When you listen to the episode, you’ll hear our special guest, brand strategist Rod Brinson, join us to share his expert insights on the intersection of business and personal branding, actionable tips to start building your own brand, and what it really means to stand out in a crowded market.
Plus, you’ll hear stories about unexpected lessons in branding from both the corporate world and iconic figures like Prince. Listen for practical advice, real-world examples, and the inspiration you need to take control of your personal brand and leverage it for new opportunities.
Personal branding is not optional. It’s the way you differentiate yourself in a business space where everyone is a marketer, everyone has an audience, and visibility is a career requirement. Your personal brand is being built whether you think about it or not.
So the question is: Are you building it by design, or letting it happen by default?
Let’s break down what you can do to make your personal brand work for you and avoid the common mistakes that keep people invisible and forgettable.
What is a Personal Brand – and Why Does it Matter?
Your personal brand is the sum of every interaction, conversation, meeting, and even those chats by the coffee machine. As Rod pointed out, you carry your reputation from Zoom calls to email threads and everywhere in between. You never really have the option to “opt out” because people are always forming opinions about you. The only decision is whether you want to influence those opinions.
If you do nothing, your personal brand still exists. It may not be one you like. To put it simply, every time you deliver a project late, you’re building a brand. When you show up consistently, when you treat people with respect, when you follow up on what you say, you’re building a brand. The key difference: intentionality.
From Default to Design: Take Control of Your Brand
People often think personal branding means creating content on LinkedIn or developing a slick logo and catchy profile. That’s surface-level stuff. The work starts with something more foundational: belief.
As Rod Brinson shares, belief in yourself is the most critical part of your ability to advance any brand; personal or business. If you don’t believe in your skills, it’ll show. When you do, you’re more likely to keep going through the hard stuff.
My favorite takeaway here is Rod Brinson’s “BRAND” framework:
- Belief: Do you really believe you can do this?
- Roadmap: What are your goals?
- Appearance: How do you show up online and offline?
- Network: Who are you connected with, and how do you support each other?
- Drive: Will you keep working even when it gets tough?
It all starts with belief. If you’re hesitant about personal branding or feel unsure about putting yourself out there, work on that core belief first. Without it, a setback or criticism will knock you off course.
Visibility is Your Value Multiplier
You can’t win if nobody knows who you are. Companies are measuring employee adoption of AI and using it as a performance metric. Just as AI literacy is now part of the job, so is personal visibility. If you’re not visible, opportunities pass you by while others, who are less skilled but more noticeable, get the nod.
Consider this: LinkedIn has seen a 35% increase in people using the “Open to Work” feature. That isn’t a random trend; it’s a wake-up call that you need to be visible and proactive. You build trust and open doors when you put in the reps, post your thoughts, and connect with your network.
And you don’t need to go viral to make a difference; most people won’t like or comment, but they’re still seeing your content. Every post is a reminder that you exist, and every visible expert gets more inbound opportunities.
Authenticity – The Core of Effective Personal Branding
Being visible doesn’t mean overexposing your private life or acting differently in every room. You’ll hear over and over: People do business with people. Authenticity builds trust. If your content or actions are too manufactured, people will sense it and tune out.
That doesn’t mean sharing every detail of your personal life. The level of openness is up to you. The important part is being consistent and real about who you are. When you’re the same person in a boardroom as you are at a barbecue, you make it easier for others to understand and trust who they’re hiring, buying from, or working with.
It doesn’t hurt to show your interests outside work. Maybe it’s being a parent, loving music, or your quirky sense of humor. These details stick in people’s minds.
Non-Negotiables for Building a Personal Brand
You must stand out. If there are 25 people who offer what you offer, being distinguishable is the non-negotiable. If you only focus on matching colors or sound like everyone else, you become invisible. What makes you different isn’t the surface-level visuals; it’s your perspective, your consistent message, and your willingness to let your personality shine.
Ask these questions:
- What is unique about what I know or how I do things?
- Do people remember me after conversations or meetings?
- What do I want my work and interactions to say about me?
When you figure this out, lean into it. Don’t try to mold yourself into every group or trend.
