012: How to Build a Personal Brand That Opens Doors: Insights from Belen Wagaw

Christopher Nelson (00:00:00) - You leave yourself at this huge risk of losing relevance, of losing momentum, looking at it through the lens of where you are investing your time and talent in the risk of how that happens, the mitigation strategy to that risk, how do you mitigate that? You build a brand as a subject matter expert around what you're doing outside of those four walls. Hello, I'm Christopher Nelson. Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. I, your host, have been in the tech industry for 20 plus years. I have climbed my way to the C-suite, worked for three companies that have gone through IPO and invested in my way to financial independence. I'm here to share with you everything that I've learned and introduce you to others that can help you along your journey. Today I'm excited to introduce Blende Wago. She is a personal brand strategist for SAS executives. She's somebody who has worked in tech herself. Her career accelerated very quickly to a chief of staff role at SAP, a very large technology company, and now she transitioned out to help other technology employees and executives develop and grow their personal brand.

Christopher Nelson (00:01:16) - So we're going to get her here, her career story today, and then also ask her questions on what is a personal brand, what is the benefit of it? What are some of the steps to get started? I want to make sure that there's a lot of actionable advice for you to take away. Let's get started right now. Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. I'm so excited. Today I have Blaine Wagle and she is a personal branding strategist who didn't just all of a sudden wind up there, but she had an amazing tech career where she worked in customer success. She was also a chief of staff and a chief storyteller, leveraging amazing soft skills to build a career in technology. And then she found an opportunity to go and help technology employees create a personal brand. I'm so excited. Welcome to the show. Hi, Blaine.

Belen Wagaw (00:02:12) - Thanks so much, Christopher. Happy to be here.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:15) - So one of the things that we really enjoy doing on this show is helping understand people's origin stories.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:22) - I think that we get so much value out of listening to how you, number one, find your way to technology. So many people just have different journeys to find their way into technology companies. How did you navigate it and then how did you get to where you are today?

Belen Wagaw (00:02:39) - Yeah, sure. So I don't know how far I should go in my origin story. We could start way back where I'm from. So that is Ethiopia. Yeah, let's.

Christopher Nelson (00:02:48) - Let's start. I think a lot of people have really interesting geographic origins, too. Let's go.

Belen Wagaw (00:02:52) - Yeah, let's go to where I'm born and raised. So I'm raised in the capital city of Addis Ababa. Usually people are pretty surprised when they meet me because my accent is slightly misleading. Um, so that's where I'm from. But how I got into tech is actually when I was pursuing my Masters in Germany like years later, uh, I ended up being a working student is what they call it in Germany, which is basically having an internship at a little, little tech company called SAP.

Belen Wagaw (00:03:22) - I think you might know it. So a pretty big enterprise enterprise tech company. When I joined, I did not know what it stood for. What abbreviation? Nothing. But it was just a job that paid. And I was a broke master's student. Right. That ended up there. Um. But since I've always been someone that does like to grow in general, which is just any kind of achievement, I think that's also that will be a kind of a recurring theme in this. I just do like to progress. I was one of the hardest working interns. You would have thought that they were paying me a lot of money. So I was checking emails while I was in the amphitheater at, you know, in the university, all of that. I was just so into it because it was like my first real work life experience. And when I finished that internship and I finished my Masters, I was lucky enough that they sponsored me to actually stay in Germany and become a full time, you know, tech employee.

Belen Wagaw (00:04:24) - So that's how I got into tech. I didn't know what was, um, I knew that I wanted to be in tech to be fair, because, I mean, that was. And the way I saw it is that most companies were attacked. That's kind of how I saw it. So that's how I got into it.

Christopher Nelson (00:04:42) - Right. Most companies are becoming technology companies. But I think working for software manufacturers is really special because you're actually then making this technology that defines how the world works. And so as you started working there, you know, tell us, you know, a little bit about going from, you know, your journey and starting in from in the in turn now establishing your career and and where did you go from there?

Belen Wagaw (00:05:15) - Yeah, sure. So the first full time role I had was kind of an extension of the team that I was a part of, which was within customer success, and it was in customer enablement. And one thing that was cool is that I didn't go into SAP directly.

Belen Wagaw (00:05:31) - It was actually through an acquisition. So Hybris, aka the Commerce platform for the front end piece, right off that ended up acquiring it was hired, acquired maybe six months before I joined. So I joined kind of a startup feel, you know, you know, the whole team. None of them wanted to be part of SAP. We were very rebellious, but that was also interesting. But I started in customer enablement for the commerce product, so I was the person that was organizing the webinars, liaising with the product team, really making sure that you know what's on the roadmap, what should the customers know? And that was like a really cool first job to have actually. And I would host these two to 3 to 400 webinars for customers at that. Yeah, like maybe like three months into the full time role. So I got to learn a lot. Um, I stayed in a similar role probably in that team for 2 or 3 years, but I did progress, um, doing different things.

