In episode 32, Veronica Guguian and Jillian Vorce discuss the intricate interplay between personal and company branding, focusing on concrete methods to effectively market both. They stress the importance of strategy when it comes to personal and corporate identities in marketing endeavors, advocating for tailored approaches that integrate sales tactics with broader marketing strategies. With an eye on audience engagement and strategic objectives, they highlight the importance of leveraging social media, strategic networking, and the integration of enjoyable projects into marketing campaigns and overall strategies.
In this episode, Jillian and Veronica explore effective strategies for marketing oneself and one's company. They stress the importance of consistency in marketing efforts, which are aligned with overarching business goals. Their discussion centers around leveraging personal and company presence on social media, with Veronica advocating for delegating company social media to focus on directing branding efforts. Jillian emphasizes the power of personal branding in attracting attention and promoting the company.
They also address the challenge of balancing personal and company marketing, especially when expanding the team or outsourcing sales. Strategic planning and prioritization are highlighted as essential for achieving marketing objectives and fostering company growth. The hosts share their experiences with online networking and conferences, underscoring their significance in marketing endeavors.
Lastly, they announce a new initiative for live brainstorming sessions with listeners, aiming to enhance collaboration in marketing efforts. Overall, the episode offers valuable insights and actionable strategies for effective marketing success.
About Veronica Guguian
- Website: https://spinideas.nl/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-guguian
About Jillian Vorce
- Website: https://thejilliangroup.com/better
- Website: https://jillianvorce.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianvorce
Credits
- Music Composed by BeeLa Music
- Voiceover by Amanda Balagur
Jillian Vorce: Hello. Welcome to episode 32. Today, we're going to chat about tangible things that we do or concrete things that we do to promote ourselves in our business. A take-off of episode 22, which is about personal versus business branding. So, concrete things we do to market ourselves. Good morning, Veronica. How are you?
Veronica Guguian: Good morning, Gillian. I'm good. Even if it's cloudy outside, I have my cup of coffee.
Jillian Vorce: Ready to roll. Ready to roll and ready to crack a roll.
Veronica Guguian: Yes.
Jillian Vorce: Cool. Are you excited about this topic?
Veronica Guguian: Yes, actually, I do like the topic, and it's one that keeps on coming back. I do remember a couple of years ago, before the pandemic. Do you remember?
Jillian Vorce: That time, way back when. Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: When were we speaking at conferences that we are restarting now?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: I was at the European Women in Tech conference and was a speaker there talking about personal branding, actually, and promoting yourself. And it's very hard to, especially, explain to people who are just starting the difference between personal branding and company branding and also how these two are connected because you can't really take one out of the discussion. You know, it's. It's not even a chicken and egg type of thing. They are just way too connected.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. Symbiotic, for sure. Yeah. I think it's. It's interesting because you know when you know the topic for today, right? What do we do to market ourselves and our business? Of course, it lends itself to that conversation about personal versus business branding. Still, it also makes me think about the episode we did talking about sales versus marketing because the topic for today is really how we market ourselves, which is not necessarily the same thing as the sales process.
Veronica Guguian: Exactly.
Jillian Vorce: Anyway, there are. Yeah, they're all connected. There's a lot of overlap. Do you want to jump in, get us started, or share some of your top secrets or even what you do yourself, how you market yourself, your business, or how you have over the years?
Veronica Guguian: I was wondering if we should make a short summary of episode 22. But maybe it's better to invite our listeners to go and listen to it.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: And I think it kind of depends a little bit on what you want to achieve and where you are in the business. I think we need to differentiate between solopreneurs and freelancers here, stating that they are the job. So, in that case, personal branding is company branding, basically because they don't have a company name per se, but they work under their name. It seems my voice decides to disappear, and then it's easier, I would say, because your personal branding is your company branding. So whatever you do, you represent your company at all times, every single moment. And I think that's very important to remember because even your personal opinions, they may be political or whatever, they will have an impact on your company image and what you're doing. Because everything is perceived as a company.