Confronting the ‘Yeah, But…’ Excuses
Everyone has reasons why “that won’t work for me.” Maybe you don’t look like the leaders in your industry, or you’re worried about standing out as the only person who wears casual clothes in a formal setting. A. Lee Judge asked the right question: Who wrote that rule? The most respected leaders were themselves before they got that respect. Those who tried to fit in ended up extinguishing their own spark.
You will lose some opportunities by being yourself, but you’ll also attract the people who want to work with who you actually are. Don’t waste energy chasing a generic audience. Be who you are, and let your audience find you.
Look at musicians like Prince. He didn’t adjust his act when a crowd booed him. He found the people who were looking for what he offered, then overdelivered for them.
Practical Steps to Start Building Your Personal Brand
- Audit yourself. How do others perceive you at work or online? Are there gaps between your actions and how you want to be viewed?
- Choose one platform to start. You don’t have to be everywhere. Consistency on one channel is more powerful than being scattered across many.
- Post about your expertise and your interests. Both have value.
- Connect with others who are visible and supportive. Expand your network.
- Accept discomfort as part of the process. It’s not easy at first, and that’s normal.
You have a personal brand whether you acknowledge it or not. Intentional action is the ticket: work on belief, get visible, lean into what makes you unique, and don’t let excuses keep you from showing up. The business world rewards people who are confident being themselves and who take the extra step to let others know what they stand for. Forget hiding behind a faceless brand. Make yourself memorable and actionable because the next opportunity will go to the person who stands out, not the one who blends in.
View Full Transcript Here
Rod Brinson [00:00:00]:
I believe your belief in self is the most critical piece, most critical component of your ability to advance your brand, your business, your goals as an entrepreneur. If you don’t believe it can happen, the chances of it actually coming to pass are slim.
A. Lee Judge [00:00:24]:
Welcome again to the business of marketing. I’m a Lee judge and I’m and today we’re going to help you rethink your personal brand. With our special guest. We’re also going to get some insight as to what’s happening with the government versus AI buzz and we’ll talk about some major companies, how some major companies are working to get employees to be more comfortable using AI plus, as we talk to our guest, you’ll learn more about who Messi Mindy is and maybe even learn an interesting fact about the artist formerly known as prince and how he managed his personal brand because our guest coming up is going to tell us all about personal brand. So before we get into that, a couple things we want to talk about. Rocio, have you heard about what’s going on between the Pentagon and OpenAI and anthropic?
Rocio Osuna [00:01:13]:
Not very much. You want to tell me a little bit more?
A. Lee Judge [00:01:15]:
Yeah. So of course both of these major AI companies have contracts or had contracts with the the government and Anthropic seemed, I say, seen because I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors but seemed to take the more moral route and did not want to do business with the government based on having autonomous weapons or surveillance of US Citizens using their software. So this article and this is reading from from Reuters, it says, US Judge says Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic looks like punishment for its views on AI safety. It goes on to say that a US Judge said on Tuesday that the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic looked like an effort to punish the artificial intelligence lab for going public with its concerns about AI safety in the military. The unprecedented designation which followed Anthropic’s refusal to allow the military to use its clawed AI software for for U. S. Citizen surveillance or autonomous weapons blocks Anthropic from certain military contracts. So you may be asking what this means for you.
A. Lee Judge [00:02:28]:
Well, Anthropic decision was the first time a US Company has been publicly designated as a supply chain risk. Now, you usually hear that from maybe software or products from China or other countries, but not from a US Company. And if Anthropic doesn’t win this battle, it means that your company will have to disclose or that you’re using Claude or any other anthropic product, which in turn would keep your company from maybe continuing or winning government contracts or government funded contracts. And I’ll give you an example. My company, Content Master, we may do a podcast for, let’s say a local forestry service. Well, the forestry service is funded by the government. That means we have to disclose, you know, what software we use, if there’s any risks there. So that means a lot of companies, you could be washing cars, washing government vehicles under contract, which has nothing to do with your software.
A. Lee Judge [00:03:27]:
But your contract will ask you what software you use. And if something like Anthropic is a security risk, then you can’t get that contract or keep that contract if you’re using their software. So the ramifications for this could be pretty big if the government is, is literally banning software companies from being used, especially with, you know, what they’re accusing. What Anthropic is saying is this is just you getting back at us. There’s no real, any bigger risk. And at the same time, there’s nothing different going on with OpenAI. It’s just that it’s the government, possibly according to what they’re countersuing, is that it’s just a personal thing. There’s no real reason.
