Elyse Archer is a personal brand strategist who is obsessed with helping people stand out in the marketplace.
In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Elyse explains how you can leverage your unique personal brand to stand out of the crowd and get more attention from your potential customers.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- ElyseArcher.com
- BrandBuildersGroup.com
- Elyse on LinkedIn
- @elysearcher
- Book: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World
- The School of Greatness Podcast
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast.
Elyse Archer:
There is a way to build a business effectively without having a personal brand. But one of the things that we really believe is that if you are not hitting your revenue goals and your sales goals, you do not have a revenue problem, you have a reputation problem.
Will Barron:
Hello Sales nation. I’m Will Baron, host of The Salesman Podcast, the world’s most listened to B2B sales show. If you haven’t already, make sure to click, subscribe. With that said, let’s meet today’s guest.
Elyse Archer:
Hi, I’m Elyse Archer. I’m a founding team member and a personal brand strategist with Brand Builders Group. I help sales professionals and entrepreneurs build an influential personal brand. If you want to connect with me online, you can find me on all social media, @ElyseArcher and you can also go to my website, www.elysearcher.com.
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show with a legend, that is Elyse, we’re diving into how you can use your personal brand to differentiate you and separate you from the competition. We’re looking into very specific tactics and so on a medical device sales, my background, could use or someone who wants to get into key accounts and does key account management, what they can use as well and a whole bunch of other real practical examples. Let’s jump right into the show.
Use Your Personal Brand to Stand Out From the Competition · [01:18]
Will Barron:
Should we be looking for personal brand to be a differentiator for us versus the competition?
“One of the things that we really believe is that if you are not hitting your revenue goals and your sales goals, you do not have a revenue problem, you have a reputation problem.” – Elyse Archer · [01:40]
Elyse Archer:
Yes, 100%. One of the things that we really believe at Brand Builders Group, Will, and it’s interesting, because pretty much everybody on our team comes from a background of sales and sales coaching. Certainly, there is a way to build a business effectively without having a personal brand. But one of the things that we really believe is that if you are not hitting your revenue goals and your sales goals, you do not have a revenue problem, you have a reputation problem.
“Reputation always precedes revenue. Because at the end of the day, if people don’t know about you, they can’t do business with you.” – Elyse Archer · [01:53]
Elyse Archer:
That’s it. Reputation always precedes revenue. Because at the end of the day, if people don’t know about you, they can’t do business with you. When I think about working in a crowded marketplace and whatever it is that you’re selling, if you have any sort of competition, which I’m guessing everybody who’s listening does, to some extent, at a certain point, the distinction is you. At a certain point, it is what is someone’s experience of you, it is how do you deliver when you’re working with your clients. But then even beyond that, it’s how many people know of you.
Elyse Archer:
I think if you think about the people that you follow online and just like your personal online habits and you think about whether you’re on Instagram or Facebook or whatever your social media consumption is like, think about who you’re actually following. Are you following companies or are you following individuals? Yes, it’s probably a mixture of both. But more likely than not, the majority of the accounts that you enjoy following and engaging with are individuals. They are people. That’s why it is critical, that anybody who’s selling anything today, focus on building what we call a rock solid reputation, which I’m happy to get into more with you. But that is a lengthy answer to your question of yes, I do think that building an influential personal brand is critical to anyone in B2B sales today.
People are More Likely to Engage with a Personal Brand than a Company Profile on Social Media · [03:16]
Will Barron:
I’ve never thought about this before. I think this is a really good way of thinking about it. I’m glad you brought this up. I don’t think I really follow any brands on… I basically don’t use social media whatsoever other than posting content from the podcast and the sales school at this point, but I don’t think I follow any brands whatsoever. The few people I do follow like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, I follow him on Twitter. Yeah, I don’t follow the companies, I follow them. Is this a new trend or is this something that’s perhaps just more accessible now via social than it ever has been?
“I’m not a Facebook Ads expert, but I know enough to know that typically, if you’re running a Facebook ad, if you put a picture of a human face in that ad, it’s going to convert better than one that’s more generic that doesn’t have a human in it, that doesn’t have that personal element.” – Elyse Archer · [03:58]
Elyse Archer:
Well, I think it’s definitely more accessible. But I think it’s also just basic human nature. If you think about what we’re most interested in and I’m not a Facebook Ads expert, but I know enough to know that typically, if you’re running a Facebook ad, if you put a picture of a human face in that ad, it’s going to convert better than one that’s more generic, that doesn’t have a human in it, that doesn’t have that personal element.
“Whatever we’re selling, we have the opportunity to become known in our space and people will follow and engage with that more than they’re likely to follow and engage with a company.” – Elyse Archer · [04:30]
Elyse Archer:
Think about reality TV, why did it take off so much. It’s because we connect with seeing those people and the show. It’s just what’s what’s very exciting about where we are today and the fact that everybody can build their own brand is that each and every one of us, whatever we’re selling, we have the opportunity to become known in our space and people will follow and engage with that more than they’re likely to follow and engage with a company.
