Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are you living the life that you want to live? Do you feel whole or constantly in pieces? Being able to live a life and build a legacy and build a business that allows you to live the kind of life you want on your terms, allows you to spend time with the people that you want to spend time with, allows you to, you know, do whatever you want to do, whether it's a hobby, traveling, whether it's just cooking dinner with your family, whatever that is for you. If your line of work, if your business allows you to do that, you, in my mind, are rich.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: You weren't born to sit in traffic for approval or wait for Fridays. You were built to be free.
Welcome to Rich and Remote, the show for the ones who dare to do life differently. Here we talk about building businesses that give you choices where you work, how you live and what you create.
This is for the entrepreneurs who crave freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from everyone else's expectations.
If you're ready to design a life on your own terms, you're in the right place.
Rich and Remote, hosted by Alex and Carla Booth.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: All right, good morning and happy Monday and welcome to another episode of Rich and Remote. Feeling very rich and remote right now because Alex and I are actually in a business event and we're in an all inclusive over here in Tulum, just like 30 minutes from where we live.
And we have a very nice view and a very nice view as our guest after eight years of storytelling with Marvel and leading go to market campaigns for Apple, Amazon and Motorola over the course of her brand marketing career, our special guest today, Rohin was drawn to entrepreneurship when she left the corporate world and immediately noticed that the most brilliant entrepreneurs with world changing ideas were still staying invisible simply because they lacked the storytelling tools that billion dollar brands were taking for granted. So because of that realization, she reverse engineered the frameworks she had learned from the world's biggest brands and turned them into thought leadership frameworks that she used to build her own personal brand. A brand that put her on the industry's leading podcasts stages and allowed her to build credibility that attracted her dream clients on autopilot. So today she puts those same frameworks directly in the hands of founders, whatever size of business you are, through her platform brand pod. And she helps them build a kind of visibility that was once reserved only for her elite high paying agency clients. So welcome Rohin and Alex. Hi.
[00:02:44] Speaker D: Wow, your intro is a lot better than mine. Rohin.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: I was gonna say it's a lot.
[00:02:48] Speaker D: And Alex, how am I supposed to follow that, that's crazy.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Just Alex nuffed.
[00:02:53] Speaker D: Yes. If you guys want to. If the listeners want an inside scoop of what it means to be working remotely, Carla said, we're at a very nice resort, beautiful view. I've been stuck in a hotel room for three days not being able to utilize any of that view. That's the reality sometimes of living and working remote. Yeah.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Well, I'm not jealous at all.
Thank you, Seattle.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Actually, Alex studied advertising in college, so I'm sure he has a lot of curiosities about the work that you did for these big companies, Alex, what do you got?
[00:03:28] Speaker D: Well, I went to school for advertising and I tried to get into it several times. I tried to get into it at Microsoft and I ended up working at Bing Ads, but they just wanted me to work with their customers. And I was like a customer success manager there. And I'm like, okay, I'm done with this. I'm going to go to Amazon. I spent three years doing that. I got hired on, on the Amazon advertising team and then they called me like a few weeks later and said, hey, I'm sorry, we gave it to someone else. Can you come on as a c. So I literally have tried to get into advertising on three different occasions and everything directed me back to customer success. So, yeah, I'm super envious of you.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Have to say to that, I think I have the exact reverse, like the exact no way of your story. Because I have always wanted to work with customer success. I've always been obsessed with people's stories and the way they experience things. I mean, I grew up an only child. And for me to discover this world of how people absorb what's around them in the world has always been very different from, from the way I've absorbed them. And I used to always think growing up that there was something wrong with me. Not only was I an only child, I was an Air Force brat. So my dad's ex Indian Air Force. And so I grew up in the Air Force military in India and, you know, have to move every year or to two years. And so none of my friendships actually stuck. You know, I had to move and meet new people and reinvent myself and reposition myself every time we moved. And what I really just found fascinating and of course very difficult to navigate as a child was just understanding how everyone sees the world so differently. And so I actually spent a lot of my childhood just understanding that not all of us experience life the same way. Not all of us see the world or hear the same thing. And understand it exactly the same way. And so I have been very, very interested in the whole customer support, customer happiness, customer success. Like that's what I've been wanting to do. And I just fell into marketing.
[00:05:24] Speaker D: Oh my God, that is so funny. It's like each other's kind of like unfortunate luck or I guess destiny was like pushing one way and giving another and you were on the other end and I was on the other end. Right. We just kept getting each other's opportunities. That's hilarious.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, as entrepreneurs, I'm, I'm so curious because you work for these big brands, you kind of have similar ish background as Alex, obviously, different path. What made you finally decide to start your own business?
[00:05:52] Speaker A: The honest truth is that I was in an industry where I was working crazy hours. I would be at work from anywhere between 10pm to 5am and then I had to be back at work again at 9 or 10am and I just, that wasn't sustainable when I was ready to have a family.
And that was the thing. So I went to college for visual effects and post production and that's how I got into the Marvel world before I started working with advertising clients like Amazon and Apple. But I was in the film world. And when I went to school for it and I started my first internship, which eventually turned into, into a job, I had a lot of senior people in that company tell me, you know, oh, so you clearly don't want a family. You clearly don't want to start a family ever. Over and over again. It was like this, this industry joke for every newcomer, maybe, I don't know, but I got a lot of that. And so at the back of my mind, I always knew this wasn't going to be a permanent thing because I knew I wanted to start a family at some point. So when I got pregnant with my son, which was a happy accident at the time, it wasn't planned, but, you know, found that I was pregnant with him. We had to make some big life decisions and one of them was for me to quit.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: M I, I can, obviously, I can't say I can super relate, but my mom told me, actually one of the things that inspired me to start a business, my mom told me, you should start a business so that you can have the freedom and you can follow your man. You know, your man could be in the military, your man could be assigned to this country or that country, your man could be whatever, right? So you should have a business so you can have that flexibility. And that's what Happened, but I guess he followed me to entrepreneurship.
[00:07:25] Speaker D: He definitely did.
I was, I was on a two month vacation and I never left Mexico.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: It's because he just kept stalking me.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: But I love that story. I've heard snippets of your story and I think it's just so sweet and so romantic. I love that for you guys.
[00:07:40] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: Well, we have to set aside a time to hear your love story too.
