be perceived as an expert. So I just write down, expert. All right. Great. Second one, excellence. If excellence matters so much to me, how do I want to be perceived? The word that I wrote down is reliable. If everything's excellent, I want people to see me as reliable.

I want them to know, if it goes to Tim, it's going to be done well. I want them to rely on that. I want to be seen as reliable. I want to perceive that way. The third one's serving. If serving is what matters to me, how do I want to be perceived? If I'm serving well, I want to be trusted. I want to be trustworthy.

That's how I want to be perceived, trustworthy. So if brand and excellence in serving is what matters, how I want to be perceived is expert, reliable, and trustworthy. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah, that's good. All right. After that. It's the third part here. It's the final piece.

Yeah, this is the thing. What I like about this framework is nobody is telling you what to do. you create your own action steps for what to do to cause that perception. And that's what I really like about this, because nobody's is going to be the same. And it shouldn't be. We're all very different from each other. So it shouldn't be the same. So my action steps, if I want to be perceived as an expert, what would it take to be perceived as an expert? Like, what would you say would it take to be perceived as an expert? You would have to have this level of, I guess, professionalism and everything you do to where you're seen as a teacher, a guide. Yeah, yeah. That's a great answer. So I have recent.

and teach. I have that as one of my things. So I wrote down, well, if I'm going to be perceived as an expert, I should probably read about one brand and marketing book a month. I should probably do that. And then I should probably be teaching people the stuff that I learn, get in front of people and teach that. You know you learn way more when you actually have to teach it. And so I wrote down, well, I need to research and teach. I also need to guide teams in their brand, and I need to speak up in meetings when brands are off. I need to do those things. So I have those action steps around expert for reliable. If I want to be seen as reliable, I wrote down for myself, I want to dress well. I actually made that decision years ago. I said, you know, I want to be seen differently. And I did

want to be seen as reliable. So I made a decision, I'm going to wear collar shirts to work every day. And I'm not saying there's anything bad with wearing T-shirts and all that. But I made the decision for myself. If I want to be seen as reliable, I'm just going to choose to wear collar shirts and just do that every day. So I'm always wearing a collar shirt like this. You look great. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I also, if I want to be reliable, I wanted to be good at presenting. And so I've worked really hard over the years at being comfortable on stage and being comfortable in front of a room and presenting things because that is going to make people believe that I'm reliable if I'm presenting myself really well. Which you did at one of our recent Entree leadership conferences. It was fantastic.

It's always a fan favorite, I got to say, including me. I'm always sitting there taking notes furiously. I've seen this talk four times and it's still so good. I appreciate that. Well, what's interesting is, you know, if we're talking about personal brand, the things on my list, researching and teach and presenting, like, those are part of the personal brand. Like, I made decision years ago. I want to be good at those things.

And so now I love working here because I get the opportunity to speak on stage. Like now with the reps that I've gotten, I love speaking on stage, and I love teaching. I love teaching this stuff. It's so much fun. And but I've gotten so many reps doing it that now I just really, really enjoy it. And so I think the perception has become in ways what I've wanted to become because I've worked on these things. but there's an action plan to get there, you know? And the third one for being trustworthy,

I know that to be trustworthy, I should probably put everything away in my one-on-ones. Like, if I'm going to build trust with a team member, I should put away my computer, put away my phone so I could look them in the eyes and they know I'm paying attention and I'm listening. Like I literally, when I'm in one-on-ones, if I have to take notes on my computer,

I will tell them every time, I'm taking my computer out, but it's only take notes, is not to check email. They know, you're not distracted. You're focused. Yeah, exactly. You're someone I can trust.

Yeah, this meeting is about them. So that's what I mean, you just write out an action plan, what does it take to be perceived that way? And this is the reality. If you're consistent over time with those actions, then eventually people will perceive you that way. And if they perceive you that way, they're going to understand what matters to you. And so you can kind of backtrack what ends up happening. And so consistency over time, it makes it really clear. This is what matters to Tim. This is what he's known for. And you just end up with a good personal brand. Yeah, that's a great framework. I'm excited for the listeners to go through this.

come up with that action plan, and once they do the action plan, they're still not done. Yeah, that is great. You say there's a step three here. There's a step three. Well, let's say there's a 2B real quick. Let's say there's two. And this is a simple one. When you have those perception words, something I really like to brainstorm is who do I know that is perceived that way?