Elyse Archer:
I think about one of our clients is… He was actually the number one rep for Salesforce last year, Ian Cognac. He has built a powerful personal brand and I think about if I was going to go online and start consuming content, would I be more likely to follow Salesforce the company or would I be more likely to follow Ian. It’s no. I would be more likely to follow Ian. I can see more about his family, I can see videos of him and talking, I can connect emotionally with him. It’s a far more intimate connection than I’m going to have with this vague generality of the Salesforce brand than I would if I was connecting directly with Ian online, if that makes sense.
Will Barron:
It makes total sense. I get the same with me of I on my personal profiles have way more followers, fans, likes whatever it is than I do on, for example, the podcast specific pages. That makes total sense. Okay, then so and there might be other elements to this. So we can add them in kind of let me know if I’m missing anything, but seems like two major things here.
Elyse Talks About the Reputation Formula: Results X Reach = Reputation · [05:49]
Will Barron:
One, the number of people that know you, obviously there’s no point having a brand if nobody is paying attention to it. But then what people think about you as well. Are there any other elements that we need to add to this? Perhaps number one is what people know about you, which you perhaps don’t want them to know about you, a negative kind of a brand identity or brand image. Are there any other layers to that before we get into each one of them specifically?
Elyse Archer:
Yeah. You know what I think is so cool Will, is you actually just nailed something that we call the Reputation Formula. What we believe is that results X reach = reputation. So results X reach = reputation. If you’d like, I can break those down for you here, because I think most sales professionals, at least the ones who have longevity and who have done a good job in their role, they’ve got the results piece pretty nailed down. So results is going to be what is it like for somebody to interact with you? Do you follow up?
Elyse Archer:
Do you do what you say you’re going to do? Do people trust you? Do you have speedy turnaround time? Do you deliver. That’s really the foundational piece. I would guess that most of your audience, they really care about delivering, they care about doing a good job. They have those positive results. But the piece that so many people are missing today is the reach. It’s how many people know about you.
Elyse Archer:
When I think about, gosh, just a lot of clients I’ve worked with over the years and even just a lot of people that I know through networking, they may have been selling in their space for 10, 15, some of them 30 or 40 years. It used to be that they could get by just with like selling to the same people over and over again every year and building that reputation within kind of the small inner network of their clients. What they may be noticing is that today, they’re not hitting the same numbers that they used to and it feels harder than it used to get the same results.
“How you position yourself as an expert in front of people who don’t yet know of you is the reach piece that’s so, so critical.” – Elyse Archer · [08:06]
Elyse Archer:
What the problem is, is that they’re only known within their small circle of people who have already done business with them. That’s part of why that reach piece is so, so critical. It’s if somebody goes on Google and they search for what you do, are you showing up? Do you have a personal website that’s showing up? Are you creating content on different social media platforms? I’m happy to talk with you about what that would look like if that’s a service to your audience. But it’s how are you positioning yourself as an expert in front of people who don’t yet know of you.
“Pretty much anybody today can leverage the power of social media and online search to become known as an “expert” in their space. But if they don’t have the results piece, then people are finding them, they’re going to engage with them. And they’re not going to get that same high quality of service and work that they would get if they did work with someone who was a high calibre, who actually could deliver those results.” – Elyse Archer · [08:34]
Elyse Archer:
That’s the reach piece that’s so, so critical. When I think about the opportunity that’s available today to build a strong reputation, it’s almost imperative for the people who do a really good job for their clients and who do have those incredible results. If they’re not aggressively focusing on growing their reach, it’s almost a disservice. Because pretty much anybody today can leverage the power of social media and online search to become known as a “expert” in their space.
Elyse Archer:
But if they don’t have the results piece, then people are finding them, they’re going to engage with them. And they’re not going to get that same high quality of service and work that they would get if they did work with someone who was a high calibre, who actually could deliver those results. So both of those are critical if you’re going to have an influential reputation and personal brand.
Salespeople Need to Balance Between Having a Strong Social Presence and Delivering Results For Their Clients · [09:03]
Will Barron:
You’ve took the words out of my mouth there. That’s what I was going to ask you next of the difference between somebody who has lots of social media followers, who is an idiot, but good with social media versus someone who perhaps is incredible and they are super knowledgeable in their niche, they’re great sales professionals, They’re just a great business people, but they don’t have perhaps a knowledge of social media or they’re not pursuing it as a sales channel at this point. Is that the difference then that one side has results that can back up their claims, the other side are using perception rather than results to try and get a similar effect.
Elyse Archer:
Yeah, absolutely. The ideal scenario is that you do both.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Elyse Archer:
That is the ideal scenario. But in my own career, and in my own life, I’ve experienced how powerful just the reach piece has been and when I left… I had a kind of a long background in selling digital marketing services and I left that industry in 2015 and I decided that I wanted to go into sales coaching. Now, I don’t do that anymore. But at the time, that was the career transition I wanted to make.