A. Lee Judge [00:04:08]:
So if your company uses Anthropic and you have government contracts, this is something you need to keep your eye on. What do you think about that?
Rocio Osuna [00:04:14]:
Yeah, I think there’s so much AI ingrained in work. I read a Wall Street Journal article today that talked about how the Chief Tech Officer is implementing AI for work. So it’s not just an initiative or like a little nudge nudge to their employees to start using AI. It’s more a performance metric now. So that’s wild to think that there’s a lot of companies now not just nudging you now, it’s like you’re required to use it. It reminds me of a session I just went to at B2V Marketing Exchange where Dane Behay from OpenAI mentioned how do we get our employees to utilize more AI? And he had like seven, you know, steps to go. One of them being start prompting, make it a goal to prompt at least 10 different times a day. It’s just ingrained in companies now.
Rocio Osuna [00:05:02]:
AI is part of your performance metric and start using it now.
A. Lee Judge [00:05:06]:
If you’re not, you know, I’m old enough, this is going to really, really date me. But to remember when people would have on their resume that they knew how to use Microsoft Office, they knew how to use Word or Excel, that was on the resumes. And now it’s like, why would you add that? That’s assumed that you’re going to use it and you probably you’re not qualified for this job at all if you don’t. I think we’re headed in the same way, same place for AI. And so if you are against AI, just know you’re heading to a place. If you’re going to be an employee, the people who are most efficient at using AI will be the ones who will be most in demand as an employee and they’ll be the ones who will be most successful as an employee if they use AI as one of their regular skills.
Rocio Osuna [00:05:51]:
And I totally agree. It’s, it’s part of many job descriptions I’ve seen recently. AI is part of the requirements and the nice to haves as part of, you know, hiring a new employee.
A. Lee Judge [00:06:01]:
So we’re going to switch gears a little bit and get on to our guest today. We mentioned earlier we’re going to talk about personal brand, give you some interesting tidbits you probably didn’t know about some celebrities, personal brands, and also maybe what may happen if you have a personal brand that you don’t even know you have in your workplace and how you can learn about that and maybe make it better. So our guest today, he runs a marketing agency deeply focused on helping businesses and and individuals develop a better branding strategy. He’s an engaging keynote speaker and he also has a community that I hope he’ll tell us about of entrepreneurs and personal brand builders. So check out the conversation with our guest today, Mr. Rod Brinson. Mr. Brinson, welcome to the show.
Rod Brinson [00:06:44]:
Thank you for having me, man. Happy to be here.
A. Lee Judge [00:06:46]:
Hey, we’re happy to have you. I want to get straight into it now. Your agency focuses a lot on brand and brand strategy. And lately I’ve seen you do a lot of work on personal brand. So where is the intersection between a business’s brand and one’s own personal brand?
Rod Brinson [00:07:03]:
I get this question a lot. I think it’s because there are personalities, points of views that don’t always sync up when it comes to these two things. Personal branding versus business branding. And my take on it is like this. I believe that every personal brand should be professional, like a business brand. And I also believe that every business brand has to be personable like a personal brand. It’s to the point now where founders, CEOs, the people that matter within the company, represent the brand greatly and they could be the catalyst for things going well or things falling apart. So it’s less about, you know, having a faceless brand, which I know a lot of people are very interested in, that’s, you know, to do with their introvertedness or lack of desire to see themselves on camera.
Rod Brinson [00:07:52]:
And it has a lot more to do with their personality shining through, their unique value kind of being the in the spotlight so that people can be attracted to the services and products that they have to offer. I’ll end by saying this. You know, take me for instance. My personal brand is a big part of what I do, but it also affects my marketing agency ability to shine through and be chosen in a sea full of other marketing agencies. So I would say that you have to have a blended approach to both. And even if you don’t care to have a personal brand, you have one anyway, so you might as well work on it.
A. Lee Judge [00:08:32]:
So expand on that. You have one anyway. For those folks who say, I’m not going to work on it, I’m not going to create one, but you say, like it or not, you have one anyway. What does that mean?