Oh, I like that. And then just talk to them and see what patterns do they have in their life that created that perception. Like they probably don't consciously think of what caused that perception. They just are that way. So if you just sit down with them and understand what. what are patterns in their life, that can help you to create your action plan. So who are the leaders that you want to model and then talk to them if you can and say, hey, what are the habits that you have?

What are the actions you've taken, whether they're intentional or unintentional, to have this personal brand? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like this expert one, there's a couple of guys we work with. I see them as an expert in their field. So I've spent time with them and understand how did you become such an expert? And so that helps me create my action plan. Well, if that's what they did to be an expert, I should probably do a lot of those things, too.

So when you zeroed in on that perception that you really want to go for based on what matters to you, then you can zero in on the right action plan to make that perception happen. So just a small thing, but I can call it 2B. That's important. That's important. So this final step is to actually kind of have people see these actions. Yeah. Right? Yeah. This one's an uncomfortable one also for people because I say step three is visibility.

And they're like, no. Because a lot of people on my team, what comes to mind is I got to be on stage and talking in front. of hundreds of people to be visible, and that is not what I'm talking about. But let me ask you something. If you change your personal brand, but nobody sees you, did your personal brand actually change? Oh, this is one of those if a tree falls in the forest. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, exactly. Did your personal brand actually change if nobody saw you? No, because it's all about other people's perception of me. That's right. You know, I said earlier, brand is meaning and trust communicated through experiences. If there aren't any experiences, there's no opportunity to communicate meaning and

trust. So your personal brand doesn't change. So visibility, it's a really important part of this. But I'm not talking about being on stage and being this high charisma stage person. I'm not talking about that. Because just like with brands of a product, you have brands you see ads for that's Sunday, Sunday, and it's all about eyeballs. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the brands like Publix and Nike who are just going after emotion and letting you know, I know you, I know where you are. I know how you're feeling. Like that's what those kind of brands do. And it's more that kind of thing.

And so there are ways that you can be visible without being the loud guy, you know, in all the meetings. Some of them is when I meet with my leader one-on-one, I let him know what's going on and what I'm doing, what I'm thinking about, you know. And so I trust that my leader, he is creating opportunities for me and with me. I know that that's happening. So I just explain to him what I'm thinking about and what's going on.

Another good way is there's some leaders around here I know are really good at just pulling people aside in the hallways and saying, hey, I was thinking about this thing. And they just start talking about, that's another good way to be visible is when other people see how much you care, just by pulling them aside and say, hey, I was thinking about this thing. Let me get your thoughts on this. We have some opportunities around Ramsey where you can do some non-fatal areas to be in front of people. Like we have a coffee house that we do every two weeks. You just do a 30-minute talk in front of the creative and marketing team. And it's a non-fatal place where you can get some reps, but it's also a great way to be visible.

but even when you speak up in meetings, like if you know what matters to you, then be thinking about that and speak up in meetings when it comes out. Those are all ways to be visible. But you have to be visible for your personal brand actually change. So it's not about being the loudest in the room and showboating. You know, this looks different for every business owner. They have, you know, different scales of teams. Maybe they have two people or five or 10 or 20 or 50.

And so finding those opportunities where you can share that opinion, they go, wow, Tim really did his research on that. Or you deliver the project or the file and they go, wow. Tim really put some work into this. And what I found is usually they talk about you behind your back in a good way. They go, man, you got to see this presentation Tim did. It's absolutely incredible. So other people, there starts to be a buzz about you and your work because of those pieces getting dialed in. Yeah, and really all you're doing is just expressing the thing that really matters to you. Like when you were doing that and you zero in on what matters and you put a lot of care into that, the outcome, that's what I mean, is a good personal brand, you know?

And so instead of trying to be great at everything, if you zero in and say these are things that really, really matter, and you show so much care for those things that matter, people will notice that. And the perception of you will change or it'll become what you want it to become. And that is personal brand. but it's less about creating a great personal brand, but more elevating who you are and how you're wired. When you're zeroed in on that, the outcome is a good personal brand. That feels a lot less icky to me.

I like that. So what are the next steps that the small business owner, the leader can take who's listening to actually put this into practice? Because we said it can't happen tomorrow, but there are steps that we can take. Yeah. I mean, you know, and what we're talking about, like the first one is doing that audit.