Elyse Archer:
Now, I had never been a sales coach, Will. What I had done is I had gotten great results, doing sales before. So I thought, “You know what? I’ve done this well. I can help people figure out how to earn six figures in their sales career,” which really felt to me like the first threshold most salespeople wanted to reach. With six months of savings in the bank, I decided to quit my corporate job and go out and become a sales coach.
Elyse Archer:
Now, was that the smartest move? Maybe, maybe not. But I will tell you, the one thing that I knew was I knew marketing. I knew that if I was going to make it work, I had to become known as a sales coach in my local community and beyond. Even without necessarily having that strong background of helping people, in my sales, coaching practise, I didn’t have any clients, I started marketing myself as a sales coach. I built local networking groups, and I started doing online videos, which worked really, really well. I’m happy to share with your audience how they can do that to build their brand.
Elyse Archer:
But what I found was that very quickly, I built a reputation first in my local community. And then online, if you just started searching for sales coaches in North Carolina and then beyond, I would start to show up and very, very quickly, I built an extremely profitable sales coaching practise. That was really an example of someone who didn’t have the results yet, but knew they needed the reach.
Elyse Archer:
So it wasn’t done with malice. It was more done with, “Hey, I know I can help people. But I also know I need to make this work.” And so the interesting thing is, there were no doubt sales coaches in my local market who were better than me, who were more experienced than me, who had better results because I didn’t have any results yet, but they weren’t as well known. One of the things that I’m passionate about, is helping people not only get great results in what they do, but then how do you share that with the world, because if you’re the best kept secret in your industry, it doesn’t matter.
Elyse Archer:
It doesn’t matter. Again, if people don’t know about you, they can’t do business with you. I should probably amend that whole story to say I did end up being what I consider a very good sales coach and I cared deeply about my clients. But it was really like the reach piece really matters if you were going to build a reputation and if you’re going to have inbound clients coming to you.
Will Barron:
That’s my experience, because I was the worst interviewer in this space from a pretty average sales professional kind of background, I always hit target. I never really crushed it. I was pretty good at the marketing, the branding side of that… Humbly, well, the numbers hopefully show at this point that hopefully I’m a much better interviewer now than what I was. When I first started off, it was the worst podcast out there, probably full stop, as opposed to just the worst sales podcast out there and the marketing kind of dragged their feet forward.
Personal Branding and Market Reach · [13:03]
Will Barron:
So yes, the reach is clearly important here. I want to throw you just a bit of a curve ball here for a second because I feel like we’ve covered branding for people who want lots of reach, who were selling widgets on the show before. I think, this is just off the top of my head, but an angle that would be interesting to look at would be how we do personal branding and engineer our brand for perhaps a reach of five, if we are selling to key accounts, for example.
Will Barron:
Is that a totally or would that be a totally different way of going about things than building a larger reach and a larger audience? Or is it just the same things, but perhaps more customised if we wanted to be in front of regularly and have a strong brand in front of five organisations rather than 150?
“One of the things that’s really important is that people today are most likely going to look you up when they first engage with you, when they first find out about you. So, I would say it’s still really important for you to have a personal website, whatever it is, your name.com, where if you’ve reached out to me, and I’m considering working with you, I’m going to go online and I’m going to check you out.” – Elyse Archer · [13:46]
Elyse Archer:
Yeah, I love that you asked that question because you’re right. Some people listening to this show, they don’t need more than maybe five clients to hit their goals and then other people need 1,000. And so that’s a really, really good question. I would say that if you are selling to a smaller group of individuals, one of the things that’s still really important is people today are most likely going to look you up when they first engaged with you, when they first find out about you.
Elyse Archer:
Even if it’s not necessary for what you’re doing and for what your goals are, for you to have a massive audience and a massive online following, I would say it’s still really important for you to have a personal website, whatever it is, your name.com, where if you’ve reached out to me, and I’m considering working with you, I’m going to go online and I’m going to check you out.
Elyse Archer:
You really want to have ownership of what people are seeing. And so a big piece of that is being on the offence, being proactive about what people are going to find when they look you up. Whether it’s being very careful about what are you putting on social media.
Elyse Archer:
I think a lot of this is like, we’ve heard this, we get this. Don’t put your drinking pictures on social media. Clean up the college photos. I think people get that now. That was more of a conversation maybe five years ago. But being really proactive about are you consistently providing value. Do you have a personal blog where every week you’re going in and you’re just answering one simple question that your ideal client would have? Are you creating videos that show you talking to the camera where people can feel like they’re engaging with you, and they’re connecting with you, and they trust you when they go look you up.