Belen Wagaw (00:06:32) - And then I was actually leading the Surveys and Insights team, which was still in that Commerce product suite, but basically the people that were surveying the customers and being like, okay, what's, how's the NPS looking? How great our products are performing. So I was actually leading a team relatively young, um, you know, a small team. We were about seven but really making sure okay, do we know what information our product team should have from the customers and all of that? Right. And we would also host events. You know, things like that. So.

Christopher Nelson (00:07:11) - Let's pause right there for a second, because I think for those of us in software manufacturing, we understand that this is a critical part of software development, is getting that feedback from the customer and for yourself leading a team. And many of us also understand, too, that you go to work for software companies because there is opportunity for accelerated promotion. These things happen early. One of the questions that I always get asked, and I think it's important to ask yourself and what your experience is as a young leader.

Christopher Nelson (00:07:46) - How did you build trust with the team? And then also how did you build trust with the executives to make sure that they felt comfortable giving you this leadership at that age?

Belen Wagaw (00:08:01) - Great question. And to be fair, the. Doug's the person that promoted me and really saw my potential was actually an executive. Two layers removed. Right? So it wasn't my own boss, but someone else that saw, Hey, this person really has great potential. So it wasn't easy and it wasn't obvious from the beginning. I did not have that initial trust from the team. So, you know, now there were many years removed. I can talk about this freely, but I was younger than most people that I was leading. Um, right. So it was actually tough. You know, position myself as someone of authority, even though obviously I wasn't there for a reason. So it wasn't easy. But from. Trying to actually step away from having this kind of friend relationship to now becoming the leader.

Belen Wagaw (00:08:52) - One was tough, but when I was also making sure that I was actually highlighting the work that the team was doing, it was less about me and it was always about the team. So I think after a few months the team also saw, okay, she's in there to not just be, you know, boss us around. She's with us, she's working and she's also always highlighting the different people. So that was my strategy. But it wasn't easy.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:16) - Well, and that's and that's some coaching that I got from a mentor when I took over a new team. And like you, I was younger than other people. And the saying was stand up and take the criticism. So in other words, as the leader, stand up, take the criticism for the whole team, and then you sit down and you share the credit. Right. And make sure that people understand that, okay, now when it's time to take the reward, take the credit that now I'm not in front like I was when I was taking the criticism.

Christopher Nelson (00:09:48) - I sit down and I share the credit. And that's literally what I heard from you if you said, hey, it comes in. Let me make sure and give everybody the credit, because I think some of the most profound leaders that I've ever seen are literally in the background. The team's in front and they're behind, you know, acting as leader coaches, and they're also not afraid to step out and actually do the work themselves. It's not like there's these puppet masters or anything, but it sounds like you got some similar coaching and some similar skill work in your experience as well.

Belen Wagaw (00:10:23) - Yeah, 100%. I'm someone that likes to see what other people are doing. I take what I like and I discard the rest, right. Throughout my career, that's kind of been the same theme. Of course, when I look back at that, you know, leadership role, there's a lot of things I could change, but I also saw that from someone else, right? Like my boss's boss was really good at highlighting other people, at tagging them in the email and really making sure that that person knows.

Belen Wagaw (00:10:51) - So, you know, what's the best way to also get people to read your emails is actually when you're giving credit to other people, that's a little hack, right? Because people want to know, Oh, wait, what did, uh, Maria and the other team, what was she up to? Right. It's a way to actually get people's eyeballs on things. So. Yeah, that definitely helped.

Christopher Nelson (00:11:11) - Well, and it sounds like this role, you know, then started setting you up for even greater things because it wasn't long after that. Then you got promoted to become a chief of staff. Yeah.

Belen Wagaw (00:11:24) - So there was a small role in the middle. But I can talk about the Chief of staff piece because that's probably been the biggest, biggest learning time of my career, right? That one was huge, but my background has always been communication, so that's what I studied and I think the reason that I also got promoted to chief of staff was my communication skills, right? Especially like email writing.

Belen Wagaw (00:11:47) - I talk about this all the time. If you can write a good email, especially in big organizations like SAP, that people get a ton of emails, people are tired. So if you can make someone's reading experience pleasant, right? Like I've had 2 or 3 bosses that just their emails were so beautiful, like they had stories in them, they were visually appealing. Right? So before my chief of staff role was actually a comms lead for one of the business units in customer success. So around 1200 people. And again, that was actually being seen by a couple of executives that put me into that role, which is really huge. Um, that was, you know, what is the right column strategy for this business unit? How do we structure the all hands? How do we make sure that people are feeling like they know what this executive team is doing? Because that's a very common thing in tech where there's like a, you know, a gaping hole where people are doing the thing and the executives are strategizing, and then there's no connection between the two.