You know, just taking a look and really writing down, these are the things I need to really get out of my. personal around I need to work on these things and these are things I need to elevate but um I think what's really really important like it's going to be hard to dig in deep in a short period of time like you really have to find some quiet go off somewhere like I recommend to my team like take a couple of days you some PTO take a couple of days to be off by yourself and really really dig in on this because it takes time you don't you don't want it to be a surface level thing because again you're not creating a caricature of yourself you're understanding what what matters deep down and so um

for me, I try to make sure that I have good solitude with God when I'm thinking about this stuff, because I want to understand how God wired me, and I want to understand what is his will, so I can align with that. But it takes time to do that, you know? And the way I look at it is solitude like that, it's like creativity, where you can't do it in 30-minute spurts. With creativity, once you're in it for three hours, it's so energizing and so exciting and so much fun because you're in the flow. You've probably heard that when you're in the flow. You've probably been in the flow a lot. You're super creative.

It's called the flow. And I find solitude that same way where it's difficult at first. Like the first 30 minutes is difficult. But if you can get past that 30 minutes and get to the real silence of things and get past all the thoughts and get to the silence, you can really start uncovering what is deep down. And that's when you just start writing notes. And you can start finding patterns. Just write all kinds of notes in a journal.

And you can start finding patterns and go through that and underline the things that keep showing up. And what will pop up naturally are these things that matter deep. down. But take some time and really dig in because you want it to be the truth. You want it to be the truth. So the brand you're creating isn't fake. You know, we don't trust that about people. You want it to be what's true about you. And that just takes time. So find some time, find some solitude, find some quiet and understand, man, how am I wired? What really gets me going? When you find that and start uncovering what matters, then when it gets down to understanding the perception and the action plan, that stuff gets easy. But that core of what matters is so, so important. And so that

part's a big deal. Man, Tim, this is so good. Thank you for unpacking this framework for us. I know it's going to help a lot of leaders out there. I can't wait to see how many businesses change. How many people grow their teams themselves and their profits just from going through this exercise, telling the truth to themselves, building that action plan, getting the visibility, and seeing how it impacts their community. So thank you so much for your time, your passion around this topic. People can feel it through the microphone, through the screen, and I'm just so thankful for you. Cool. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me on. This is a lot of fun. I love talking about this stuff. So thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

Huge thanks to Tim for an awesome conversation. I just love his passion and his energy around all of this branding stuff. And as he talked about, your personal brand is something that you can change. So coming up, Tim helps some small business owners walk through their personal brand and the changes they want to make. We'll get to that right after this. All right, like I mentioned earlier, Tim took some calls from some of our listeners to walk them through their personal brand and the changes they want to make. Check it out. Hey, we've got Chris on the line from Phoenix, Arizona. How can I help you, Chris?

Hey, I'm in the middle of transitioning out of operations. I've been leading the operations of the business for five years. Really just the difficult thing to switch back to being sort of visionary leader. And so how do you recast yourself for your employees and your team to really be able to move into that role again? Yeah, yeah. Man, yeah, I understand that difficulty going from operations to vision. I totally get that. Well, let me ask you something. When it comes to the vision side of leadership, what is it that makes you excited about that side? I think it's the ability, the potential to do great things, to continue leading the organization to just do really great things with humility. And with service. You say so humility is one of those things

that matters a lot to you being seen as humble? Yeah, I think humility. But I also think greatness. I think doing great things with humility, you know? Yeah. So you got doing great things and you got humility there. So from there, let me ask you something. If you were doing great things, if you were doing that, how do you think people need to perceive you if you were doing great things? Like, how would they perceive you? I would say, very motivating. If you had to pick one. So greatness is a big deal to you. Why do you think that greatness is a big deal? We were put on this earth for a short time, and we were put here to make a big change. So, you know, I want to leave an impact and want our organization to leave an impact beyond my time here.

So you want to leave an impact, and that's where the greatness comes from, huh? Leave an impact with your business and with yourself? Yes. And so to make a big impact, it probably would take being courageous. You know, you listed courageous and generous and things like that, but courage sounds like a pretty big deal, being perceived as a courageous leader. is that right? Yes.

If you're perceived as a courageous leader, then you'd probably be seen as that that kind of greatness that you're thinking about. Is that correct? Absolutely. Do you know people who are courageous in the way that you want to be seen as courageous? Yeah, definitely.

So when you think about those people, what do you think they do that makes them perceived that way? I think they proceed without fear. I mean, I think they might be prudent and temperate, but they don't shy away from a fight or a battle or a difficult thing. And I think they're willing to just get in the foxhole, I guess.

