048: Executive Branding 101: Strategies for LinkedIn Success

00:00 - 00:25 | Christopher:
What AI cannot take away is your personal lived experiences, especially in now the world of AI, not only in terms of what AI can do in writing, but what I can do in different tasks, right, in different roles, whether you're like a developer or what can make you really use sharing your actual experiences, things that AI cannot take away. So I'd really encourage people to almost take pride in what they've lived and what they know, because that's something that, you know, only they have.

00:27 - 01:31 | Christopher:

Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk, the podcast for financially focused technology employees. Are you working for equity? Do you have questions on how your career and money work together? Then welcome. Every week we discuss strategies and tactics for how to grow your career, build wealth and reach your financial and lifestyle goals. Okay. Welcome to Tech Careers and Money Talk. I'm your host, Christopher Nelson, and I'm excited to be having another episode with Belen Wagaw coming in from Lisbon, Portugal. Belen, as you may know from episode 12, that was our first interview together. She started as an intern at SAP and then ascended her career to becoming a chief of staff. very prestigious position and managing a lot of executive communications. Then she moved on to serving as a guiding light and a storyteller for another technology company. And now she runs her own company to be able to do storytelling for CEOs and B2B brands. I'm excited to have you back. Welcome, Blayne.

01:31 - 01:40 | Belen:

Thank you so much, Chris. First of all, ascending, that is like the best way to, you know, to hype me up. So thank you for that. I'm glad to be back on the pod.

01:41 - 02:06 | Christopher:

Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. And yes, we love to have ascendant careers. That's the exciting thing. Tiring thing too. But one of the things that you are observing today out in the marketplace is that traditional B2B marketing is faltering. And it's because of a lack of storytelling, a lack of CEO engagement. Help us understand what you're seeing out there and how you're actually helping people.

02:07 - 02:52 | Belen:

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, traditionally, B2B marketing and B2B companies used to do, you know, content and marketing in a very different way, right, very removed from actually talking about the customer, very serious, and doesn't don't really put their people out in the forefront. And things are changing, right? B2B customers are very similar to B2C customers that they want to know who's behind the brand, who is the CEO, and they want to kind of have less you know, product marketing and ads and more actual stories, like who is behind the product. So some companies can get it, but many don't. And the ones that are understanding how to actually play into storytelling and personal branding are really seeing big results in terms of creating demand for their companies.

02:53 - 03:07 | Christopher:

I mean, we know that, you know, traditional B2B marketing, you're going to talk about your software, you're going to give some case studies for customers. What is the sort of the new storytelling looking like and how does that look and feel different?

03:07 - 04:03 | Belen:

Absolutely. So it's going more from talking like your product features and product pitches to insights on what is upcoming in the industry, right? Like more thought leadership and not only saying our product does X, but being able to say this is where we see most customers having pain points and these are what they're stumbling across, right? Really coming in from an educational perspective, talking about that solution or the industry around your product, instead of just saying, buy, buy, buy, because we are the best. And it's almost meeting the customers where they are, right? Usually, especially in B2B, a customer is looking for a while, to purchase that whatever product it is. So instead of just listing features, why don't you actually talk to them where they're at, right? Also provide some context of what they might be struggling with so they can see you as a helping hand rather than just someone trying to give them a heavy contract or just looking to sell them something.

04:03 - 04:18 | Christopher:

And where is the majority, like when you think about this storytelling, where do you see this taking place? Is the storytelling taking place on the company's website? Is it taking place on social media? Like where, where, when you're seeing this working, where is the storytelling taking place?

04:18 - 05:12 | Belen:

I mean, when it's working, I would say you're meeting your customers where they are, right? So a lot of times, most of your customers are not just like lurking on your website day to day being like, ah, what does Gong or what does Pepsi have to say about whatever, right? So you have to meet them where they are and Customers, B2B customers are just humans, which is crazy, right? They're just you and I. You might be having the purchasing power, but they most likely are on social media, scrolling, kind of capturing other information. So you have to meet them where they are. And a lot of times, that's why I talk a lot about why LinkedIn is the right way. or the right platform is because they're already there and you kind of have to meet people where they are. So, of course, repurpose it on your website because once, if the buyer or the prospect is actually wanting to purchase, then they might be there. But initially it has to start where, where they're just like, you know, having a little scroll.

05:12 - 05:21 | Christopher:

And so what are, what are some of the missed opportunities that you're seeing CEOs and executives, you know, not take advantage of in this, in this sort of the new storytelling era?

05:21 - 06:13 | Belen:

So many. Where do I start? I think the biggest missed opportunity is them not even considering that they can play a role in educating the customer. Kind of the same thing that they're asking their marketing teams to do, the same thing they're asking their sales team to do, which is, hey, talk to the customer, convince them, wow them, show them we're the right thing, right? they can do that on their own side on a much bigger scale and in a way that doesn't require an SDR, right? That saves them money and a way that doesn't require always a huge marketing campaign. So that's the biggest missed opportunity. They don't even consider creating content in order to do similar things. So that's that. I mean, maybe we can talk about that before I go into like, because I get pretty excited or like passionate about this, as you can tell. So the biggest thing is that they don't do it. You don't even, it's not even an option for many.

