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Harnessing your personal brand to drive growth
International marketing expert Rhonda Swan is a force to be recognised with. Founder of the Unstoppable Branding Agency, a global author, speaker and digital marketing expert, Rhonda has helped some of the world’s biggest entrepreneurs including Richard Branson and Tim Ferriss build their brands. She’s a strong advocate for all entrepreneurs telling their story and spoke to Kea about how Kiwi SMEs can harness the power of their own stories.
What’s the background behind Unstoppable Branding Agency?
I was working for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals running the Western division, when I witnessed a woman putting her six-week old baby in childcare. I had just gotten married and hadn’t had a child yet. but my whole body shifted because this woman dropped her baby off and was 15 minutes late to work. This boss basically threw her on the cross and told her that if she was ever late again, she would lose her job. I sat there and thought “is this who I’m going to become?” I went back to my husband and explained that I did not want to put a child in daycare. Around this time the Internet was really starting to pick up and I thought what if I built a company which ran exclusively online? I quit my job and bought my own franchise from a company which was selling personal development products via the web. I became the first person in the company to make a million dollars.
Several years later I was pregnant and I thought we had made enough money to invest so that I could raise my daughter and let the company run itself. Unfortunately we invested in a development which turned out to be fraudulent and we lost everything. I was pregnant and my daughter was born 33 days early because I was so stressed. The only way out was to sell up everything. We were left with about $12,000 USD and decided to take our daughter, leave the corporate life and travel while working online, I launched Unstoppable Branding Agency and now 16 years later we have lived in 57 different countries, I have been able to raise my daughter the way I wanted and most importantly I have helped others grow their brands and especially support women to create a business where they can generate and income and also be present to raise their children.
What’s your advice for start ups or new businesses looking to make a name for themselves?
When it comes to marketing a lot of companies will go straight to what I do – service or product, but they forget about the human factor. You can save probably more than 70% of your marketing dollars if you instead focus on you and how your business makes people feel. It doesn’t matter what size your business is, If you’re a coach or consultant, or if you make surfboards – everyone has a story and your story is what really matters.
What does building a personal brand look like?
A lot of people think a brand is a logo, I couldn;t care less about your logo, you’re not McDonalds or Lululemon. Your brand is about image, message, strategy then of course PR. it’s about making sure the message is clear – and that you’re not making the customer use too much mental bandwidth to figure out the problem that your product or service can solve. Most companies fall into the trap of being too wordy and not direct enough. We work with brands to answer a simple question “What is it I am doing for the company and what is my desired result of that? So for example our company’s tagline is “turning best kept secrets into world renowned brands, PR and media.” The client wants a world renown brand and we do that with PR and media. It’s just simple. Don’t get too wordy, don’t get crazy. Reframe and then tell your consumer or client exactly what they’re going to get.
How can founders take advantage of PR & Media to help build a brand strategy?
Brand strategy is all about how and who you want to get in front of – so PR and Media are directly connected. If you’re running ads or meeting people and then they search you later and can’t find you in google then you have a problem. This is where PR and Media comes in, that’s where credibility comes from. For those just starting out, it doesn’t need to cost a lot to get some PR & Media, it can be as simple as going to your local media outlet and literally saying “look, I have a new product, or company, this is what I’m doing, I’m local – would you be willing to tell my story?” That’s free – that’s a pitch.
Get your message tight and don’t change it! Often we get bored as a business owner, so we get creative but our creativity blows our message because then it’s different and we lost people. Nail it everytime, that’s what you have to do. You want to know your message so well that you are really bored of it. That’s why I focus on the quick formula, when I talk to people I say “I own a brand and PR firm, we turn the best kept secrets in the world into brand PR and media.” people are like “yup, I know exactly what you do.
What’s the difference between a company brand and personal brand, or are they one and the same?
Well, they can be one in the same, just like Richard Branson’s on the front end of Virgin, same with Gary V, same thing with me. However, company brands are quite different. They can be straight up product and service based. But the moment you add values and a heartbeat, it now becomes someone’s idea. I personally feel you can’t have a business brand without a personal brand because every time I go to a website of a service or product, I look at the “About Us” Every single time. I’m like, tell me your story! Sarah Blakely was selling Spanx, but the moment she actually started getting on stage and telling her personal story to people, it became a real woman’s problem and her brand took off.
What are the benefits of having a really strong personal brand?
You have a heartbeat and you can take that personal story anywhere. You may lose your company, but you never lose your name. You can become a thought leader, a speaker, you can do so many different things because of the experiences you’ve learnt. My branding agency can be sold, I can’t sell Rhona Swan, that brand will always be mine.
Most people start with I have a product, how do I sell my product? they’re trying to make money first. But you can’t make money unless you have value, unless you already prove to people that you can solve their problem, and that you have a heartbeat and you care. Because the world has shifted now. We’re in a new paradigm. The old style of sell, sell, sell marketing is gone, Everyone can see that from a mile away. In the beginning digital marketing came in and blasted everyone – but now the ones that actually have authenticity and true value, they’re coming back, and they’re coming back hot!
What would be your advice to people looking to build a personal brand?
It doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to take a long time, you just need to figure out what are your values and what is your story of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Then you have to live it! You can’t have a company and not be the personal brand living it. Social media makes it so easy for us to do that now. Then you have to become a marketer. If your personal brand is connected to your service, or product or company, you’re the marketer, that’s how we did it. If you believe in something, you just have to get in front of people. Some companies or owners get too far into the day to day running of the business, they are just working trying to sell, but if they actually thought, “who do I need to do that work so I can be there on the front end?” That would be the best and biggest investment for new companies. How do I get someone to do this, so that I can talk about it? And that can start from day one. You just have to reallocate your funds in a different way and understand that this will pay off.
This content was created on board a stewardship journey to Antarticia led by Insider Expeditions. The journey brought together global business leaders to share thoughts and insights around a range of topics including climate change, leadership and creating a better world through business.