You know, do what you have to do, hunker down or barrel forward, depending on what the battle calls for. So you're saying really great things here, doing it without fear and getting in the foxhole. By that, do you mean, like, being in it with the team? Yeah, in it with the team and also willing to go out in front of the team and fight for what, you know, believe in, yeah. Okay, so what do you think? What actions do you think it would take to go without fear?

What actions do you need to practice? Hmm. He stumped me. I guess probably not second-guessing myself. I don't know what that action is, but I guess, you know, being willing to face challenges and not avoid them. What other actions would it take? You know, being able to face difficult conversations at the ready. Yeah.

Do you have a problem? You said being in front of the team. do you fear being in front of large groups? No, not at all. Okay. I love large groups. Okay. So being in the practice of doing,

so that's an action you'd be doing is getting in front of large groups, and that one comes easy to you, which is good. So I think that's a good action to be taken. You said having difficult conversations, not to force bad things to happen, but how can you do actions of being in the practice of those difficult conversations? I think sometimes I wait too long. You just kind of avoid it or hope you don't have to have it

let someone else have it. So I think just being willing to just go at it right away. It always seems easier when you do it quicker right. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So getting in front of the team, doing the action or doing the conversation quickly and not, not hesitating on it, that's another, what else would it take to, what actions does it take to do something without fear? You know, I guess I don't know the answer to that one. I'm one of those people that goes out, goes out quickly and then realizes, oh, wait, what did I get into? So I guess not looking back, I think that's a big one, you know, just being willing to take the risks and facing the decisions you made and not worrying about how you could have decided

differently and you wouldn't face the challenge. Yeah. I think just, you know, charging forward. Yeah. And how, so if you have a hard time looking back, how can you let go after, like, after something happened, how can you practice that of just letting go? What would it take to do that? Doing the post-mortem to say, okay, well, here's what we could have done differently.

Yeah. you know, owning that and then just moving on and just saying, okay, in the future, I will X before I make these decisions. I think is something I'm trying to learn now. It's just how to, how to absorb those lessons, but then not just keep looking back, but look forward with that knowledge and with that wisdom that you've gained from that lesson. Yeah. So this is great, Chris. So what we've listed out is an action plan. Like we have, being in the practice, getting front of the team, that one comes easily to you, which is good, having those difficult conversations in the moment instead of waiting and doing an assessment after decisions so that you can let go.

So once you have these action steps, I would list those things out and check them periodically and just ask, how am I doing on these action steps? Because the reality is, Chris, if you are, if you're practicing these action steps, what it's going to do, it's going to cause that perception that you're looking for of being courageous. And if you're practicing that and you're starting to be perceived as courageous, then what that ends up with is you doing great things. If that makes sense.

So we're backtracking out the actions are the expression of doing great things, which is what really matters to you. And so, Chris, from here, what I would do is I would just continue digging in and understand when it comes to this visionary side of leadership, what are the other things that matter so much to me? And try to come up with three. So I think the greatness is a great one. Try to come up with three and then figure out, okay, if that's what matters,

how do I want to be perceived? And if that's how I want to be perceived, what are the actions that I need to do to make that perception happen? List down those action steps and then just check yourself periodically, like daily or weekly, and say, am I doing these things?

Because if you're doing those things, then you will create the personal brand that you really want as being seen as that visionary leader that you want to be seen as. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's great. Awesome, man.

Well, thanks for calling. I hope that helps, and good luck, man. All right, God bless. Thank you. All right. Next up, we got Jessica. from Portland, Oregon. Hey, Jessica, how's it going? Hey, it's good. How are you guys? Oh, man, we are doing great. I'm excited to talk to you. What can I help you with? Well, so, um, as a Christian owning a plumbing

company, how can we, how can we best show the love of Christ in real and practical ways? How do we express our core values without coming off preachy or weird or... Yeah. Do you know what your core values are? We sure do. Okay, what are those core values? Fanatical integrity, passionate service, and continual growth, improvement. And improve me, say? Yes, continual improvement. Being growth-oriented. Okay, so growth.

