Turning Brand and Visibility Into Revenue Growth

Speaker A: Sam.

Speaker B: Sa.

Speaker A: High Level is a full CRM and marketing platform and I've used some of the best in the SAS industry. Mhm. Sam. And we are live on um, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitch, we've got X going and Instagram. It's revenging Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday revenue party, people. We have our hot guests and our hot topics. We'll be getting into here in just a moment. But first, you know I have to tell you about a few things. One of them being Streamyard. So Streamyard is what we're going live on right now. And we love it here at Revending because it allows us to be super creative and in our live streaming so we can have those videos like we were just playing. We'll have overlays here going on. But Streamyard, you um, can click this or scan this QR code, um, or just email me afterwards. Jessieviting.com I'll send you my affiliate link. And if you do, I would love to help you get set up. We have teams of people that get set up from this announcement. It always blows my mind but people want to go live on LinkedIn and that is a service we provide a done for you service. You literally just show up and we do everything. But you don't need a team like us. You can also do it yourself if you are that savvy person ready to just get your hands in there and do it. So scan that QR code and start going live. If you would like help you go to reviting.com and we would also be happy to help you. And of course I have to mention high level. So we've white labeled high level. I am a high level affiliate. Um, but if you sign up with Reviting, you get your own high level account. Since we white labeled it, it's app.reviting.com it's an agen CRM and marketing automation platform. So it's basically like you know those really expensive platforms that I won't name that you use in all of your marketing or sales jobs that the whole team uses. Um, but it's only $97 a month for three accounts. Since it's an agency platform, when we run marketing email, we have our podcast booking calendars that we create for teams on there. We're doing automation. All the things that you would do, you can do right in high level. Um, but hey Mark on YouTube from South Florida, where's everyone tuning in from tonight? We want to hear from you. I see there's about five of you on YouTube. There's. It's going up on Twitch and even on LinkedIn. Um, I see you're watching, you're lurking, but let us know you're here by leaving a comment. We'll try to put it up on the screen. If you have any questions throughout the show, plug them in because this conversation is for you, the audience. And quick reminder, this show, if you don't catch the whole thing, it is on podcasts and all major podcast platforms that you're listening to. We're hitting about 10,000 downloads per month now on just Spotify alone. Podcast has incredible reach. But anyway, you'll see more about that during our ad time. But right now we're going to introduce our guests. Welcome to the show. Melanie and Lauren, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker C: Thanks for having us.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thanks for being back. Um, but we've got some great topics tonight, but before we get into them, could you both tell us your full life story as we always do on Wednesday, from birth to what brought you to Now. I'm going to put the two minute clock up. Melanie, could you kick us off?

Speaker B: Sure. I like to go first.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker C: M.

Speaker B: My name is Melanie Borden, and, um, some of you might know me from LinkedIn. I'm the founder of the Borden Group, which is an executive visibility agency. So we work with executives, founders, teams, professionals across all industries. And I've been at this now with my own business for about five years, almost five years in August. I can't believe it's been five years already. So from birth, I'm from New Jersey, which is exciting. I don't know if there's anyone from New Jersey here. Um, so I'm a Jersey girl, born and lived. I used to live in New York City, which I go to frequently. And what else can I say? I don't know. In two minutes. What am I talking about, Jesse? I mean, am I supposed to be telling everyone everything?

Speaker C: I'm a marathon runner. I'm a mom.

Speaker B: Um, my house currently doesn't have air conditioning, so I'm sweating right now. Um, what else can I tell you?

Speaker A: Um, I don't know.

Speaker B: I love what I do. Um, I show up every single day and I'm just so happy to continue to do what I love every single day.

Speaker A: Amazing. And I mean, you've. You can always be short, concise. You don't have to fill the full two minutes. But yeah, I mean, any other. Anyone else from Jersey here? Because if not, I mean, I think we're pretty lucky to have our own Jersey person on the phone. Uh, on the phone. Because you guys are always have. What's the cliche? I don't know. There's just, like, a boldness about being from Jersey. Right. Like, you're not shy.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker A: Out there. And, gosh, the world needs more of that. Like, there's too many timid people not putting it out there. So I always appreciate having Melanie on. And you have an amazing book. Do you want to tell us about your book a little bit?

Speaker B: Sure, I'd love to. So I launched my book in, um, January of this year. Um, my book is called Theater of the Mind. And it's all about what happens when you launch your personal brand and when you're putting yourself out into the world. And it's something that I've gone through myself and that I work through with clients. And I continue to do it every single day and continue to find clients that are going through similar experiences that I am, where a lot of times people go through these things, as you know, Jesse, and they don't have that support. Support. They don't have somebody working with them. They don't have somebody helping them and telling them exactly what to do. So it's really a playbook for someone who's launching their brand from start to finish. Continually. Continuously.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the world definitely needs more of that. So check out Theater of the Mind. Where can they find the book? On Amazon?

Speaker B: Yes, you can find it on Amazon. And you can also go to my website, humantobrand.com and look there. And also my website, which is melanie borden.com.

Speaker A: all right, awesome. Well, I know I have my own copy. I'm super excited about it. Um, it's a good read. I mean, you did a really great job, I think, making it timeless in that so much change is happening in marketing, AI all the things. But you've made it a timeless classic. Um, yeah, absolutely. So, Lauren, we want to hear from you as well. I'm going to reset the clock here. Uh, not that we're really paying attention to it. An audience in the meantime, I see there's 15 of you on YouTube now. Let us know where you're tuning in from. We want to know what you for a living, because this conversation is going to be for you. We're just meeting our guests right now. We're going to get into the topics. But, Lauren, in two minutes, could you tell your full life story from birth to what brought you to now?