But being more serious, obviously, Alex and I, we, we always have kind of a secret dream to serve these people, big brands, just like especially in marketing, and work for the companies that you work for. I think you have a story of realizing that you needed a personal brand. Can you tell us about that story and what inspired you to build? I know it was like, hey, Levi. And then now brand pod.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I think I should start off by saying, especially, you know, following that really cool long intro that you gave me. I should probably clarify at this point that I've actually had no formal training in marketing or branding or any of that. My degrees are in architecture. I have a bachelor's in architectural engineering. I have a master's in visual effects and animation. So that's where the whole film world came in. And then I just fell into, like I said, marketing and branding. So I have no actual formal education. Everything that I know, everything that I do, everything that I teach has all been things that I just learned along the way working with these bigger brands. So with that being said, I think, you know, it sounds great. I know you just mentioned that one of your dreams was to work with some of these bigger brands. And it's a great experience. Like, I would not trade that experience for anything. But I do want to say for anyone else that might be listening that might be thinking that, oh, how do I get into, you know, working with brands like that? I can tell you my story again, I fell into it. I don't have a strategy for it. But it's not what you think it may be, especially if you are creative and you like having your own flexibility, not just on your time, but on making creative decisions. Because at these bigger brands, at these bigger companies, it is a great learning experience. But for them, they have very tried and tested and established systems and you don' have a lot of creative leverage over that. And so what you end up doing is just following what bigger brands do, which is, you know, everything is data focused, everything is research and strategy focused. And it's great. And that's exactly what I've brought into my life as an Entrepreneur. So again, it was a great learning experience.
But again, the creativity that you think you're going to get working for a bigger brand is not actually there. So just wanted to throw that out there in terms of how I got into personal branding. Well, when I started, you know, when I quit my job and I took a year off just to have, you know, my baby and kind of feel like, feel motherhood for the first time, I had lost my mom already at that point. I don't have any sisters or siblings. So for me it was kind of a lonely experience experiencing motherhood for the first time. It was something that I had to lean into and do all by myself, figure out all by myself. And so I took some time off from my career, but you know, thinking about what I wanted to do on the side, some of the things that I tried doing were initially I tried to learn, I taught myself web development.
So actual coding, HTML and css, which is such a redundant skill now. But anyway, so I learned, you know, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, learned how to create websites, eventually learned webflow and you know, WordPress and something called the Oxygen Builder, which I was so proud of because it was so much better than Elementor and Divi and all of that. Anyway, so now I'm talking like website building jargon. I know, but that's what I got into first.
And then like I got a few clients, love that.
But I wanted to do more. And so I became a newborn photographer for some time, which I think is also really out of left field. But through that all, like what I found myself doing to get new clients was leaning back on what I knew about marketing and advertising and running my own ads, learning how to use Facebook ads, learning how to market myself and my new businesses just to get clients.
Now eventually I got into the high level world, you know, trying to again get an agency off the ground and establish myself.
And I ended up working with my husband, who's an ex Amazon senior development engineer, sde. The Amazon Connection right there with Amazon Tribe.
Yeah. And so he and I got together to, you know, when OpenAI came up with their APIs in 2022 and everyone started building, we were some of the earlier adopters and built our very first tool which was, I was really excited about it. It was the first positioning and messaging and branding tool. Taking all of the frameworks that I had learned from the likes of Apple and Marvel and putting it in a platform that didn't require any prompt, which I thought was amazing at the time. Cause nobody else was doing that now everyone's doing it, of course, but that was my brainchild we put into that product, and then I struggled to get it off the ground. And even though it was a category defining product, like there was nothing else like it. And I knew that it was going to change people's lives once they experienced it, once they used it for their businesses. But I found it really hard to get off the ground. I would get on sales calls. People had never heard of me before, and I had to explain myself and defend my creation to them about why it was such a strong product. We were offering it at $25 a month at the time, and I would still get questions about, is there a money back guarantee? Do you have a discount? So it was really hard at the time. And so very quickly I realized, you know, I needed to gain, you know, my market's trust quickly.
I needed to be more visible. And so the first thing I did was look for a business partnership, got into a business partnership, tried to leverage that to get more visibility, but then that ended up in partially just having my own credibility taken away from me because now everything that we had built, other people were taking credit for. So, long story short, that one didn't work out either. And so I realized pretty quickly that I needed to build my own personal brand so that people knew me first before they ever heard about my product or before they ever got on a sales call with me. I knew I needed to build that visibility and that trust for me as a thought leader, as an individual, before doing anything else. So that's kind of how I fell into personal branding. Yeah.
[00:13:22] Speaker D: Yeah. That doesn't seem like a fall. That seems like, I guess, I guess like a tumble into different, different attempts. I really, I feel like I'm like the rare person who maybe had their business right out the gate. I like, love these stories where, like, there's a triumphant effort and like, there's. There's some type of. I don't know, I would quotation mark failure. Like, it's a really cool story and able to, like, fall into exactly where you wanted to be. I feel like I don't align or I don't, like, resonate with all these other founders who have, like, have all these cool battle stories.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Well, now I'm jealous. I don't want.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Yeah. I think also I can totally empathize because I've experienced having a rough kind of like, business breakup with a business partner. And you're absolutely correct, Rouhin. Like, my personal brand saved me during that time. I was able to Spin up the business really fast on my own and build it, like, really, really fast. And honestly, all thanks to my personal brand. So I'm super excited to get this conversation going, have an expert like you get us the juicy details.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: I love that. I love that story, too. I mean, I would love to hear more because that's the kind of stuff that gets me fired up. I remember the fire I felt when I was like, no one's ever gonna tell me that any success I've had is because of someone else without feeling really dumb about it.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Mark, quick question.
[00:14:41] Speaker D: Was it a man? Oh, go for it.
[00:14:43] Speaker C: Sorry, I'm just gossiping.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I will say it was both.
[00:14:50] Speaker D: Okay. Okay.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:54] Speaker D: Well, I gotta ask a question before I get into kind of the nitty gritty. I myself have not built a personal brand. I've made slight attempts and then given up after a few months. Right. So there's probably gonna be a lot of people listening to this, like me, where they want to do it, or they put in the minimal amount of effort and expected to do it, but it just didn't happen right away. So can we just, like, level set and say, like, how. How long would it usually take someone to, like, build a personal brand and, like, what actually goes into it in terms of consistency? I know you've built a great tool, but I think expectations. Maybe we should start there. Right?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Love that question. And if I can also go back one step and answer another question that I. A lot of, and that usually is what leads into these questions is, what is a personal brand? Right. I think a lot of people have a misconception about what it is. And so let's level set on what it is in the first place, and then we can talk about how to get there and what it takes to get there and the timeline and all of that. So a lot of people think their personal brand is what they do on LinkedIn. Right? They either think it's all social media content, you talk to people in the tech world, or you talk to people in leadership teams at places like Amazon. Right? They think their personal brand is all about what's on LinkedIn. So I get calls from them. Like, they'll literally book a call with me and be like, oh, do you help me optimize my LinkedIn profile? Right. And so it. It's such an interesting thing to hear when you. When you hear these questions, because that's how people think a personal brand is. And yes, that is a part of it. I'm not going to deny that that's not that is a part of it, but it's a small part of it. It's significant and it's very meaningful, but it's a very small part of it. And so I've also heard actually from somebody that I am a huge fan of Gary Vee. He did a podcast with LinkedIn and LinkedIn's host asked question, what is a personal brand? And he said, it's just a glorified term. I don't want to quote him because I don't think he used the word glorified term. But the way he explained it was, at the end of the day, it's just your reputation. It's just a fancy term or it's something he said something along the lines of a fancy term for your reputation. And that to me was like. But that's really not what it is either because your reputation is good or bad. Your reputation is that person, you know, has a reputation of arriving to work on 10. They're very timely.