Veronica Guguian: They are hiring you, and especially if you're a graphic designer, for example, or you know, someone very creative, a lot of your influences, of course, will be reflected in your work. Even if you're professional, you keep them out, but it's part of your creativity. Right. And a difference between when you're creating a company brand. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that when I launched Spin Ideas in 2017, I was working in parallel on my personal branding but also my company branding because I knew I wanted a company; I wanted people to work with me, and I didn't want to be a freelancer. So, if you want to build a company, it's very important to start working around the company brand. What does the company stand for? What do you want to do? Who do you want to target?
Veronica Guguian: What do you want to express? We use the term Word bank. What are the words people want? You want people to use it when they are speaking about your brand and to work towards that. And you are using your personal branding and your network to promote the company brand because it's something very new. No one's gonna know about them, but they will know you are behind.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: So it's, as you said, symbiotic. One can't exist without the other. But I think the first thing that you need to consider is what you want. Do you want to build and have people working for you, or do you want to? You are, you are the main character of that story, and that will dictate how you approach it. Afterward, the tactics are actually the same. What do you do to promote yourself? You need to express your ideas, your opinions, and your thought leadership. You do that through content, social media, and going and speaking at conferences, workshops, and master classes. It's very popular to write books. You can do that. It's a very good way to express networking, being present, and just sharing your opinions and knowledge with the team. So, we are not reinventing the world.
Veronica Guguian: We are using the same thing. What is behind it is how you use them. And which one do you put in front? If you're focusing on the company, of course, you're going to post as the company first, but you're going to use your personal branding to promote it. And not, it's not the company that we're going to go and speak at the conference, but a person, but you're gonna go there representing the company, and you're those two. So that's the difference. But if you're a freelancer, you're gonna go there, and you're, you represent, I'm the one. So come to me.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, it's funny; I was, as you're describing, visualizing it and also thinking, for some reason, my mind went to food. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, but I was thinking about the marketing piece, and in terms of, you mentioned all of the tactics and such, but on the marketing side I was thinking it does matter so much. It's so important to know what your brand is and to have kind of consistency in how you're presenting your brand. Right. So, for example, this food situation is like if you produce some sort of a, you know, I don't know, fruit tart or something, it's, would you, or based on your brand, is your fruit tart going to be in the bread aisle? Is it going to be in the fruit aisle, or is it going to be in the organic section?
Jillian Vorce: Or maybe it's not even available in a supermarket. Maybe it's only available in certain boutiques or something. So it's what, where do you associate, what do you want your brand associated with? What types of organizations, what types of people, which type, you know, what type of events, etcetera. I think that's an important piece to be aware of and to hopefully be proactive around, whereas I think it's often easy to forget that piece and just look for, like, oh, opportunities to put myself out there and not really think about what's brand and who are the people that, where are those people? Like the overlap between, you know, what your brand is and the people that you want to reach, where they go, and who they are influenced by?
Jillian Vorce: So I think there's kind of like this brand integrity piece that does matter when it comes time to start marketing ourselves or our brand.
Veronica Guguian: I love the fact that you brought this, and I always call this the values. What are your values, and how do you want to be presented? And let's link the first step of the spin methodology, where basically we talk about this: how do you want to be perceived? And it's not about being present in the market; it's being present in the white spot, as you said because I love the food analogy.
Jillian Vorce: It's. Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: How do you want to? Who are you targeting? Who is your audience? First, you define what you stand for and what's important to you, and then you go to see who you want to target. Because of the foot art. Yeah. It can be anywhere, right?
Jillian Vorce: It can be pre packaged in a box on the shelf that you can, you know, you don't have to open it first. You can be like them; what do you call them? Oh, what is that? The fruit bread. The. What's it called? The. Oh, my gosh, I'm drawing a blank. The Christmas bread with the candied fruit lasts for six years. You know, that Christmas bread that has. Oh, my gosh. Somebody listening right now is like, yes, I know what it is. And they're saying it, but I can't hear what it is.
Veronica Guguian: So that.