Speaker C: Um, if I'm talking for two minutes straight, then something is wrong. There's everyone. I want to know who you know in the in the Gulf Shores is grilling what he. What he's grilling. But in the meantime, I'll give you a little bit of a rundown. So, um, I'm from, uh, south of Boston, uh, and I run a brand, uh, strategy agency, Verbal first Brand strategy, meaning we do kind of the words first in branding. We'll get into a lot of that today. I know. Um, and we focus primarily on, um, B2B enterprise companies. So a lot of, like, big, complex tech companies. Our work is to help take the complexity out and simplify it so that buyers can understand immediately, um, what they're buying. Which is why I'm so psyched to, um, be joined by Melanie here, um, as well. Because there's such a sort of immediate connection between personal branding and how leaders, um, you know, put themselves out there and, um, and how they communicate with the world and how their corporations do as well and how those need to be, um, pretty well linked. Um, I grew up in this area. I went to school in Boston. Um, I moved to New York for a while, worked on the agency side of things, um, and also worked in tech startups. So, um, essentially with villain branding, our agency, um, we sort of work to create this. The strategic rigor of a big agency and, um, the sort of, uh, speed and efficiency of a, uh, tech startup and kind of merging those two. That's all I got.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, this is going to be an awesome conversation. We've got a lively crowd, so keep the comments coming. We want to know you're here, but our first topic we're getting into is about searchable leadership content. Well, searchable leadership strategy. I'm actually excited to hear about this from you, Melanie. I feel like it's a little bit outside of what I'm used to hearing you talk about. Um, I think of searchable as SEO. And these days we're always talking about AI SEO, Geo, aeo, whatever you want to call it, but you're calling it searchable leadership strategy. So tell us what you.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So one thing that I've noticed that a lot of people will find as they go through their careers is that a lot of spaces are super crowded. And so what I started finding was, you know, I was focusing primarily on personal brand strategy, focusing primarily on LinkedIn. And then all of a sudden, the industry just got so overwhelmed with so many people, so I had to kind of make some changes and go back to my roots. I've worked in digital marketing my entire career. So almost 20 years I've been working in this space. So if you think about leadership, it used to happen in conference rooms, and so today it's happening in search results. So 20 years ago, if somebody wanted to know who you were, they would ask someone. Today, what's happening is they're Googling you, they're going on LinkedIn, they're asking AI platforms, you know, whatever their favorite LLM is, whether it's Claude or AI, um ChatGPT, um, Perplexity, etc. They're going and listening to podcasts like this one. They're going on articles, um, they're reviewing all this different content, and they're also just scanning what's happening online. And it's not really whether they're researching you anymore. It's what are they finding about you, what are they reading about you? And so I call it Searchable Leadership. And there's a chapter in my book called Searchable Leadership, essentially where it talks about the three different layers of how someone is going to be searching you. Um, so number one is search engines, right? So we think Google, we think someone's going into the search and saying, okay, what comes up in those results? What happens when someone appears when they're doing a search for your name? Number one is LinkedIn coming up. Number two, is it a website? Is it your press? Is it podcasts? Is it, you know, a byline article that you put out? Is it speaking engagements? Um, so if page one doesn't reinforce your expertise, you're invisible. And I just want to go on record here to give myself props that I did this for myself and I constantly do this for clients. But I have successfully dominated the first four pages Google. So I just wanted to say that out loud because a lot of times I question if I'm doing the right things all the time. And I've been doing this for years. And so for somebody who isn't doing it, just start now. Just start. So, number one is search engines. Number two is you have professional platforms like LinkedIn. All right, if your audience is on Instagram or if it's on Twitch, um, or if it's on YouTube, you want to focus on those platforms, too. What does it say? So, for example, with LinkedIn, LinkedIn is my platform. That's generally where I'm, um, posting, and that's where I've built my primary audience. So what does LinkedIn say about you? Does it match what's showing up in the search results? Who are you? Who do you help? What do you do? Um, are you credible? You know, what's your track record? And can they tell this in less than 10 seconds when they come onto your profile? And then number three is now the search engines, the LLMs. And so, um, the AI search you have, asking it where the, where you are, who you are. Um, have you ever asked ChatGPT that. Which is something that, an exercise that I tell people all the time. Go into incognito mode in Google and do a search for yourself or for your business and ask who is, you know, your name or your business. And most people don't do this and they don't even realize that it's a factor. And they want to show up, um, in these results, but they don't know how. And so AI is definitely becoming one of the first places that people are going for summaries. And so it's just executives, leadership teams. People want to know what data is out there, what can AI find, how AI is determining who you are and how authority is built online. And so your reputation only used to travel through word of mouth and now it's essentially in three channels. And that is what I call searchable leadership.

Speaker A: I love that so much. And, uh, yeah, it's like. Let me take some notes really quick. So much there, audience. We want to hear from you. Because she just shared some really valuable information that I don't think many teens are thinking about. Like, we talk about marketing on here every Wednesday, and we're literally like probably every other Wednesday talking about AI. SEO. People want to know how to be searchable, but really, genuinely, this is how to do it. And it's really the brands that are going to be bold enough to do it that are going to win. Would you agree, Melanie?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. It's something that takes a little bit of effort, and it's different than just saying, okay, I decided I want to go to market and I want to have a personal brand and I'm just going to pick the social platform, which I think is generally how a lot of people think. Uh, yeah, Reddit is definitely big. I mean, Reddit has a deal with ChatGPT or OpenAI, where they are coming up in search, usually as one of the first results. But it's something that you have to just know that this is how it has evolved. Um, I don't control it, but it's something that I've seen happen over time. It ties in with different fats. So you have SEO, you have GEO plus, you have the social, and it's all working together. And it's just a different way to approach things, but it's relevant and it's happening whether we want it to happen or not. It's just, it's happening. And, you know, what different tactics and steps can you take to get there?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely happening. What's your take on all this, Lauren?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you know, Millie's saying something that's, that's really smart and that models are. Their job is to repeat what's consistent. Right. Um, overall, that's the entire point of AI. It's a probabilistic versus deterministic, um, tool to use. So when you're dealing with a platform like that, when the entire role of it is to identify, um, what's consistent, the consistency of what you say as a founder or a corporation, um, is hugely crucial. You just talked about, um, Jesse a second ago, like, being bold and making sure you're standing out. That's absolutely the case. Right. If everyone is using AI to help with their personal or their corporate positioning, then everyone's going to sound the same. Right. Because that's the entire point of AI. It's giving you the next most probable thing. So it's sort of built to give you the average. So if you are standing out and you are differentiating consistently in what you say and what your business is saying, um, then you're going to stand out more in AEO and you're going to give the models, frankly, what they're looking for so that it can easily sort of pin down what you or your brand stand for.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yep. So would you say, you know, for. For people who are out there getting started, Melanie, and for those who are like, you know, in this game and just posting content consistently and they need to get their strategy down, like, uh, what. How do you help people understand what they want to be known for and how they write about that a thousand different ways? Because it seems like strategy is typically where I see, or we see here at Revening. People get caught up and content doesn't work for them because if they don't know who their audience is, they don't know what their message is, then it's really hard for content to move the needle for them. So how do you help them come up with that strategy and what would you suggest to people as actual advice to move forward with that?