It's a small part of your personal brand. Your personal brand is your story, what people think of when they think of you as a whole. Not just, oh, they're very punctual. They're good to work with. They get, you know, stuff delivered on time. That's your reputation.
[00:17:18] Speaker C: The personal brand.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So I feel like your reputation are the. Are the different attributes and it could be one, it could be many. Your personal brand is a combination of all of those attributes and the feeling somebody feels with the idea of working with you, but the idea of being around you, with the idea of having a conversation with you.
[00:17:36] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm really glad you went back and answered that because I think I'm that person that needed that answer. I'm thinking, okay, X amount of followers on this platform and me posting every week, that means I have a personal brand that makes way more sense.
Actually kind of calms me down a little bit too. Makes me think about it a lot different.
So I think I needed that more than anyone on this call. For sure.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: I'm glad. I mean, when I first started out too, I was questioning things because I didn't have a social media presence at all. I wasn't posting very consistently. I didn't know what I was doing. I had people telling me to post 10 times a day to build a personal brand. And I realized very quickly that that all goes against the grain of what we learn at these bigger companies because that's not how they do it. They're not trying to show up 10 times a day and if they can't, they're not gonna post something saying that they were trying to show up and that they weren't able to show up 10 times a day that day in order to get their 10th video out. Like I've seen people do that, right. Just to meet this quota of 10 posts a day. And you ever seen a larger company do that?
[00:18:37] Speaker C: No, not really.
[00:18:38] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it's a really good point.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: It depends. Yeah, right. If that's their brand, you know, like some of these X accounts could be so playful, right? Sometimes they can get playful. Like the Wendy's accounts.
[00:18:49] Speaker D: Yeah, a TMZ or something like that. Right.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: That's their brand.
[00:18:53] Speaker D: Right?
[00:18:53] Speaker C: Like playfulness.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah, playful is good. But anything that you're putting out there, whether it's playful, whether it's serious, needs to have some sort of value for your target audience, even if it's just entertainment. But when you put out a video, that is meaningless, that is just you trying to hit your target of 10 posts a day. Think about it, right? We just talked about what a personal brand is. How does that post tell somebody how they're going to feel if they were to work with you?
[00:19:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it's just a snippet. It's just one tiny snippet, right.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: And even then, it's like it tells me nothing about working with you or having a conversation with you. It just tells me that you're trying to hit some made up target of 10 posts a day. So my point with all of that is I realized again, through my own trial and error and kind of leaning back into what I already knew about branding and taking that and starting to reverse engineer everything to what I was trying to achieve, both with business branding on a smaller scale, on a startup scale, and on a personal branding level. I realized that first of all, when people talk about consistency, unless you're trying to please the algorithm, Right. So you have to define for yourself, people don't realize they're either trying to please the algorithm or they're trying to attract the right audience. They're not the same thing. Right. People think they're part of the same thing. They're different things. Yes, they could, they have some overlap, but they're different things. And so when you are trying to be consistent with the number of posts that you put out every day, yes, you're making the algorithm very happy. Yes, they're going to serve your content up to more people, but because you're posting garbage, they actually don't know that the algorithms don't know who to show it to. And you're not going to see that convert into actual revenue, into actual conversions.
[00:20:21] Speaker D: The way someone told me recently was I need to really be targeted with who I'm sending every post to, who I'm talking to. So their algorithm knows exactly who they dish up my content to. And then it will start to ramp up. That's what I've been told. Am I getting kind of the sense of what you're saying there? Like, that's much more aligned with what, how to actually go about it versus volume.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: That's step one. So you really want to be clear about who you're speaking to and make sure that all of your content is providing some snippet of value to them.
So that brings me to step two, which is what I. Which is the big missing piece with most entrepreneurs as they're trying to build their personal brand or any brand, is they assume that they know what this target audience wants to hear. Or as we Ghlers love to do, it's all a matter of AB testing. Let's throw up a bunch of crap and see what works, right? And that neither of those are really what's going to get you results quickly. What you want to do is actually, again, lean into what the bigger brands are doing, which is research. You want to, you know, get a obsessed with actual data. I've also talked to people and as soon as I say this, they'll say, oh, trust me, I know exactly what my audience wants because I'm talking to them all the time. They tell me what they want. But here's the thing with that, and this is where I went into the whole nlp, you know, part of things. And I tried to really learn what I started out by saying as a child. I always tried to figure out why other people heard things and saw things differently than the way I did. And NLP really helped me clarify that. So in llp, they say that everybody, when you hear something, you are either, what are the three things? I always forget the three things in order, but basically you are either deleting, distorting, or generalizing. Those are the three things you're either deleting, distorting or generalizing information. When you hear any piece of information. And all of our brains are unique and we all delete, distort, and generalize in different ways. And that's why we all see things differently, right? So when you are having conversations, even if you're having live conversations with your audience and you feel like you know exactly what their language is and what they're saying, what they're asking for. Remember that that is your brain's version of what they're ask asking for. That's not data.
[00:22:18] Speaker D: That's a really good point.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Right?
[00:22:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: And so I like, that is not just using AI, generative AI to write your post for you. It's using deep research agents to find out for you every single week what your audience is actively searching for. What is the data telling you in their own search terms, in their own words?
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I think honestly I'm so right there with you. I'm a marketing person and I always, one of my pet peeves is like, like someone would ask me a marketing question and they, and I would reply with what did your research say? And they didn't even like, oh, you didn't even go to Reddit, you didn't even go to the Facebook groups where your clients are. You didn't even like, how many sales calls have you personally been in? How many clients have you talked to like today, you know, like, and they don't have an answer for me. And that's like, it just blows my mind because it's like step one. But I think the other thing is maybe some founders are really intimidated by this work. Maybe they think it's too complex or it's too time consuming. And I know you've said that AI agents can now do in hours what traditional PR agencies or marketing agencies were able to do for like 80 plus hours. But now they can do it much faster and at a fraction of a cost, of course, with like tools like yours. What did founders get wrong in the past? Like what would you like to kind of correct them with?
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Exactly this, exactly what we just talked about. And the reality is that it was actually hard. So again, we're talking about larger brands, but. But the reality also is that they have larger budgets to go with those larger brands. Right. They have more resources, they have a much larger budget that we as entrepreneurs have not had. And so they hire. I mean, Alex, you're familiar with this, right? Like the kind of money and budget that they allot just for marketing for their marketing team is ridiculous. Right?