06:13 - 07:16 | Christopher:

Well, in, Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, when you go out there, I mean, I think one of the things that I do, if I'm going to go buy a product is I want to go and see who the CEO is, you know, and again, I'm in a solopreneur, I also have my private equity company, we do purchase software, I want to understand who's the leadership team, I want to understand what they've done before. And so it's frustrating when you go then to a profile and you don't see anything there or you go to a website and there's not a lot about the team because with the proliferation of software, it's so easy for somebody to stand up a product. But it is important for the buyer, for us to understand who is behind it. Because if I'm going to invest the time, the effort and the money to be implementing this software, I want to know that they're going to be around for a while, that it's not a fly by night. And then within 18 months, you know, I'm not going to have a piece of software. I'm going to have to move to something else, you know, because those things do happen.

07:16 - 08:40 | Belen:

100%. You've nailed it. And I think especially when it comes to higher dollar amount, right? So maybe if it's like B2B software, it's not the same, right? something that is a lower cost versus not. But if you're thinking about something that will cost the department 30k a year, 40k a year, however it is, or even it might be something that is, you know, 200 per person for a company, it still adds up right for whoever has to sign off. And that's exactly it. So you want to make sure that whoever's behind it is going to be around for a while you know what they're doing? Do they have other customers? Do they have customers in my area to dev social proof? Right. And that brand affinity does make a huge difference. And I think where we have been so far is that we've kind of big software companies have kind of relied on saying, OK, we can wine and dine whoever the decision maker is at a real event or get on a call with them, you know, because but things are changing now. The same customers are wanting to have the same kind of experience as, you know, what Spotify does, like, almost like self service, and you can kind of see before you buy, right. And so that's changing as well. So huge. Yeah, you want to, there's just something about seeing a person behind a product, it won't change, regardless of it's like an enterprise product versus a smaller amount, or, you know, any kind of differences.

08:41 - 08:58 | Christopher:

What are some of the steps, like right now, if you were coaching me, I'm a CEO, I have a small to medium-sized product out there, what are some of the things that I need to be doing right now to start making myself, to position myself to be ready to do this story-led marketing?

08:58 - 10:36 | Belen:

Yeah, it's not usually it is a CEO. But sometimes there are some rare cases that the most suitable person at a company might actually be the CTO, right? Like the most suitable subject matter expert, or it's the founder that's not directly the CEO. So one, step one is assessing who's the right person to be the first at least evangelist of the product, then step two is figuring out okay, who are who are your customers? Who is your ideal customer persona, right? Usually the CEO knows this, but it requires some kind of digging to make sure we understand who that person is. And then it's really figuring out what is that person's pain point? What are their desires? What are the things that you usually hear for, for example, in a sales call? What do your SDRs hear? What are the objections, right? So that we kind of have a really good sense of when we develop the content framework, we know the questions we need to answer because we have to start with the customer first. And then of course, step three is also figuring out, okay, who are you as a CEO? How does your expertise connect with all of this? And how can we make sure we highlight your individual stories? Because at the end of the day, when you show up and start creating content and start building your own thought leadership and personal brand, we have to make sure that it's still your own story, right? And there are ways to kind of infuse that. So there is a very multi-step you know, process to make sure that we're starting with the ICP first and then connecting the dots saying, how does your experience make sure that we're, you know, highlighting your authority and then also answering a lot of those desires and pain points in the content.

10:36 - 10:47 | Christopher:

And as part of this, as part of telling the stories, how important is it to position the CEO as a thought leader versus a salesperson?

10:48 - 11:58 | Belen:

Interesting question. I think it can be both, right? I think positioning as a thought leader comes first. I think sales is a effect from that, right? If you're a true thought leader, and again, this word is very misused and kind of misrepresented, I think. The way I see being a thought leader, someone that is at the forefront of their industry and has opinions that are slightly different from the rest and that they are having a stake in the ground and really seeing what is happening, what is coming, what is future, and having some Contrary opinions from fact and from what they're seeing. So I think that being a salesperson will obviously be job number one for any CEO. I always say that, you know, CEO's number one thing is to drive demand for their company. Right. And being a thought leader actually also does that because it raises your brand awareness. Right. It also is generating eyeballs, which is then does drive demand. So in a way, I don't see those things as being very different because we're using thought leadership very, you know, specifically and not just saying random things about different topics, right? It does relate to what your company is doing.

11:58 - 13:21 | Christopher:

Right, right. It's not just being a thought leader on leadership or running a company, but it's actually having that. The way that I think about it is that you're a domain expert that's able to solve problems in that domain cybersecurity, for instance, right? You understand cybersecurity, what your product, the problem that it solves, that's really the thought leadership and what's happening in the space, what attacks, what threat vectors, et cetera, for that example. Versus to me, the salesman is the ability to negotiate and put together, you know, win-win type of deals, right? As saying, okay, now we're sitting here, you're a larger company, let's actually get something inked out that includes different payment terms, different ways that we're maybe supporting each other as companies to get the deal done. And what I heard clearly from you is that what I think is different is that the traditional salesman is more reactive waiting for that demand to be there. But when you're actually a outward facing thought leader in your out industry, speaking about the problems that you see, how they're being solved, and then always coming back to your company and the way they're solving some of those specific problems, that's going to attract a lot of attention. And then that attention can then be converted into closed deals.

13:21 - 14:09 | Belen:

Absolutely. Yeah. And this is also the difference between there's a capturing demand, right? Sometimes you're meeting your buyers where they are, and they realize, ah, we had this problem. And through your thought leadership or whatever, you realize this is a company to check out. So you're just capturing the demand, but you can also create demand. This is when you're making someone aware of a problem they didn't really have, right? They might be struggling with other stuff, but they did not really know that the pain is coming from this. And that is also what really good thought leadership can do or creating very valuable content from a CEO perspective. It's almost saying, Hey, companies, you guys were figuring, having issues with this and kind of trying to figure out how to fix this issue. Maybe the leak actually started two steps ago, and that's what we fix, right?