Speaker B: Such a great question. So the first thing that I'll say is I'm going to kind of work backwards from what you just said. So the first thing that I would say is, number one, if you don't own a website with your domain, with your name in the domain. So jessielizek.com, um, I would absolutely 100% buy that. Um, in addition to that, and this doesn't. If you work for yourself, if you work for someone else, it doesn't matter. Um, I want to kind of float this concept to everyone. And I know this kind of goes away from what you just asked Jesse, but there's a concept of having your personal brand as a rainy day fund. You know, growing up, I always heard from my parents, save your money. You need it for a rainy day. And as I got older, they kept saying. And I kept saying it. And then when I quit my job, they were like, what are you doing? But something that I'll tell you that for myself personally, I tell clients, number one, you, your brand is your rainy day fund. So buying a website domain, your name, dot com. Um, another thing you could also do that would also help you get started. Just for the future. As you're building is your name testimonials.com or yournamereviews.com and that's a great way to kind of start planning for the future. But as, as far as, like, actionable strategies and, you know, things that you could be doing, I mentioned essentially three different ways that you're now being evaluated. And the first way that. Right, exactly. That. That comment that just came in was so right. M. You have to create it, otherwise it gets created for you. Um, but when I'm working with someone, I'm kind of just like extreme of consciousness now. I feel like I'm rambling a little bit. But when I'm working with someone, one of the things that I do with them is we talk a lot about what they know. And I usually focus with them on picking one topic that they're very strong on and then two other supporting topics, and then we build from there. And that would be my advice for anybody whether they're starting out or whether they're stuck. Because it's a lot easier for you to talk from a place of expertise and knowledge, which is part of what these LLMs are looking for. It's also part of Google's strategy as well. So in addition to doing something that would be naturally easier for you, it's also a naturally easy transition for you to start putting yourself out there. So finding those core topics that you are really strong in is always where we start from. And, you know, when people get stuck, that's always what I go back to. And I try to simplify everything as much as possible. And a lot of times people think that, you know, it could sound a little elementary, but it's something that we forget a lot. And especially if we're working for someone else or even if we're working in marketing, we're good at doing this for others and for businesses specifically. But it's not, as always, something that's naturally easy. So especially when I'm talking to marketers, Jesse. It's something where, if you think about what you're doing for the company that you work for, um, whether you're on a growth team or whether you're doing, you know, something for, you know, a different type of business, maybe you work in real estate or you work in finance. Take those core things that you know and transfer that knowledge to yourself. That's how I got started. And I always say that I'm like, not anything very special, but I just took things that I understood from working in marketing and just transferred it to myself. And so knowing those topics of what you feel strong about are always a great, easy way to get started.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And I do remember one term you shared before, um, taking messy action. I always thought that was so powerful. I think I remember hearing you say that on, like, one of your LinkedIn audio things. I'm like, gosh, I love that. That's just so true. Just take messy action and just, uh, yeah, don't be scared. Like, your strategy might not be the best in the beginning, but it will get there.

Speaker B: Definitely. It makes you relatable, number one. I mean, my. I feel like my life is messy action. I mean, I started the podcast sweating because my air conditioning broke and I'm waiting. It's like that. One of the hottest weeks of the year in New Jersey. So, I mean, listen, is that going to stop me from coming on a podcast? No, it's not. If I have a snafu with tech I on a webinar, is that going to stop me from showing up? No, because the show must go on. The business is still going, I'm still operating. I still have to pay my mortgage at the end of the month. So messy action could look differently for anyone. But if you're not afraid to put yourself out there, if you're not afraid to be willing to be embarrassed and just know that everyone is thinking more about themselves than they're thinking about you, and that it's really about the audience that you're serving and it's not about you, then you'll be able to move through it faster.

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker A: Such a great takeaway. If anyone doesn't take anything else away, take that away, it's not about you, it's about your audience. Um, but anyway, yeah, let's get into this. I want to hear from the audience though. There's um, six of you on YouTube. We've got 15 of you on LinkedIn and 12 of you on Twitch, 10 of you on Instagram. So there's quite a few of you across channels here lurking. We want to know where are you from, what is your role, Are you active on LinkedIn? Like what, how are you building your personal brand? Um, but in the meantime, while you're telling us that in the comments, let's move into our next topic. Kind of switching gears into sales but still talking about brand, but using brand to shorten sales cycles. Lauren, could you kick us off on this?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. It ties pretty directly to what Melanie was just speaking to about really knowing yourself and sort of focusing on one or two key topics that you're interested in. I think the difference is at scale. When I'm speaking about this, I'm talking about more of our clients which are enterprise, um, and enterprise tech companies. Um, but the, the, the reason that I think Melanie, um, is, is telling folks, hey, speak about what you do best is because confused buyers don't buy. Right. Um, and that's true whether you're talking one to one or you're talking about marketing to millions of folks, um, thousands of other enterprises, if you're a B2B business, um, they don't buy if they don't understand what you do, right. They'll think about it for a while and they'll, you know, what turns started off as three months turns into, you know, a nine month sales cycle, maybe they go dark and you have to spend some energy and some time trying to get them to go back. Um, I see it all the time, right? A company has a fantastic product, they have a really strong team, they have a great pipeline. Um, and still they're sitting here saying the deals are sitting and they may be blame it on, you know, the SAS apocalypse or you know, um, AI is changing how people buy and those aren't untrue. Um, but what you're seeing is that everyone's sort of saying, well, sales has to step it up, sales has to step it up. And, and frankly this is me coming from a marketer and there's always those sales versus marketing kind of challenges. But in this case sellers usually aren't the problem. The problem is usually that the buyer has heard three different versions of what you do. You know, Melody just talked about how do you show up on Google, how do you show up in LLMs, how do you show up on your website, et cetera. Um, and the same is true on enterprise, right? If you're showing up one way on a website, then your founder is on stage, uh, giving a keynote and she's saying another thing. Um, and then when you're on a call trying to buy this product, the rep on the call is saying something different. Um, the buyer frankly doesn't have the patience, the time or the bandwidth to hold and figure out how to connect those dots, right? They need a single clear story about you in their head to really make, um, a smart decision. Um, so that they frankly can't say no. I saw someone in the comments a minute ago say essentially that, um, your brand is what people say about you, right? It is that relationship. It's not really something that you want to help to control. But at the end of the day, your perception, um, in the market is the reality of your business, right? So you want that buyer to hold that really clear story. These guys stand for X, right? Coca Cola stands for happiness. Right? I get what that is. Salesforce is all about the customer. I know that that's the case, right? Um, so we don't want them to be in the case of saying, let me think about it. You want to give them, you know, no reasons to say, to say no. But when they are in that world, that's when you have not a selling problem, but a true cash flow problem. Right? Um, every week that a deal sits, um, in this world of confusion because they're hearing so many different, um, versions of your brand, um, the less capital that you have, right, it affects your sales cycle, it affects how quickly you close deals and affects your deal deal velocity, your pipeline overall, etc. Um, and what we've seen is that, you know, there's data out there. I think there's a study by Dentsu that said that, um, high clarity brands, so brands that people understand immediately close at about 30, 31% faster than the ones that are sort of muddy, um, and they carry about 50% lower acquisition costs, right? So that, that's all because the buyer knew what the brand was about before they got on the call, right? The brand was sort of selling when everyone else was, um, was, you know, your salesperson was off, you know, not even on the call yet overall. Um, and so I think that when a company comes to us as a brand strategy and says, hey, we've got this challenge because people are telling all different stories and I want everyone to come together and tell one single story. And as an organization, the first thing I want to see is the sales data so that I can say, yeah, this is a much bigger problem than just a story problem. It's a cash flow problem. It's a revenue challenge. Um, which is something that folks don't usually hear from brand. Right. Brand tends to feel soft. Um, but this is why we care most about looking at the hard numbers. Right. Um, let's look at the story, let's look at the funnel, let's look at enablement. Let's look at all of those things together. And then I want to say, can everyone in your company tell what you do in ten seconds? Um, can your sellers tell your complete story of what you do in a way that's completely understandable in the same way without a slide deck in front of them? Um, if not, then it's not a sales enablement problem. It's a language problem. Um, and that's really what we want to help to close overall. Hope that helps.