Belen Wagaw (00:12:48) - So my role was bridging the gap.

Christopher Nelson (00:12:51) - So you're probably. You're not aware of this, I'm sure. But my wife, Reggie Nelson, is right. She's what she does in technology. She is an internal comms. Oh, wow. And so what you're saying right now is I mean, this is dinner table talk for me, but I think it's important for everyone to know because I you know, until she transitioned from doing more traditional PR into an internal control as we got married. And I, you know, sold her on the idea we got to work for equity like we got to.

Belen Wagaw (00:13:24) - Get into she was like I'm in.

Christopher Nelson (00:13:27) - And she transitioned there. But many people in one of the things that I want to educate, you know, everyone who's who who listens to this program is there's a lot of different roles inside of tech companies, a lot of different roles and storytelling, communications and what you just articulated right there is you have a group of people, the executive team, their role is really vision and strategy as well as managing and monitoring the execution of how teams are performing.

Christopher Nelson (00:14:05) - But when they get that strategy and vision, they do need people in teams, in large organizations to be able to communicate. What does that mean for me? If I'm an individual contributor, that's multiple levels down from the C-suite, I need to understand what that vision and strategy mean for me? And I think it's really important in companies where everybody's a shareholder because you're trying to also articulate what's going to then be the value delivered by executing this strategy. So I just wanted to highlight that for a moment. I think we all need to understand the value of internal communications. And if you are a storyteller, you're a writer, you're a copywriter, you know there's opportunities for you inside of technology companies.

Belen Wagaw (00:14:52) - Yes. You and your or your wife and I should chat, first of all, because I think internal comms people are doing the, you know, the Lord's work like that is such an important role within a company. I think it's too often underestimated or underrated, but, um, you know, good comms within a company does so much like you can retain your employees better but also if you're, you know, if you're complaining about margins and revenue and all of this and why are people are not doing their jobs, why don't they, you know, aren't they getting it a lot of times because they don't understand.

Belen Wagaw (00:15:28) - They're not bought in. Right. Especially if there's no charismatic CEO, especially if you're not holding these things often. Right. And your managers are not actually able to even answer the question that your team has. Like a lot of times they'll be the strategy. Like, especially if you're in a big company, these decks and these all hands and the earning calls like they don't really make a lot of sense to what a team is doing. So ideally your manager understands and that ideally and usually doesn't happen because that communication is like they haven't translated right and executives have tunnel vision because they're in their board meetings and they know what they're doing and they get them graphs.

Christopher Nelson (00:16:06) - But well in, in what you call that right there. And it's interesting how this has come up in just different conversations I've had recently, you know, especially around incentivizing employees that are shareholders as well. But what you just said is so important to understand is that the strategy decks are written to educate the board, the board of directors that and that will then go out to other shareholders' analysts right.

Christopher Nelson (00:16:36) - For publicly held companies. So it has a different focus on it. And then you need this team that says, how do I now change some of this, you know, finance speak, corporate speak and translate it into what does it mean for these teams? Across the organization because everyone can interpret it a little bit differently. And so yeah, yeah. So important.

Belen Wagaw (00:17:02) - Represent.

Christopher Nelson (00:17:04) - So then. Now it. Now it makes sense. So I'm glad that you went back to that particular role because then all of a sudden you're leading teams. Now you get this internal comms position. So that is then now you're able to communicate these messages. You're able to think more strategically because when you're translating from a a heavy, dense strategy doc and you're able to then communicate to employees, you then get visibility and understanding of what's happening at this strategic level that opens then a door that says, Why don't you come be my chief of staff? Then transitioning to this chief of staff role. It sounds like I remember I think you posted a letter that you wrote on LinkedIn that was an email of how you got that role.

Christopher Nelson (00:17:53) - Why don't you walk us through that story?

Belen Wagaw (00:17:55) - Yes, so true. I need to repost that one actually, again from my, you know, friend new followers anyways, but way back when I was still having that comms role, we kind of got some wind that they will be changing that sap. I was actually put on NDA with a very small group of people figuring out that, oh, and in a few months there's going to be a huge reorg at the company involving also a brand new board area. So fast forward maybe 1 or 2 months later when this board area had been announced and the person that was, you know, heading the services piece, Shane, was giving a speech, right. Introducing myself. And he also said, Hey, I have three roles available on my team, on my huge team, by the way, 19,000 people and in his Yeah. His executive team. So he said I still have a head that's up for grabs. I need the strategy officer I believe and my right hand person might have staff.