[00:24:01] Speaker D: Yeah, you never see the bottom of that pit of money. You never see that.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:24:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: And so I mean, you just look on LinkedIn, look at marketing roles listed at Amazon or Apple, and you see how much money they're willing to spend on every tiny thing. And so they want somebody who's, you know, specifically good at understanding data, somebody who's specifically good at positioning and messaging. Right. I Mean, even product marketing has all these different specializations within it and they're paying a lot of money for every individual to do that work. So gathering data, knowing what is the right data to look at and what's not the right data to look at, making inferences, analyzing that data, making actual business decisions that are going to help you and not hurt you from that data. That's a lot of data. Data. Data that most of us don't have time for or access to tools for. But that's where AI comes in. And I feel like more people need to know about the power that they have with AI, because it's not just generative AI. It's not just that you can go to ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to write some LinkedIn posts for you and call it a day. And that's your personal brand, right? You can use agents to actually do the deep dive, scour the Internet, scream hundreds of thousands of URLs in your industry to give you fresh data every single week. And then when you can see the patterns and you see what your audience is searching for on LLMs, not just on Google, and then you can answer that with your unique perspective. That's the definition of aeo, right? That's the definition of Answer Engine optimization. That's the kind of content that gets served up. Now you're answering actual questions from your audience, you're speaking to your target audience. You're adding value in every single post that you deliver. You're not just regurgitating what they've already heard somewhere else, giving your unique perspective on their search term. And so what does that do? That tells the person, your audience, exactly what they can expect when they work with you, when they have a conversation with you, tells them exactly why you are the only one that they want to work with instead of somebody else who's saying the same thing.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:53] Speaker D: You know, that makes a lot of sense. And honestly, the idea that AI is going to be able to make it where I can personally do this, I don't have to, you know, for lack of a better term, like hire an agency or outsource it to someone who might get it right, who might not, and I can be a little bit more in charge, it's still kind of like intimidating for me as a founder. And I think I was like looking through your material and you mentioned something about a training program, right? Like the famous founder training program. That to me sounded like, oh, a lifeline. This is something I want to grasp onto right now. Can you maybe tell me a little bit about that because that is.
Am I the perfect candidate for that or what is this something like a beginner or is it something that, like, everybody can kind of leverage?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Everybody can leverage, whether you're a beginner, whether you're seasoned, whether you've been doing personal branding or PR or any sort of branding for years. And you just need to leverage the right tools to do it faster and better. It's designed for everyone. I will tell you in all honesty, we've kind of paused because it kind of started taking a shape of its own. And so it started out by being this training program for founders, right? Just like you mentioned outside. It soon turned into agencies who saw the value in adding this onto their services and wanted to learn more about how to add personal branding and some sort of PR services to their marketing agencies. And so it became. It turned into this agency certification course. And then we were doing both founders and agencies. And now we've kind of paused because we actually have an agency model coming out at the end of this month and we really want to have a workshop specifically on that. And the long term goal is to separate those trainings out. So we're going to do a separate training program for founders and a separate training program for agencies who want to learn how to do this as a service.
[00:27:31] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. Such a good multiplier.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Yes, yeah, yeah. But the best way to answer your question, Alex, the best way to learn how to do it, Honestly, we have YouTube videos where I kind of break it all down, right? So there's no like, big training program just at the moment, but that's the best way to do it. We will restart the famous founders program as well. So even getting on the waitlist for that is a. Is. Is a great idea if that's something that somebody wants to do. But just jumping in and understanding what your story is, what your messaging is, what your unique value is that you bring to the table, we have a custom GPT that's built for that, so really easy to start out with. That's. Alex, what I would actually highly recommend that you do. Honestly, you will actually get a lot of value just out of that free exercise. The last three events that I spoke at, I actually presented that on stage and we did a live workshop with it. And every one of those events I had at least one, if not multiple people in the audience start crying because it went so deep into who they are and what, you know, what they're trying to bring to the table and why it matters and who it matters. For and how to put that into words. And it is like one woman walked up to me and said that the whole custom GPT experience was cathartic for her. So if you know, Alex, if you're looking to get started or anyone listening in is looking to get started, I would highly recommend the custom GPT, which I'm happy to share.
And then when you really want to take that to the next level, that's when you start thinking about agents and what agents to use and which agents to do. Do I want to build my own agen? Do I want to leverage pre built agents? Then you start to figure out how to like leverage those to amplify that message.
[00:29:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:01] Speaker D: I feel less intimidated. I definitely see that people like you have made things easier for me. So thank you for the advice. I'm definitely going to follow that. I also will get on the waitlist. That sounds perfect.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Awesome. That would be super cool.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: And for our listeners, we're going to share a special link to try out Brand Pod that any of you guys want to really try out. The, the tools and the different ways that you can save a lot of time and build your personal brand, we're going to share a very special link with your own discount code. So we got you. We got you guys. What I'm curious about as a content creator, like, literally, I have been creating content since I was in high school. Like I was on blogspot livejournal and I've been blogging for a very long time, writing and then now I'm doing reels, podcasts and like YouTube. Right. So not everyone has my personality. And I know it's not just intimidation, it's also like, like stamina. Right.
