In this energizing episode, Alan McLaren, Co-Founder of STRATA Originals, shares how to build a powerful leadership brand that pulls opportunities to you instead of pushing uphill. If you struggle with team execution feeling heavy and growth stalling despite a strong C-suite, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why your personal visibility is the hidden multiplier for company momentum

- How to start building thought-leadership in just 15 minutes a week

- What authentic commenting on LinkedIn does that original posts alone can’t

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 5 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Alan McLaren, Co-Founder of STRATA Originals, co-leads a personal branding agency specializing in working with CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, and legal professionals. With a strategic, intentional, and authentic approach, Alan has coached or trained over 600 CEOs in the past two years. Alan’s passion for personal branding comes from over two decades of experience in leadership roles, including public companies, partnerships, and entrepreneurial ventures. As Co-Founder of Infinitycomm, a full-service marketing agency, he developed deep expertise in public relations and marketing, honing his ability to craft and elevate brands, including those of CEOs and their personal brands.

Want to learn more about Alan McLaren's work at STRATA Originals? Check out his website at https://strataoriginals.com/

Every CEO broadcasts a leadership signal. The question is: how clear and trusted is yours?

If you believe your voice and presence shape how investors, employees and the market perceive you, the Leadership Signal Scorecard was built for you.

It’s a complimentary five-minute diagnostic that reveals how visible and trusted your leadership signal is today.

You’ll receive your score benchmarked against other CEOs, along with personalized next steps to strengthen your presence and scale your impact.

See where you stand: https://quiz.strataoriginals.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Take the Founder's Evolution Quiz Today

If you’re a Founder, business owner, or CEO who feels overworked by the business you lead and underwhelmed by the results, you’re doing it wrong. Succeeding as a founder all comes down to doing the right one or two things right now. Take the quiz today at foundersquiz.com, and in just ten questions, you can figure out what stage you are in, so you can focus on what is going to work and say goodbye to everything else.

Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the Start scale and succeed podcast. It's the only podcast

that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As

a founder, I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and I want to talk

about something that catches just about every stage five

founder off guard, and that is, you've done this stuff, you've

built your executive team, you've got a CFO coo all the C

suite and and you've wrestled with the idea that your job has

fundamentally changed. You no longer in the weeds. You're no

longer there trying to drive everything forward. But you're

left with a couple of questions. First, what do you do? And the

second one, and this is something that very, very few

people talk about, and that is that you can have a great team

executing brilliant, brilliantly on the inside, but if you're not

visible on the outside, they're going to be pushing a boulder

uphill. Now to talk about what that looks like, why that

happens, and how we can get over it, you don't want to hear from

me. You want to hear from the guy who's got this figured out,

and that is the one and only Alan McLaren, who's co founder

of strata originals. He leads a learning brand, a learning

branding, leadership branding, wow, can't get it out. Agency

specializing in working with CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs

and legal professionals with a strategic, intentional and

authentic approach. Alan has coached or trained over 600 CEOs

just in the past two years. His passion for personal branding

comes from over two decades of experience in leadership roles

including public companies, partnerships and entrepreneurial

ventures. As co founder of infiniticom, a full service

marketing agency, he developed deep expertise in public

relations and marketing, honing his ability to craft and elevate

brands, including those of CEOs and their personal brands. He's

here with us today. Alan, before we hit record, you made a

distinction that I think is just a brilliant way to start off the

show, and that is that you have you've moved away from personal

branding and moved to leadership branding, just help us

understand what's the difference define leadership branding, and

why is that different from personal branding?

So there's two reasons why we made the move.

One was, you know, when something gets popular, then

it's a race to the bottom right. So that personal branding now

everybody and his brother's talking about it, so that people

are now saying, Oh, for 2000 bucks, we'll do this for you,

and that for you. And we said, You know what? We need to

elevate this conversation. This is a leadership conversation,

not a brand conversation. And so when you raise it to the level

of leadership, people look at that and go, I'll invest in my

leadership. I'll invest in my communication, and what we call

your leadership signal, because that is something I understand.