Speaker B: Definitely.

Speaker A: M. Oh, so good. Before I share, Melanie, what's your take on all that?

Speaker B: It's totally aligned. I mean, I was sitting here just, like, nodding my head along as she was talking, because I kept thinking to myself, that's exactly what happens when I'm working with professionals or founders or leadership teams. So where you have to understand not only what the company does, but how do you explain what you do and how do you say it? And it's something that even myself as a business owner, that I'm challenged with, with making sure I'm saying it and I'm saying it the right way. And, you know, when you think about everything that's happening, from sales to marketing, and then you have this whole AI factor in. Does everybody understand across, you know, from the social aspect, you know, to the search aspect, to just the people aspect, exactly what you're doing and who you do it for and the results that someone gets. And, you know, it's something that a lot of people work on all the time. And I think that it's a constant motion. It's constantly something that's evolving and changing. I know, Jesse, you've made some changes in your business. I'm sure, Lauren, you have, too. And it's one of those things where you're constantly just working and refining and just making sure that because if what Lauren said, if someone doesn't understand who you are, what you represent, what you stand for, what you do, it's hard for them to purchase from you.

Speaker C: M. Especially since Those conversations and those questions are happening before you can even get on a call, right? Before you can even defend yourself. LLMs are driving that, right? And you don't have as much control. Even SEO is down. You know, Google's traffic is down like 35% in the last six months, um, which is massive when you're talking about billions and billions of page views. I, um, think that that sort of, um, that seems like you're handcuffed, right? It seems like you have no control, but in actuality, you have all the control with this. Right. Once you understand that the funnel is now broken and your brand has to do so much more work for you, you have the ability to really take a hard look and say, is our content everywhere wildly consistent and wildly different from what everyone else is saying in the market? Right. And if consistent, if it is relevant, right. It matters to your audience. If it is different and if it is credible, something you can actually deliver on, um, then you're in a really good spot with, with helping to stand out and, um, getting seen by LLMs as quickly as possible.

Speaker B: You know, it's so funny that you mentioned funnel, because I don't remember who it was, who I, who I was reading this about, but they were saying that the traditional funnel is broken and that it's no longer a funnel and now it's a ping pong machine. I don't know if you know who that quote came from.

Speaker C: No, I don't know if I know the ping pong machine. I know HubSpot. I, HubSpot changed it to, uh. Was it a ring or something? Now it's some kind of circular thing. You know, we're always. Everyone's trying to find their little piece of trademark pie here, but I had never been.

Speaker A: And then there's the bow tie too.

Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, exactly, yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, we haven't heard the bow tie one. I haven't heard that. But it's so true. I mean, people are, are not just coming from one place and it's, it's. Now there's so many other factors that come into play that, um, I think that a lot of growth teams, heads are exploding all over.

Speaker C: Yeah, it feels, it feels really scary, right? When you're suddenly your buyer is coming in, you know, halfway down the funnel at consideration and just wanting to make a choice. And it also is driving, um, these buying committees of what used to be two or three people, right? Maybe you got the CMO, the CIO and the CEO signing off now. It's like 25 to 50 people that are making this decision. And how do you sort of target and personalize your content while still being insanely consistent everywhere? It's, uh, it's definitely not. I don't envy, um, these, you know, these jobs for folks.

Speaker B: I will also say that I feel that it's having the. Having the ability to finesse and make changes and be visible in multiple places. You know, some people don't like the fact that LLMs are involved, and a lot of people have. There's a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt around AI, and I understand that, obviously. But I also think that it's a gift that we have, especially for someone who has zero digital footprint, um, because ultimately it will give them and enable them to be able to create something that they've already created offline and just be able to transfer that online, I think is amazing.

Speaker C: I just saw a question flash up of how, how important, uh, is the voice of the CEO from Lynda? Um, crucial. And I think that Melanie and I probably have different reasons why we would say this. So I'll, I'll kick off and then, Melanie, I really want to hear your take. Um, I mean, the CEO has to be wildly aligned with the company, um, message overall. Right. But has to do so in a way that is, as Melanie was speaking about, imperfect, authentic, really kind of reliable and reasonable. Right. I want to see the human behind the corporation. Right. And especially in this world of bots, doing, you know, a huge chunk of the search, I want to see the human behind your company. I want to really understand, um, you know, what you care about. I want to, I will, frankly, even if you're running a multibillion dollar business, I want to know about, you know, your life with your kids, what's your, what's your balance like? Right. But I still want to understand that your voice and how you tell those stories about life still align to the company that you are building. Right. Um, and LLMs want to see that too. Right. So as we talk about kind of the, you know, the AI search piece of it, um, it's crucial that they're consistent. But, you know, the CEO is, is as important as, you know, the homepage is. Right. It's just, it's another voice that's representing the organization overall. Yeah. You have a different take.

Speaker B: No, I totally agree with you. And the other thing that I would like to say, because this ties in a little bit to the executive visibility strategy part of the conversation, and I want everyone to think about this concept for a second that searchable leadership is what people find when they look for you. So you have that piece of it, right? Executive visibility is what causes them to look in the first place. And the most qualified person is, most times, rarely the most visible person. And I also always go back to, you know, if you were born before the year 2000, if you were born in the 1900s, you know, when we, you know, were had horse and buggy, um, or as my kids tell me, like, dinosaur time, um, you know, you just don't have this innate ability to promote yourself on a platform because it didn't exist.

