Marketing, PR, and comms expert Kim Rozdeba shares insights from his book, “Branding Queens”, including what exactly a brand IS, the 5 C’s of branding, the paradox of expectation, the Oprah test, and why having your own personal brand might be a trap, plus, reminisces about carrying the Olympic torch in the ’88 games.
Hi, hello. So you know, I'm in Nashville.
Stephanie Maas:Where are you?
Kim Rozdeba:I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Stephanie Maas:Oh beautiful. My folks went to the Winter
Stephanie Maas:Olympics. They are back in...
Kim Rozdeba:'88.
Stephanie Maas:Yes. Did I read correctly that you carried the
Stephanie Maas:torch that those games?
Kim Rozdeba:I was an escort runner. Yeah. So I was with it
Kim Rozdeba:for four days. So there would be parts. So we got to dark and
Kim Rozdeba:unsafe for having just regular people run with the torch. So we
Kim Rozdeba:would have running groups, or we would run with it to make up
Kim Rozdeba:some time. So if there was some time, or some areas that were
Kim Rozdeba:either difficult to run steep hills, whatever, we would do
Kim Rozdeba:that to keep the thing going. So yes, the part I really enjoyed
Kim Rozdeba:was, I've got probably a wry sense of humor. And every once
Kim Rozdeba:in a while the torch would go out because the fuel that was
Kim Rozdeba:fueling it in the in the actual torch would run out, and then
Kim Rozdeba:you'd have to refill it. And you'd see somebody and it would
Kim Rozdeba:like, it's no longer lit and then going, Oh, my God, what did
Kim Rozdeba:you do? And they're going, I did nothing. And I go, we're gonna
Kim Rozdeba:have to go back to Greece. Now, what are we gonna do? And I
Kim Rozdeba:said, to have a light to the match. But yes, there will be a
Kim Rozdeba:horror, but there is there is the eternal flame that is with
Kim Rozdeba:it. And it is capsulated. So it's protected. And that's where
Kim Rozdeba:you you light it from. So it comes from there all the time.
Kim Rozdeba:So you don't take a match and light it. I actually was living
Kim Rozdeba:in Toronto at the time. So I actually ran it in Ontario, in
Kim Rozdeba:minus 15 temperatures, but I didn't realize how incredible it
Kim Rozdeba:was an honor to actually be with the torch. Until my first
Kim Rozdeba:evening that I was running in with a torchbearer. The
Kim Rozdeba:torchbearer was beside me, and you run beside them just to make
Kim Rozdeba:sure, again, we would always sort of tell them don't, don't
Kim Rozdeba:rush it, you take, enjoy this moment. Because people would
Kim Rozdeba:just wanna, you know, and we were tired, because we've been
Kim Rozdeba:running all day, it was to our advantage. So they went slow.
Kim Rozdeba:But when we came in, this older lady came running up to me and
Kim Rozdeba:grabbed me and hugged me. And she said, God bless you. And
Kim Rozdeba:that was my introduction to that all week, four days of running
Kim Rozdeba:with it, the people the incredible emotions, the
Kim Rozdeba:feeling, you could feel the emotional in the air, when you
Kim Rozdeba:come into a venue where again, we'd stop, we'd have some
Kim Rozdeba:speeches, after you we went out with a group of of runners or
Kim Rozdeba:torchbearers, we would take them back, and then we would do a
Kim Rozdeba:debrief with them. And that debrief was quite emotional. And
Kim Rozdeba:the team that went out because we take a whole team out, and
Kim Rozdeba:then we, they'd be in a caravan and then we'd but you know, each
Kim Rozdeba:one would have their turn, and then they go back into the
Kim Rozdeba:caravan, we'd go back with them. And then a new group would come
Kim Rozdeba:out, they became instant friends. They shared, you know,
Kim Rozdeba:pictures and addresses. And yeah, it was very memorable. And
Kim Rozdeba:I say sad, very honored to have been able to have done that.