“If you’re having people who engage with you early on in the conversation, and then kind of slip off, one of the things that may be happening is they’re either not finding enough that they trust you online or they’re finding things that aren’t good, and neither one of those is good.” – Elyse Archer · [15:30]
Elyse Archer:
Some of it is yes, going out and building that big audience so that you can be found by people who are searching for you. But then the other piece is to just really being searchable and having that really positive first impression, the first time people go do their due diligence on you, because they are doing it, whether you know it or not. If you’re having people who engage with you early on in the conversation, and then kind of slip off, one of the things that may be happening is they’re either, one of two things, they’re not finding enough that they trust you online or they’re finding things that aren’t good and neither one of those is good.
Will Barron:
Is the barrier for trust going up over time. Because it seems like as you alluded to that five years ago… I think I still do have ridiculous pictures of me on Facebook, but they are blocked, you have to be a friend and I’ve only got about four friends on there. That’s kind of relatively well locked down.
Personal Branding is all About Building and Refining Trust · [16:18]
Will Barron:
But five years ago, I didn’t have any of that. And so the barrier to trust might be to find the person who doesn’t have drunken pictures. So now if people kind of cross that threshold, perhaps now the barrier of entry for trust is a personal website. And then when everyone gets one of them, clearly it will go on and on. Is there something to that in that we can’t just build our brand once and have trust, we need to be relatively regularly refining it to kind of keep with the flow of trust or the bottom level of trust that is required to kind of do business.
“90% of all content ever created in the world has been created in the past two years, which was just staggering to me to think about okay, today, not only are we competing with just a lot of companies doing what we do and other people doing what we do, but we’re competing with constant content creation that other companies, other entrepreneurs, other sales professionals are creating. I think the barrier to being visible is higher than it has ever been before.” – Elyse Archer · [16:43]
Elyse Archer:
Yeah. I like that question because I think I’ll reference a statistic that I heard the other week, which was that 90% of all content ever created in the world has been created in the past two years, which was just staggering to me to think about okay, today, not only are we competing with just a lot of companies doing what we do and other people doing what we do, but we’re competing with constant content creation that other companies, other entrepreneurs, other sales professionals are creating.
“Some people say, “Well, you should never show anything aside from the very business professional aspect of what you are.” I tend to actually think that it’s useful to your brand and it establishes more trust to show more of who you are as a whole person.” – Elyse Archer · [17:24]
Elyse Archer:
I think the barrier to being visible is higher than it has ever been before. I’ll say it that way. But one of the things… I think the whole concept of trust especially when we think about your online personal brand is an interesting one, because you’ll hear some people say, “Well, you should never show anything aside from the very business professional aspect of what you are.”
Elyse Archer:
I tend to actually think that it’s useful to your brand and it establishes more trust to show more of who you are as a whole person. But the way that I think about doing that is just don’t do things in your life, that you wouldn’t be okay with showing up on Facebook or on Instagram. And so the way I personally and I think, look, there’s no right or wrong way to do this, the way I personally have approached building my online platform is that everything is open, people can see anything.
Elyse Archer:
Now, I did get rid of the old college drinking photos a long time ago, so it’s like, those are gone. And yes, I had those days and they were fun, but I don’t have them anymore. But everything is open. And so it’s really about… I’ve had people say this to me, like they’ll hop on a discovery call with me. And they’ll say, “I was on your Facebook and I was checking out photos of your family. And I saw what you were doing with your brand and then I saw your podcast and all that and then I felt like I could connect with you because I saw the photos of your family and I know you’re a dog lover. And I know that you’re really into animal rescue.”
Elyse Archer:
So I think a piece of the trust is also showing that you are a real person. There’s a lot of conversation around like vulnerability and authenticity. I think to me, the key there is you don’t need to overshare. So if you were struggling with something, particularly in an area where you were saying that you can help your clients, that’s not a great time to share. Kind of work through that on your own.
“If you’re selling weight loss products or health and wellness services and you yourself are struggling with your health and wellness, you probably don’t need to share that online because clients need to feel like you’ve mastered what you are selling to them.” – Elyse Archer · [18:58]
Elyse Archer:
Like if you’re selling weight loss products or health and wellness services and you yourself are struggling with your health and wellness, you probably don’t need to share that online because clients need to feel like you’ve mastered what you are selling to them. But a healthy degree of openness about your family, about what you like, about what books you’re reading, about what your favourite physical activities are, those things really help build that bond and establish that trust. So they get a certain point, if we feel like I can’t tell what that person is fully about. We just don’t impress them. And so to me, that’s a really important piece of landing trust.
Will Barron:
There’s definitely a gut feeling that I get when I’m, even guests or potential guests for the show, when I go on their social media, even if they have a little social media and I don’t see pictures like that, I don’t see personal stories and it’s all super corporate. It’s a bit of a weird gut feeling that I get that this person is probably full of bullshit and actually isn’t. They’ve got an agenda. That’s what we’re wired to know, to see, we want people that are in at least some kind of a tribe of us.