Jillian Vorce: Just write it down forever. Yeah, exactly.
Veronica Guguian: Anyhow, definitely, you don't want to eat that. If it can last, that's fine. You don't want it.
Jillian Vorce: Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue. Anyhow, go ahead.
Veronica Guguian: I hope it will come by the end of the episode because I.
Jillian Vorce: I really want to know now.
Veronica Guguian: Anyhow, what was I saying? Yeah, but depending on where you are, that will actually dictate it. Like, are you organic? What are your values? What do you want? Do you want to last forever? Is that your value, that you can be found by anyone, anytime to just step into your analogy, or do you want to be organic and address a specific niche? What is important for you? And then you can actually look at the audience, and that will dictate to you where you want to be. What conferences do you want to speak at? Because you can't be present everywhere. You don't have the time, first of all, the energy or the money to support that. And if you're only speaking and you're a solopreneur, then who's doing the work? You need to be selective.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, I think so. That's kind of shifting gears, and I am just speaking from personal experience and how this shows up for me in my efforts to market myself and my company. One of the things I do, one of the first things I do is what I think of as, I guess, strategic seed planting. Right. So it's kind of an extension of what we're talking about a few moments ago. It is really looking at the opportunities that are out there and then being selective about which ones I put in my basket. Right. So, you know, what events do I attend? Yeah. Networking, which groups I'm networking with and who I'm making introductions with as well because that starts to build some kind of social capital, some social equity.
Jillian Vorce: So the relationship-building piece, what events content, what content I'm consuming and or sharing and or creating. So that strategic seed planting piece is actually quite effective because then it's not just about people seeing me, but it's leveraging the association that they have with this other group or another kind of consortium of brands or locations, et cetera. So sometimes that can kind of lift it up. Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: And also, it's a very nice way to show them where they can, where you can meet face to face. Maybe they are not ready to actually get in touch with you or work with you, but they are curious to meet you. And maybe they are not so outgoing to write to you directly, but they will learn about events, and that's a nice way to actually get in touch, get to know you better, and just absolutely build a relationship. What I'm also doing, actually, and of course, in the beginning, I was doing my personal social media, and also the company one, but the more the company grew, what worked very well for me was actually to delegate the social media for spin ideas.
Veronica Guguian: So not being me, the one making it or creating it and posting it, and actually a team member is in charge of that because then you can be you and you're focusing on your ideas, you're directing. Of course, you influence the company, but having more opinions really helps. All these opinions, creativity, and contributions are very in line with the brand, the company brand and values, and World Bank and the same idea. But coming and writing someone else's writing and posting really helps me because then I can differentiate between my personal branding and the company. One still can share and help build the company brand, but it's easier for me to create them. Did you experience the same thing?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, I think the, yeah, again, that overlap between the branding and then the actual marketing side. And with respect to social media, I've actually had this conversation with a number of other folks. And in episode 22, I relayed one example specifically about orbit media and how the company itself, the LinkedIn page of the company has like, I don't know, 9000 followers or something. But a friend of mine, who is the CEO or co-CEO, I forgot his role. CMO co-founder, something, I forget his role, but he has like, I don't know, almost 60,000 followers on his LinkedIn page because it's, you know, people want to interact with a human, with a person, not as much a brand per se. So I think about that, and then it also comes into play when thinking about publishing content in terms of newsletters, etc.
Jillian Vorce: So for me, I think, yeah, publishing on social media, trying to, a bulk of it is through my own personal kind of profiles because that allows the opportunity for me to interact with people. But also, I feel like on the brand side; it's to keep it relevant and to still have an opportunity for people, you know, to see that I'm active on, you know, we're a living, growing kind of organization. Right. And for some people, they might just want to know. It's like, it's like at an arm's length. They want to know what's going on, but maybe for whatever reason, they aren't jiving with me personally, or they just want to know a few layers removed from what's going on because I do a similar thing.