14:09 - 14:33 | Christopher:

That's really, that's really important. So when you think about this new arena, right, of this storytelling, what, what are some of the skills and, and just even ways of, of thinking that whether it's, you know, the CEOs or the chief marketing officers, what are ways that they need to, what are skills they need to develop and thinking they need to shift to be able to adapt to this?

14:34 - 16:25 | Belen:

Yeah, great question. This reminds me, maybe I can take a step back, right? Because this reminds me of my time in companies, right? Whether it's in corporate or in a scale up. And I think one of the big things to develop is that customer feedback loop, right? Because great content or great storytelling comes from asking the right questions, right? And if you want to Do great storytelling for customers attract customers ideal prospect you kind of have to ask your current customers what they're struggling with a really figure out how did we close that person what was the thing that made them decide to go with our company a lot of times companies don't really know that they do a bunch of stuff right like. You have a lot of strategies, a lot of campaigns, a lot of ads, and whoever comes, they don't really know what was the trigger. But the companies that really are dialed in really win. So also CEOs, they know which stories, you know, they've anecdote or what data point, whatever they said, that really gives an aha moment. So I think that feedback loop or really active listening skill really helps in storytelling. And also just being able to listen for signals. if that makes sense with, you know, that's kind of the triggers that either bought on a sale or when a customer implemented something and then they were really happy, right? Really listening to triggers and saying that is what someone else would want to hear. And as a content creator nowadays, I'm really good at being like, that's a good story. A lot of times CEOs don't realize, you know, they're like, oh, we scaled a company from, this X in this amount of time. And I'm like, Oh, that's a story where a customer was able to do this, and that region, and they didn't have to add any additional payroll. Like, that's, that's something you should tell. That's the story, you know, so, so you just need a kind of a knack for it.

16:26 - 17:31 | Christopher:

Well, and that's the thing is, is so learning, learning the art of storytelling, practicing it, because I can relate as well, you know, moving into book writing, podcasting, content creation, you begin to understand what does a interesting topic look like? How do you ask questions around it that is going to give you good output that may give you a good video that may give you a good case study, those types of things, I think, and it all has to be customer focused. Because ultimately, if, you know, it's interesting how the big shift that I'm seeing from this perspective, you know, we've always known that we need to serve our customers. And I think that there's, you know, marketing that is around how the product helps the customers. But when you talk about stories in people with your product and how your product is helping solve problems that makes ultimately those employees' lives better, Like that then creates like this secret sauce of attraction and relational material that people really want to be a part of.

17:31 - 17:35 | Belen:

Yeah. The secret sauce. Maybe that should be one of the fray works.

17:37 - 19:25 | Christopher:

Secret sauce storytelling. Secret sauce storytelling. Well, you know, I'm sure there's plenty of stories around, you know, grandma's secret recipes. Also. Right? Exactly. So storytelling to build trust. I think that this is really important in B2B, but I also think that This transition from being an executive to a thought leader is also important for a lot of us as we are thinking about transitioning our careers from full-time corporate to becoming solopreneurs. I wanna take a quick pause, and when I come back, I wanna spend the second half of the show really talking about how do we actually leverage this skill for personal branding for mid-career executives? How's that sound? I love it. Let's do it. Okay, we'll be right back. Okay, we are back here for the second half tech careers and money talk. Belen will go. Now we're getting into, I think the real heart of this conversation. I think a lot, you know, that can make this personal, this conversation personal for everybody else. It's important to understand this broader trend in marketing that's happening around CEOs and storytelling, but it's also very personal. I know for myself, I also know for you that as we've transitioned from full-time corporate to now solopreneurs, content creators, there's a real opportunity to do our own storytelling, to create and move forward our personal brands by developing ourselves as thought leaders. So how do you see these same techniques that we talked about in the first part of the show really, you know, being used to accelerate people's careers, even when they're still in corporate?

19:25 - 20:39 | Belen:

Yeah, I love this topic so much just because I'm so passionate about it, but the way I see it is that you are the captain of your own career, right? It's not up to HR, it's not up to your company, it's not up to anyone really to give you the best career possible. So I like to always say, why wouldn't you want to not only bulletproof your career, right? Your safety in case anything happens, There's like the two sides of it. I don't want it to be fear mongering, like if something happens to your company, but it's much more. Why wouldn't you want a ton more opportunities to happen? Because people know just how much you know. And it's again, that's as simple as that. What building your personal brand does is just highlighting all the information that you already have, the thing that you're working on, the insights you hold. the opinions you hold dear to you, and publishing them online on a platform like LinkedIn, so that no matter what happens, if you want a new job, if you want to consult on the side, or if you want to go on podcasts, whatever that is, people already know you, and they know that you know things. That's the easiest way I want to explain it. More people are getting into it, but I still think there's a lot of people that aren't.

20:39 - 22:21 | Christopher:

There's a lot of opportunity and one of the things, and so I love that simple view that to really start establishing yourself as a thought leader, you just want to write about what you know. Very simply, just write about what you know so that people know what is the knowledge that you have, what's the value that you can bring to somebody else. Because in this this is an era of free agency like i always thought of my career as as you know being a member of the sports team and i was a free agent and i was always looking to you know just like you know people in sports you realize working in technology. you may not have the capacity for a super long career. The industry moves very fast. It can be incredibly exhausting. Burnout is very real. So I wanted to maximize the compensation I had at every level, at every opportunity. And so making sure that people know what you know, and I had the advantage at that point of just having a really rich network and I was able to meet people live and have good conversations. However, when you're able to be on a platform now like LinkedIn, and there's a lot more companies, companies are looking for very skilled professionals. If it's apparent what you know, what you're an expert in, and you have shown just through some, you know, nice, lightweight, comprehensive writing, you've been able to reflect some of that skill, that will create opportunities for you. And that is truly what I heard you say, Blayne, is that's the abundance mentality of the more opportunities you have, then you're going to be able to choose among those, the ones that are going to provide you the best benefit.