And I think that's really one of the main things that I, I think is the value of the of Brand Pod is that you do not just save business owners or founders who want to be more visible. You do not just save them like the thinking and like the research, time and effort, but also their physical stamina of having to create tons of content. Because I know what that's like for someone who may not be used to, to this type of work. So my question would be, what's the biggest mist founders make when they try to kind of DIY building that stamina or even just like try to get exposure, like pitching themselves going beyond just like posting on their social media accounts.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say it's not pacing themselves well. So just like, you know, if you're running a marathon, you've got to pace yourself and we either have founders who jump in, but then they don't fully commit and so they're like starting and stopping. And then of course, they don't see results and they're like, oh, this isn't for me. And then we have other founders who jump in. They're so excited, they go full throttle and they don't pace themselves and then they get overwhelmed and then they're like, oh, I need to take a break. Like, we have one user who jumped in and literally within a couple of months he was booked on so many podcasts, he didn't have time to do anything else. Because the system works, right? It's just that simple. So you need to have some sort of a goal in mind. You need to go into these podcasts with some sort of a plan to monetize, right, Those features, make sure that you have something of value to give away. Something like a freebie, something like a lead magnet or brand magnet is what we call them when they're specifically to draw people into your brand and experience of working with you. So I always say it's pacing yourself. The other thing is, I think we already touched on this, but I think it's important enough to say again that the, one of the biggest mistakes that founders make is they know they need a personal brand, but they focus on social media. It's like obsession with just social media. And it's either like Instagram and Facebook or it's LinkedIn or it's a combination. But that is just a small part, right? When you really start to leverage podcasts like this one, and you get invited to speak at a podcast, you get invited to speak on a stage in front of your ideal audience, you get to share your story, you get to share your values, you get to give them something of value to walk away with. That's when you get remembered and that's when, when somebody wants, you know, an expert or is looking to work with somebody like you, you come to mind. You're. You're top of mind. Whereas if you're just focusing on social media content that ChatGPT is writing for you and is writing very similar content to somebody else, like how do you stand out? So it's a multifaceted approach. But even though that sounds like more worth than less, again, that's where agents come in. When you leverage agents to that are trained on your not just brand voice. I see people talking about brand voice like that's the, that's the holy grail. That's again a part of it, right? You want to Train the AI on who you are, what your values are, what your mission is, what your goals, your stories, your life experiences. What are the experiences that have led you to where you are that give you this unique perspective on things that nobody else has. Right. A quick example in that the biggest branding experts in the industry are not talking about the difference between a business brand and a personal brand.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: Yeah, they don't need to.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: I was scared to talk about it because I was like, maybe it's me that doesn't understand it because these people are like huge. They're huge influencers. They have such a big following. Maybe I shouldn't talk about it. But when I started to build my personal brand, I realized I have a unique perspective that they actually don't have because they don't have the lived experiences that I do. They haven't seen a mix of how storytelling is done at Marvel, how that actually translates to product launches at places like Apple and Motorola and all the other companies, the bigger tech companies, and how that relates to launching your own business as a startup founder. They all relate, they all translate. And when you really start to understand that, you stop obsessing so much over just social media and you see it as this all encompassing thing where you're reaching your audience on multiple channels and letting the agents do the heavy lifting for you once you've trained that agent on who you are and what you stand for.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I like that point actually, because even if I'm a huge social media user, I want to encourage people to think that there's so much more platforms out there. Could do podcasts, newsletters, you can even do snail mail if you want. You can do like geofence ads, aeo. Right? Like SEO. Like it's not just social media. But I guess my theory is like, there's a quicker kind of reward, right, with social media because you immediately see your views and like your likes and maybe there's like a quick response or, you know, that makes them feel good or something. That's my theory.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And it has worked for some people, but like, for me, I can't spend all my time on social media. I try and I burn out. And so for if you're naturally inclined, like Carla, I feel like you are naturally inclined to social media and that's a part of your personal brand. You've got to lean into what feels comfortable. Just because you're not comfortable being on social media and creating video content on social media all the time doesn't mean that's the only way to get out There and to be visible and to establish your credibility. Right. I don't know the last time I did a reel, but I have reels that I do. And I do podcasts like this, and I get little clips that I get that I then get to share. Right. And so there are different ways to get to that point of having content, of having video, of showing who you are authentically as a person and why. Why somebody would want to have a conversation with you.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I actually have a question for Alex. Like, since you're in the world of customer success, how do personal brands help with relating to customers and improving the customer experience? Like, does it contribute?
[00:35:24] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, it really depends on what the customer is trying to get out of your product or service. Right. Like, if I'm buying marketing and this owner or founder has spent like, a lot of time as a golfer and kind of. Of their brand kind of represents that. And my company is somewhat related. Like, absolutely. I don't. I want to go to them because they know, you know, that my industry, they have some type of parallels. Right. So, like, there's obviously going to be, like, the industry relation, but also there's like, the personal connection. Right. I think loyalty is driven by, like, some type of personal connection. And so, yeah, I think there's a huge connection. And that's why I always encourage in the customer success world to, like, build a community.
I think building a community is really key, and that kind of is a reflection of your company's personality, and you want to try to get as many people that relate to that in one place so they can kind of echo that out. Right. And be around each other. So I think there is.
It was a very customer success answer. So hopefully that was made sense to you, personal branders out there.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: I think it made perfect sense. And I think you hit on a very, very core piece of it, which is loyalty. And so, you know, that was more like, yeah, like you said, customer success. That speak. Or if you're a founder and you have a personal brand. And this is something I've noticed firsthand when people book a call, not just with me or my team, it's not the way it used to be before I had a personal brand, like I said, I used to have people getting on these calls, not knowing who I was, not knowing anything that I had done. And so there were all these objections and all these questions and all these insecurity questions. Right. Like, is this really going to work for me? What proof do you have that it's going to work for Me, what if it doesn't work for me?
[00:37:02] Speaker C: Me.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Now, my team is trained to always tell people like now I, I walk the talk, right? Like, I actually used brand part to get featured and to expand my audience. I just got off a summit and a whole new audience that I got to tap into through this yesterday for women in tech, which is for women in the tech industry in these leadership roles at these companies, not, you know, outside of the high level world. And that was all through BrandPod. And so when people get on a call with my team, even if it's not with me directly, and they ask a question like, how do we know this works, works, they're able to draw from my stories and tell them that this is how it worked for Rahim. Right?
[00:37:37] Speaker D: Yeah, I love it. I actually, I'm like the customer success guy in A Few Masterminds and because I've given talks on them, because I have content out there, like people come to me when they have a retention issue. Right. And that's purely because of that. And I've seen Carla now reaping the benefits of this YouTube channel she's been putting a lot of work into. It's a whole new medium for her. Right. So I totally see the power in it. I'm obsessed with trying to figure this out. I'm one of those people that needs to get over the nerves. I think one thing that I love about your platform is I was telling Carla this the other day. I was like, I just wish I had a formula. I wish I had something that could just tell me, you post here, go look at this. Like, I'm so strategic. I want a formula. And I feel like maybe you don't look at it as like it's giving your users a formula, but the way I see it, it's like this is exactly what I need. It's like A plus E, you know, equals MC over here. And I absolutely love it. It's what I need.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: You' looking at it as a formula, It's a blueprint. It's the same thing. And everyone wants a blueprint to success, so. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: And I would also add even another benefit of like a personal brand is in hiring. Like in my world, in recruitment, finding top tier talent. I've had a lot of, you know, actually a lot of people don't understand that posting a job description is actually a copywriting job. Like, you have to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones and you still have to sell it. You have to sell the role to the right candidates, you have to make them want to apply for the job. Right. And so one of the ways that you strategically do that is to lean onto the personal brand of the owner or the founder of the company. So, for example, if we're hiring for Rouhin, I'm going to lean onto her story, how amazing she is. I mean, if Rohin whispers in my ear that she would prefer a female project manager, I'll lean onto, like, her how she's a mother and, you know, she, like, I'll lean on her like being a woman. Right. So there's ways that that comes up. So there's definitely tons, tons and tons. Like, the benefits of the ROI of a good personal brand is just really unlimited.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: 100%. And, Alex, I'm gonna actually challenge you on something, though. Ready for this?
[00:39:44] Speaker D: I'm excited. Yeah.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: You just talked about how people come to you because you've been speaking on customer success. And so people come to you. And I have all these questions about retention. I would challenge you to think about what you're presenting because if they' to you just because you talk about customer success, that's your reputation. That's not your personal brand.
