For entrepreneurs, a personal brand is crucial in ensuring your target demographic not only resonates with your business or product offering, but also your individual values. This week’s episode welcomes Adrienne Wallace, Managing Partner & Practice Lead at INterview, to uncover the essential elements of building a personal brand and what strategies are useful to craft a story.
imPRessions Season 2 Episode #13 Transcript
Jenn: Hello!
Kalli: Hey, Jenn. So I know we spent so much time as PR professionals talking about other people, talking about other brands, and really figuring out their stories. But do you ever have trouble talking about yourself?
Jenn: That’s probably one of the hardest things to do is to talk about you.
Kalli: I completely agree. So today we’ll be talking to Adrian Wallace from interview to talk about how to create your own personal narrative, both online and offline.
Jenn: That sounds great. I think this is going to be really helpful advice for really anybody in any career or industry, because it really pertains to a wider array of different professionals and different career paths. So I’m excited to talk with her.
Kalli: Awesome. Let’s get started. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a seasoned executive, or just starting out in your career, personal branding has become an essential tool for standing out in a crowded marketplace. In today’s fast-paced world, where first impressions are often made online, understanding how to effectively shape your personal brand has never been more important. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Adrienne Wallace, managing partner and practice lead at interview, to dive deep into what personal branding entails, why it matters, and how you can build a strong and authentic brand that resonates with your audience.
From crafting your story to leveraging social media and everything in between, we’ll explore the strategies and insights you need to elevate your personal brand to new heights. Hi, Adrienne; thanks for joining us today.
Adrienne: Hi. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Jenn: So Adrienne, you currently work to help individuals find fulfilling careers. Tell us a little bit about what that means and what led you to this line of work.
Adrienne: Yeah, I’ve been in the industry and specifically focused on the discipline of marketing and communications my entire career. My journey to finding the company that does what it does, which is interview, which is a company that takes executives, mid-level and director-level professionals and helps them to really curate and present their personal brand in the instance of having to look for a new job, contemplating the search for a new job, finding themselves working, and having to present themselves on panels or keynotes, leading teams where they have to present and communicate, live and in person, and even in writing. One of the things that has happened and how this journey began, and how I ended up here today, is really using all of the experiences I’ve had as a marketer past life, whether it’s at a CPG company or an advertising or PR agency, or a stop like Facebook, or working in startups and seeing that I got to work at very high levels and at the low levels with employees who really didn’t know how to project their own personal brands. So my journey to finding interview as a company was a culmination of my passion about empowering people and communities in the way that I have in my past life, and the way that I do in my current life, and recognizing the transformative power of being able to communicate effectively across all different modalities and devices, and especially in a highly digitized age. Throughout my career, whether I was raising money in grants for Girls, Inc. as the CEO of Girls Inc. or pioneering the first supplier diversity program at Diageo. The underlying theme has been about creating narratives and also managing to the personal brand narratives of people to inspire consumer action or sponsorship or funding. So interview really embodies the ethos of leveraging the backgrounds of PR, digital strategy, an unwavering commitment of my own to diversity and social justice, to help individuals really define who they are and navigate their career paths with confidence and with purpose at the same time.
So taking all that you’ve done, your skills and your professional wares, but also balancing that with what it is you truly believe in, and that’s what you present to the world, whether it’s the work world or something else.
Kalli: That’s so true. And I’m wondering, for C-suite executives and other business leaders, you know, how important is it even for them to create a personal narrative? And what’s the difference between that story and their company narrative?
Adrienne: Well, this is a digital-first world, right? So whether you’re in the C-suite or not, but particularly in the C-suite, a personal narrative is really, really crucial. It starts before you get to the C-suite. So executive leaders and business leaders and those who run teams and run Companies really have to balance that thing that I talked about. What is it that I’m really good at? What are the career paths that I’ve had where the skills that I’ve leveraged should bring me to this C-suite executive level? But at the same time, what are my values and my narratives? When they lead a company, the company’s missions and values are oftentimes hopefully strongly aligned with those values. The narrative that you create is something that goes beyond just corporate branding. It’s something that you take with you no matter where it is that you lead. So for corporate executives in particular, we say start when you have the aspiration to become prominent, really just start at the very, very beginning. To be honest with you, I teach college courses, and I tell college students that starting is now. It’s their resume. It’s what they do online, on social media, no matter whether it’s TikTok, which is incredibly popular with that age group. Or if it’s LinkedIn. People want to see leaders who are humanized. They want to see people who seem open and accessible. And they really want leaders who are relatable in terms of the brands and products that they represent. It’s, you know, are you representing a product or a brand or a service that you yourself use or would use? So a personal narrative that you develop is something that has to have strong accountability. It has to really strongly complement the company that you belong to and that you lead. But it has to be open enough to say that you can lead a variety and a diversity of people. The depth and dimension that goes into personal branding has a lot to do with different channels, different media access, and things of that nature. But I think more than anything else, starting a personal narrative is starting with your most human side. What is it that you lead? What is it that you care about and the why? And being able to translate that into various platforms.