Personal Branding is something, you know, we all have one, but

it tends to be very personal. But leadership tends to be very

business wise. That's why we made the move, and it's changed

how we think about it as well.

Yeah, I love that. So what's the cost of not

investing in your leadership brand? I mean, there's a lot of

successful CEOs out there who've built successful companies and

have done it to a certain extent, invisibly, I know I did

in previous ventures. What is that costing us in our

organizations?

Well, I'll ask you this way, what does trust cost?

What is building trust cost or not having trust? Everybody who

has been successful in business has done that by accident or by

what is by purpose, purposefully. But if you think

about it now, you're saying, Okay, well, if I invest in

trust, any outcomes possible? If I'm not trusted, then it's

impossible. And I'll give you an example. I have a friend of mine

who was in the trucking space, and he moved to M and A, and

when he moved to M and A, he thought, who's going to follow

me? Everybody followed him. Why? Because he built trust. He

didn't have expertise in the new M and A world. He had trust in

the trucking world, but because he had done that, people move

with him. It's the same in any business where you're trying to

get new employees, or you're trying to grow your business, or

you're trying to do something political, trust is the name of

the game. So that's one aspect. The other one is you'll never

know if you're not visible. Opportunities cannot show up on

your doorstep because your doorstep doesn't exist. So

that's the two reasons. I have another story I'll share with

you in a minute, but that's the two key reasons why it's

important to do that.

This is so good, because one of the things

that's happening in Stage Five is especially more forward

thinking. Leaders are thinking about what's next, right?

They're thinking about a move to another industry, a move to, you

know, being more of an owner, investor. And this is the exact

mistake. I mean, it's embarrassing how bad I did this

coming out of my previous company, but I've actually

written it about it in my book, and that is the biggest mistake

I made while I was CEO of a previous company. Was not making

this investment. Because when I moved, no one moved with me,

right? I was like, I started from zero and felt the pain of

it. So. For those, especially who are thinking of like what

they're going to do after being CEO, that's such a big point. I

want to I don't like to do this because it's like every other

guest feels the need to talk about AI, and we've got a full

conversation that we've had without talking about AI. But as

you're talking about it, this idea of trust I have seen is, is

so important now more than ever, because of the age of AI,

because data is there everywhere. But like, what do

you trust? And so walk us through maybe a little bit

practically, like building a leadership brand around trust,

right, both for this stage and for future stages. What are some

of the what are some of the biggest mistakes you see folks

make when they start off on that journey?

Well, they think that leadership or personal

branding or thought leadership is just about content. Content

is the output that you see, right? But here's the thing that

we see differently. We only do video with our clients. Only

video, no written post. I mean, there's a written post

supporting the video, but there's no post that we do. Why?

Because people want to spend time with you, and

statistically, you've seen that over 567, hours of watching a

video with someone, you get to know them really well. In fact,

with the work that I do, when someone contacts me, they know

me. I don't know them because they've spent three hours with

me on video or watching a podcast or whatever it is. So if

you think about the first part, the first mistake is thinking is

just about doing content. And we say, yes, it's about doing

content, but content that speaks from your strength or your what

you call your leadership signal. What does that mean? So in my

case, I'm a heart leader. I lead from the heart. So if I start

taking data and trying to spew that out, I'm not in my zone.

Might think it's good, but I won't come over naturally, and I

won't come over authentically. So we work with our our clients

to get them in that zone and also to eliminate their shadows.

Everybody has them things that they don't come across well when

they talk about once, you find that then the content lands,

because it lands based on the trust hormone, oxytocin. I don't

know if anybody knew this. We've learned this in the last three

weeks. When you watch a video that is from a trustworthy,

authentic person, oxytocin kicks into your brain you trust, and

ergo, that person is now trusted, so that piece of

content is landed and is supported by neuroscience.