How Much of Your Personal Life Should You Share on Social Media? · [20:20]
Will Barron:
If you’re a dog lover, I’m getting a golden retriever in a few months time. And so we can then bond on that. I’ll see the pictures on your social media of the dogs and that’s a conversation starter as well. So there’s multiple layers to all of this. But just for, I guess, context for the audience of someone who is relatively new to this, or someone who’s refining the social media and personal brand after listening to this episode, what is the cadence of personal stuff to perhaps selling through social media. I think that’s okay within in a certain cadence, to then sort of got personal things that make us human, we’ve got potentially selling or pushing people to a landing page or things like that. May or may not be appropriate, depending on the product you’re selling. And then we have perhaps adding value, proactively trying to add value to our audience. What’s the cadence between those three kind of topics of conversation or topics of content?
Elyse Archer:
Absolutely. So I would say a really good book and a good resource for your audience if they haven’t read it yet, is Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook where he really talks about the proper cadence of how much do you give versus how much do you ask. And there’s no one set formula but the idea behind it is you need to give more than you ask.
Elyse Archer:
So whether that’s three gives and when I say give, it’s giving value, whether it’s teaching something. So one of the things that we teach our clients to do at Brand Builders Group is like figure out what are 52 different questions that your ideal client would have and then go on social media and simply answer one of them every single week and we love doing like a live video on Facebook or Instagram which you can then take and repurpose for all the different platforms but if you’re doing something like that on a regular basis and it’s literally just giving and teaching and adding value, then every now and then, if you’ve got a promotion going on, if you have a live event, if you have an end of month thing happening, then it’s cool to say hey guys, like you’ve built that Trust Bank.
Elyse Archer:
When I think about the proper amount of showing your own personal life versus your business life, this is something that I’ve really had to think about a lot because I used to strictly show the business side and that worked well and that was fine but one of the things I started noticing was for the people that I buy from and that I buy whether it’s high ticket coaching or something else, I really… I follow them online and I know what their personal life is like too. They will be showing up and they will be sharing, “Hey, I’m here at a mastermind event and I just landed and here’s the behind the scenes.” Or like you said, “We’re getting the new lab this weekend, we’re so excited.”
“I think LinkedIn is not really the place to be sharing personal stuff. Letting your personality show through in the content you create for more B2B platforms like LinkedIn? Yes. 100%. But sharing about your weekend trip unless it’s something that’s going to help grow someone’s business and you’re incorporating a lesson from that, it’s probably not the place.” – Elyse Archer · [22:55]
Elyse Archer:
I feel like I could relate to them personally. And so one of the things that I’ve really thought a lot about is well where is that appropriate and where do I do that versus where do I not? I think LinkedIn is not really the place to be sharing personal stuff. Like letting your personality show through in the content you create for more B2B platforms like LinkedIn? Yes. 100%.
Elyse Archer:
But sharing about your weekend trip unless it’s something that’s going to help grow someone’s business and you’re incorporating a lesson from that, it’s probably not the place. But one place that I do love doing that is Instagram stories. So I was so weird about doing Instagram stories for a long time, I was like why is anyone going to want to see this? Why are they going to want to know about my life or what’s behind the scenes.
Elyse Archer:
But what I found is just sharing kind of like those fun little moments of trips I’m on or things I’m doing on the weekend, it’s an appropriate place where people can see my personality, see more of like who I really am behind the scenes. And so I would say Instagram Stories and then I’ll do some on my Instagram feed but it’s primarily more business focused. And then my personal Facebook has a lot of personal stuff as well.
Elyse Archer:
I’ll accept clients on there. Again, it’s like I live my life in a way where I’m okay with whatever I’m doing, showing up in front of my clients and to me, it’s the simplest way to do it where there’s never any worry or confusion about, “I don’t want something shared.” I don’t know if that answered the question. I hope it did but those are some things that I found work well as far as the cadence of what you share.
Will Barron:
Got it. Got it. How does this look? We’ll get practical. We can use my background. So I used to sell medical devices, the last company I worked for as a privately held multi-billion dollar company called [inaudible 00:24:28]. Really well regarded in the medical device space. He basically reinvented endoscopic surgery. So surgeons love them, they’re a big deal in the space.
Will Barron:
Now I don’t think the surgeons I was selling to would really care about the fact that I’m driving around or I’m going on holiday or I’ve got a dog even. They don’t have time for tuning into stuff like this. A lot of them just even on social media. So I would spend a lot of time engaging with them and perhaps share my personal brand and stories at bars after events and at training events, just speaking to people and doing this in person rather than over social.
How Salespeople Can Build a Reputable Personal Brand in the Really Professional Spaces Like Medical Device Selling · [25:06]
Will Barron:
With all that considered, how could I perhaps leverage either social media, a website or creating content and proactively sending it to them? How can I perhaps leverage some of those channels of sharing a bit more of myself and my story to build trust with them?