Speaker C: We didn't have it.

Speaker B: We just didn't. And so I think that visibility often determines opportunity. And so a lot of CEOs believe that if I do great work, people, people are going to notice. But today what's happening is you have recruiters who are searching, you have boards that are searching, you have investors that are searching. Um, you have the media that's searching, you have conference organizers that are searching. So visibility is not optional anymore. It's part of leadership. The rules of leadership have changed. Visibility is now part of it. So if you are in a leadership position, it is now part of the process and.

Speaker C: Sorry, go ahead, finisher.

Speaker B: No, I was just gonna say. And that's really, you know, what I really believe, and I've seen it, and I know, um, Jesse and I have talked about this for almost six years since we've known each other through an online platform, because that's how we met. And it's great. And it's exciting that this space, you know, as much as I talked about earlier how I had to make changes in my business and, you know, start really going back to my roots with digital marketing versus only just focusing on one platform and personal brand, it's exciting that this opportunity exists. Um, and so I really think from a visibility perspective, it's. It's very exciting for a CEO to be able to step into this arena because it's going to do so many things. And like going on a podcast or doing a keynote, you know, you have the ability to impact at scale and serve at scale, and you can do that from the perspective of your internal employees. Um, you could also do that for recruiting, for, um, talent acquisition. You can do it for client acquisition. You can do it for whatever your goals are for your org. You can attach it to that and make it into something that's actionable, that turns into actual revenue.

Speaker A: Yes, yes. Gosh, this is so important. And like you said, it leads, um, really nicely into the next topic. But before we get there. We have a brief message. We'll be right back right after this.

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Speaker A: At uh reviting, we help B2B founders, executives, brands turn their live streaming into a real revenue channel. One livestream turns into a podcast, it turns into a social clip, it turns into email content like a newsletter and actual sales conversations. You get to have a lot of conversations with people when you have a podcast or a live stream like this. And if you want to be known, trusted and remembered in your industry without being online 247 worrying about your posting, this is what we do. Just head on over to Reviting.com and let's build your show. I want to give a quick testimonial for the Reviting team.

Speaker B: I was really nervous about doing live.

Speaker C: They very much have helped me increase my reach and online presence. So thank you Revenant.

Speaker B: I love what you and the team do.

Speaker A: I've been picking up 50 followers a

Speaker B: day just because that content is resonating so well.

Speaker A: It's working across a lot of different channels. For me.

Speaker C: One of the problems that we struggle with is getting our brand out there her team have been able to do for us is the idea of going

Speaker A: live on LinkedIn and using that platform

Speaker C: to its fullest extent through the way they're able to take the live event and break it down into bite sized

Speaker A: posts, video clips and as well as the content within the posts themselves. I, uh, love our customers. Okay, back to the topics. Let's get into it. So this was all really good. Wow. Let's make sure I don't spill anything over here. Executive visibility strategy. Melanie, can you kick us off on this?

Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker B: So I want you to take this concept and imagine this for yourself. Right. So I have a couple different layers, visibility layers. Number one is your positioning. Can people answer exactly what you are Known for in one sentence. Most people can't. And this actually goes back or to the conversation we were just having. They're known for everything. So if you're known for everything, that means you're known for nothing. And so that is something that you want to think about is how you're positioned. Okay, number one, Number two is your authority, right? So what proof exists online about you? Have there been articles about you? Have you been on podcasts like Wednesday? Um, featured in the news? Are you doing speaking engagements? Um, are you putting case studies out there? Have you won any awards? Are there recommendations? Your authority is so much easier to build when there's evidence that exists that you do this. And again, if there is someone who is just starting today, this is amazing opportunity. If you've already started doing this, you can just add on to this. And, and just keep in mind that when you are focusing on your executive visibility, it's essentially what is causing people to look for you in the first place. And I think that a lot of people forget that. You have to also have the consistency and you have to continue to show up. A lot of people get burnt out. They get tired. It's overwhelming. Um, Jesse, I know you're a content warehouse. I am myself. And it's exhausting. It's something where you can show up for a few months and then you kind of give up to it. This is something that compounds over time. It's the long game. Um, what I tell everybody is, number one, visibility is not about becoming an influencer or being famous like we talked about before. It's really about serving the people who are for you. And with a platform like LinkedIn, they've really changed so much of the. The platform itself that someone like myself who's a large creator on the platform, be much better served today in 2026, being a significantly smaller creator because of how the algorithm is now structured to focus on those smaller audiences. Um, but it's really just about ensuring the right people can find and trust you. And that's really what it comes down to. So if you're looking for a board seat, if you want a speaking opportunity, if you're looking for new clients, um, you're looking for an investor, a strategic part, strategic partnership. If you want to go on podcasts, all of those opportunities start with the first conversation, and it's starting with the consistency. And a lot of people will say to me, you know, Melanie, I'm having a really hard time with showing up and, and, you know, it feels like I'm, um, in this sprint, and it's taking so long and it's just exhausting, and it's mentally exhausting and it's physically exhausting. And just being on a phone or being on a computer and being inside an algorithm. What I always suggest to people is pick a cadence that works for you, that will work in six months, that will work in a year. Um, I have notoriously, personally taken six weeks off of posting, or I'll go from posting five days a week to posting three days a week. So you have to understand also that as long as you build your rhythm and your cadence, that's what these platforms are going to expect. And they're also looking at your activity and are you active? So as long as you're active, right, you're updating your LinkedIn profile as an example, you're engaging with other people through your profile, you're posting content regularly. Regularly is only going to be defined by you. That's not defined by me. Um, these all create opportunities for you, for your business, for your career. All the above. And that's, that's how I would define the executive visibility strategy.