Kim Rozdeba:Yeah, that's a long time ago. Now that I'm thinking about 35
Kim Rozdeba:years, but every, every one of them, like I see other ones that
Kim Rozdeba:happen all over the world. I'm captivated. Because yeah, it's,
Kim Rozdeba:it is something that is truly amazing. And I had the
Kim Rozdeba:opportunity to work with some Olympians. And these are
Kim Rozdeba:incredible people incredible in the sense of they put their
Kim Rozdeba:whole life on hold or a sport, obscure sports, where there is
Kim Rozdeba:no audience, there is nobody, you know, cheering them on every
Kim Rozdeba:day. So they do need know to be able to have that endurance and
Kim Rozdeba:that perseverance.
Stephanie Maas:Oh how cool. Ah, that's too cool. Thank you for
Stephanie Maas:sharing that. Okay, so getting back to topic. The first thing I
Stephanie Maas:want to ask is probably going to sound like a really juvenile
Stephanie Maas:question, but I think it would be important, I think what is so
Stephanie Maas:fascinating here is this idea of branding. Can you kind of walk
Stephanie Maas:me through the differences or similarity between branding,
Stephanie Maas:marketing reputation, what is a brand?
Kim Rozdeba:I'm gonna give you my definition of what a brand is
Kim Rozdeba:to start? There's lots of different definitions out there.
Kim Rozdeba:They talk about benefits, they talk about attributes talk about
Kim Rozdeba:tonality, but I've sort of taken a quote from Maya Angelou and
Kim Rozdeba:I've kind of rewritten it, and it's a brand isn't what it says
Kim Rozdeba:or does, but how it makes its customers feel. So the end
Kim Rozdeba:result of a brand is the feeling. So marketing, marketing
Kim Rozdeba:can help with the feeling but marketing is really talking
Kim Rozdeba:about product attributes. It's about action. In creating an
Kim Rozdeba:action, you want somebody to do something, maybe have a
Kim Rozdeba:promotion, maybe you have a sale, maybe it's, it's it's a
Kim Rozdeba:launch. But branding is about how people feel. Reputation is
Kim Rozdeba:part of that a lot of people say, you know, the most
Kim Rozdeba:important element is trust. And it's true, you'd look at your
Kim Rozdeba:personal relationships, you know, the foundation is trust.
Kim Rozdeba:So you have to build that trust, as well.
Stephanie Maas:So this idea of a personal brand, talk to me
Stephanie Maas:about the importance of that, especially from a leadership
Stephanie Maas:perspective, you know, maybe, you know, maybe you're not the
Stephanie Maas:CEO of a company, which you get what you're responsible for in
Stephanie Maas:terms of that brand. But what if, you know, from a leadership
Stephanie Maas:perspective, I'm running a team, I'm a business owner, I get the
Stephanie Maas:brand part as it relates to the product, but what if in your
Stephanie Maas:responsibility, it's not so much about the product?
Kim Rozdeba:So there's two questions there, I think one is
Kim Rozdeba:if you're an employee, and two, if there's about you, yourself,
Kim Rozdeba:so let me talk about an employee first, from a police
Kim Rozdeba:perspective, you could be an advocate of the brand. And the
Kim Rozdeba:great thing about having advocates, ie your employees,
Kim Rozdeba:people trust other people's opinion. So you know, if a
Kim Rozdeba:person is out there talking about your product, or your
Kim Rozdeba:brand, in a favorable way, that's a good thing. Ideally,
Kim Rozdeba:these are your employees, because they know your brand
Kim Rozdeba:better than anybody else. On a personal level of building your
Kim Rozdeba:own brand, I'm still not completely sure there's there's
Kim Rozdeba:a, there's a need to build a LinkedIn profile, there's a need
Kim Rozdeba:to have a good resume. I'm not sure unless you're a consultant,
Kim Rozdeba:or if you're a leader. And you are you are the face and voice
Kim Rozdeba:of a brand, that you need to have a personal brand. If you
Kim Rozdeba:follow the metrics of a brand, if you want to dissect a brand,
Kim Rozdeba:being a box of cereal is not a goal for me. That is a brand. A
Kim Rozdeba:brand is about consistency, and about controlling the messaging,
Kim Rozdeba:and all the attributes of that. And human beings are much bigger
Kim Rozdeba:and better. I mean, we're motional we have many things to
Kim Rozdeba:offer. And, and sometimes we're we change our minds, right? We
Kim Rozdeba:do different things. We're, we're multi dimensional, not
Kim Rozdeba:like a box. So there is parts of branding that we can utilize,
Kim Rozdeba:absolutely. But outside of being you know, a voice for the brand.