Belen Wagaw (00:18:56) - I need a strong chief of staff. Those were his words. And I was off site with the rest of my senior leadership team watching him, you know, give that speech. And I remember thinking, I want that to be me. I'm going to apply for that chief of staff role. You know, later at dinner we were even talking about the role and a lot of people were saying, ah, he probably already has someone. You know how these things are. He's probably just saying it. He's probably going to take someone that's been at the company for, you know, 20, 25 years, you know, someone that's like through and through. But I still felt that I wanted to apply. So when the job description was up, I sent him this email that you probably saw. And I, you know, pointed out, Hey, Shane, as president of services, this is what I think you're going to be in certain situations and this is how I can help you.

Belen Wagaw (00:19:46) - So it's always about him. And I believe that's how I got the job, right? So a few days later we got on a call. It was very early March 2020. The idea was to do a trial travel run, right? Because the chief of staff, you would have to be with that person all the time, usually. But then it was like right at Covid, we were supposed to meet in London, I believe, or in Waldorf, like in the headquarters. Didn't happen. So we just like it. Got hitched basically with never meeting. And then after that it was the biggest two. Yeah, right. A year and a half to two years. The best job I've had, the hardest job I've had. But the one where I learned a ton.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:27) - Wow. That there's so much to that in the sense of seeing the opportunity taking the chance. Right. There's that saying that, you know, you what is it? You don't get any of the chances you don't take.

Christopher Nelson (00:20:40) - Right. So you obviously took the chance and you it sounds like then you leverage all of your communication skills to craft something that, you know, made you, you know, identify as a primary candidate for this role 100%.

Belen Wagaw (00:21:00) - I think it comes down to communication skills, of course, but also business acumen in a certain way, because you have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of what would a let's say, if a chief revenue officer. Right. Like what does that person's day to day look like? If I was a chief of staff to a CEO, what does that look like for a role? You know it's different. He happened to be the president of services, which means he has to be customer facing all the time. He has to run. Right. It's not just one part of the business. So really understanding how I write the best email or whatever, but also to that person. Right.

Christopher Nelson (00:21:41) - Right. And this is one of the things that I talk about in it's a concept that I'm trying to present to people, which is positioning yourself as the asset.

Christopher Nelson (00:21:51) - Like in this exchange, like there's this nice salary package. Was there any equity involved?

Belen Wagaw (00:21:57) - No, sadly, there's shares.

Christopher Nelson (00:22:00) - Yeah, there's some shares. Okay. So at that point. Right. But you're, you're positioning yourself as this rare and valuable asset that then can meet that exchange. And the way that you position yourself is you talk about experience and results and some of them are past results. The other part is a visioning to them of how you can help them meet their current results. Because when it comes to executives, they want to surround themselves with people that can help them deliver results because they are on task and they have, you know, lots of incentives to say we need to meet these goals, we need to meet these things. And so I'm sure that and I would love to at some point, yeah, reread that letter with you with this lens of how did you really position yourself as this asset to help him deliver results?

Belen Wagaw (00:22:53) - Yeah, 100%. I think one thing, along with positioning yourself as an asset is how would you alleviate pain in general? Right? It's not really saying I'm going to add to your team.

Belen Wagaw (00:23:07) - It will take away pain, Right? I think people need to look at a lot of times when you're. Wanting a promotion or wanting to apply for something. It's not just going to be great because I'm gonna reduce all this other headache. Like, this is how I think I'm going to do it. Um, I think that's really sad. It's not done very often because everyone's like me, me, me, me. I'm so great. I'm so great. It's like, no, what is like, causing someone so many migraines because they're like this the steering committee that's taking so much of their time or this project that's been happening for the last six months with. No, you're right. Like, how can you help?

Christopher Nelson (00:23:45) - Right. How. Yeah. And that's how you can help them be more efficient. And part of this is I think about it is, you know, and I think as you get a promotion, as you work as as I worked for CIOs for many years as a vice president or as a senior director, my goal was to make their job easier.

Christopher Nelson (00:24:06) - I call it reduced drag. And you're right, taking things off of their plate that allows them to be much more efficient in their role. And, you know, this is also when you look at how you create great teams, part of this is how do I bring in a skill set of something that is my zone of genius, but is something that that particular executive is not good at? And then I can, to your point, reduce their pain, reduce their frustration, and they now can, you know, move forward with ease. It's so important to think, you know, and that to me is this attitude of more servant leadership, of how do I come in and serve versus how do I come in and conquer, How do I come in and win? Because sometimes the winds aren't aren't what you see. Yeah.

Belen Wagaw (00:24:53) - I have to give a shout out to my boss. He was the true life representation of a servant leader. Every call he would join with the team was like, How can I help you? What can I do? Right? Like when I saw that and the fact that you really put it to heart and then would collectively try to find solutions, right? That's why he got so far as well.

Belen Wagaw (00:25:13) - So, yes, 100%.