Speaker A: Oh, so good. Yes. Every team needs the executive visibility strategy. Um, would love to hear your take on all this, Lauren, especially from a sales perspective.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think from, you know, um, from a, from a brand perspective, I'll give kind of two ads to that. I think first, the kind of I'm sick of doing this piece is, is when you know, it's working. Um, I think that that's getting sick of, of it means that, you know, you are being consistent with your story over and over again. And that's a good thing. Right. Think about how many, um, ads and brands are thrown at us a day. Thousands of them. Right? Labels on T shirts, um, banners that you see online, uh, billboards that you walk by, podcast ads, et cetera. You're bombarded constantly and buyers don't have the ability or the time wherewithal to be able to say, oh, wait, didn't they talk about something else three months ago? I'm sick of what they're saying now. They've said this too much. Right? Um, either of those things are not going to happen. I think the consistency is a crucial problem. I brought up Coca Cola's happiness, uh, um, strategy earlier. They've been doing that since the famous I'd like to buy the world a Coke in 1970s. Um, and that story of opening happiness and, you know, the early, um, 2000s continues to drive, um, what they stand for today. And they're, you know, one of the most valuable brands in the world. Um, they talk about, um, they, they live consistency across the board. Um, the other point that I wanted to, to bring up is I think the most important thing that Melanie has said and Jesse, I've seen you kind of vigorously head nodding when she's talking about kind of putting the audience first. I think that piece is crucial because what I see with um, enterprise executives is that they're either talking about themselves, like the business too much and not the buyer, or they're talking about the buyer's problem exclusively rather than sort of taking a moment and reflecting back what's at stake for the buyer. Right. She's betting her entire career on a, you know, 24 month digital transformation with half her invested. You need to make sure that she's not just informed on what you do, but she truly feels seen and that you understand what's at stake for her across the board. Um, so I think making sure that you're understanding what's in your buyer's shoes, no matter again, if you're talking to one person or millions, um, it's those two points I think are really crucial. Crucial in the, um, in the visibility piece.

Speaker A: Yeah, such great points. Thanks for sharing those. So how would you wrap up this topic, Melanie? I mean, I feel like it really hit home for me, especially as someone who helps other brands do this. Um, you know, when you said you don't help people, like, I can't remember how you phrased it, but basically like get famous. And it just, it made me think of like people we've helped and now and in the past who really want to be Instagram influencers. Like, you know, that's a different set of content and that's not really what we do. But we will help you go live and repurpose what you're doing to your business Instagram, if that makes sense. If, uh, your audience is there and we have some e Commerce, some B2C companies where Instagram really does make sense, especially for live streaming and with products. But it's. Yeah, and when you said do it for the people, for your audience, you know, like we don't care about anyone else. If you're posting for everyone, you're posting for no one. Um, and it kind of. Those are the same people, I feel like that struggle with the strategy piece who, we don't see them moving forward because they don't understand their audience and they don't understand their message. Once you get past that point, like, it's so Much fun. You can find these repeatable things, but it is such a struggle there at that point. Um, so I guess to wrap it up for those who are struggling with it at this point, you know, like what might you tell them as actual advice or those who are, who are doing it, but just feeling the pain, like what's that actionable advice they, they can take forward with them?

Speaker B: Um, yeah, I mean if someone thinks that it's not working, whatever they're doing, or if they are kind of stuck, or they, they might actually be afraid of what they're, what they're doing and how they're doing it, and it might not necessarily show up as fear. But I think that again, going back to my 1900s comment, uh, you know, when the Internet kind of took off and specifically with social media and I hesitated before I wanted to show up, but I knew I had to do something, but I didn't necessarily want to be on certain platforms because I felt that my audience wasn't there because they're not, um, they might be but I can't see into them. And so what I would say to someone is, look, you have to do these things because the world of work has changed. It's not just something that has happened as a result of the pandemic. This is just the evolution over time. So you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. No one is expecting you to be an influencer, but people are expecting you to show up and be a human. That doesn't mean that you have to show, share your deepest, darkest secrets. It's nice when you share a little bit of yourself so people get to know you. Because people buy from people they know like and trust. But it's something where if you are stuck with what you've been doing, try something different. Try letting people know a little bit about, you know, what happened in that meeting 20 years ago that led you from, you know, being the receptionist to now being the CEO. Talk a little bit about the journey because, you know, especially with the AI times that we're in where, you know, people are nervous that their jobs are going to be eliminated due to AI. I mean the way to combat that is by being more human, by sharing more. Don't just talk about the product, don't just talk about the problems of your customers, talk about yourself too. And it's not being overly self promotional because it's something that you have to just do as a part of leadership today. You don't have to be a faceless brand because your competitor is not, ah, uh, that's right.

Speaker A: You don't have to be a faceless brand. Uh, you inspire me so much. This is such a good conversation. And I'm really excited, actually, about transitioning into our last topic, which is building a verbal first brand system for consistency. And I don't necessarily know, Lauren, exactly what you're getting into on that one, which is why I'm excited to hear about it. But I. What immediately comes to mind for me is verbal first. You know, we help people with live streaming and podcasting. And yes, like, the posting and being out there is really great. But LinkedIn, all these other channels, they like when you use all their features and going live is one of those features and people can hear your voice or there's. I don't know, is there still LinkedIn audio? They got rid of LinkedIn audio, I think. Um, but there's LinkedIn Live, and so people can hear you and there's podcasts and people can hear your voice and it's real time. And in the age of AI, it's harder to replicate and still sound real. Getting better. But like, at least on video, hearing our voice and seeing our faces, you know, it's harder to replicate, especially with conversations with people, real time in the comments. But I love the idea of verbal first because it just seems like it humanizes it more, I guess. So I'm curious to hear where you're going with this, Lauren.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah, great.

Speaker C: You know, great setup. Um, and, you know, transitioning a bit from what Melanie was just speaking to, um, kind of takes us there, right? If. If 10, 10 of the right people understand your work deeply, that beats 10,000 strangers who are just skimming your posts. And that is really what we're talking about, right? It's. It's words first, right? So most companies build their brand, in my opinion, backwards, right? You think about a brand, you close your eyes, you think about a logo. That's usually the place folks start. The colors, the website. It's the thing that resonates the stuff that you can see, right? Um, then in the end, someone kind of comes in and writes some words to fit the design. And, you know, copy gets kind of thrown on, thrown on there. We flip that order. Um, and our focus is on building the words first. Um, and now in a world of LLMs, um, and AEO, that matters more than ever, right? Because if you think about where your brand actually lives, right? It travels, um, through words more than through visuals, right? It might be in a sales deck that you're presenting, right? It might be in um, ah, a LinkedIn Live. It might be in an investor notes after a call. It might be a slack message from one buyer to another when you're not even in that room, right? Talking about perception, um, about your brand being what, um, you know, what others say about you when you're not in the room, um, it could be in all hands, right? Um, and now again, whatever is in ChatGPT or Claude, what that, what those LLMs say about you when a buyer asks, um, which vendor to trust overall. And every one of those moments is run on a story. It's run on words, right? That's why we speak about Verbal first. The logo itself isn't in any of them. A logo really can't survive that buying committee. It's the language that people actually repeat that you need to hammer home. And then the visual piece is crucial to represent and carry the equity that you've created in that story that you've told, right? So that when you close your eyes and picture again the Coca Cola logo, you think about happiness, right? Or someone said capital One, what's in your wallet, right? Um, you close your eyes and you think about Capital One, you think about the card in the wallet, right? There's. And that's true again of, um, you know, of, of Salesforce and their, their kind of customer focus and customer360. And you know, it's, it's true of, um, of. Of many B2B brands as well, right? Um, and that's the whole idea behind Verbal. First words travel and then design represents those words, right? Um, and I think that those stakes of, of that of. Of words first continue to increase in, you know, the world that we're living in now. Right? I, um, think that I read a study recently that said 80% of B, um 2B buyers say that trust in the brand is a deal breaker. Above price, above features. I need to trust this business. And that kind of trust comes from, do you deliver on your promise, right? Do you tell a story consistently everywhere? Can I find you and understand and represent that kind of repeated message that we were talking about a few minutes ago clear enough to repeat and consistently enough that every person, every touch point, every model tells the same version, right? Um, so when I'm saying, When I say brand and we say Verbal first, I'm talking about the words your whole company uses to explain why you matter. Um, the looks, the execution, the marketing pieces come after and carry and represent that story. But you need to get the words right first. Um, and make sure that they show up in Every room, whether you're there or not. Which I think is what um, LLMs are really bringing to us now with AEO, is that how do we represent ourselves when we don't control that story, when someone else does?