22:21 - 22:55 | Belen:

Absolutely. Yeah. And I like to compare it with, for example, if you were at your company and you were holding a small keynote or a small presentation, Just from that, I think any employee can know that if they were to do that, something would come out of it, right? Some conversation would happen, you know, they would be asked to give another presentation or they would be noticed, you know, that they might have a little promotion bump, whatever, right? Like, I think people understand the logic, but somehow there's a big hesitancy as soon as it comes to getting online. It's scary.

22:57 - 24:09 | Christopher:

It is scary. Let's have fun with that. Well, it is. And so I know for myself, I really thought when I was in corporate, I put together a nice crisp profile. I wanted to make sure, I think first and foremost, that LinkedIn read like a really professional resume. And I was very cautious with the writing. I felt like things had to be perfect at first because I felt like everybody was looking And the reality is not everybody's looking. And there's a reality to add to the portfolio of your career that's on LinkedIn as a resume, as an online resume, by augmenting it with some writing so that if people visit your profile, they're able to see, you know, some different, you know, I liked what you said earlier about the CEOs, that you have some, you know, different opinions in and around your industry and you're thinking broadly about what's happening. so that interested recruiters can read and get to know more about you. Because ultimately, they're looking to find higher quality people through these online platforms.

24:09 - 25:16 | Belen:

Absolutely, yeah. And recruiters are one, right? It might also just be, what I always remind people is that it might be someone else internally, right? Especially if you're like a mid to large company, it's hard to get noticed sometimes, right? Or there might be another person from a different department that you're that notices something or like a piece of post and say, Hey, that's really interesting. And also brings that conversation doesn't always have to be that you're looking for another job. It could also just be Hey, there's some kind of inherently, you know, valuable thing that happens when you're sharing your lessons. And I think that's also the approach I like to give to a lot of people. It's people want to hear from other people's lesson learned. And it could be, you know, my, what I've learned from being a service delivery manager at x company in 10 months, right? It could be simple as that. But, you know, that's actually useful. I always remind people, hey, you're not just self promoting all the time, if you're creating content. The best content is something that helps people. And maybe you've seen this in your own right from posting.

25:16 - 26:59 | Christopher:

I have. And the reality is if we can get beyond ourselves, like really if we can, and I know I've had this mental struggle before where, oh, this is going to sound like self-promotion. The reality is people want to understand what other people's experiences are like. And this is where it's important that we're able to share the wins that we've had in addition to the lessons learned. Lessons learned to me are failures and mistakes that we've made that are packaged as, here's a lesson that I learned from maybe something that didn't go as well. And when we're sharing those, I think in appropriate balance, it does a couple things. It just attracts more people to your knowledge and what you know, and it actually opens up a lot of very interesting conversations. And one of the things that you called out is it's not just about sometimes bringing in recruiters and people to look for job opportunities. It could be people who want mentorship. And when you're in corporate, mentees can become employees. They can become people that are eventually working for you. And as your career ascends, we love career ascension, as your career ascends, we do need to be able to hire people and have followership as we grow. And so all of these things, this is where I think there really is a compounding effect of being able to publish what you know online. So one of the questions that I would love to ask you is, when did you start figuring this out and what did it feel like to really start writing online for the first time?

27:00 - 29:22 | Belen:

I can take me back. So I have always really enjoyed consuming content in general, like from from reading books to eventually like following people's blogs, people that were like in careers or financial dependence, all these things. So I've always been an online content consumer, if that makes sense. And then eventually that translated to LinkedIn, because LinkedIn started having a shift around, I would say 2020, maybe late 2020, early 21. Or around, I think around the pandemic is when we're all at home a lot. Then I started finding people like Justin Welch, and people that were creating really good content on the platform that used to be very Boring let's put it that way right like yeah, very CV oriented and I started seeing the pattern of People that were either in their nine-to-five or kind of these content creators are we're doing interesting things creating newsletters having side Projects creating courses right kind of building audiences and monetizing from that as well So there's that area which I was really interested in but there's also the corporate influencers or nine-to-five wisdom that I would read that I was like, hey, this is really good. And for me, it made logical sense that people want to get behind a person because I have followed people. I've been part of an audience, basically, where there are some people I would pay whatever course they put out just because I'm so into that person. So I'm like, the personal branding thing did make sense. And then to round it off, in my corporate career, I saw a lot of people that were very smart, very talented, that I felt, what a shame that no one really knows you outside of these four walls, or no one really knows you outside of SAP. And even in a company like SAP, only maybe 100 people know you, or 200, because the company is so large. It's 100,000 people. I'm like, if you were to scale, what you're saying to me one on one, what you're saying in this, this off site where you're saying in this meeting, how powerful would that be? So I think that's when it started to click. And then you know, the funnel or like, you know, live happen and everything else. But that's, that's the biggest thing. I always thought it's such a shame, like, you're so smart, you're so talented, you have so much knowledge. But only people around you know this. And I always think that's so sad.