Kim Rozdeba:And you know, being out there doing content, writing content,
Kim Rozdeba:being out there doing podcasts, going, the extra step to build
Kim Rozdeba:your brand. I'm not sure everybody needs to do that.
Stephanie Maas:Okay, but let's talk about if you ARE in
Stephanie Maas:leadership.
Kim Rozdeba:So as a leader of an organization, or of your
Kim Rozdeba:consultant, or your lawyer, a doctor, should you have a
Kim Rozdeba:presence? Absolutely. Today, it becomes more important because
Kim Rozdeba:people want to understand your why it's about the why it's
Kim Rozdeba:about your purpose, it is about your promise, it's about you
Kim Rozdeba:know your values. And people want to know that if they're
Kim Rozdeba:going to be dealing with a company, they want to know the
Kim Rozdeba:values of those people that are working in that company, in
Kim Rozdeba:particular, the leader of it. So understanding that commitment,
Kim Rozdeba:your personal commitment, it's not like you're you're morphing
Kim Rozdeba:the brand's commitment. Because you've got your own personality
Kim Rozdeba:attached to it, you have your own things that you are keenly
Kim Rozdeba:interested in, you know, every time I see a new CEO, in an
Kim Rozdeba:organization, they bring different aspects to the brand,
Kim Rozdeba:they take things and they may actually highlight things that
Kim Rozdeba:are that are still within the brand, but it's their own
Kim Rozdeba:interests. So you have to have that passion attached to it.
Kim Rozdeba:And, and you can see some of the leaders, I love the people that
Kim Rozdeba:were passionate about certain topics, because they live it and
Kim Rozdeba:they breathe it and you you pick up, you pick up things that you
Kim Rozdeba:would never pick up before from that passion.
Stephanie Maas:Ok, so talk to me about what you call the five
Stephanie Maas:C's.
Kim Rozdeba:Alright, so the five C's, the first one is
Kim Rozdeba:commitment, and it is about your purpose, your promise that
Kim Rozdeba:you're going to deliver every day. The second one is construct
Kim Rozdeba:and construct is the logo. It's the it's the graphic designs,
Kim Rozdeba:the color palette, it's the tonality, it's the five senses,
Kim Rozdeba:you know, you know, what is it going to feel like? What's going
Kim Rozdeba:to touch? Does it have a scent, what's a scent going to be? So
Kim Rozdeba:it's all those things that you can construct and making a
Kim Rozdeba:brand. The third one is community and a lot of people
Kim Rozdeba:go, Oh, I thought I was going to be customer. And customer is
Kim Rozdeba:part of your community. But actually your community is much
Kim Rozdeba:bigger than just your customer. And we touched a little bit here
Kim Rozdeba:already on both employees and the importance of employees of
Kim Rozdeba:being advocates to your brand. So their key target audience in
Kim Rozdeba:your community. But the other one really it's a really
Kim Rozdeba:interesting one is influencers. There's media influencers,
Kim Rozdeba:there's podcast influencers, there's a whole number of people
Kim Rozdeba:out there that can amplify your brand and give credibility to
Kim Rozdeba:your brand. So that's your community. And then the next one
Kim Rozdeba:is your content and in content is your marketing, marketing
Kim Rozdeba:fits in there. It's your advertising, it is your public
Kim Rozdeba:relations, a lot of brands when they start out, they can't
Kim Rozdeba:afford advertising, PR, that's free advertising. So that
Kim Rozdeba:publicity, you know, you can't pay for I mean, it's it's really
Kim Rozdeba:good publicity. It's made some of the brands very famous very
Kim Rozdeba:quickly, you get Oprah Winfrey, to talk about your brand, and
Kim Rozdeba:you are set. But outside of that, it's is about leaders, it
Kim Rozdeba:is about your voice. It is about how do you present yourself in
Kim Rozdeba:the industry as a whole. So it's not just advertising, and it's
Kim Rozdeba:social media as well. And then the final one, the final one is
Kim Rozdeba:probably the one that's that doesn't have as much sizzle. And
Kim Rozdeba:that is consistency. And consistency is about how do you
Kim Rozdeba:replicate every transaction, every touchpoint that you have
Kim Rozdeba:with your consumer over and over and over and over the same way.