Jenn: Yeah, I completely agree. We actually interviewed somebody who’s a Senior Director at LinkedIn and had a very similar conversation in terms of whether somebody’s starting a business or, you know, trying to leverage a project kind of building their personal brand, doing it to where it’s not self-serving, doing it to where they’re providing a value. And sometimes people forget about those things because they get really honed in on what it is that they’re trying to accomplish, without realizing that people aren’t really going to listen unless it’s a, you know, a two-way street. So I completely agree with that. What are some steps that you would recommend that an individual can take to create their own narrative in this digital space?
Adrienne: I think for me, I say to people, shut all the screens down, turn it off, get offline, use paper and pen like I am a lover of a paper notebook, right? I mean, like even a crayon. If you can’t find most people can’t find a pen in their house. You know, if they’ve got a kid, they can find colored markers and crayons. But the first way, you know, everybody thinks their narrative is digital. And they’re thinking so much more about kind of the platforms that it lives on and how it gets distributed. And that’s what’s digital. But the narrative is really about your brand essence, the things you believe in. What do you stand for? Right? What do you stand for? What are your goals? What have you achieved? And we’re talking about it in both work and life and then above and beyond that, above what you stand for and what you’ve achieved, what do you impact and write those things down? Make sure that when you write those things down, you understand that there’s so many places that this can go. So write it down with intention. It can go on LinkedIn, it can live on a personal blog. It can it can be delivered in a speaking engagement. But articulate your narrative first by taking note of yourself, giving yourself the space to be away from the distractions of the online space. Be away from the distractions of something digital or a mobile phone in hand, and just really write it down. Because this is how we initially realize our narratives, and we’re able to shape our narratives. One of the things I ask people to do often when I’m coaching executives, or when I’m developing a keynote or a panel presentation with an executive, and I want them to bring their authentic self to it. I say to them, talk to me about your greatest grief. And when they talk to me about what their greatest grief is, it oftentimes has nothing to do with work. But then they’re able to tie back the connection to work. And then I’ll say to them, well, tell me about your greatest joy, and they’ll tell me about their greatest joy, and then they’re able to tie that back to their work as well. So when you tell someone something, and they’re able to repeat it back to you in any scenario, write that down. When someone says something good about you, write that down. But it’s important to write, write, write, write it down first. That is the beginning of crafting the digital narrative the brand presence, the personal brand presence. It’s the beginning of what you put, where that creates the the digital footprint and effectively an offline perception of who you are.
Kalli: That’s so interesting. And you know, something I never really thought about, writing things down. I do write a lot just because it’s out of habit and I have a terrible memory. And if I don’t physically write it, I will not remember it. But to take it to the next level like that, to help really shape your thoughts and your story makes so much sense. And know we’ve talked a little bit about the digital footprint and how important that is. My question is, what impact does that digital footprint have on an offline perception?
Adrienne: I think for all of us, we remember the things that we see for as many screens as there are in front of us, we remember the things that we see. But the fact of the matter is, more than remembering what we see. We are not as quick to consume it. We’re not quick to digest it. We’re quick to share it. So what people need to understand is that people consume what you put very, very quickly, but they don’t digest it, so they don’t necessarily put thought against it. They don’t necessarily put intention against it. They quickly just share it with someone else.