29:23 - 30:09 | Christopher:

I got, and I still continue to get inspiration from the same thing where I talk to these people that are brimming with so much knowledge, but they're not telling their own story. They're not scaling their knowledge out to a platform where other people can hear it. And that makes me feel more convicted that I need to share what I have and know. Because for the same reasons, nobody's going to tell it for me. And people can get a lot of value out of it. People can really learn a ton. And so for you, what did it feel like the first few times that you started writing online? I think it's important that people understand what those first few times feel like. You go first and then I'll share.

30:10 - 31:31 | Belen:

It's so funny because I wish I could tell you that I don't have those feelings anymore. I still do. So that's lesson number one. But what were those first few times like, you know, blank page and you're like, what am I supposed to write? Confusion, right? And also like being very hard on yourself on the writing. And then once you have something you want to post, utter fear. utter fear of, of posting and what will people say? And what will my colleagues say? Will they think I'm this person that's creating content, you know, it's just a lot of a lot of self doubt and a lot of imposter syndrome, which I used to talk a lot about actually one of my first things, but after I started posting on LinkedIn, a lot of my posts were around imposter syndrome because I had seen this topic around a lot and I would ask people and that I connected with so many very talented much more senior people on that topic so once I started getting a bit more feedback on hey I really like what you're doing I started to feel less scary but The fear never stops. There are still days where before certain posts or before if I've taken a little longer to create something and it's been a couple days, I still have those butterflies. I think that doesn't really go away. It's just human nature. But I would love to know how your first few times were.

31:31 - 33:50 | Christopher:

It was awkward, needless to say. I feel, you know, I'm a good verbal communicator. This is why I navigated, you know, relatively quickly to, you know, podcasting and having conversations just because this feels more natural. I think that sometimes it takes me a few sentences and back and forth to communicate ideas. And so the writing on mine was very awkward. Sometimes I said, I felt like, oh, I wrote too much or I wrote too little. What I ultimately came to understand is that people are a lot more forgiving than you give them credit for. Even though I've written some things that maybe felt awkward for me, I've never had really anybody say anything negative. I may have had them disagree, but I've never had them say like, you know, Hey, you know, you had some run on sentences, man. And in your grammar suck. I've never had anything like that. So put that aside. But what I've also realized is that The nature of online writing, the nature of what we're doing is you're putting out ideas for signals. So what I learned over time is that get more concise. And if you see that people really enjoy a post and there's a lot of interaction, then write something a little bit longer and then iterate another time on that and learn to enjoy the conversation. That's what I've come to understand. Now, To your point, does that take away the nerves and fears? No, as I was, you know, as I, you know, the space that I talk about and people don't understand this. So I'm going to share this with you because, you know, we're friends now we've developed this friendship, but I'm talking about money and I was raised like you don't talk about money. I was raised that it's very impolite. You don't talk about it. So this whole journey for me, realizing that the solution to get to financial freedom in tech is really talking about career and money together. And honestly, in all careers, you have to talk about how that works to get to where you want to go. A lot of these conversations make me feel uncomfortable. So I do have that a lot, I'm just trying to realize that the more you feel uncomfortable and vulnerable, probably the more it needs to be said.

33:50 - 33:51 | Belen:

Yeah.

33:51 - 34:11 | Christopher:

And letting go of that. And then I think, I'm sure as you have too, it's just like, I've started trying to do the cold plunge lately. And it's like, before you jump in, your mind is screaming, this is going to suck. And it does. But after it's done, you feel great. And I feel like this can be some of the same stuff.

34:11 - 34:15 | Belen:

I love, I love the analogy and you actually doing cold plunges like, wow.

34:15 - 34:16 | Christopher:

Yeah.

34:16 - 34:18 | Belen:

You have one at your house?

34:18 - 34:29 | Christopher:

We do. I mean, we just have one of the, you know, the cheapo ones and I literally fill it with water and it's been cold enough outside that it'll be, you know, cold enough that I get in and then we put ice in it in the, in the summertime.

34:29 - 35:35 | Belen:

Yeah. I'm very impressed. Okay. That's, I'll have to ask you about that offline, but I love what you said about take every pulse as a signal because that's also my biggest, um piece of advice for anyone like treat it as a test every post is a test right if you find something interesting if you're interested in and you think you want to post just see and then then you'll see what resonates right it's not really about writing the perfect thing or having the perfectly constructed idea or the answer. It's not it's not that it's just that is the beauty of any kind of social media, right? It's not set in stone and you don't you know, you're not publishing a book as you are. That's right. Maybe that's when you really need to have, you know, something concrete and you've thought about it for a while. But if you're creating post, then that's fine. And of course, over time, you develop a voice, you develop strong opinions, and you develop a foundational like pillars. But in the beginning, as you're starting out, the point is just to see to get in the ring, you know, it's not something when there's no winning in this game. That's right. It's just to kind of get a better feel. So I love the signal piece.

35:36 - 36:30 | Christopher:

It is. And then let's not forget that, you know, the value and on platforms like LinkedIn, they reward you when you are educating people on your professional knowledge. So when you are focused on your professional niche, and I know I have, you know, coached people that are technology leaders. I've coached people that are business leaders. So meaning that they lead an accounting function or they lead an audit function. you know, then people want to know those, those skills are valuable, the techniques are changing, to become more efficient, the more that you can display that expertise, that is going to, again, attract more of those different types of opportunities, whether that's recruiters, whether that's mentees, whether that's peers, all of that stuff will help your career grow, and ultimately ascend.