Kim Rozdeba:But it's not just the same way, because you're trying to ratchet
Kim Rozdeba:it up. Because once you've met expectation, the expectation
Kim Rozdeba:goes up again. So you have to continually build a system,
Kim Rozdeba:training, policies, governance, all of these things to make sure
Kim Rozdeba:that what's being delivered, is being delivered everywhere,
Kim Rozdeba:every place every time, the same way. And also improving that
Kim Rozdeba:delivery. Every time. Oprah Winfrey said, you know, she
Kim Rozdeba:denied being a brand for many years, until one day, she
Kim Rozdeba:discovered that one of the key elements of a brand is
Kim Rozdeba:consistency. And she goes well, yeah, I, I've always been
Kim Rozdeba:consistent. So therefore, I must be a brand.
Stephanie Maas:Ok, one thing I have not ever heard before, is a
Stephanie Maas:word that you use tied to commitment. And that is the word
Stephanie Maas:promise. And I think it is super interesting that when you talk
Stephanie Maas:about a commitment, you talk about a promise. You know, I
Stephanie Maas:think a lot of folks commitment. While there's usually a ton of
Stephanie Maas:sincerity around it, it almost feels I'll say a promise feels
Stephanie Maas:personal. Yes. And to me the fact that you would make this
Stephanie Maas:idea of a commitment be personal. As soon as you said
Stephanie Maas:that word I go, yep, that's a difference. And I've heard that
Stephanie Maas:you have this interesting definition of the word
Stephanie Maas:accountability, are those linked at all? Can you talk me through
Stephanie Maas:those two?
Kim Rozdeba:Yep. So I'm gonna go back to my definition, which
Kim Rozdeba:is, it's a feeling you have to get to that promise, because it
Kim Rozdeba:is it's a personal commitment from a brand to to that person,
Kim Rozdeba:they don't look at it and go, you're serving a million people
Kim Rozdeba:you're serving Me, and My expectations are a certain
Kim Rozdeba:level. And you build that over time, because that consistency
Kim Rozdeba:becomes really important. Because that promise is
Kim Rozdeba:delivered. I mean, you think of think of your personal
Kim Rozdeba:situation, if somebody doesn't deliver on a promise, your trust
Kim Rozdeba:level changes. Now, there's situations you know that you,
Kim Rozdeba:you'll you'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And you'll
Kim Rozdeba:do the same with a brand if a brand falls down and they do all
Kim Rozdeba:the time. Yep, systems fall down, things don't work.
Kim Rozdeba:Employees have a bad day, you know, you have a bad experience.
Kim Rozdeba:The question is, how do they fix it, that becomes the important
Kim Rozdeba:element to all of it. That's where the accountability comes
Kim Rozdeba:into. Because everyone has to be accountable and delivering. And
Kim Rozdeba:if you don't, somebody has to fix it, and acknowledge that,
Kim Rozdeba:and people are willing to give the benefit of the doubt, if a
Kim Rozdeba:brand doesn't deliver. But if it doesn't deliver over time
Kim Rozdeba:consistently, then they have to reevaluate. I mean, banks banks
Kim Rozdeba:is a really interesting one. Because how many times do you
Kim Rozdeba:change a bank, I've got two banks, I deal with one, my
Kim Rozdeba:parents actually started and I had an account with it when I
Kim Rozdeba:was a kid. And the other one I started from university because
Kim Rozdeba:they were on the campus, I've gone to others come and gone.