[00:40:00] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: And that, because that doesn't distinguish you from somebody else who's also talking about customer success and just, you know, has established that they have a reputation for being able to have the answers and the solutions for Churn. And when you start leaning into your stories and how you know what you know and the unique value that you provide that other people are not saying, other customer success reps are not talking about, that's when you give yourself an edge where now people know exactly why it has to be you and not just anybody else else talking about customer success.
[00:40:29] Speaker D: I love that. I do. Now that you say that, I, I think back to the times where I've had to explain why do I have this knowledge, like, why did I end up where I am today? And a lot of it comes back to, yes, there is, you know, previous jobs, but the customer obsession that was beat into my brain at Amazon and learning things a whole new way like that truly is why I am where I am today. And I love telling that story. But you're right, like, I have to. I have to remember when people are coming to me and to, like, explain to them why I am in that position. Right. And you're saying because of that, why that's my right.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Leaning deeper into those specific stories. So, yes, you working at Amazon showed you a different way to approach these problems. But what Specific things happened at Amazon with a client, with a team member, with something else. That taught you this in a way that it's undeniably true.
[00:41:19] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, I've got so many. I've got so many good ones, too.
[00:41:21] Speaker C: I love talking about them, for sure. And like, obviously, like, I have three, like, super good stories from you, Alex. Like how you used to be a competitive snowboarder, like you're athlete, how you're the first person in your family to go to college, and how you supported yourself. That's a very strong story. And of course, like, how you, like, quit Amazon to be with your pretty wife and start a business. That's a good. That's three good stories. Right? You're literally scamming me and Rohin right now for free marketing consultation. That's what you're doing.
[00:41:48] Speaker D: I am. And I somehow got compliments out of it, too. This is my favorite podcast ever. I love, love it.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: Yes, you're getting free compliments from your beautiful wife.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: I love it from two beautiful Asians here.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: As he wiped off his brow.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. I have a question for you, Rouhan. A lot of people would be working a lot on their personal brand, and then somehow they do something wrong or they lose control over the narrative, or maybe there's something that's trying to ruin their reputation. What is your advice for the. Those people?
And even I'll go even as far as, like, can they use your tool to. To help them with it? Because it's kind of like a. On, like a reputation problem.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Yes, and that's a great question. So something that. So right now, the way the platform works is you can. It helps you get featured for your story. So if you, let's say there's a rumor that's being spread about you and you want to crush that, right, Instead of reacting to it and feeding that rumor. There's nothing more powerful than to get on stage, get on podcasts like this, you know, put out content, talking about something that proves that that is wrong without calling that out, necessarily. You can call it out. A lot of people call it out. And that's one way to do it. But, you know, there's also. I don't want to call it passive aggressive, but to me, it's more of. It's a more powerful stance when you can talk credibly about something that just disproves that theory and you don't even feel like it's worth responding to that. Of course, it depends on the extent of the rumor and the Damage it's done and it has a lot of factors, but in general, the answer to that is when you're trying to build a good reputation, whether it's trying to bury a bad one or just build one from scrat, you wanna again, be intentional about marketing yourself on different channels. Right. Social media is just one piece. Make sure that you are getting on other platforms to talk about your story. And when you talk about your story, that's not something that any AI can reproduce. That's not unless it's been trained. Right. So nobody else can copy you or take credit for your stories or your experiences, because that is uniquely you. And so when you talk about your stories and all these different mediums, I mean, we haven't even talked about writing articles and being a published author and having journalists like interview you and write for you and write about you, there's all different angles that help in building up your credibility. Whether again, it's from scratch or whether it's trying to counter a negative light that's been shed on you. So in terms of what the tool can do, it does the podcasting, it does the publications and helps you write and helps you, you know, clarify your messaging and helps you write better content from multiple channels, including email newsletters, including long form like blogs. So it does a lot of that. One thing that I'm super excited about is that we are actively working on bringing journalism to the platform as well. Well, so. Or what you're talking about, that may be one of the most powerful pieces that's going to be in it, where you can reach out to journalists with your story and then catch their attention or even look for what journalists are looking for. Right. So journalists put out requests for specific kinds of stories and if your story matches that, you can let them know that this is, you know, that you'd be a good fit for this. If they are interested, they'll get on an interview with you and they write the article about you. And so all of that is coming to the platform at the end of this month, which I'm super excited about.
[00:44:53] Speaker D: Wow. Launching very soon. I love it. Okay, Carla, we gotta get this episode out soon so people can know.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: It'll probably be up by the time this episode's out. Yeah, it'll be live.
[00:45:04] Speaker D: Carla, you're on mute.
[00:45:05] Speaker C: I have a funny, maybe not serious, not so serious question, but just out of curiosity, since the thing that you're describing sounds super powerful, especially for PR and journalism. Are you screening who's using Brand Pod? Will you take. I don't know criminals, politicians, cult leaders.
[00:45:23] Speaker D: That is a heavy question.
[00:45:24] Speaker C: Do you have an AI that screens? No, I'm just. This is my curiosity. I'm a true crime investigator.
[00:45:30] Speaker D: She does watch. She does watch a lot of.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: I actually love it too. I've been so obsessed with all these Netflix documentaries about. Have you. Have you seen Worst Ex Ever? I'm just finished watching that.
[00:45:41] Speaker C: Yeah, all of them are Alex's exes, actually.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Wow. We're gonna have a whole new episode just on that.
[00:45:47] Speaker D: Isn't it weird that when you live in, like, Seattle area, you watch true crime and you're like, why does it always. Always revolve around Seattle? Like, I feel like all these crimes.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Alex, when you watch. What is it called? But I just said it worse ever.
[00:46:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: Worst X ever.
The first few episodes, was it, like, a season? I remember the first few episodes of watching With My Husband with Kunal, and the first few episodes were all on the east coast, and I'm really.
[00:46:12] Speaker D: Oh, wow.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Happy and. Yeah, finally, you're on East Coast. I'm sorry. No, no, no.
[00:46:17] Speaker D: Hate.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: I'm just on the west coast, so I want to feel like I'm in the most protected area. Like we all do, but everything was on the east coast and, like, so happy about that. And then they had one right, in Seattle.
[00:46:27] Speaker D: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: And now every house I pass, I'm like, ooh, that looks like the house that they showed on that episode.
[00:46:35] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:36] Speaker C: You're just putting your phone up. Yeah. So. So.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: So, yeah, That's a really good question. Honestly. It's a very deep question that I feel like I should probably think more about, especially in the landscape that we're in right now and all the crazy things happening, the honest answer is, no, not yet. It's a very new product. But. But as we learn more about who our ICP is and how it's working differently for a founder versus a marketing agency versus a PR agency. They're all different ICPs that we're building separately for. We're also learning more about the kind of value that we bring and how we want to do it in a mindful, ethical way. So I think. I mean, thank you for bringing that up. It wasn't top of mind, to be honest with you, but I feel like,
[00:47:12] Speaker C: can I be on the board?