Elyse Archer:
Yeah, absolutely. I think just thinking about the medical space, in general, it’s an interesting space and it’s a somewhat unique space, as well and that it can be harder to get the attention of the people that you’re trying to get in front of. But what I’ve also found is…
Elyse Archer:
My brother-in-law, he’s a doctor, my husband is a respiratory therapist. They are on social media. I think for what you’re referencing there, if it’s more of like a medical, maybe it’s a medical sale, I think one of the great places where you can connect with people is LinkedIn. One of the first things I would say you should be doing is creating videos and putting them up on LinkedIn.
Elyse Archer:
LinkedIn still has this really cool opportunity where you can get way more organic reach with your videos on LinkedIn, than I think on any other platform right now. I think it’s started because I’ve noticed mine don’t get as many as they used to. But you can still get easily, a couple of thousand views organic reach on LinkedIn, like if you’ve got a decent enough sized network. It doesn’t have to be huge, probably like a couple of thousand in your network. You can get that many views.
Elyse Archer:
There’s a lot of… I actually get a lot of surgeons and medical professionals reaching out to me on LinkedIn, who watch my videos. Yeah, they reach out at weird hours but, “Hey, I was watching your video on such and such. I’m thinking about growing my own brand.” Or in your case, it could be like, “I saw your video on this particular device. We’re curious about using it in our own practise.” And it just elevates you as an expert in front of them. That would be the primary place that I would be focusing.
Elyse Archer:
But then really just as you get to know your clients, thinking about where are they. Are they more on Facebook? Are they more on Instagram? Are they more hopping on YouTube and looking for educational videos? What are the things that they care about outside of work? Are they into golf? Are they into reading certain types of books? Are they into family? And then those elements that they’re going to be able to relate to in your own life, just showing more of those and just being more visible with those parts of you that they’re going to be able to relate to based upon what they personally care about.
Will Barron:
So I never did this and I wish I would have done it because I would have… I feel like with hindsight, it’s easy to be clever. So I’m going to pitch you what I’ve said on the podcast before, which would have been my content resource, having understood anything like this.
Is Will’s Idea of a Podcast Targeting the 30 Urologists in His Former Sales Territory a Viable Personal Branding Idea? · [27:43]
Will Barron:
Back in when I was working at medical device sales, my thought was that I would do a mini podcast. So if I was selling to urologists, there’s only 30 urologists in Yorkshire that I was selling to that needed to know they can trust me and that I needed to add value to. And there’s only really two… There’s [inaudible 00:27:59] and Olympus in the marketplace. No one really cared about anyone else. All the others were kind of budget brands and so I only had to beat the dude or the girl from Olympus, and I’d won the business.
Will Barron:
So I would have done a podcast where I would have done a perhaps a Yorkshire urologist podcast, gone in around circle, interviewed all those individuals and great if people from outside Yorkshire or outside the UK listened to it. But I would only be able to have 30 listeners. That’s all I’d care about. That’s all I’d market. That’s all the branding would be. That would be my mission, to get them to listen to a 30 minute podcast once a week on what’s happening in Bradford Royal Infirmary or what’s happening down in Sheffield Royal and what… Can’t remember what the hospital’s called now, whatever the Sheffield hospital is called?
Elyse Archer:
Yes.
Will Barron:
Is that a good idea or is that a terrible idea? Give me some feedback here.
Elyse Archer:
That is the best idea, Will. I’m so glad that you brought that up because that’s actually probably out of everything here that’s probably the best idea of what you could do if you’re doing that type of a sale and I totally forgot. That’s something that I’ll have my clients do sometimes and I totally forgot about it when you asked me.
“Everybody cares, to an extent, about being known, understood, valued, heard, growing their own reach and their platform. And if you create a platform that allows them to do that and your reaching out to them isn’t, “Hey, can I book an appointment with you to talk about this device,” But it’s, “Hey, I want to feature you in front of my audience and showcase your expertise and your background and make you look really good.” Then yes. The success rate of them saying yes and coming on is way higher.” – Elyse Archer · [29:18]
Elyse Archer:
I love that idea because people in that type of a position if you just reach out to try to sell something to them, maybe you hit them on a good day and they’ll give you the time of day. But more likely than not, it’s going to fall on deaf ears. But it’s like, think about it today, everybody cares to an extent about being known, understood, valued, heard, growing their own reach and their platform. And if you create a platform that allows them to do that and you’re reaching out to them isn’t, “Hey, can I book an appointment with you to talk about this device,”
Elyse Archer:
But it’s, “Hey, I want to feature you in front of my audience and showcase your expertise and your background and make you look really good.” Then yes. The success rate of them saying yes and coming on is way higher. It’s almost crazy how easy it is to get people to come on a show like that, even if it doesn’t have a big reach or background.