Kim Rozdeba:didn't treat me as well as I thought, but has to be really
Kim Rozdeba:something really big to make that change.
Stephanie Maas:Correct me if I didn't hear you, right, please,
Stephanie Maas:this accountability is how you fix it. That just
Stephanie Maas:acknowledgement understanding that when you meet somebody's
Stephanie Maas:expectation, you got to continually go to the net, and
Stephanie Maas:it's not an aggressive go to the next level. It's just now you
Stephanie Maas:have a new foundation of what is expected. And you need to be
Stephanie Maas:always at or above but if you do, because humans are running
Stephanie Maas:these companies when you fall short, that's when
Stephanie Maas:accountability steps in and how you respond to the falling
Stephanie Maas:short, again, comes back to that trust factor. That feeling that
Stephanie Maas:promise. You're bringing this to life.
Kim Rozdeba:At the Regis Hotel, high luxury hotel, beautiful
Kim Rozdeba:hotel, they empower their employees who are accountable
Kim Rozdeba:for that service delivery, every one of them if there's a problem
Kim Rozdeba:they have, I believe it's about $2,000 at their discretion to
Kim Rozdeba:solve a customer's issue They don't have to go anywhere, they
Kim Rozdeba:don't have to get approval, every employee in that company
Kim Rozdeba:can solve up to $2,000. a customer's problem. I think, if
Kim Rozdeba:I had 2000, I think I could solve what a few problems.
Stephanie Maas:That is awesome. You know, when when I originally
Stephanie Maas:heard the word brand, I thought about, you know, my mom was
Stephanie Maas:raised in a time where brands, quite frankly, established
Stephanie Maas:those, the haves and the have nots, if you brought knit, you
Stephanie Maas:know, if you could buy brand name things at the grocery
Stephanie Maas:store, or, you know, at the shopping center, wherever you
Stephanie Maas:did, that was it. So she was not raised as a half. And so as she
Stephanie Maas:grew older, that was very important to her to buy certain
Stephanie Maas:brands, because it was the feeling. And I never understood
Stephanie Maas:why she was so loyal, because quite frankly, there are better
Stephanie Maas:products out there. But she is so immediate, she will buy a
Stephanie Maas:certain name brand, she I just can't get her to change. And I
Stephanie Maas:get that now, that's the feeling. And I think about the
Stephanie Maas:generation where that I'm in, we have very little brand loyalty,
Stephanie Maas:and it's a lot about price. However, as soon as that comes
Stephanie Maas:out of my mouth, I think about what was one of the biggest
Stephanie Maas:gifts this year for over the holidays, almost every single
Stephanie Maas:female that I know, Stanley Cup, they're huge. And I was trying
Stephanie Maas:to think like, what is the feeling that the Stanley Cup
Stephanie Maas:that I have now? What does it represent? And it is a feeling
Stephanie Maas:it's an it's almost a sense of being cluded? That is super
Stephanie Maas:interesting. So let's take that. So you have this idea around
Stephanie Maas:brand and the importance and what consists of it out? Did you
Stephanie Maas:get to focus on females, because as a non female, and I'm not
Stephanie Maas:making an assumption there, that surprises me a little bit. So
Stephanie Maas:talk me through that.
Kim Rozdeba:So I got to start with the first there's 20
Kim Rozdeba:entrepreneurs a woman in this book called branding queens, and
Kim Rozdeba:they all why how we came up with the name was each one of them
Kim Rozdeba:was referred somewhere in the media of creative something. So
Kim Rozdeba:it was kind of an obvious it was like a ha moment for me. I had
Kim Rozdeba:several other titles before that. But it started repeating
Kim Rozdeba:itself. I'm going this is it. This is what the book should be
Kim Rozdeba:called. But the first woman that I actually had this started the
Kim Rozdeba:whole idea was the champagne, Veuve Clicquot.