And so your offline perception is effectively based on how viral people are in terms of their interactions with what you put on. People screenshot things and send it to friends. They’ll take it. If there’s a share feature there, share it very, very quickly. So before you ever enter a room, you want to really realize that when you’re doing something online or when something is placed for you online, that it is viral. You know, the moment that it lands, it becomes something that’s viral. So you know, everything you do just really say is that my authentic self? Is that me? Is that who I am? Is that how I want to project myself? Because once it becomes viral, or once I take a portion of what you said and put it in a different context, that is the offline perception. It is not just what you know and believe of yourself, it’s what everyone else is saying. So I would say offline perceptions require great caution more than anything else. You, yourself, and those you entrust and the media you entrust is really shaping the perception of what people who are talking about at the dinner table or at the conference.
Offline perception starts online, yes, but online perception starts offline, with you writing down who you are and making sure that people are clear, and that all the all the different avenues and all the different channels where you can be perceived or as consistent as possible. Offline perception is not something we have a lot of control of. As an executive. You can have communications teams; you can have PR teams and crisis teams, and branding teams. But the truth of the matter is, is that you really have to know the viral nature of anything that you put online and that it is not being digested. It is being consumed, consumed, consumed. And just think of the digestion of yourself as someone putting empathy, putting intention, putting thought against what it is that you have or what content lines up against your personal brand.
Jenn: Yeah, very well said. And I really liked what you said before about when somebody says something nice about you, write it down. I think that’s such great advice because we’re so quick to kind of brush off the good things we hear about ourselves, just human nature. And you really can utilize those strengths as part of your personal branding. So I think that’s really great advice. I’d like to know from your perspective. You know, media relations is obviously very important. When Kalli and I kind of crafted the awareness for our brands that we work with. In your opinion, how should individuals try to cement their personal brand approach? Media relations and approach to the media in general.
Adrienne: I think that when you’re dealing with media relations, for me, I think you need as an individual to understand what media relations are. It’s really the very strategic management of the communications between or an organization the people responsible. Therefore, after that, outside of the organization and inside of the organizations, the journalists, the media companies for putting it out there, for making it news, for creating a podcast, even creating what becomes possibly a commercial or a way to sell your brand. There’s all kinds of great editors out there. There’s folks who work for specific large publications The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg. And then there are folks who work for trade-oriented, you know, media. They may work for Forbes, or they may work for Adweek or something like that. It’s to really kind of know what those entities are, what those journalistic entities are in media. Properties are know what areas they focus on. Then, go deeper. Know the independents, the bloggers, and the influencers are really doing the damn thing out here. You know, they’re the ones. They’ve got followers. They don’t need to work for a magazine. They don’t need to work for a newspaper. They don’t need to work for a network. They are out here creating their own shows, creating their own podcasts. So it’s really important, I think, as you manage your personal branding, understand how big media is, all the different levels of media, and then approach it with a strategy. And that strategy starts with what we’ve been talking about. It starts with authentically, who are you? What do you represent? What is it your job to share, to disseminate, to build, to distribute and understanding that in the media landscape there are authentic storytelling opportunities, and then there are opportunities to the storyteller to sell.
And, you know, back in the day when I started at Time Warner, storytelling to sell was what we called the advertorial. It was people tricking folks into buying something by creating a narrative, by creating written content. So, as it relates to media relations and personal branding, know your sources and make sure they’re reliable sources. If you’re not versed in media relations, really find someone who understands it. Connect with the people in your company, the PR and communications leaders in your company or at your agency that can give you the unique insights that can show you how to monitor things you care about and the experiences you care about, and how that therefore be a part of those experiences.
Kalli: I mean, it’s definitely true that there are so many people who are, you know, experts in their field, but not experts in media relations. How do you go about really educating those people about the importance of media relations in building their narratives?
Adrienne: From a from a standpoint of having been a CMO and a Chief Communications Officer. When you’re inside of a company, whether it’s the CEO or seriously, the person who works for the company that’s at the front desk as a receptionist, you really need to make sure that everyone understands your brand story, right? Your overarching brand story. Who are we? What do we do? Why do we do it? What are the tenets of our brands? So understanding that they’re all seeing stories about your business, your product, your executives as employees outside means that you have to educate all of your employees on media relations. For me, it’s going in and working with the HR teams. And as learning and development is happening and as onboarding is happening with new employees, we know that these employees, typically engineers aren’t necessarily going to be savvy on media relations. And so that’s where the education piece comes in. That’s where the learning and development piece comes in. So it’s really important for communication managers and leaders to partner with HR teams and learning development teams so that you can show the value of media, um, show what it means to be media savvy. Show the different types of media that the company subscribes to that the company appears on, that your executives and employees and even your partners subscribe to appear on. You want folks to understand why we use this? We use it to amplify voice, you know, to deliver our expertise. It’s important to just do learning and development and update people regularly. I think also, intranets are important. Newsletters and intranets are important to let folks see how media relations is impacting the business and the story of the business, your products and your services, and who runs the business, who makes who operates the business.