Speaker A: Yes, definitely. And in the comments, we're just talking about, we love how you brought up logos. Um, because, yeah, like, so many people think brand is a logo and it's part of it.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: But, you know, people remember you for you. And also I love how you talk about. About how word travels fast. Yep. You're so right. And, you know, I've never thought of it that way, but it's such a. It's like, it's just such a true thing. Like, word travels fast, and when people talk, people connect. It's really just that simple.

Speaker C: Totally. Everyone's a writer, everybody reads. Right. So if your story is something that everyone is saying on your behalf, um, you know, as a, ah, CEO, telling the story of the company as the marketer or the product marketer representing the business, the sales rep on a call, um, everyone can write, not everyone can design. So you need to make sure that those words that everyone is saying, that single line, you know, Melanie was talking about this at the top of the call. Can you be really clear in what you do in a single sentence? Can you say that kind of classic elevator pitch and help people understand cognitively, very quickly, in five or ten seconds what you stand for? And can you do that consistently? Um, yes. Your logo should represent that when you've built that equity in. But you got to make sure you nail that strategy first in order for.

Speaker B: To do so. I love how you put that. I never heard of that before. I never had it put that way before Lauren. That words travel.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's.

Speaker B: It's so smart. I mean, and it's so true because especially when you're building strategy. I mean, you're building the strategy, you're building the positioning, and then everything else kind of falls into place after that.

Speaker C: You're exactly right.

Speaker B: So good.

Speaker C: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, no, I, uh. I mean, I think. I think we get tripped up on labeling things certain ways. Right. Like, I'm sure you all deal with this too. Like, um, when you talk about, hey, brand, people think it's soft. People think it's just a logo or it's an immeasurable thing or it's PR or something like that. Right. And if you just think about it as simply as words or making money for the business or standing for, um, you know, who you are when you're not in the room or brand as a relationship. Um, you know, you can make sure that you're talking about, um, things that resonate frankly with the cfo. Right. How do we make sure that we're translating what we say and the words that travel to a shorter sales cycle or to a higher brand value or to, you know, stronger pricing? Right. Because, um, at the end of the day, brand should drive choice for you. Right. Someone should choose you off the proverbial shelf more often. It, um, should drive a premium. You should be able to charge more because people say, hey, I want that brand instead of store brand. Right. Or another competitor. Um, and then loyalty. Right. I want to make sure that people are sticking around because they understand that, um, that, that your brand represents who they are. Right. Think about again, those Coca Cola loyalists, right? Very different from the Pepsi loyalists in the world.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah, I love that. So good. Well, to send us off on that topic, Lauren, how. What actionable advice would you share with people to really help them with this?

Speaker C: Yeah, I would say, um, don't be afraid to be bold. Make a decision, stand out. Take a look first at what everyone else is saying in the market. Decide what you can do that nobody else can tell. That human story, the one story that you can tell, whether it's you as a, as a, as a founder, you as a, um, as a leader in your business, or it is you representing your, your corporate messaging. Tell the one side single thing that you can tell that nobody else can tell in the story. And say it everywhere. Say it consistently. Make sure on every piece of, of of content that you're putting out in the world, visually, verbally, um, in LinkedIn lives, um, in every tweet that you, that you write, um, you want to make sure that you're saying it consistently and standing forward. And if, if you do that well, right, it doesn't need to be perfect, as we talked about earlier on, um, you just need to make sure that you are, uh, you're doing your very best to make sure that you're, you're um, saying the same thing over and over again and you're saying something that's different and, um, and standing by it. And if that's a credible story that you can tell, the right people will find you.

Speaker A: Exactly right. So, yeah, I feel like the message for today is to be bold. We were talking about that at the beginning to wrap us up back from the beginning. Um, be bold or be, I don't know, did they get there?

Speaker C: I think it's an. And not Nor like, be bold, by the way.

Speaker B: Boston is in that category too, by the way.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And are adjacent, but aligned.

Speaker C: Yeah, we got the east coast badass thing going on for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, we definitely need that energy. And we did have a good question that came in. He's asking, what does the logo say or communicate about what you stand for? So, like, we're throwing out there that, like, hey, the logo matters, but it doesn't. But what does it do? What would people say to that?

Speaker C: No, I definitely think it matters. It just. You need to decide what it matters first. It's like a name. Right? So, um, you know, Apple certainly doesn't stand for computer, but when you've built the equity of what Apple stands for in an innovation company, you know, human, um, company and a design company, et cetera, um, and you create that emotion that people represent with Apple, I am an Apple loyalist. I will live and die by my iPhone and my Mac, etc. That Apple logo, totally. That Apple logo means a lot to us now. But the problem is that, that when you just kind of say, I like the color orange, I'm going to have a logo that says, is my, you know, my monogram or something like that. But there's nothing behind it, um, that you haven't built that strategy. And then the logo doesn't mean, um, what it needs to. It doesn't do the job that it needs to do.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.

Speaker B: I think it goes back to the conversation about your audience, too. Does your logo say to your audience what you want it to say, what you want the. Do you want them to trust you? Is it speaking to them? Or, you know, something that I hear a lot of is. And Lauren, I'm sure. And just you too, like, people will come to me and say, well, I love this color blue. I love this shade of pink. And I always tell them, well, what about your audience? Who is that? Does it align with them, with their values, with who they are? Because color psychology plays into it also. And with your logo, it's completely interweaved

Speaker C: within that, that we could have a whole LinkedIn live on color theory.