36:31 - 37:26 | Belen:

Love it. Yes. And, you know, I want to actually bring AI into this conversation, because it's like nowadays, it's kind of on everyone's mind, right. And that's also a big part of this, I would say, because what AI cannot take away is your personal lived experiences, your personal stories, your personal ways of tackling and I, you know, a problem at work, or for your project manager, maybe, you know, a different way, right. So, especially in now the world of AI, not only in terms of what AI can do in writing, but what I can do in different tasks, right, in different roles, whether you're like a developer or, you know, whatever, a salesperson, even reach all of these things, what can make you really use sharing your actual experiences, things that, you know, AI cannot take away. So I really encourage people to almost take pride in what they've lived and what they know, because that's something that, you know, only they have.

37:27 - 39:36 | Christopher:

Boom, there's a mic drop moment right there. Belen, no, really there is because there are some misconceptions and I think we need to dig into this. And I just literally had an epiphany. This is why I love being on the podcast and having these moments. But I think that especially with AI is able to generate a lot of very sterile how-to content. It is, let's be honest. It can go in there and from its knowledge base, it can generate something that's very sterile. And I believe that we have been overstimulated to sterile in what we crave as human beings. I mean, the way we are wired to hear and to tell stories and what people What we have, our unique contribution is the experiences that we have in the world, the machines don't share that now. And I don't, you know, maybe eventually they will as they become our, our partners and are walking around with us possibly, but they don't at this point. And so that is really our unique space. They also, you know, what I've learned in my space is like, if I, if I, you know, put into the machine, let's talk about career and money together, they don't know how to do that, because nobody's really done that really well effectively. So there's, again, these intersections and some of these new innovations that we're experiencing in our day to day life, that's not out there. So AI is not going to do this for you, number one. Number two, these are very personal stories. Your experience in how you leverage different techniques to achieve things is very, very interesting. People want to hear that. And I think the third thing, though, is that AI, for me, has definitely become a writing partner It can be a great editor. I can put in some different prompts and it'll tell me where there's holes in my story or it can help me with formatting. I want to take this big block paragraph and format it in a way that's easy to read. Those are the things that I, you know, use it for. What about you? What do you actually then use it for?

39:37 - 41:15 | Belen:

Yeah, same, very similarly to, you know, think about new ways to kind of see an angle, right, that I've written previously, or to kind of rehash some things that I've had, and to almost, yeah, poke holes. I really enjoy CoPilot. Actually, I don't know if a lot of people use it from Microsoft. I prefer, you know, because it uses strategies like GPT-4, but then thinks about it very differently. And if you have the right promise, it really does help. And what I think will happen, I mean, I know you mentioned that right now, AI is creating quite sterile content. And that will eventually change, which I know, because I have people asking me all the time, like, aren't you scared about AI? Like, it's going to take over all writing things. I know that eventually, AI will get very good that it will become less sterile. But again, it can never take your personal story, your lived experiences, what you have, what you know, where you've been, the companies you've like, you know, all your projects, your thoughts, your opinions. And this is why I really want to stress this always. So that people start leaning in much more to storytelling and to what they know, rather than exactly the how to content, how, you know, not like how to project manage a big deal, whatever. It's like how I did this and my company in this way, right? Like, your actual anecdote, rather than just like this how to thing. That is the thing I will stand the test of time and that people will keep coming back for because that is human nature. At the end of the day, I don't think we're going to change just because technology changed, right? We are still

41:16 - 41:53 | Christopher:

Right. Well, and we do a lot of things together. So there's always this element of, you know, we're working on technology, but how did the people come together and achieve these things? Or how did you accomplish those? All of those things are really important when you're thinking about telling your stories and there's a huge value and it's definitely needed. And so what do you think are some of the fundamentals? Like if somebody is going to start writing what would be some high level, I guess, content strategy? If I came to you and said, I'm a mid-level executive, I want to start posting three times a week, what kind of advice would you give me?

41:53 - 42:56 | Belen:

I would say the first thing is, why do you want to start posting? Because a lot of times people don't really have a clear idea, right? They know that they want to get out there, but they don't really know what the reason is. And someone that… A mid-level executive that is posting because they want to grow their following and just have a better network is going to do something very different than a mid level executive that wants to create content to become a certain, like, let's say it's a head of marketing, and that person wants to become CMO, like you will do different things. So I think clarifying your goal is important. And then depending on how your goal is, right, you can also kind of determine what kind of topics will make more sense. Whether it's your industry, or whether it's, yeah, some of the point of views that you have. And then there are a few kind of metrics or questions I have to kind of, this is something I can maybe even share after if that's useful for viewers.

42:56 - 42:57 | Christopher:

Oh, that'd be great.

42:57 - 44:04 | Belen:

Yeah. Right. And in terms of kind of digging into some of those questions to then figure out, okay, what could be my content pillars? What are my contrarian opinions? Contrarian opinions are really good, which is like, what is one or two things you believe that most people disagree with? And if you really dig, people can find that and from that you can create a lot of different content. And one thing that I always say is creating also kind of a swipe file like people that inspire you or having a place where not only do you ideate your own content, right? Like you just need a place to store things as they're coming along. It's less focused on I need to have three posts a week. And it's more like the biggest bottleneck is actually you feel like you don't have enough ideas. So it's creating a space to do that. And then it's also kind of training your brain to find content as you're like in a call, you're talking to a customer and they say something, you're like, ah, that will be something interesting. Or you're in your team meeting. And Bob, you know, is like, oh, this is an issue that I'm having. So, you know, Did you want to say something? Sorry.

44:04 - 44:10 | Christopher:

No, no, no. I was just doing my task that agreement thing.