[00:47:14] Speaker A: You should be.
[00:47:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Because I was just thinking, I used to be in pr, too, and I had a rule that I won't work with politicians and people who hold positions in, like, churches and stuff. So that was just, like, my Personal rule. And you know, your tool, the tool that you're, the new feature that you're launching could be so good and you know, bad people could right. Be tempted to use it.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: I mean, you're right. I mean, that is true. You know, it's also harder when you're doing services. It's easier to say, I will not work with this kind of icp. It's a lot harder to do with the platform with a software. True. And that's not an excuse, it's just the reality.
[00:47:51] Speaker C: Reality it is.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: You know, like I'm gonna draw a page from Anthropic's book. Like, they were very clear about who can use their models and their LLMs, so why not us? And so I'm gonna challenge myself right back there and say, yes, we're gonna look into it.
[00:48:07] Speaker D: You know, I was thinking, I know a few of my clients who actually have. They have earned early stages, kind of given their almost like brand authority to like an influencer. So stuff like there's UCG content is all over the place. Right. Like, people are like giving essentially like the identity of their brand to these other people. And what do you say about that? Like, is there a good balance? Do you think it like hurts them in the long run? Do you think like there's a chance for them to build up their personal brand and then become the face of their company again? Like, I'm just curious what like your, your thoughts are on someone who's maybe already kind of given their brand identity away and.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: Yeah, so UGC is different from influencer marketing and I feel like that's a combination of both of those. So UGC is user generated content which shows the actual real results that people are getting from your services, from your products, whatever it may be. So UGC is one of the most powerful things. And I'll be honest to say that we have a few power users who are constantly sharing their stories and we try and push those out more than anything else. Those are the most powerful things you can push out. You want to be careful with influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is also extremely powerful, by the way. That is also so coming to Brand Pod, we want to put you in direct contact with the right influencers who can help you get your product and services out there. But I want to be very, very careful with that because there's only so much again, you can do through a platform.
But for anyone listening to this, you just want to be careful about not giving your power away because what ends up happening is that person the influencer. If they really believe in your product, they become the face of your company, even if you didn't want it to be that way.
[00:49:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: And that's the question you're asking. Right. So when they become the face of your company, trying to reclaim that is really hard. Depending on how long that's been going on for. My favorite story to tell with that, and I've given, you know, I've talked about this on many presentations, is Martin Eberhard. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his last name right, but does that name ring a bell at all?
[00:49:56] Speaker C: No.
[00:49:57] Speaker D: No.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Yeah, People are us. I usually show his face. Like, I will show his face and ask people, who's this guy? His name is Martin Eberhard. Anyone heard of him? And everyone's like, blank, right? He's the original founder of Tesla and he is the guy who invented the lithium ion battery that now powers every electric car in the the market. Just the Tesla. So he's like the godfather of electric cars.
[00:50:18] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: But nobody knows who he is because he gave his power away when he asked Elon to. I'm not on a first name basis with him or anything, but like, Elon Musk would invest in his company and ended up giving his power away because Elon Musk had this much bigger personal brand and he became the face of the company. And so for him to steal that company, steal the credibility, steal all of it from Martin was very easy to do. It didn't take much effort at all. And now recently, in the last couple of years, Martin Neighborhood has come forward to talk about his story. He's been interviewed, he's been talking about how, you know, this was all taken away from him and nobody cares. Sadly, he's a really human and nobody cares.
[00:50:56] Speaker C: Especially now that Elon's the richest person on the planet. Right.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: That doesn't help either.
[00:51:02] Speaker D: It reminds me of Steve Wozniak too.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Right?
[00:51:05] Speaker D: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: It's so interesting. I was reading that book. In fact, I have that book upstairs. I haven't gotten through it, but that was actually eye opening me for, for me, I didn't know about. I. I've always thought Steve Jobs was the guy. And then you find that Steve Wozniak is actually the brain behind all of it. But I think the answer to your question, I mean, that's the problem. And I think we're all aware that that is a problem. And I think the answer, from my own experience going through this as well is not partnering just with one person. So when you are doing influencer marketing, you want to make sure that you're not just putting all your eggs in that one influencer's basket, so to speak. You want to, you know, diversify and work with at least four or five different influencers. Yes, it's more expensive, but don't get into to it if you can't afford a few of them. If you can only afford to pay one influencer to market for you, you want to be very, very careful and have a very short term contract just to get a boost of traffic and quickly use that traffic to start bringing in more influencers who can also speak to your product. Don't let that go on for too long with just one person.
[00:52:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I like that advice. And actually I have a question specifically for like female founders like you and I. A lot of the female founders I see who want to like share their story, improve their personal brand, they lean onto vulnerability. Right. But unfortunately, some women fall into the trap of like airing out dirty laundry. What do you think is the difference and what are your tips for women to or like being too cringe and now it's like actually hurting their reputation. Where is the line, like, in your opinion, what's the difference between like being elegantly vulnerable versus like airing dirty laundry or something?
[00:52:43] Speaker A: I think the difference is again, asking yourself, is this going to give value to the person that I want hearing this or is this just making me feel better in the moment? Right. You know, we started this whole episode talking about like, what kind of value are you putting out there with every piece of content, every piece of messaging that you put out there every time you tell your story, who are you trying to inspire or reach with that story? So as long as it is providing value to someone, you can talk about the hurt and the pain you've been through. You know, a personal story for me is when I was just getting started with my personal brand, I really, I created this custom GPT because of how much I struggled with what stories to tell. And this isn't really airing a grievance, but one of the hardest stories that I've ever.
Hardest things that not story, but hardest things that I've ever experienced is losing my mom. And actually she was my best friend. I don't have any siblings. She was my best friend. As I moved every two years of my life, I was extremely close to her. We used to talk about being soulmates and we've had some very, very deep conversations. And to watch her suffer the way she did. And to watch actually be by her bedside the last time she took her last breath, to see her pulse slow down like I was witnessed all of it in slow motion. I think that to me was a life changing moment. But I don't talk about it because it doesn't lend into the way I can help people right now.
And so when I came to that realization, the parts of my story that were meant to be told, even if it's not the deepest, darkest story that I have, you know, we see speakers get up on stage and share their story and they have the whole room crying. And you're like, I want to be a speaker like that. I want to have that effect on people. But it's not necessarily the deepest, darkest story story it can be. But it's not necessarily that story that's going to provide the kind of value that you're looking to provide to your audience. So whether you're trying to figure out if something is the right story or not, whether the right emotion to share or not, I think it all just comes down to is this going to provide somebody with value? I'm very careful about when I talk about, you know, partnerships that fell through and how somebody else took credibility for my work because I don't want to get into the who and the why and, you know, like putting other people down or dragging other people through the mud and pointing fingers. And I never do. I've been asked like, can you name names? And I'm always like, no.