I'll put down growth. I'm just writing these down. So what I heard, the major words that I heard is integrity and passion and growth. Right. Passionate service. Yeah. So that service side of things, which even when you say those, the integrity side of the passionate service and growth, those aren't, obviously like a Christian thing, but they are Christian values, just kind of under the surface,

which is great, because then you can take a look at that and say, all right, integrity, passionate service, and growth. Those are really, really important to me. So let me ask you, when it comes down to that integrity side, if that's what matters so much to you, how do you want these businesses to perceive you, or these customers, I should say? Yeah, trustworthy, I think. Trustworthy? We want to be trustworthy. When it comes down to the passionate service, how do you want customers to perceive you? Like we did a little more than we had to. Like you did more than you had to.

I love that. Yeah. And how awesome would it be if customers are saying that about y'all? Man, they always just do the thing that's more than we really wanted. That's a great thing. That's awesome. So when it comes to the growth, how do you want to be perceived? That if we screwed something up, we're going to own it and fix it and get better next time.

Yeah. And gosh, even if something's working, but it could be better. We want to work on that. Yeah. Let's go back to your original question. You said that you want to show the love of Christ through the business, but were you saying not to beat everybody over the head with it, but just to show it, right? Yeah, right, yeah.

I mean, already, when you're talking about those perception words of being trustworthy and doing more than you had to and then showing that you'll own it, like these are godly characteristics. And so that's great. Just by being yourself and really amplifying that part of yourself, people are going to feel what matters to you, which are these biblical, foundational things. So let me ask you one more question. What actions do you think you need to take as a business for people to see U.S. trustworthy? What would those actions be? We could be timely, showing up where I say we're going to show up. We could be teaching our customers so that

we're not just selling them something. We're telling them about what's going on with the problem so that they're not ripping them off. And we can be patient because some people need more teaching than other people. Yeah. Okay. What about the doing more than you had to you? What actions would it take to be seen that way that y'all are the ones doing more than you had to? I think being perceptive about what's going on in people's homes. So we're in a lot of homes when it's just mom home. Yeah. Mom's home with a kids. So being friendly and we have these junior pummer stickers that we hand out so we can hand those out to the kids and take the trash out on the way out or just engage, pet the dog.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, be perceptive. Yeah, that's great. Let me ask you the last one, that y'all will own the problem. What actions can you do to practice being the ones who own in? We could solicit feedback and then listen to it. Yeah. And I think also we could celebrate what we want to replicate. If it's working, let's push on it.

Yeah. So what I would do, so you have your ways that you want to be. perceived and you're you're easily listing actions that you can take. So if I were you, I would take these actions that you want to take, I would list those down and I would get to the team and say, what can we practically do to make these actions happen? Because like you're talking about teaching customers. That's one way that you would show being trustworthy. So brainstorm with the team, what can we do to teach customers? Are there any kind of printouts that we can design that teaches them about the plumbing services? Is there anything we can put on the website that

that teaches them. Can we make YouTube videos that teach them like what what ways can you think of that teach the customers more than just the problem that they're trying to solve? And like you're talking about answering questions that's more than the thing they're asking for. How can you equip your team to be able to do that? And soliciting feedback like what kind of things could you do brainstorming as a team that would solicit feedback and help you celebrate? Once you start getting those things down, this is what's going to happen is like now you're tactically creating things that can be done. And these tactical things that are happening, what it's going to end up doing is causing the perception that you want to have out in the world. And if people are having that

perception out for you in the world, what they're going to understand over time is what really matters to you is integrity, passion and service, and growth. And that's really the point. When it comes down to a brand like this, you need to understand what's at the core, which you all seem to know what's at your core. So that's great. So all we're doing now is listing action steps that you could do to express that because once people experience that over time, what they're going to learn is what's at your core. And through that, they're going to feel the love of Christ through how y'all are doing things. I promise you that's what's going to happen. But you have to be intentional about creating those action steps and just checking in with the team, are we doing this,

are we doing this? How well are we doing this? How well are we doing this? And checking with them on that. But if you have that action plan, that's what's going to end up happening is people will see the love of Christ because those core values are biblical. And so go ahead with that kind of plan and keep brainstorming with your team to create those actions. And you will end up with the brand that you want. Great. Thanks a lot. Yeah, no problem. Good luck. Thanks. Thank you. As Tim talked about in today's episode, you have a personal brand, whether it's been intentional or not. So why not do it on purpose and take control? To do that, you can download and fill out the personal brand identity map that Tim and our team have put together and make a plan for your personal brand. To get it, just,

just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner with two to 200 team members, we want to hear what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like,

and what we could do better. You can give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can always follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borquez,

and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network,

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