Rod Brinson [00:08:42]:
If you’re working a corporate 9 to 5, your personal brand is following you around from zoom call to zoom call, from meeting room to meeting room, from one on ones to, you know, talking with your coworker at the coffee machine. They are getting to know who you are and what they were, you know, are reminded of when they talk to you. The way you smell, the way you talk, the way you treat people, all of that stuff affects your personal brand within that office space or that virtual office space. It’s no different from entrepreneurship. It’s no different from being a student in college. Everywhere you go, you’re leaving a track record and a footprint for who you are. And so social media, emails, everything is the same thing. So my point to you is if you’re human, if you’re living this thing called life, you have a personal brand.
Rod Brinson [00:09:33]:
What you do with it is what’s going to determine whether or not people are attracted to you or repelled from you. And the last thing I’ll say on that is you’re either building your brand by default or by design.
A. Lee Judge [00:09:46]:
By default, by design. That reminds me, just yesterday I had an executive at a large corporation, we all know they were talking about some of their direct reports and that one of them had a. They were known as a phrase like, like messy Mindy. And everybody knew that it was like a regular, like was her last name. They all knew that, except for her. And when someone was about to sign, assign them a project, other person said, what you giving out to Messy Mindy, and they knew exactly what they were talking about. So I guess that’s the brand that she didn’t even know she had.
Rod Brinson [00:10:21]:
Yeah. And that’s the point. Like, it will follow you around whether you are in the room or not. And, you know, I think that when you’re living it by default, you have more chances or you’re more susceptible to people calling you Messy Mindy. But if you’re spending time and you’re, like, really making decisions and being intentional about it, right, you’re doing it by design. You’re thinking about those things when you move around, when you say, hey, I’m gonna get that project to you, you know, by Friday, end of day, and it’s Monday the next week, and you still not done, you know, people are gonna begin to label you accordingly. And so that’s why you have to be super laser focused and intentional about the footprint that you leave behind and everybody that you, you know, every path that you cross.
Rocio Osuna [00:11:05]:
If you’re Messy Mendy, how do you change that personal branding? How do you go about it without being mean or confrontational? How do you weave that storyline?
Rod Brinson [00:11:16]:
It takes a moment to build a reputation. Years and years if you’re trying to do it the right way. And it takes even less of a moment to have it come crashing down. And it’s just an unfortunate thing. It’s just like when you’re in grade school and you’re trying to get, you know, a perfect score, A, whatever it is on the exam and you get one question wrong and now you’re down to a B, right? The way you rebuild that is to first recognize it. If you don’t know that it needs work, then you’re literally going to just live in the same vein, right? But if you hear wind of it, or even if you don’t hear wind of it and you just want to improve on your brand or make sure that your brand is not being labeled as Messy Mindy, you have to take a deep, introspective look into who you are. You have to figure out, okay, who am I behind closed doors? Who am I when no one is looking? Who am I when there’s nothing on the line to lose or gain? And taking that introspective audit of self will give you a few pieces that you can begin to work on. As you begin to work on those things, the external pieces will start to come clear and you’ll see, like, man, maybe I shouldn’t have responded to my coworker this way.
Rod Brinson [00:12:31]:
Or maybe I shouldn’t have treated that client who did me wrong. This way, you’ll start to look at self first instead of looking externally, saying, you know, must be something wrong with them. Right? And once you make some of those changes, people around you will begin to notice it. And I’m only speaking this way because I’ve literally lived that life corporately and in my personal life and in entrepreneurship. The self changes that you make will make people around you start to look at you completely different.
Rocio Osuna [00:13:01]:
That brings up a good question for me. So for the people that are hesitant to, you know, come up with a personal brand or handle their personal brand, what are the first few steps for them to actually start on their personal branding journey?
Rod Brinson [00:13:14]:
Part of my framework that I’ve had to develop over the years, working with business owners and helping them to establish their brands, begins with belief. I believe your belief in self is the most critical piece, most critical component of your ability to advance your brand, your business, your goals as an entrepreneur. If you don’t believe it can happen, the chances of it actually coming to pass are slim. Now, that doesn’t mean some hocus pocus, oh, I believe it. So I don’t have to do anything. I can just sit here and it’s going to. It’s going to happen, right? I’m not saying that, but what I am saying is your chances increase greatly if you, if you believe it, and they decrease greatly if you don’t. So my framework for brand is the acronym for that exact word.