Christopher Nelson (00:25:15) - Well. So then you have this role. It's absolutely amazing. And at some point you leave. What was the impetus for that?

Belen Wagaw (00:25:24) - Yeah. At some point I leave. And this is the thing with, you know, with being a chief of staff, right? You get into such an ideally great relationship with the leader that you're working with, right? That person knows you really well. Um, so that boss actually ended up leaving to become the CEO of a scale up, right? B2B called Improve. Um, and that's also why I joined him, which is like a need. And that company, it had recently been, uh, bought, right? And he came in at that time and they were doing a lot of changes in terms of like their messaging, but also kind of like a new strategy and all of that. So there was a need for someone that would kind of bridge the gap between marketing and comms, which is how do we tell a better story for what our products do, Not the marketing piece, not not that kind of stuff, but how can you bring human stories of what these products do? So that's why I left.

Belen Wagaw (00:26:25) - Yeah.

Christopher Nelson (00:26:27) - Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. I mean, I think, you know, that's a growth strategy in career and can also be, you know, from an equity position as well. I've seen people go to get teams ready for acquisition or IPO as a team, but you follow a leader that you've worked for, you have a great relationship with and you go with him. So then you essentially followed that leader to become the chief storyteller. At what was it, sight insights, sight improve, sight improve. And so when, when did you start? And that's and so at some point it was while you're working for sight improvement that you start realizing there's a real need and opportunity to help technology executives building personal brands and telling their own stories.

Belen Wagaw (00:27:14) - Yeah, the seed was already planted when I was at SAP, and the biggest reason is I saw some very talented people, right? Like, let's be honest here. Sometimes the corporate game isn't fair, right? So I saw some people being pushed out.

Belen Wagaw (00:27:31) - I saw some people, uh, whether they're being laid off or things like this, where I realized, oh, wow, you can be at a company and you can have a great reputation inside of the company. You have great frameworks. You think, really well, people know you, but split second, you can be gone. And all of that thing you've built doesn't really matter, right? So that seed has been planted.

Christopher Nelson (00:27:54) - Yeah. And, you know, it's so unfortunate because I, you know, I made a decision at one point to go to work for a private equity company because I wanted to understand what that was like, get that experience. And I was part of a I was part of the management side of a reduction in force or sometimes they call it a riff where we had to look across our teams and, you know, the, the brutal I mean, it is an absolute brutal part of that process, which is ultimately you have to hit a number. It becomes a numbers game where it's like, okay, we have to now get the expense line to be this and you have to then look across your teams.

Christopher Nelson (00:28:38) - And it's the optimization scenario of, you know, how do there's no best case, like you're just trying to make the least worst case possible because you're you're arguably having to go in there and in, in, you know, do some reorg and great people have to go. And it's one of the most hardest, excruciating things as a manager I've ever done in my life. Yeah. And to your point, it's not there's no ounce of fairness in that at all because it's it's a I don't even know. Really how to describe it. But I think to your point, what you see is great executives, great people who get let go and they then at that point are feeling vulnerable and feeling okay, how do I now, you know, sort of create a foundation in my career?

Belen Wagaw (00:29:40) - I think it can be very. Not only stressful, but very. Lonely time, right? Because. Especially if you've associated your name with a company with those big, big tech companies like enterprise level like that happens, right? Like you go to the same event, you go to the yearly annual things, your customers, whatever.

Belen Wagaw (00:30:05) - Like, right, you have a name, your Googler, you, you know, all of these things as well. That's taken away, right? Will people? Of course. Of course. Your reputation still stays. But my point is that. It stays within those four walls. So that's when the seed was planted. Um, and when I was on to improve, I was already thinking for a long time that I wanted to do things on my own to be sure. Like I love, I loved corporate like I do want to, you know, because I was good at it. I left my thing at a time where I understood the game, you know, for lack of a better word, like I had other really big plans, which was to move to the US to double, triple my salary. Right? I was going to get into real estate, right? Investing on this side and really, really building that wealth. But there was also part of me that wanted to go on this route where I was like, I knew that the corporate route would kind of somehow be sacrificing for at least a decade.

Belen Wagaw (00:31:07) - That's how I saw it, at least in a way. Right? And yeah, I don't know whether I was willing to pay the price. I'm putting quotation marks for those that are, you know, listening on the podcast. But, um, but we can get to that. Why? Why exactly? I left. But yeah, the personal branding piece was planted very early when I realized it's a dangerous place to be and when only people within your four walls know how great you are.

Christopher Nelson (00:31:35) - Right? And I think this is a good place to start wrapping up this first segment, and I want to read that back in and take a moment on that because. To your point, when you are somebody who builds a brand within four walls of a single company and you establish yourself there and your name is associated with that, and all of a sudden that is taken away for whatever reason, you leave yourself at this huge risk of losing relevance, of losing momentum. And again, I'm not saying that that will happen.