So also creating kind of what I would call intermedia is really important. So, an intranet setting that up, showing how that works, and putting employees on stage is an excellent way to give them a taste of media relations and how that works so directly. When you’re having a town hall and you’re going to talk about new things that the engineering team is doing, put the engineering leader on stage at that town hall. Don’t just have the CEO deliver it. So there are lots of ways to educate cross-functional experts on media relations, get the media savvy, and get the media ready. You want to demystify the idea that only the CEO can do media, or only the CMO, or only the head of communications and PR. So, you teach people what media relations is. You show them when you are, you know, prominent in the media. You make sure they’re aware of it. You culminate that information. If there’s a press release, everyone should be seeing that press release. So, have a place where employees can go, that they can be educated from a learning and development standpoint, onboard them with notions of how we, the company, and our employees operate in the media and with the media. Teach them how to be media savvy, how to handle interviews, what to say, and what we should all be saying. Teach them what I think is incredibly important. And I did this a lot when I was at Diageo. If you’re in a high-risk business, if you’re in a vice-oriented business, if you’re in a business that can be polarized in society, that could be pharmaceuticals, it could be wines and spirits, it could be tobacco, you know, it could be, um, sex toys. There’s a lot of industries out here that can be polarized. If you have employees that work in that industry, what is the do says and don’t say, what are the brand guidelines? Make sure every employee, no matter what they do, from engineering to the reception desk, has those personal brand guidelines and that they are trained on it from an onboarding and a learning and development standpoint.
Jenn: Absolutely. I think that’s great advice. And so we talked about PR and we talked about social media and sort of building, you know, your brand narrative. How does the idea and planning of content creation contribute to shaping an individual’s digital footprint and narrative as well?
Adrienne: I think you definitely need to be educated on where it is you play. I think there needs to be someone with strategy on how to play. I also think you have to be super open to who’s on your team. That may be outside of the cipher of the media, the marketing, the PR team. It’s what are we looking to do? So really, really knowing your community, knowing your team is integral to deciding how you create the content that you’re going to deliver. Right? So content creation is vital, but it’s creating the content, collecting the content, looking at sources outside of the obvious, you know, if you are going to be talking about something like candy and there is a person who works in finance, who has all the candy jars in her office. Like, I love those people, the person in my office that I can go to their office at 3:00 for a piece of candy. So you really have to kind of content creation is about knowing your community and really canvassing your community, taking a step back again, once again away from the screen to really put content together. People are vital tools, so value people, value your community in order to shape the content that you’re going to create. You know, when you’re working in different platforms, different social media platforms, you have to decide what those platforms are going to be used for. Am I going to use Instagram for simple employee engagement or to promote our events? You know, what am I going to use that for? Where does my customer or consumer or client go? Where do they go? They’re not all the same and they’re mutually exclusive. Your customer is not necessarily your consumer. Your customer may be a large retailer who sells your product, but your consumer is actually the person who buys that product. So getting really deep into understanding when you’re planning and building content, all the different channels operating outside of the tenants that you know, the discipline that you know, the knowledge of how the platform works and what the bells and whistles are. It’s really about including everyone in the process. You know, you may have instances where you’re creating content and you need to tap into the procurement team to find out how does this product really get into our stores? What is what is that? What is that experience from a manufacturing standpoint, from a distribution standpoint, from a warehousing standpoint? And a lot of the times when you understand what everyone else is doing and what their processes are, you’re able to make the absolute right decisions about what platforms you’re going to use to share insights and engage with communities, what communities are going to be available to you there.
Kalli: That’s great insight. You know, there’s so many things to consider. And I’m just wondering what’s the most challenging part of the process when you’re building a personal brand?