Jillian Vorce: I'm interested in some companies that I'll follow, but I'm also interested in the perspective of some of the people within that company. So, I try to leverage both. And then again, it depends on how we're showing up. You know, the channel is a little bit different in how we're showing up. But I think for sure strategic seed planting is one of the things. The content is the same thing with podcasting and the same thing with workshops and speaking. Same idea. How am I presenting?
Veronica Guguian: Yeah.
Jillian Vorce: Am I introducing myself as, you know? Yeah, I have been an entrepreneur for 25 years. Am I the, you know, the founder of the Jillian group? Like, there's different ways to leverage different scenarios, always to have integrity, but.
Veronica Guguian: Still, there are different hats that you're playing.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, exactly.
Veronica Guguian: Wearing different roles that you're playing and you need to show slightly different roles.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, exactly. And one.
Veronica Guguian: Oh, sorry, one point that I wanted to make is that both your personal branding or your presence and the social media presence of your brand are serving different goals, and that's very important because that will dictate what you're sharing. So, of course, you want to promote the brand and show the brand, but usually, with the company brand, you want to attract new clients, or maybe you have a specific campaign, or you're launching a new product. They're slightly different from your personal brand, where usually you're sharing your opinion, you're positioning yourself as a thought leader, or showing up with your expertise. And, of course, you're also going to share that as a brand.
Veronica Guguian: But when you have several expertise, and let's say I do, I'm focusing on the strategy, but I do have team members doing SEO or doing social media, excuse me, or other things. So, you are showing as a brand that you provide more than just one area of expertise. So I think it's very important to consider what the purpose is. What do you want to achieve with that particular brand for that particular period of time? And that dictates how you show up as well.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, I think that's, yeah. Building on top of that, I think, or the way I internalize that and the way I operate with that is kind of this also hybrid between attraction and promotion. Right. So, I think sometimes it's easier to have an attractive type of campaign around a personal brand. Right. Or personal marketing because people can connect to it more easily. Right. But then on the other side, and this is how I'm, this is my kind of strategy here, is the attraction on that side, but a promotion on the company side, and it's specifically in terms of outreach to specific companies that I want to work with, etcetera.
Veronica Guguian: And you do that through your personal brand.
Jillian Vorce: No, the company side.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah, okay.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, exactly.
Veronica Guguian: Exactly.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, yeah. So, the attraction versus promotion, and where do they both fit into the equation or do they? But for me, this is how we're deploying both of those strategies.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah, that's a very good point. I'm happy you made it because I think that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with and sometimes I do as well, especially who's doing the sales in the company. And if you're going with your personal brand and you keep on doing that the moment you are externalizing sales or you bring someone into your company doing that, how do you make the split and be organic? So probably, you are not really thinking about it when you're just launching the company because you have things that are much more important or urgent. But it's very important to start thinking and to place it strategically in your planning. Then how do you do it? Because otherwise it's very hard to bring and delegate and just grow your company. And you have just so many hours in a day.
Veronica Guguian: So you really cannot do everything.
Jillian Vorce: That's. Yeah, not for any prolonged period of time, that's for sure.
Veronica Guguian: No, you'll just drive yourself into the ground and still not do everything.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Any other thoughts about how you specifically market yourself or market your company?
Veronica Guguian: I must say, lately, we haven't done a lot, but what we do, it's in between. Because I do like getting hard projects or fun projects, like base conferences, for example, or we have the ONS, the online networking with the spin that they are. They are under the spin brand, but they started as. I just want to play around and see what happens. You go ahead, and you do them. And maybe this is something that our listeners could consider. What do you do with this fund project? And I must admit, we had episodes about this. Now, I'm struggling to see how I feed them in my company and how I place them in the overall tools and tactics that we have. And maybe when you launch, I will invite you.
Veronica Guguian: Let me start by saying that I invite everyone to make space in their company's program for fun projects because that will enable you to learn to have fun, to experiment, and also to just be there with something.
Jillian Vorce: Right.
Veronica Guguian: But do it strategically.