Elyse Archer:
I’ve hosted a couple of podcasts now. And to me, it’s like, even if I didn’t have an audience, the fact that it gave me a platform to have conversations with people who I want to get to know, would be worth it. I think it’s a brilliant idea. It’s relatively simple to create something like that, that yes, it would have been amazing for you to do then, it’s what you’re doing now, it’s all so amazing. And any of your listeners who haven’t built that type of a platform, should be thinking about doing that.
“You can really play to your strengths as far as how you prefer to create content. But creating some sort of a platform that elevates the people who you want to do business with and helps them is a win-win, for sure.” – Elyse Archer · [30:41]
Elyse Archer:
I think one other thing too is if you don’t love audio or video, it doesn’t have to be that. It could be that you create a blog and you just do an interview or you write a blog article about that person. So you can really play to your strengths as far as how you prefer to create content. But creating some sort of a platform that elevates the people who you want to do business with and helps them is a win-win, for sure.
Build a Personal Brand by “Being the Messenger” to Your Audience · [30:52]
Will Barron:
This is amazing. So there’s two things that come up there. I’ve never thought about this before. You could profile the surgeons and essentially interview them via a series of written content and they could get back to you over email and go back and forth over that. Because it might be difficult to get someone to agree to an hour-long conversation for an interview. It might be easy, I have no idea, depending on their schedules or you could sit with them in theatres, because there’s a lot of downtime in theatres where they’ve got to be there, they’ve got to look after the patient, but they’re not actually doing anything. That’s an idea.
Will Barron:
Then the other one, where you mentioned earlier on, Elyse, was having these 52 questions. Why are we answering them, when we can ask the real expert that we’re selling to answer them and then have that rub off on us? Somehow, I’m known as some kind of sales expert. Pretty good at sales. But that’s pretty much where it stops. I’m happy to admit that, but I get to interview people like yourself and all the kind of branding sales business and every other expert that we have on the show. And so you get a rub off.
Will Barron:
I’m sure that would be the same if we mini-interviewed people by asking them how would you do this suture? How would you deal with this problem? What’s your favourite size of endoscope or direction for laparoscopy, is whatever it is. And we could ask super granular questions, again, 99% people aren’t going to care about but the 1% of people that we want to be in front of might really care about that content. I’ve never really thought about it like that, kind of putting the two ideas together but that could be really powerful.
“The great thing about building a personal brand is you don’t have to have all the answers. In fact, it’s better if you don’t, because it allows you and affords you the opportunity to build connections with people who are true experts in the space.” – Elyse Archer · [32:21]
Elyse Archer:
Absolutely. What you’re referring to there, Will, is what we would call being the messenger. And so this is the great thing about building a personal brand is you don’t have to have all the answers. In fact, it’s better if you don’t, because it allows you, it affords you the opportunity to build connections with people who are true experts in the space that you’re building your brand in and bring them on and showcase them.
Elyse Archer:
I think you’ve done a great job of this on your podcast. I think about one of our other clients. He’s a guy named Lewis House and he’s more in like the mainstream, I’d say like, personal development space. Some of your people may or may not be familiar with him, but he’s built a massive podcast and a huge personal brand where he now…
Elyse Archer:
He interviews people like Ellen DeGeneres and Tony Robbins and he’s built this really big brand. The whole way that he did it though, was by positioning himself as the messenger, setting up a podcast, just interviewing other people, School of Greatness Podcast, and it’s like, “How have you created greatness in your life?” And it’s featuring their stories and their expertise. And what happens is there’s almost this halo effect where that person’s credibility radiates to you and then over time, you become the expert and you become the one that other people are reaching out to you to say, “Hey, will you go on my show? Hey, will you speak at this event? Hey, will you come in and work with my team?”
Elyse Archer:
You’re absolutely right, like just being that messenger gives you access to other people. And then over time, your status kind of elevates to more of that expert status of the people you’re having on your show.
Will Barron:
Love it. Honestly, having gone through this process with you now, I feel that’s probably the place where most people should potentially start unless they’ve been in the industry for 40 years and they are genuine master of it. Even then, they could probably leverage their knowledge to get to start these interviews or conversations or questions at a higher level than what someone who’s totally green or new to the industry of a niche or product or whatever it is, can probably get out.
Elyse’s Advise to Her Younger Self on How to Become Better at Personal Branding · [34:20]
Will Barron:
So I feel that’s probably the correct starting point for a lot of this. With that, Elyse, I’ve got one question to ask everyone that comes on the show more and we’ll wrap up with this and that is if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, I’ll rephrase this one for you slightly, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give her on improving her own personal branding?
Elyse Archer:
I would say, “Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.” For many, many, many years of my life, I thought I had to be a certain way for people to like me, for them to want to do business with, me even to have friends. And so for a long period of my life, I tried to fit the mould of what I thought I should be. Not only was it restrictive, but it wasn’t fun and it didn’t work.
Elyse Archer:
It was really as soon as I really started to get okay with I was created exactly the way I was made to be for a reason and just show up more fully and visibly as myself, life got a lot more fun, I got way better results in my business and more joyful every day as well. So I would say that would be the one piece of advice that I would give to my younger self.