Stephanie Maas:Very familiar, huge fan.
Kim Rozdeba:So if you translate Vu, it's widow in English. I
Kim Rozdeba:didn't know that either. And I go, why? Why would you put widow
Kim Rozdeba:on a champagne bottle? I didn't know that it was actually a
Kim Rozdeba:woman behind the champagne house. So it got me intrigued to
Kim Rozdeba:go, okay. There's a woman behind this product. She started in
Kim Rozdeba:1810. Napoleon was raging and wars around a France, women were
Kim Rozdeba:basically second class citizens. How did this happen? So that was
Kim Rozdeba:my journey. That was the start. And then I go, and why did she
Kim Rozdeba:put when all you have to read the book to find out? So then I
Kim Rozdeba:started saying, Well, is there other women out there that I'm
Kim Rozdeba:not aware of? There's quite a few that I am. And they're
Kim Rozdeba:actually in the book. But are there others that I'm not aware,
Kim Rozdeba:and I started digging. And the hard part was as you go back in
Kim Rozdeba:time, I mean, brands are a relatively new concept. They
Kim Rozdeba:really came into their, their, their place back in the 1920s
Kim Rozdeba:30s, boomers, all the different brands that came up during the
Kim Rozdeba:boom 1940 There was a lot of brands that started prior to
Kim Rozdeba:that everything was just sort of a commodity, there was there was
Kim Rozdeba:no printing presses and stuff, there was no way to communicate,
Kim Rozdeba:you know, personal attachments to these things, or where it
Kim Rozdeba:came from. And that's kind of the the intent, right? is people
Kim Rozdeba:want to know where this is it safe is this? Is this a
Kim Rozdeba:reputable organization? Am I going to die if I eat this?
Kim Rozdeba:These are important things to know. But there were there were
Kim Rozdeba:women out there Bissell the vacuum cleaner, a lot of cases
Kim Rozdeba:they started with their husband, they were joint in the business
Kim Rozdeba:because they intimately knew the business. Their husbands passed
Kim Rozdeba:away fairly young, particularly in today's world. Did they have
Kim Rozdeba:to continue with the company, a lot of cases they didn't. Other
Kim Rozdeba:cases, they had like four or five kids, but they wanted to.
Kim Rozdeba:And they saw the vision of what this brand was and they actually
Kim Rozdeba:built the brand. So I took situations here where they
Kim Rozdeba:actually took whatever they they had when they started and then
Kim Rozdeba:did they actually grow it? And did they actually make an iconic
Kim Rozdeba:brand? And did they have enough evidence attached to it that
Kim Rozdeba:they actually did get involved in building the brand
Kim Rozdeba:themselves. So they just weren't an icon associated with the
Kim Rozdeba:brand. And I found 20 women. The youngest is Sara Blakely Spanx.
Kim Rozdeba:This recently stepped down as the CEO of her organization. I
Kim Rozdeba:think she's got three kids three or four kids but These are
Kim Rozdeba:fascinating stories. They're fascinating stories, because in
Kim Rozdeba:many of these cases, they had no experience of building a brand.
Kim Rozdeba:They had no experience of building a product. And when you
Kim Rozdeba:think of building a product, I'll go to Elizabeth Arden,
Kim Rozdeba:she's a Canadian, she was born in Canada, and she moved to New
Kim Rozdeba:York City. And she started working cosmetician doing a lot
Kim Rozdeba:of facials and stuff. And she came up with a product, a cream,
Kim Rozdeba:she call it a jar of hope. So she already understood the why
Kim Rozdeba:but she was doing and the why usually doesn't come right when
Kim Rozdeba:you start with Apple didn't understand what they were doing.
Kim Rozdeba:At the beginning, it took them a while to figure out their why.