Jillian Vorce: Right. So it could be like a conference like you did, or it could be like our podcast. It's a fun project that is related.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah, but it's not something to necessarily bring money, or it's not something that you want to sell. It's just how you position it, right? And for us, it's definitely, we just, let's have fun and share our knowledge. That was the whole point of this. And we do. It fits perfectly in our personal branding, actually. But every company when they do that, and I know now we get clarity. We had a session, like a two-week section strategy session for my company. So now we get clarity. We got clarity on that, and we will start implementing it. But there are moments when you just start something fun, and it starts getting a lot of your time, attention, and resources, and then you need to take a step back and analyze. How do you do that?
Veronica Guguian: Actually, I will probably not change what I did because times were different. But for the next project, I do know I will think more strategically. Like, what do I want to do with this? Is it a fun project that I want to place under the Veronica Go Guyan brand? Or do I want to place it under spin ideas? How does it serve, and how is it connected with the rest of the activities that we are doing? So the message or the advice or. I don't know, opinion is to think strategically about how you do it. And if it's just something fun because you want to do it, like, how the base was created. The base was one. I really wanted to create a conference to see if I could do it. Let's say I can do it.
Veronica Guguian: And the second was also because I needed to learn. My company was growing, and I had no clue what I was doing. So, like, how about I combine these two and create a base conference? And, of course, I wasn't alone in doing that. I had a lot of people around me helping me. So it's not only me doing it. I will. I don't want to say; I don't want to make it sound like that because it was not the reality. It's not true. Lana was amazing and helped me a lot and so many other people. But for the next project, I know I will think a little bit more strategically about it. Like, I do this, how do I do It? Do I do it underspin? And how is it connected and how does it serve my company?
Veronica Guguian: Because let's be honest, the older we get, the less energy we have, and we appreciate our time even more. So, I'm becoming much more aware of my energy and how I want to use it. Where do I want to place this energy? And I know we had episodes about this, and I have no idea about the number of the episodes, but I know you're going to remember and just place it, probably.
Jillian Vorce: Sure.
Veronica Guguian: And this is something very important. And now, looking back is something I will include when I launch something or create something or talk about personal branding and how different tactics or different projects are included in this.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I was just looking up quickly to see what number. The one. I know, I'm sorry, I keep on.
Veronica Guguian: Placing it to you, but you're so good at these.
Jillian Vorce: No, that one I wasn't sure. So I think. I think 23 episode 23, we talked about self-care and doing our best work, etcetera. And then we also. Also, we have the 16th, which is the one falling in and out of love with your business. Which also has a component of the energy piece and what's. Yeah. Where we get our energy from with our business. So. Sorry.
Veronica Guguian: Very important.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: Excuse me. What's happening?
Jillian Vorce: All right, so I feel like we covered the gamut pretty well. Talking about, you know, sharing ideas and also our experiences with marketing. Ourselves and our business obviously made the point that it overlaps quite a bit with the company and personal branding and then as well as that delineation between marketing and sales. So, I think we covered it pretty well. We get to put a ball on this one.
Veronica Guguian: I think that's pretty much everything. But before we go.
Jillian Vorce: Yes.
Veronica Guguian: Remind our listeners of our surprise.
Jillian Vorce: Yes, yes. Because we have done it ourselves, we had the live collaboration sessions where you were in the hot seat on episode eleven with us, and I was on the hot seat on episode 13, talking about the 2.0 version of my company. So what we opted to do as a way for us to be able to do what we love best, which is to interact with others, is to invite our listeners to apply for one of the spots available to do a live brainstorming session with us. So you'll see the link in the show notes and welcome anybody who's listening to apply for a spot. Obviously, we can't do one for everybody, but we're going to do our best to accommodate as many as possible. So. Yeah. Have a look at the link.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah. If you have a question or you feel like we are giving you advice, just join. Apply. As Julia said, let's have a chat. I'm curious.
Jillian Vorce: All right, super. So look at that. Another one. Another one wrapped up. So that was the end of 32. So, thanks for listening, and we hope to catch up with you in a future episode. Cheers.