Right, right. So I think it's really. But I share that story because I know it's going to help people. I've had enough conversations where I know as entrepreneurs, as female entrepreneurs, Carla, specifically, as you mentioned. Right. We women tend to get caught up in this whole thing of we bring so much value to the table, but we're usually the ones who are too scared to speak up and claim that value, as opposed to our male clients, counterparts. And so we end up giving our credibility away. We end up giving our value away way too quickly. And I think that more women need to know that there is a strategy, there's a way for them to own what they do, their own unique value, own it, own the messaging behind it, own the positioning behind it, and really present themselves as a thought leader and as somebody behind that voice that nobody else can claim from them. And that's the only reason I share that story. So hopefully that helps kind of distinguish between two things.
[00:55:31] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I, I like that, actually. That something to think about for sure. Your story is Very touching. But you're right, it does not help. And I think it's also a way to honor that story. Right. Like, sometimes I see a lot of founders using a sad story, mostly just for clicks. Like, they don't. Like you said, they don't. Or they just want sympathy, but it doesn't provide value to. To the reader or their audience or a lot of people or founders are using social media. They're like therapy.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:56:01] Speaker C: Have you seen men do this too, Alex? Yes, a lot.
[00:56:04] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, yeah, We're. We're definitely not excluded from that.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: I see a lot of men doing it specifically right now. So, yeah, I don't think it's a more woman or man thing, but I will say that it is. If you feel like something you're posting is not actually helping someone, don't post it. Find a therapist.
[00:56:20] Speaker D: That is solid advice right there. Oh, man. I. I think there's obviously still, like, a time and place too, right? Like, if it's something you want to share with the world. Absolutely. But, yeah, from like, a brand perspective, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Carla, I had one more question. Cause I know we have an audience that are all about living a rich in a remote life. They want to work less, they want to live more. What does the end game look like for a founder who fully commits to building their personal brand on autopilot? Like, what kinds of opportunities start growing and showing when they do this?
[00:56:56] Speaker A: I love that question. And in fact, you're the name of this podcast is really what started really getting me to dive deep into that. I've been thinking so much about this over these past couple of days, knowing that this podcast was coming up. But, you know, for me, it's. It's about how do you define being rich? Right. Is it a monetary value? I think for a lot of us, when we first start out, when we first launch our businesses, we have this idea of what it means to be rich and how much money we want to make. And you quickly realize that no amount of money ever feels like it's enough. What does feel like it's enough, and where you feel like it's. You're in a good place is regardless of that number, are you living the life that you want to live? Do you feel whole, or do you feel like you're constantly in pieces? I think being able to live a life and build a legacy and build a business that allows you to live the kind of life you want to live on your terms, allows you to spend time with the people that you want to spend time with allows you to, you know, do whatever else you want to do, whether it's a hobby, whether it's traveling, whether it's just cooking dinner with your family, whatever that is for you. You. If your line of work, if your business allows you to do that, you, in my mind, are rich. And that is what I work towards with a personal brand.
[00:58:01] Speaker D: I love that answer. When we started, this brand was like, rich and remote. Do you love the name? I'm like, I don't want it. Everyone to think that I'm just after a Ferrari or like, I'm Tai Lopez over here. Because it. But then we kind of sat down and talked about it, and it's like, it's absolutely. What does rich mean to you? And honestly, what does the remote mean to you? Do you want to live in your hometown still? But you're not going into an office that can be remote. Right. Or have the freedom. Right. I think I totally agree with you. Rich can mean something completely different other than a monetary value. For us, it's like living the life between the Philippines and Mexico, where we want. Pretty soon we're about to go to Idaho, spend time with our family. That's what rich means to us. And it actually equates to being remote as well.
[00:58:42] Speaker A: Exactly. And remote also means. Like you said, there's different definitions to that. For me, it's being able to. Because I traveled every two years of my life, I had to move. But to me, being remote means I get to work from home, have one house. Like, we just bought a house that I'm super excited about. But being able to own your house, live in one place, but travel and work from wherever you need to, whenever you need to. That, to me is being right. Yeah.
[00:59:06] Speaker C: And I think also throughout the years, like, something like your personal brand could be a really big asset for being living that rich and remote life. Like, even when us seeing. I've been seeing these, like, exits from, like, road restaurants. Right. Like, heavily leaning onto Hailey Bieber's personal brand, like the Kylie. Also all these makeup brands and all these food brands leaning heavily into personal brands as well. Like, a personal brand can definitely get you to that. To that journey. So thank you so much, Rahin, for sitting with us, sharing your story.
We are. We learned a lot, actually. Like I said, our favorite way to scam experts like you is to just get for free advice is just to get them on this podcast.
Um, while sharing, of course, your amazing tool. Where can people find you?
[00:59:55] Speaker A: LinkedIn. You just search for Raheem Thankfully, I have a. It's a strange enough name where it's actually easy to find me on Facebook, on LinkedIn. That's where I'm most active. I am active on. On Instagram too, but I don't check my messages as often. So the best place to reach me is either on LinkedIn or on Facebook and it's pretty easy to find me by my name. So, yeah, I love having conversations. If anyone wants to talk about personal branding, I'm always for it.
[01:00:17] Speaker C: That's right. And for our guests, of course, for our listeners, we are going to share a special link for you guys to try out Brand Pod. You can try it for free. And we also offer an extended trial specifically only for our listeners. You can only get that special deal here. So, yeah. Thank you so much. Rahi and Alex, any final thoughts?
[01:00:36] Speaker D: Also, yeah, check the show notes and I'm going to be building a personal brand, so build it with me. I'm trying out the tool. I'm going for. It just got me motivated. So if I can go for it. You could definitely go for it.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: I'm excited.
[01:00:48] Speaker C: Yeah. All right, cool. Well, thank you so much, Raheem, Alex, and have a great week, y'.
[01:00:53] Speaker A: All. Thank you for having me. Bye.
[01:00:57] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to Rich and Remote, where freedom isn't a dream, it's a decision.
[01:01:02] Speaker D: This is Karla, this is Alex Booth,
[01:01:05] Speaker C: and this is our journey to our dream rich and remote life.
[01:01:10] Speaker D: If this episode inspired you, share share with a friend who's ready to live life differently, too. This is perfect for entrepreneurs who crave financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from the opinions of others.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: And don't forget to leave a quick review. It helps more freedom seekers find this show. Big thanks to our sponsors, Huckleberry Consulting, getcsm and Proximity Outsourcing.
[01:01:35] Speaker D: See you in the next episode and check out our online hangout spot, richandremote.com.