Rod Brinson [00:14:04]:
B is for belief, R is for roadmap, A is for appearance, N is for network, and D is for drive. I don’t have time to go through all of those, but I do want to just clearly say that belief. I will literally spend three months with a client working on belief alone. Because if you don’t have the proper mechanics in your belief system for self, for the product, the service that you offer, et cetera, as soon as you run into a little adversity or, you know, a hurdle or a wall comes and you fall, you’re going to quit. You’re going to go back to the drawing board and say, this is not for me. So to wrap it all around the person on the other end of this podcast who’s wonderingly, and they’re like, I don’t really know if I want to do a. I’m not a personable person. I don’t like, you know, my personal brand does.
Rod Brinson [00:14:56]:
Why should that have anything to do with my business? Trust me, where we’re going. 2026, 2027, 20, 28. The more artificial we get, the more your art has to become official. So you have to put a little bit of work and energy behind your personal brand so that people want to connect with you and have relationship with you.
Rocio Osuna [00:15:18]:
And all of that speaks very much to why me Lee connected. You know, nine months ago, I was laid off and it all became real. Right? So what do you do next? Personal brand? You know, it’s unfortunate that a lot of us in the seat in the layoff, that’s where you start. You know, LinkedIn has been, you know, increase in users based on people being laid off. And so they start their personal brand. My own journey, I said, I have to take the lead, right? It’s my personal brand. So I started to really start posting, start sharing. And like you said, there was a hesitance of how much should I share, like the videos and whatnot.
Rocio Osuna [00:15:55]:
But having started this journey several months ago, like you mentioned, so many wonderful things have come out of it, one of them being this particular podcast. And other wonderful things have happened with me with being invited to conferences, being invited to events, covering things that I would have never thought I could based on the fact that I took the reins. And I said, this is my personal brand. I’m taking it over. This is me.
Rod Brinson [00:16:20]:
Absolutely. And I just want to hit on something really quick because there may be other listeners out here who are in the same position, right? They’re recently laid off or maybe they’ve been laid off for some. Some time, and they’re not really sure of direction to go in. You, you said something key. You said, I started my personal brand and, and I want to just kind of change the language around that because your personal brand started before you got laid off, right? The relationships you will build in the network and the connections, I’m sure you can DM some of those people that you’ve made those relationships with, and maybe there’s an opportunity there for something else, et cetera. You and your personal brand will follow you no matter where you go. I have CEOs that I used to work under that I still am in conversation with. And guess what happens as I continue to grow from my branding and marketing perspective, There may be a conference or something that they’re doing with their company where they want to pull me in as an expert to speak on that.
Rod Brinson [00:17:12]:
That’s because of the personal brand. I said when I was working under them at the coffee machine and on the, you know, the emails and things of that nature. So, no, you didn’t start your Personal brand, all you’re doing is exposing it in a different way and it feels uncomfortable because you’re not used to it. But the more you get used to it, the more comfortable you will be doing it.
Rocio Osuna [00:17:33]:
I like your refrain.
A. Lee Judge [00:17:36]:
I want to add on to that or ask you about that because what Rosio has done is she made herself visible. Like her brand. She purposely made it visible and often people are afraid of, they feel like it’s self promotion instead of just becoming visible. In fact, again, the reason why we we met was because I began seeing her frequently on LinkedIn and then we ended up at the same conference and, and this person whose face I was already familiar with seeing walks up on me and I was excited to see her because I was like, oh, this is a real person in real life. And so we connected. And then I was like, you know what, anybody who hustles this hard, I want to be connected to them. And so I was like, hey, few months later, hey, will you be my co host in the way on this podcast? Because I’m with you, I’m with whatever you’re doing and whatever your hustle is. I dig your brand, so let’s do something together.
A. Lee Judge [00:18:29]:
So, and you missed mentioned LinkedIn too. Got a stat that I heard from LinkedIn recently, said there was a 35% increase in people who have turned on their open to work feature either privately or publicly. So my question is, is that a wake up call to everybody to work on their personal brand and be more visible?
Rod Brinson [00:18:51]:
Absolutely, without a doubt. We live in an attention society. It’s an attention based society. And the companies, the people, the industries, the entities that have attention are winning. It’s a commodity, right? And that’s why people are willing to pay for it. That’s why super bowl commercials will always have a line out of the door, no matter what price they sell it for. Because they know that the attention that is put on that brand is going to determine what the next year for that brand looks like. Right? And so it’s no different when you come down to this molecular level where we’re just humans, right? And it’s like, all right, I’m going to post more.