44:10 - 44:50 | Belen:

Yeah, so there would be that. And also just, I always think having a swipe file of people of posts you find interesting of just Things to kind of follow back on, because starting from a blank page is very difficult, right? And there are, of course, tools to help you. But what really helps is seeing someone that you find interesting, you like their content, and you can kind of be inspired in terms of how they structure things. I'm not saying to plagiarize anyone, but it does help to see how do they open with it. They, you know, having a great hook, there are some writing fundamentals that matters. And you'll start realizing that as you're building your content library, that you realize there are some kind of guidelines that you can kind of fall back on.

44:50 - 45:21 | Christopher:

There is, and I think one of the things I would say to encourage somebody who's getting ready to start writing online is number one, just do it. Like just go, even if it's just a couple of block paragraphs, that's okay. Get it out there. And then like anything else, focus on improving your craft over time. And you will find that formatting when it comes to social media posts is very important because people skim a lot of things now, so you got to make it readable. I think that's important.

45:21 - 45:25 | Belen:

Can I say a few things not to do? Because maybe the things I usually see.

45:25 - 45:28 | Christopher:

Yeah. So what I usually see. Help us avoid some stuff. Yes.

45:29 - 46:38 | Belen:

Yeah, I see, of course, poor formatting, right? So like, no lines, no breathing room for the text to actually have kind of a dance, right? Like when your eyes need to kind of dance over the page. So there's that a multitude of hashtags all around. I see this with a lot of corporate people, which is like, hashtag digital transformation. I loved the talk hashtag. It's just like, That's bad. Tagging everyone in the company for every post because you went to a conference and the post. So there are a few things that I see over and over again. And another thing I would say is instead of just saying you went to a conference like, hey, I went to South by Southwest, saw Christopher and Regine and things was great. Maybe say you went to South by Southwest, you saw these people, and this is the lessons that you learned, it could be a three bullet point. My point is always don't just say what you did say what you learned, or what you the insights you took away, that makes a huge difference from the difference of just like a basic post to something that's actually useful. And just that small change in writing.

46:38 - 47:20 | Christopher:

It is. And I think that's especially that's really for LinkedIn, because LinkedIn, again, is going to reward you when you are providing professional expertise. not just, I think Facebook is somewhere where it's like, I went here, I hate this, or I was with these people, but LinkedIn is going to reward you. And not just that, but people are going to get the value because it's a professional workplace. And this is why I enjoy it is I am on there learning so much from other people. I get excited seeing what people are doing. I learn about new companies all the time. So that's, that's a really important point. What's, what's another one? Is there another?

47:20 - 48:10 | Belen:

Um, those are the things that, that, that, yeah, that kill me. It's just, you know, don't just post when you have, when you're changing roles or going to a conference, maybe that'll be it. Like it's just like find other ways because that is the way I see most people doing it. And I think that is the part that is more self-promotional in a way. But since most people do it, people are like, I'm happy to announce I have this job or I went to this conference. People don't mind doing it because they see everyone else doing it. But that is a definition of very self-promotional. You're just announcing you got a new job. You didn't say how you got it. well you know what would their you know how was their recruiting like or how the interview process were or what you would say to someone else you're just saying you got the job and that you're amazing and then you're just saying that you went to a conference and that you had a great time that is the definition of self-worth you know so

48:11 - 48:54 | Christopher:

Yeah, it truly is. And to your point, you're not leaving value. So let's go the other direction. So if you are, let's just riff for a few minutes to give some people some content ideas. I think if you're talking about you got a new job, I think then adding to that and leaving that last position, I learned these key lessons there. that would be very powerful. And that would be something that I would read. I am very much focused on trying to understand what are the lessons that people learn, because I'm trying to see if there's new things that I haven't learned or get something from that. What's what's something that you would say, you know, somebody could create a quick piece of content?

48:54 - 49:43 | Belen:

Yeah, maybe I would say my criteria when I was looking for my new role could be one, right? It could be what I learned and trends, you know, transitioning from maybe it could be a PM if it's like a new role, right? What I learned going through from a FinTech to this kind of industry. I was a bit, you know, my last interview for a role was three years ago. This is what I forgot. Right? So things like that could be really interesting. And I feel the best part is as you're creating that content, usually your incoming company, the new company will notice you a lot more too. It's like, oh, this person just joined and they're already kind of, this is my first week at X company. And these are the cultural norms I'm already noticing. That could be a post.

49:44 - 50:45 | Christopher:

Right. Right. Especially if you're seeing positive things. Remember, this is not the place to air dirty laundry. That's not going to win you any friends. But but no. But to your point, you know, I feel it's always important to explain to people what what things are. Social media is not a place to vent. There has to be a professional way that you do these things. We all have learned this, I hope. I really enjoy what you said, though, around, you know, talking to people about what are some of the things that you did that got you noticed so that you were able to get to this role, what the process was like, some of the things that you had forgotten along the way, things that you learned along the way. These are all things that people are hungry for. You know, there's so many people that have gone through layoffs in the last, you know, year, year and a half. And people are trying to understand these things. Give them some of the tips, some of the processes and things that worked for you. And guess what? You will then, you know, people will start reaching out to you. It'll be amazing to see what happens.