Christopher Nelson (00:32:12) - I'm saying risk. This is all, you know, looking at it through the lens of where you are investing your time and talent and the risk of how that happens and the mitigation strategy to that risk. How do you mitigate that? Well, you build a brand as a subject matter expert around what you're doing outside of those four walls. And this is why we're now at the halfway point. We're going to get back with Blend and we're going to talk about what are some strategies to build a personal brand. So with that, we're going to be right back after this. All right. Welcome back. This is the second half. We're here with Blaine Wagle and we're talking this time on this half as her specialization as a brand strategist for technology executives. So let's just baseline it. What is a personal brand? How do you describe that?

Belen Wagaw (00:33:12) - Yeah, sure. The way I like to think of it is your personal brand is basically your reputation as scale, right? It's the thing that you are known for.

Belen Wagaw (00:33:21) - It's the first few sentences that come, you know, to mind when you think about a particular person. Um, except that it's just been scaled enough that when people are also looking you up, they kind of get a hint of, okay, this is what this person is about.

Christopher Nelson (00:33:40) - And so when you think about executives in what we just left off with, like building your brand out of those four walls, let's talk about what's the benefit. What do you see the benefit of if you have a robust personal brand and you know, you happen to be working for a corporation, what is what does that give you?

Belen Wagaw (00:34:03) - A lot, right? So I'll take it from internally to externally. So I think a lot of times people tend to think, oh, I don't need a personal brand because I love my company. I have a great company, I'm loyal, I'm going to stay here. And, you know, I don't dream of being this hotshot CXO somewhere else. So why do I need it? And when I tell those people it is, you know, funny you say that, but if you have a personal brand, it actually you become more valuable to your company as well because more people know about what you do.

Belen Wagaw (00:34:37) - Let's say you're in a team of 50 people, right? That person, you know, you might know people around you. You might be on some of those team meetings. You might be on emails forwarded. Right? Maybe you've been to some, uh, you know, kind of presentations at a work event. Right? And your personal brand goes that far, your internal reputation. But let's say that you've actually been posting online and people are like, Oh, yeah, Christopher, He's in the team and then Arnold's team and they'll actually talk to you internally as well. And it's like, Oh, you've been doing this interesting thing that I did not know about from my company. So it increases your visibility, right? I think that impacts your promotions because you're that person that everyone notices. I always say, like the hard workers are not the ones that get promoted. The ones that are seen are right. So being seen usually also affects your dollar bills. And I know that, you know, your podcast talks a lot about that as well, about wealth.

Belen Wagaw (00:35:35) - I think it impacts your pockets.

Christopher Nelson (00:35:40) - It does. And I think that, you know, in one of the things that I talked to people a lot about this, too, and I advocate for building a brand and in an expertise, right? So whatever you're doing inside of a technology company and I literally, you know, interviewed somebody earlier whose specialization was procurement right is going in and buying all of the things that technology companies need to run. She built that expertise and then she became known as an expert. She actually then started an external networking organization that has now come to cede multiple roles for her moving forward vice president level roles at different companies because she's not just seen as I am a worker and at a certain level in this company. But no, you're actually a thought leader in this space. Wow. We could actually bring on board a thought leader who actually has connections, who, you know, arguably has leverage in the industry too, because we can actually purchase from them. You know, they know us.

Christopher Nelson (00:36:46) - We could get our brand out there. I mean, there's all sorts of value that you can bring to your own company by being an expert in what you do.

Belen Wagaw (00:36:57) - Exactly 100%. So building that authority, which is whether it's procurement, whether it's your finance, whether it's pre-sales. Right. Everyone has. Yes. These. You know, frameworks that you've worked on, right? You know, what is the best way to make sure that the, uh, you know, CRM that you chose for the company was the right one. You probably had a way of figuring that out as a procurement person. What is the process? What is the approval process? Why do you need a minimum spend one K and not ten K? What is the reasoning behind that? Right. So if you're actually explaining to people why a certain field is the way it is, why there's like more logic, right? Yes, people will connect it to you, but you're also educating others. So they're like, Oh yeah, we'll bring this person on board to our company because we've seen what she's able to do for that company, so why not for us? And you just get way more opportunities, whether it's, you know, can you speak at this event? Um, you know, can you come to a podcast, whatever it is, because you become exactly, like you said, much more than just being a worker within a field and you become someone that actually has something to say about the industry or the topic.

Christopher Nelson (00:38:08) - Right, Right. And that and that gives you a lot more visibility. And I've seen people that have well-established personal brands outside of their work also be able to win. If they decide to leave their company, they can easily transition into consulting because, again, they have that respect in the industry and they can. It takes a little thought to put together what is a consulting package, what are the results that I would deliver? Again, if you continue to build that and you can navigate in and out and the way that I see it is it becomes this asset that's larger than the company that you're with. It's also separate from the company that you're with.