Rod Brinson [00:19:32]:
Like you said, you started to see her more and what it said to you in your mind was, wow, this person is on it. I want to be associated with that. I want to surround myself with that kind of energy. It’s no different from anybody else. I have experienced exactly what you just mentioned. And the key is this. There’s an invisible metric you’re Never going to hear US at about 75% of people that didn’t like or visit this website. You know why? Because you can’t measure it now.
Rod Brinson [00:20:03]:
Does that mean it’s not happening? How many times have you pulled your phone out, scroll past six, videos, stopped at one, laughed, kept scrolling and didn’t action anything. You’re seeing stuff, but there’s nobody measuring that piece. So the question is more so why would you not want to be seen? Because you never know who’s watching and you never know how that’s going to tie into something that you ultimately want. So if you’re embarrassed, if you’re shameful, if you don’t know, you don’t feel comfortable. I would suggest you work on those things. Get really comfortable being exactly who you are. And I’ll say this without going in too deep, I think that that’s part of the problem. A lot of people see and compare and they say, oh, well, she’s prettier, he talks better, I like his camera more.
Rod Brinson [00:20:52]:
I don’t have that, so maybe I shouldn’t do anything. Please, by all means, start where you are and build up, but don’t compare yourself. Find out what makes you uniquely you tap into that, get really confident about that piece and then display it to the world because somebody is literally waiting on you to do just that.
Rocio Osuna [00:21:14]:
It’s true, but really great points. I think people talk about being authentic. You know, people do business with people, not with companies. And the more authentic you are, specifically on LinkedIn, the more you’re visible. Is there a limit to you, do you think? Is there such a thing as going too far with your personal brand?
Rod Brinson [00:21:33]:
I’ll preface that by saying that’s where the work behind the door has happens and, and makes that where you can’t go too far. That’s where who you are when no one’s looking becomes a very big thing. Right. When you think about the Coldplay concert incident, right, Somebody wasn’t doing the work behind closed doors to make sure that when they’re on the jumbo screen that things are okay, right? But guess what would have happened if they did now it would have been a moment of promotion instead of a moment of shame. Now it would have been like, hey, John, we saw you at the Coldplay. That was cool that you were on the jumbo screen doing that cool dance. No, completely different career trajectory now because the internal work wasn’t being done. So to that point, I know that everybody’s not going to be put on a jumbo screen, but you Never know when your moment will happen.
Rod Brinson [00:22:25]:
Right. So it’s like, do the work necessary so that when you get put in a compromising position, you. You don’t have to worry about your integrity and your character. Be on trial. Right. The main thing that you’re worrying about at that point is how can you take advantage of the situation. So to circle back and answer your question, I believe a person should only be as open with their personal lives on social media as they feel comfortable. Right.
Rod Brinson [00:22:50]:
I post me and my son talking in the grocery store about cereal all the time, or, you know, Jordan versus LeBron, or, you know, know, new music versus old. And I will post that same stuff. That’s fun. And for TikTok on LinkedIn, because I don’t separate who I am depending on the room I’m in. I’m exactly who I am everywhere. I’ll speak at a barbecue with my family members in the same way that I’ll speak in a boardroom with CEOs that I don’t know. And the reason is I’m authentic. And the only way to get authentically yourself in public light is to be authentic with who you are when nobody’s around.
Rocio Osuna [00:23:30]:
Very good point.
A. Lee Judge [00:23:31]:
You know, I’ll give some weight to that because I’m still working on doing more of that myself. And I’ve seen both of you do that very well already because. And I think what people get held back by is worrying about what someone will think in their professional world about their personal stuff. But the reality is, if I see someone doing something that I like to do in my personal life now, I like that person more. Right? So, for example, oh, they’ve got kids, too, or they like to go skateboarding, too, or they like the beach, too, or they like cake to something makes a connection with that person. I remember them. And then the other business stuff, it takes care of itself. I still know you’re a marketer.
A. Lee Judge [00:24:16]:
I still know you have an agency. That’s all still there. But now I’m able to make a human connection with you to say, okay, not only are they qualified, I also kind of like them. That makes a difference.