Will Barron:
Just to stay on this for a split second, because I’ve given my thoughts. I’m similar, I was pretty introverted growing up and so I just wanted to blend in, fit in the background and not kind of have all the traits of introvertedness that’s stereotypical.
Will Barron:
I’m still probably more extroverted now, but I still need after I recorded these episodes, I will go and sit in a dark room and read a book for half an hour to recharge. I’ve still got these traits of introvertedness as well. And I’ve given my thoughts on this in the past. But I’ve given a very kind of masculine opinion on it a bit of just don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about you and just get out there and get on with things. That may be useful for some people, it may not be useful for others.
Creating Content Online is All About Showing Up as Your Best Self · [36:04]
Will Barron:
With that said, [inaudible 00:36:03] is starting to put content out there, who wants to break [inaudible 00:36:06], perhaps even break out of their shell a little bit. What got you through the process of showing more of yourself and being more real in front of an audience? Was there any key light bulb moments? Or was it just growing up, being more mature and just time?
“A lot of the things that get us more comfortable with ourselves are the hardships we go through.” – Elyse Archer · [36:32]
Elyse Archer:
Wow. Give me a moment on that one because I think it was a combination Will. Honestly, I think a lot of the things that get us more comfortable with ourselves are the hardships we go through. As everyone listening, I’ve been through some of those on my own, whether it was when I was a teenager, an eating disorder to some tough business breakups, but things that really made me stop and examine who I am, what I really believe and what my purpose is in this world.
Elyse Archer:
And I think too just as I get older, we have more and more experiences where sometimes we’re reminded of the brevity of life and how important it is, like my own personal brand I call instant impact, because something that I really believe is how important it is to make an impact every single day. Because it’s like we don’t know how much time we have. And so I think the way that we can really do that is by showing up fully ourselves, I think on a…
Elyse Archer:
This may be a little woo woo for your audience, but it’s just kind of like some of the stuff I do, like meditating, getting still being quiet, doing yoga, just being willing to listen and really hear like, why was I put on this earth? What was I meant to do and being open to that. The more you listen to that and start to show up as the person you feel like you’re being called to be, the more you’ll realise how much easier things happen in your life and the more you’re like, “Oh, wow. This is actually how it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be so hard for me to make the impact I want to make and have fun while I’m doing it.”
Elyse Archer:
So I hope that answered the question. It’s been a combination of those types of things that have really helped me become more comfortable being visible as I truly am.
Will Barron:
I love it. That’s really useful. I was hoping you’d give us an answer like that rather than a magic bullet because that’s sometimes how I feel, it’s easier to explain these situations or these results by saying, “Well, I just stopped caring.” But of course it’s time, the edge is being knocked off through life and things like this that make you… Well, one for me was I realised that most people aren’t really watching or don’t really care what you do anyway. So you might as well be yourself because the people that do care and the people that do watch, that’s what they want. Everyone else is too wrapped up in their own lives to pay attention anyway. That’s how I look at things. I love it.
Parting Thoughts · [38:47]
Will Barron:
Well, with that Elyse, tell us a little bit where we can find out more about you, the podcast and anything else that you’re up to as well.
Elyse Archer:
Yes, absolutely. So thank you so much for this opportunity to be in front of the audience that you have built. I have a special place in my heart for people who are out there in charge of their own results and earning commission every day. It’s something I’ve done for most of my life. So I really appreciate how much hard work goes into what you do and what your audience does as well.
Elyse Archer:
So if people want to connect with me online, my website is elysearcher.com. It’s E-L-Y-S-E-A-R-C-H-E-R.com. I have a podcast called Instant Impact with Elyse Archer, that’s about how do we build an influential network, a world-class network and a strong personal brand. And then one thing too, Will, that I’d be more than happy to do for anybody in your audience is if they are listening to this and they’re thinking about like, “I do want to build and influential and then I want to make a difference and I want to figure out what my uniqueness is and how I can,” as Larry Winget says, “exploit it in the service of others and really use that to further my business and make my impact in the world,” I’m happy to have a free brand strategy call with anybody who’s listening just to help them kind of think through well, what would that look like?
Elyse Archer:
We may be a good fit to help them, we may not and either way is okay, but really just to be of service and help them maybe get some clarity. If people want to have that call with me, simply they can go to thebrandbuildersgroup.com/salesman and that will give them a link where they can sign up for that free call. I’d love to connect with the members of your audience and just hear about their goals and their passions. And, again, see if we can be of service. So any or all of those places would be great to connect with your audience.
Will Barron:
Good. Well, I’ll link to all of that in the show notes of this episode over at salesman.org. With that, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank for the fact that I cruised down the account management route and then back on to the other track that we started off on. So I appreciate your holding on and keeping going with the questions.
Will Barron:
With that, I want to thank you for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Elyse Archer:
Thank you, Will. It was a blast.