Belen Wagaw (00:38:50) - So, yes.

Christopher Nelson (00:38:52) - Where do people start? Like, where do you have, you know, as you're working with clients, where do you generally have them start in this journey?

Belen Wagaw (00:39:01) - So. I think, of course, channels matter, right? If we say where do you start in terms of actually getting your voice out there? I would say the most obvious thing for professionals, right? Corporate startups scale up.

Belen Wagaw (00:39:14) - LinkedIn is great, right? Because it offers you a long form. That's already where the decision makers are. That's already where you have your connections. It's the obvious place to start. But if we take a step back and we say, How does one build my personal brand, right? What do I stand for? Of course it doesn't come that easy, but. Right. You know, figuring out. What are the things that you can have a conversation with? You know, for a long time, Your wife, for example, internal comms, right. You can probably talk about it to anyone she sees because she's in it. She knows a lot. Right. Right. I always say start where you feel comfortable. But a lot of times people feel like what they know or the knowledge that they have is like. But everyone knows that. Like internal comms. Yeah, everyone knows that. No, Like, you would be surprised at how much of the information, you know, is actually not that obvious for a lot of people.

Belen Wagaw (00:40:08) - Right. So one thing that I always say is try to actually give advice to yourself from three years ago. Right? So if you're wanting to write on LinkedIn or publishing contacts, don't try to be this guru that has all the answers. Just help the person that you once were. What do you wish you knew about procurement when you got into it? Like, you know, what did you think it was and then what surprised you? What are the lessons you learned that if you knew this, you could, you know, save six months of like, you know, two quarters of headaches when you're, like doing this thing and stuff like that, that's like a really good way. Um, yeah.

Christopher Nelson (00:40:44) - Well, I think so many people don't understand that. What you've learned, all of the mentorship that you've had. And if you're even if your industry has a lot of meetup groups and things that communicate, there's always nuance and things that you can add to the value.

Christopher Nelson (00:41:07) - And you know what I've, you know, been told in this is one of the things I'm practicing is I'm establishing growing a personal brand is give away everything you know give it all away. You don't need to keep any secrets because if you do consulting or if you do coaching or strategizing, you're going to get paid to help with the implementation because many people will see and start understanding the concepts, but they don't know how to bring it to life. And that's one of the things I think it's important to understand. As you start establishing a brand, just start writing what you know, and then people are going to ask more questions and what they want to know or they're going to want, you know, the, the, the talk to come with your personality, to come with more insights. Right?

Belen Wagaw (00:41:54) - Yeah. Right about what you know And you know, in the beginning I would just urge people to also have fun with it. Right. Because it's not about having it perfect. You know, I still have so many things I want to talk about that I'm like, okay, I'll pace myself because.

Belen Wagaw (00:42:10) - You know, everything that doesn't make sense, other ones. But when I started, I would post about anything that brought, you know, that passed my brain, basically because I wanted to get the feedback. I just wanted to get practice and write the reps. Get your reps in so that the idea of actually creating content is actually very scary and can relate. A lot of my clients, I've been there, right? Somehow you feel like once you put your voice out there or your words out there, one, they're set in stone, everyone will see it. Everyone will remember it. It's all false, right? You can go back on an idea. You can change your mind. One of the best qualities people can have is actually you can change your mind and then that's another thing you can talk about. I thought that, you know, leading the team in this way was the best, right? Like you have a team of seven is the ideal number. Actually, it's five because of what you know, whatever it is, right? Everyone won't see it.

Belen Wagaw (00:43:03) - Your entire LinkedIn fan base or followers won't see it, right? They'll forget what you wrote. But after a while, when you're writing about something consistent, that's how you build a personal brand because then you're associated with something rather than, you know that one post won't won't make or break anyone.

Christopher Nelson (00:43:21) - And so what some of the real tactical stuff. So if you say to somebody today who's sitting down and saying, okay, I really want to start my personal brand, what are some of the 3 to 5 steps that they should do to just get started?

Belen Wagaw (00:43:39) - Yeah, a few steps I would say is. You know, choose your channel. I really recommend LinkedIn. Um, that's take your, you know, remove any headache, choose LinkedIn. Um, write a few content themes right like you feel comfortable in it might be procurement meets, uh, you know, it can even be like remote work or traveling or whatever and something that you're really passionate about. Right. Or something that you like.