Speaker A: Like, Melanie, like, your Blue is so B2B. It's just like, it's so like, you totally targeted your audience with your blue.

Speaker C: I know.

Speaker B: And I recently made some changes from like, the. To not just being blue, but also including black and cream, because I feel that it definitely also applies to those in those corporate environments.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, you got the trust of blue and you got the, the boldness and the sort of um, dichotomy of. Of be who you are with the black and the cream. I love it.

Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Oh, well, there might be a color podcast coming your way. That would be a really.

Speaker C: I'm the least qualified person to be on that podcast, but I will do it all day. I have opinions.

Speaker A: Absolutely. What's Josh saying? He says the logo is the branding. The identity within the context of competitor is to reflect the ideology so customers can recognize it immediately. Okay, I like that.

Speaker C: Just like a name. It's your first, uh, introductory, ah, statement for sure.

Speaker A: It's a competitive tool. Okay. Yeah, you're right. It really is. Like, how do you differentiate, um, with a visual? Because us humans, we are very visual. I mean, even from the cave days, we've been like, scratching on the cave. Right. So, um, yeah, we like symbols. Anyway, as we wrap up, we want to know just who it is that inspires you on LinkedIn for the guru of the Week segment. Guru of the Week. The Guru of the Week. All right, so we want to know who should we go follow on LinkedIn? Like, we're inspired by both of you. So who inspires you, Lauren?

Speaker C: Oh, man, that list is endless. I'm going to shout out a friend of mine, Justin Dunham, who owns, um, Orcule, the, um, analytics and AEO agency. Um, and Justin does, um, is like this, this brilliant sort of in between of, uh, kind of content and word person with the, um, technology of a coder and, um, uh, sort of software. You know, the brilliance of, of sort of the right brain and the left brain is probably the best way to put it. Um, and I think that he thinks about these challenges and he builds, um, really quickly. And, um, and I just think that everything he posts is really inspiring because he actually sort of says, well, let's try it first. And to that kind of, like, progress, not perfection piece that we were talking about earlier. I, um, think he really lives that.

Speaker A: Amazing. Okay, I just tagged him in the comments. Everyone should go spam him, tag him in the comments, say something about him. Exactly. Let him know that Lauren is the one who made him the Guru of the Week. Um, but who is your Guru of the Week? Melanie?

Speaker B: So my Guru of the Week is my friend Valentino. Valentina. It would be nice if I could say her name correctly. Valentina Escobar Gonzalez. So Valentina and I are in similar spaces. She's a personal brand consultant and a social media strategy strategist.

Speaker C: Um, we met probably about a year

Speaker B: or so ago, and she just is like the most infectious unbelievably nice person, super, super smart. And she's just so motivational and she's so inspiring to everyone around her and she's just so encouraging of everyone to show up. And I don't meet a lot of people that often that have just such a, such dynamic energy. I mean, hard to see energy from someone you can get a certain sense online. But when you meet someone in person, and we've met now a few times, she just has the best energy and she's just such a sweetheart. And I just wanted to shout her out because she's amazing.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for shouting her out. I tagged her. Hopefully I got the right Valentina Escobar Gonzalez. Okay. Um, and hopefully I got the right Justin Dunham as well. I tagged them. If not, then feel free to tag the right one. But yeah, I'm gonna definitely go follow those people, especially since both of you recommended them. Um, and speaking of both of you, before we wrap up, one more thing. We want to hear both a little bit more from you. Um, who it is you serve, how you serve them and if they could be served by you, how do they reach you? Lauren?

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: Um, so I run villain branding.com so you can find us there. Um, and with Villain, we serve, um, generally enterprise advanced tech companies. Um, and when they're in high stakes moments like a major acquisition or um, a you know, post ipo, um integration or uh, they've got a big perception change that they need to make. They're known for one thing and need to be known for um, in the market for something else. Those really high stakes moments where they need um, their words to travel. As we talked about, um, really helping them to simplify and create a consistent and different message in the market. Um, that uh, is, is generally the problems that we solve. You can find me on LinkedIn. Uh, Lauren Warnick. L A U R Y N uh, Warnick is W A R N I C K um, or just come to villainbranding.com and be uh, happy to chat with you there.

Speaker A: Amazing. And I forgot to ask the audience too, who's your guru of the week? Like tag someone in the comments that inspires you and help us go find some interesting content out there. Um, and in the meantime, while the audience is telling us their guru of the week, Melanie, could you please tell us who it is you serve, how you serve them, and if they could be served by you, how do they reach you?

Speaker B: Sure. So, um, I'm the founder of the Boarding group. We are a executive visibility agency. We work with founders, we work with leadership teams. I work with professionals, I work with companies, not really limited to any specific industry, although we do work work in tech as well as, um, startups. And if someone is looking to work with us, they can find us at, um, our website, humantobrand.com. if someone is specifically interested in learning more about me, you can go to my website, which is melanieborden.com which, um, I launched a few weeks ago. I'm very excited about it because it took me a while to get to the point to kind of separate everything from me for my company. Um, but we work with leaders on becoming visible online, um, taking what they know and what they have become in their industry and essentially transferring it. So when someone comes to me, it's generally for one of a few reasons. Either they're looking to make a change, they're looking to leave where they are and go into a new industry, go to a new business. Um, or they might be looking to start their own business, um, maybe starting over, um, starting something, um, or companies that are coming to us that want us to manage an Entire executive team's LinkedIn, building out all the strategy, um, handling all the positioning and also executing side by side with them, whether it's for an event or something in particular. Maybe they have a product launch or they're looking to go to market for something specific and they need that visibility. Maybe they're looking for more talent acquisition for client acquisition, for employee retention, and those are generally the reasons that someone comes to me. Um, or maybe they just want to rebrand and they have a brand and they're ready to make some changes, um, to their personal brand. We generally work with individuals versus only companies, but we do work with companies too. But the core of what I do is, um, working. My child, um, is working, uh, with individuals.

Speaker A: I love that. Thank you both so much for sharing. Audience, we still want to hear from you if you want to tag your guru in the comments, but other than that, we're gonna have another great episode. We're back every Wednesday, same time, same place, two guests, really great conversation. And we're on all podcast platforms, so if you miss us, you can just go binge us over there. Spotify is pretty popular, but anyway, I digress. Thank you both so much for staying up late. If you don't mind sticking around after the intro, I'll see you backstage just to get the upload speed for our video, but otherwise, audience, we'll talk to you all later. Bye. Uh,