Rod Brinson [00:24:29]:
You just said it at the end, Lee. I also kind of like them. Don’t even know the person from your, you know, who shot John, but you saw something, you heard something, they posted something, and it made you say to yourself, oh, I learned something new about this person. I feel closer to this person. I feel like I could sit around this person and have lunch or coffee. I actually kind of want to do it so I can learn more. But it would not have happened if they were just all put together all the time, only showing the professional side, only showing, you know, the professionally shot videos when, you know, speaking of women, like, your makeup and hair is done. And, you know, no, sometimes it’s okay to just be you.
Rod Brinson [00:25:13]:
You just got to get comfortable.
A. Lee Judge [00:25:13]:
Just the women. I mean, hey, you know, I’m just an example. I’m about to lose all of this. Some days I have what I call my Homer Simpson hair. I have just two, three hairs sticking up in the middle. And I don’t, I don’t record because of that. I was like, no, Lee, you got throwing a cap or something. Just get it done now.
Rod Brinson [00:25:28]:
To that point. I will say this really quick because you brought up a good point. I do believe that your brand matters, right? You think about her mosey, right? He’s lumberjack, you know, tape across his nose, beard. That’s his brand. I can’t even imagine seeing him in a three piece suit, right? It just wouldn’t fit at this point. But he was okay with whatever anybody had to say about that part of his brand before he was the multimillionaire, right? And so he developed a sense of confidence in being who he was, no matter where he was. And that’s the exact thing I’m trying to say, you know, you shouldn’t have to, you know, prep yourself up and make sure everything is perfectly done right, with your hair and all of that stuff in order to post. But at the same time, be mindful who you’re putting yourself out is gonna be the first impression for 80% of the people that see it.
Rod Brinson [00:26:27]:
So what’s that impression gonna say about you and what do you want it to say about you? You know, so it matters.
A. Lee Judge [00:26:32]:
Rosa, do you have another question? Cause I got one I might wanna close on if you don’t.
Rocio Osuna [00:26:36]:
Actually, I think you touched upon it with the non negotiables. I think your question.
Rod Brinson [00:26:40]:
No, no, I just feel like it’s a questionnaire, so. So I’m gonna just take over this interview. What I want you to do is think about your own personal brand. I want you to feel like this is your moment. Like, let’s just imagine you paid me $10,000 to talk to me right now. What question would you ask to continue to develop your brand?
Rocio Osuna [00:26:56]:
I always think about, you know, starting your own brand. Like I said, I started my own brand, but I didn’t start my own band. Right? What are the non negotiables of building a personal brand today. Is it just about consistency and specific visual vibe, or is it something deeper like having a challenging perspective that actually cuts through the industry noise?
Rod Brinson [00:27:14]:
I did a speech on this at an event a few months back and it was actually the title of my entire 60 minute moment. It was the non negotiables of a personal brand. So I feel, you know, tied to this question and I owe you a responsibility of giving you a great answer here. So I’m a center it down to say this. The main non negotiable in building a brand is to make yourself distinguishable. Otherwise, all you’re doing is this, extinguishing your flame. When you put yourself in a room full of people that do exactly what you do, and there’s one customer, there’s 25 of y’ all trying to get this one customer. What’s going to make you stand out? What’s going to make you memorable? What’s going to make you unique? Well, the best way to do that is to distinguish yourself.
Rod Brinson [00:28:10]:
Excuse me, distinguish yourself with something special to you. So figuring out what that is is going to be the catalyst for everything else around your brand. Most people get it backwards and they want to focus on the logo and the color palette and, you know, the type of reel that they want to post and things. Those are the external features that come after you’ve done the deep work. So figuring out what makes you unique and standing on that is going to literally set a fire and ablaze to your path. And I think when it comes down to it, no one on this earth before you or after you has what you have. So why not figure out what that is and put it on display? So that’s the only negotiable, non negotiable I’m going to give you today. But there are like four other ones.
Rod Brinson [00:28:58]:
You have to connect with me offline to get those four because we don’t have time to go through them.