50:45 - 51:07 | Belen:

Absolutely. And you reactivate your old network that you forgot and make new friends or new connections. Content is so powerful. I know you get it. And sometimes I just want people to see the light sometimes. That's why I'm like, if you just would post for a while, you would see and then I don't have to say much anymore because then you would see it on your own. But if not, you're just like…

51:09 - 51:46 | Christopher:

Well, it is because I think, you know, trying to put sort of a bow on this is that the benefits and this is what I talk about is that when you if you work hard in your career and you build expertise, you have to figure out how you're going to write about that and talk about that if you want to build a brand and business around it. And these are things that both you and I have done has been able to transfer things that we leveraged in corporate. We now are able to build a brand and a business around that so that we don't have to be in the nine to five. Yeah. That's the advantage.

51:46 - 51:47 | Belen:

Absolutely.

51:48 - 52:14 | Christopher:

So we're going to put a bow on this one and we're going to be doing a fire round, but these are going to be all questions. Yeah. Five questions that are going to be focused on personal branding. Yeah. This could be like a pop quiz, so I hope you're ready. Let's go. Let me stretch a little. Let's do this. Yeah, exactly. Stretch it out. So what is more important, a clean profile or posting every day?

52:15 - 52:25 | Belen:

Ah, I guess let's go with clean profile. I don't think you need to post every day in general. That's probably why. So should I elaborate or is it like super quick fire round?

52:25 - 52:28 | Christopher:

I mean, we can do whatever we want with it. It's our fire round.

52:28 - 53:03 | Belen:

So I would say clean profile, whether you have that, because you don't necessarily need to post every day. I think it's about posting regularly much more. I've been in an everyday phase. I've been in it three times a week. If you're posting valuable content, I would say make it at least two to three times a week at the minimum, but a clean profile that states what do you do for who and what people should expect from your content or if there's like a call to action matters a lot more because if you're posting every day and then people land on your profile and they're like, who is this guy? And what is what is he talking about? It kind of defeats the whole purpose.

53:03 - 53:12 | Christopher:

So yeah. 100% if somebody has 30 minutes a day to work on their personal brand. What are the top three things they should be doing?

53:12 - 53:56 | Belen:

Hmm collect ideas as they come around, you know, maybe it's like five to seven minutes a day You know as you're seeing things I would say writing drafting just like A couple posts, again, not publishing. And then every other day could be editing, right? You don't edit the same day you draft. And then maybe having a few drafts ready, one to two, three posts a week. So I would say collecting ideas, drafting, and then editing is probably one. And then posting can be one day and then you schedule it for the next week. It doesn't take long. But don't edit the same day that you're drafting the same post. That would be the best advice I have.

53:56 - 54:04 | Christopher:

Yes, we do need some time to let it breathe. I love that. Is there a book or resource you'd recommend on personal branding?

54:04 - 54:51 | Belen:

Personal branding. I mean, for CEOs or founders, I would recommend a book actually by Dave Gerhart. Big fan of his. He has a book called Founder Brand, which is amazing in the modern age. Christopher, if you haven't read it, I would recommend that to you again. He was a CMO at Drift for personal branding for like an exec. There's a lot of people on LinkedIn. I mean, Justin Walsh, again, his course is useful. I think right now he's like past, you know, he's a little too out there, but his original course is useful and how you can say it. And I still recommend it to this day. It costs us 200 bucks. You can follow me, obviously, yours truly, and DM me if you have any questions. But there are a lot of interesting people. I think if you really want to know about it, I think there's a lot of resources.

54:51 - 55:04 | Christopher:

Yeah, I would add, and I'll put these in the show notes. I'm a big fan of You Are The Brand by Mike Kim. It's a good foundational book on personal branding. Where would somebody start to learn storytelling?

55:06 - 55:54 | Belen:

Tough, tough. I mean, Disney. Sorry. I mean, stories are all around us, right? Great stories. I think they could come from movies like, right? Like the hero's journey. You can also see it on like a really good post that has an anecdote. Usually there is storytelling. So it is all around us. I really like Nathan Baugh, if you know him on LinkedIn, he has a newsletter, it's called world builders. And he collects a lot of storytelling tips from movies to authors to founders. Wow, big fan of his so Nathan Baugh. If you're if you enjoy kind of the newsletter format, and he also recommends a lot of different books under that. So that's, that's where I would send them. And he's a internet friend as well, which is cool.

55:54 - 56:05 | Christopher:

And you may have already answered this one as we went through, but if you are a mid-career exec and you want to build out, you want to become a thought leader, what is sort of the minimum amount of posting they should be doing on LinkedIn?

56:05 - 56:20 | Belen:

Minimum two a week, twice a week. Just because, you know, yeah, you need to show up that much for people to really remember. You need to build the habit. If you're doing it any less than that, it starts getting scarier and you're going to stop. So two to three times, but if it's absolute minimum twice a week.

56:21 - 56:25 | Christopher:

Excellent. I love that. So how can people find out more about you?

56:26 - 56:53 | Belen:

Yeah, sure. So they can find me on LinkedIn at Belen Wagon is the best way to reach me. If you're CEO, or any exec that's wanting to build your thought leadership on LinkedIn, then you can, you know, DM me book a call. And if you're mid, whatever senior level exec, that's also kind of curious, I am running accelerators, that is a little bit more one on one coaching. Not the full end to end. But I think that could be really helpful. So yeah, if you go on LinkedIn, and you can find me,

56:54 - 57:16 | Christopher:

All right. I will make sure to and put that in the show notes. Belen, thank you so much. I always appreciate you getting together with me and for everybody here. Thank you so much for listening in today. I do have one ask. If you enjoy our show, please leave us a review on our website, Tech Careers and Money Talk, because we thrive and grow based on your reviews. And we'll see you next time.

57:16 - 57:18 | Belen:

Thanks so much. See ya.