Adrienne: There’s a couple of things, and it’s really psychological and behaviorally based. People throw around impostor syndrome and that term a lot. But I think that there’s a validity in people having confidence, having self-esteem, feeling supported in order to deliver their authentic selves. So the challenging thing is really the psychology around saying, I am who I am, embracing that, feeling confident in that. So, as you build a personal brand back to that piece of paper, what are the things that are important to you? Who are you? What are your I am statements? So get that down first and foremost, because it is integral to really being able to define your personal brand. I often recommend that folks, you know, write things down that they believe first about themselves, about their business. Walk away from it for a couple of hours and then look at it again and ask yourself, is that true? We all want to show up, and we want to appear as the best of ourselves across everywhere that we show up in the office online.
A lot of us have a fear of missing out, and so building that confidence is making sure that your Im statements and the what we do statements are solid, and that you really look to see whether or not only are they solid, but are they authentic. Is that what I really do? Is that who I really am? Is that what we really deliver? So the key is to regularly, regularly go through an I am and allow yourself the flexibility in your business, the flexibility and your people, the flexibility to change because all of these things endure what your personal brand is, engage your community, you know, get the perception from the people you trust. Listen to the perceptions of the people you don’t trust. You don’t measure those perceptions. Is that true? Building a personal brand is not something that you can do overnight, right? People say, oh, I did that so quickly, or he’s an overnight sensation. It’s taking the time out to invest in yourself. Invest in learning about yourself. Invest in learning about your business, the people who impact your business. It’s an ongoing effort to build a personal brand. There are people like me who are very, very early on in the podcast arena or what became the podcast arena recording voice streams on SoundCloud, maintaining that having an opinion that didn’t require anyone else. So building your personal brand is about investing in not necessarily having everyone cheer you on, not having a fear of missing out, but really taking an effort and making it a consistent, ongoing, dare I say, disciplined effort. It’s like hygiene to check in with yourself. What are we doing? Who am I? Why are we doing that? Do I still like it? It’s really, really challenging to be consistent across different platforms and have a perception of your personal brand as being consistent and not all over the place. If you yourself are not consistent, I would say don’t give it away to anyone else. You’re going to have your communications experts, you’re going to have your PR agencies, but make a solid investment in yourself. We talk a lot about people starting out or, you know, people that are budding in their career, so to speak. But I want to ask about maybe an individual that’s a little bit at a higher level. Why do you feel personal branding is still important for maybe like a C-suite level executive or somebody that’s just already finding success in their current high-level role. First of all, because everything changes. So, my CEO today may not be my CEO tomorrow, so he or she needs to know that. They need to know that everything changes. Everything is subject to change. Um, people change their minds all the time. So, personal branding for those types of people who are massively successful could be making millions of dollars in their role. Um, we’ve seen it happen. We’ve seen whether it’s a startup CEO or a CEO of a, you know, a Russell 3000 or fortune 200 company disappear to others. It’s seemingly overnight. But I think that what’s critical for those people who are already successful or considered successful is that they take a look at how they’re defined, and they make the investment of saying, well, in spite of how I’m defined, what do I want to impact and what is the effect that I want to leave? So I think that each of us at our different levels in particularly those in the C-suite, need to really think about and recount what the legacy impact is that they want to make, that when their life as CEO of XYZ company is over, where do they want to go? It’s not just about where you are, but many as CEO, many as C-suite ERS go on to take on board roles and board seats. So an authentic personal brand really says, here’s who I am, here’s what I’m impacting, but here’s also what I want to impact on in the future. So, I may work for a construction company, but I am a lover of nature and animals and sustainability, so my personal branding has to reflect that. It’s really important to reflect that. It does a couple of things. It reminds me of who I am at my core and what’s valuable to me that I don’t get paid for. But it also tells the world what I’m valuable to apply myself to in spite of, and that they can apply me to and ask me to advise on and belong to in spite of my role. So personal branding matters because it strengthens the leadership aspect of who you are. It shows self-awareness. It helps you to contribute to conversations and things that matter in your future and in the future of the world. So I think that that’s why that really matters for folks who are. I’ve already arrived to really take personal branding very, very seriously. It’s not just about where you’re at, it’s about where you’re going and the impacts that you leave behind.
Kalli: Thank you so much, Adrienne, for joining us and sharing all this amazing insight. It’s an extremely important topic. And it really is something that we need to talk about more.
Adrienne: I agree, absolutely agree.
Kalli: And to all our listeners out there, don’t miss out on our new episodes dropping every other Wednesday or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have someone in mind that you’d love to hear as a guest, hit us up on social media or shoot us an email at impressions@pollackgroup.com. Can’t wait to hear from you.