A. Lee Judge [00:29:02]:
Well, before you’re off the hook, I’m going to challenge that and only from the standpoint of people who are listening to this are going to have a yeah but or yeah, but for me, you know, so I want to ask this question for the yeah, but people. I can’t say I haven’t been one myself at some times. In terms of non negotiable, what about the yeah, but, you know, like, yeah, but I can’t dress this way in that group or yeah, but I’m a woman or person of color or too short, too tall, too old. What about those yeah buts for example, I never wear suits, right? I’m not Alex Hermosi to say I was that person, right? What happens if Alex Hermosi wasn’t who he is, but he has to go to a corporate meeting and he’s like, yeah, but I don’t wear suits. But he knows that room is gonna be full of suits, right? So how does that person who knows that they are, you know, fully tatted down, but they put on a jacket when they go into a certain environment, or they’re going to be the only person of color in the room, or, you know, they love hip hop music and everybody in the room likes country. So you don’t talk about your favorite music because. Yeah, but that might not work for me. It worked for them.
A. Lee Judge [00:30:15]:
Like, Gary Vee can go into a crowd with a T shirt, you know, and a hat on backwards. But me, I’m a woman, I’m a man, I’m a black person. I can’t do that. Where. Where does that. How do you answer that? Yeah, but I’m different.
Rod Brinson [00:30:30]:
The first thing is, who wrote that rule? Who told you you couldn’t do that? Like, that’s the first thing I have to say, because Gary Vee has been Gary Vee since before he was Gary Vee, and he was wearing the T shirts and the hats and doing the wine interviews on YouTube and cursing and all the things that he’s currently doing, of course he’s enhanced it and he’s kind of, you know, gotten comfortable. And he’s a millionaire now, so he doesn’t have know jump through as many hoops, but he’s always been Gary Vee. And I could say the same thing about Eric Thomas. I could say the same thing about her Mosi, Steve Jobs. You have to be confident in who you are. And guess what? If you lose that deal or they don’t want to accept you because of whoever you are, then it’s probably a good thing for you. You have to be okay with that. I’ll tell you a quick story that I heard.
Rod Brinson [00:31:22]:
I didn’t notice, but recently I heard that Prince opened up for the Rolling Stones when he was, like, younger in his career. He won the job as their warmup band. And the first night he played, he had on a trench coat with no shirt and some boxers or something under it. And the crowd just booed him.
A. Lee Judge [00:31:43]:
Boo.
Rod Brinson [00:31:44]:
Get off the stage. And he kept playing. And, you know, because he was very comfortable with his music the next night, opening night, you know, second night or whatever, he warms up for him. Same scenario. Boo. Get off the stage. Third night, you would think, okay, maybe put on a shirt, some pants or something. You know, maybe he’ll switch up who he is a little bit just to make sure the crowd is not going to boo him, give him a chance to play his music.
Rod Brinson [00:32:10]:
No, he just didn’t show up. He decided that day, I’m only gonna play for an audience that wants to hear me, the way I am, how I am. And so from that point forward, he just told him he wasn’t gonna open up for him and did his own thing. He attracted the audience that was into what he was into, and he performed for them and, you know, the rest is history. So why can’t you do the same? Why can’t you be who you are and attract the audience that’s meant to hear what you have to say?
A. Lee Judge [00:32:39]:
I don’t want to add or subtract anything from that, Rod. I want that to just settle. So, Rob Brinson, tell us how we can find you and how if someone wants to do business with you, give us all your information.
Rod Brinson [00:32:51]:
My name is Rod Brinson. You can find me@rodbrinson.com I am the brand strategist, currently focused on building a community of entrepreneurs who are trying to figure their personal brand out, trying to understand where the lines are blurred and if they should focus on corporate or being a business owner or doing both. And how do you do that? So we’ve been thriving for quite some time. It’s called House of Brand. You can find that@community.robbrinson.com and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a note or dm. I’m across all social platforms. You’re going to get the same ride that you’re getting on this podcast.
Rocio Osuna [00:33:29]:
That was a great conversation. Thanks for listening to the Business of Marketing Podcast.
A. Lee Judge [00:33:33]:
I’m Rocio Osuna and I’m A. Lee Judge. Catch you next time.
Announcer [00:33:40]:
Thank you for listening to the Business of Marketing Podcast, a show brought to you by contentmonsta.com the producer of B2B digital marketing. Content show notes can be found on contentmonsta.com as well as aleejudge.com.