Belen Wagaw (00:44:06) - So you're like, okay, I can talk about this. And then I would recommend actually to go on LinkedIn and to find a few people that you want to be inspired by. You're like, Oh, I like how Christopher actually comes on there, right? You don't have to reinvent everything you can say, like how he writes. And I like how she structured this. She edited an image. Oh, cool. Save these and your little bank, which is a swipe file or whatever, that you can go back to so that it's less scary that you're not looking at an empty page and then write a few. I always say like write a few notes, like draft a few so that you're not like you post one, you don't hear anything and then you're scared. What do I do for the next one? Right? Like draft a few and then test. You know, it's fine if you get one leg to like it doesn't matter. Like know that you're doing this for not perfection. It's actually just to get the reps in.

Belen Wagaw (00:44:57) - So putting like finding a few themes that you enjoy, you know, having a set of posts that you have like as your backup so that you don't get too overwhelmed once that first one goes live. And whether you get an overwhelming response or a very underwhelming response, you have a few that you know holds you over because we've all been there where you're like, Oh, what do I write now? Like, Oh my God, I wrote a post that's like five paragraphs. I've said everything in this one, right? Um, I hope that helps at least get started.

Christopher Nelson (00:45:28) - It does. Yeah. It just get started. And I think, you know, consistency plays a role too. And more than anything, finding that comfort zone of just the things that you're passionate about and you like to talk about, you know, because I, I know for yourself you could probably talk about personal branding all day, right? It's something that you enjoy. It's something that brings you joy.

Belen Wagaw (00:45:51) - Yes.

Christopher Nelson (00:45:52) - Well, I want to thank you for your time.

Christopher Nelson (00:45:53) - And before we wrap it up, we always go to the fire round, so we always ask five questions that can really give some insights and help people out there, help your younger self. So what was the worst career advice you ever received?

Belen Wagaw (00:46:09) - Oh, probably wait until it's your time. Wait until you have two years because the career progression says you go from associate to specialist to director. Wait. Right. People that just like to tell you to wait, I think are, yeah, really bad. I'm glad to listen to it because if I did, yeah. I would have had you obviously. Yeah.

Christopher Nelson (00:46:34) - Took the opposite of that advice. You're like, nope, not waiting, not. Wait, Uh, how are you? How do you keep learning?

Belen Wagaw (00:46:42) - I love to read Big, Big Reader. Um, so anytime there's a topic that interests me, I try to either watch a YouTube video or read about it, but I'm always reading at least 3 or 4 books at the same time.

Belen Wagaw (00:46:54) - So I wish I need to put my bookshelf up sometime. But yeah, books.

Christopher Nelson (00:47:01) - And so I know, especially when you are a solopreneur and helping a lot of people, you can just get overwhelmed, exhausted. How do you recharge?

Belen Wagaw (00:47:12) - Well, it'll be funny if I said I read. I really do. That is my safe space, right? Like being home and just like, actually reading in a corner. It's funny, but I have a hobby. I started like a year ago, which I love is going to spin spin class like music, cardio, dark room. You know, I don't think about work. I don't think about anything. I just think about the reps, a little bit of the pain. And I love music. So that has been the one thing that I can truly like. Yeah. Take off. So it's amazing.

Christopher Nelson (00:47:44) - That's great. What's some advice that you would give your younger self working in tech?

Belen Wagaw (00:47:55) - Mm. Trust your gut. I know it's a little woo, but, um, you know, you don't have these.

Belen Wagaw (00:48:08) - The ideas you have or this person, you know, this intuition you have believe in it. That's what I would say.

Christopher Nelson (00:48:16) - Believe in it. Yeah. It sounds like that's something that helped you move forward in your career and got what's the soft skill that you would say has helped your career the most?

Belen Wagaw (00:48:30) - I see active listening. Um, you know, really listening to hear people and to understand where they're coming from then to respond. You would be surprised. I'm still not great at it. I'm not perfect. I could improve. But I think, you know, if you really listen to people, they'll tell you what they want. But we're so caught up in having the best answer that we tend to already be like, you know, for, you know, formulating an answer in our heads instead of just, like, taking it in.

Speaker 3 (00:49:00) - Well, great.

Christopher Nelson (00:49:01) - Well, thank you so much. I want to. How can people learn more about you?

Belen Wagaw (00:49:05) - Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn, my favorite platform under Blaine Waggle.

Belen Wagaw (00:49:10) - You will find ways to get to my website. That way send me a DM. You know, I'd love to chat. And yeah, that's how you can find me.

Christopher Nelson (00:49:19) - Excellent. Well, thank you again for taking the time to spend with us today. And for all of you, thank you for another episode of Tech Careers and Money Talk. I just have three quick apps. Number one, please follow this podcast where young podcasts need followers talking about Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, you name it, we're there. Number two, leave us a review. What did you like about this? What were your takeaways like? We do want to hear from you. We would love some five star love. And number three, tell other people we need to get the message out there that we're having conversations about career and money from people who've been there, done that, and we're here to help, So please just spread the message. Thank you so much.