Kim Rozdeba:And most products, and most brands, this is the case, you
Kim Rozdeba:don't really start with something big, colossal, you're
Kim Rozdeba:going to change the world, you're just trying to make a
Kim Rozdeba:product that's better than any other product. And it's Joe,
Kim Rozdeba:it's affordable. And you can, you can actually put it a
Kim Rozdeba:distribution center. And you can put a retail plan, you could get
Kim Rozdeba:employees, all of these things. So the interesting aspect to all
Kim Rozdeba:this is is all these women had to learn. And they were
Kim Rozdeba:ferocious, and their ability to learn different things because
Kim Rozdeba:they came with just their passion. If anything most of
Kim Rozdeba:them came with is they knew that there was a problem. And they
Kim Rozdeba:were the customer in a lot of cases.
Stephanie Maas:I think, and I know I'm being a little bit
Stephanie Maas:assumptive here, but I think especially for women, and I'm
Stephanie Maas:taking this from what you said about Sara Blakely stepping
Stephanie Maas:down, I think for women to really get into that idea of
Stephanie Maas:balancing work with family, and so forth and so on. There has to
Stephanie Maas:be a lot of passion, because there's a lot of sacrifice,
Stephanie Maas:quite frankly, you know, even in today's society as modern as we
Stephanie Maas:may be. But the other thing I heard, which I think is really
Stephanie Maas:good counsel for anybody who feels like they have a passion,
Stephanie Maas:and it really eliminates ego, and pride, and all these other
Stephanie Maas:things, is the ability to learn the desire to learn. And I think
Stephanie Maas:those two things together, just looking at the list some a list
Stephanie Maas:of the women, gosh, you would have thought, I don't know that
Stephanie Maas:you would necessarily go out and say they don't have pride or
Stephanie Maas:ego. I don't think you would say they were prideful or
Stephanie Maas:egotistical. But I don't know that without your direction
Stephanie Maas:here, we would naturally say that their ability and desire to
Stephanie Maas:learn was a standout or would be the advice. I think, you know,
Stephanie Maas:most people would say, hey, advice, passion, get organized,
Stephanie Maas:rely on other people don't try and do it all. But the way he
Stephanie Maas:broke that into just ability and desire to learn. It's so cool.
Stephanie Maas:Is there anything that you wanted to make sure we talked
Stephanie Maas:about or addressed in our time together?
Kim Rozdeba:I mean, don't be hard on yourself that you have
Kim Rozdeba:to be a brand. As a person, you know, I took the challenge and
Kim Rozdeba:said, I'm going to build a brand, it's a lot of work to
Kim Rozdeba:build a personal brand. And I don't know if all of us need to
Kim Rozdeba:be a personal brand. I sometimes I think this is a social media
Kim Rozdeba:platform, wanting all of us to build content, right? It's it's,
Kim Rozdeba:it's to keep all the social platforms full. And I again, as
Kim Rozdeba:I said, Be yourself, do you need to present a particularly on
Kim Rozdeba:LinkedIn, a professional viewpoint of yourself? Yes. But
Kim Rozdeba:that shouldn't stop you from, you know, having your cooking,
Kim Rozdeba:Instagram, your tick tock, I know, I know, quite a few people
Kim Rozdeba:have ticked dogs, for hobbies, and to have all these different
Kim Rozdeba:things and not feel that you are deviating from your purpose or
Kim Rozdeba:your goal because that puts you in a box, you know that
Kim Rozdeba:consistency puts you in a box because that's what a brand is,
Kim Rozdeba:it's going to be consistent all the time. It's going to always
Kim Rozdeba:act this way. And human beings can change, right? Sometimes if
Kim Rozdeba:you see famous people who are brands, and they change, not for
Kim Rozdeba:the good, you know, that has a detriment to the brand. So we
Kim Rozdeba:know that but I don't want to be the king of England or the Queen
Kim Rozdeba:of England in the sense of you know, being confined have a
Kim Rozdeba:personal way of being presented. That's not real life, I don't
Kim Rozdeba:think.
Stephanie Maas:No, no. This has been super insightful. Thank
Stephanie Maas:you so much for being here and for your time.
Kim Rozdeba:Stephanie. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Stephanie Maas:Oh, thank you very much.