Imagine what that can happen if you do that 50 times in a year.

So that's the magic behind it, and we just discovered in the

last few weeks. So we're so charged about it that we have

that supporting us. So there you go.

Amazing. We might have lost like everybody,

because I've seen so many folks, especially who fall in this

category. They they're wonderful people in person, and then they

turn into robots as soon as the camera turns on. And so that's

not a reason to not move forward, right? How do you get

past that feeling of talking into a camera as opposed to

talking to another human being?

Well, there's a couple of ways. So if you're

doing it on your own, it's practice, right? It's it's

practice record videos, until you think that, Oh, that is me.

The other one you know that we do is we coach them to do that.

We were just with one of our clients online, who is one of

the most brilliant orators in the world, getting him in his

zone for that particular topic mattered, because I said to him,

Well, here's an example. You could talk about this, and now

you look like you're partisan when you talk about that, as

soon as you change the language, you're inviting people to think

about it differently. Ergo, that's what you want. Your

personal brand, your leadership brand, is all about. I want

people to think so. If you're partisan, they're in their

partisan brain. If you're inviting them in, then that's

what happens. So that's what we work people on, is coach them on

that that's hard to do on your own, but if you are doing it on

your own, practice it till it feels as comfortable as this. If

you and I were in a Starbucks, this would be how I would talk

to you. I'm not going to have more hands or or trying to do

something silly. I'm not performing. I'm trying to be me,

and you're trying to be you. That's what we try to get people

to do, because everybody's authentic. And the last thing

I'll say on this is, sometimes I get people say, but I'm not

really good at this. I'm not comfortable, I'm an introvert.

I'm going, Dude, you built a business worth $50 million you

had the alligators at your ankles all your life, and you're

going to take this learning opportunity and throw it away

because you're scared. Give me a break. You've been scared all

your life as an entrepreneur, right? So now it's time to learn

a new skill that is transferable outside of digital too, and

that's why we think it's so important. It's not just for

video, it's when you're doing a presentation to investors, when

you're out there doing an M and A when you're trying to hire

that coo. All of that matters being in your zone.

yeah, it's interesting, and I think

especially coming back to this root of trust that. You talked

about it really is the core of it. Because you see the CEO's

brand show up in things like investment pitches, in things

like the CEO rating on Glassdoor, or whatever. The

other one is that I can't remember off the top of my head

to, you know, what's on the website. And you know, should

you choose to this company? I mean, how many people fell in

love with Apple because of Steve Jobs? Right? Such a great

example of it. I think one of the challenges that folks might

have walking into that is like, how do you know if it's working?

How do you measure progress? How do you How does that translate

into success in our current world.

So what we believe is that this is about

relationship building and relationship trust. So you can

measure relationship acquisition pretty easily, right? They were

in my life. They're not in my life. They turned out to be a

lead. They turned out to be a partner, whatever it happens to

be. You can also measure impressions, so on YouTube and

LinkedIn you can measure, okay, well, when I started, 10 people

saw it after my fifth video, 50 people are seeing it, 100

people, so it's being served to more people now. So I'm making

an impact. The comments that you get, the likes, the shares, and

the part that nobody talks about. And this is not a secret,

if you're in any kind of networking event, and in my

case, I'm in an organization called YPO, Young Presidents

Organization. I go to these events now, and I cannot leave

the room without someone going I've been watching your videos.

I've been watching it happens all the time. They don't engage

because that's not what people do. 90% of people will not

engage with your content, but they will view it. So you can

measure empirically the KPIs that are there. I measure the

relationships. I have them, sit up and I say, okay, these are

people. I need to nurture partnerships. Good to know,

influencers, potential customers. When you have that

and you're saying, Oh, it's working, and when it works, and

in my case, I'm so lucky, I get leads coming in all the time

from places i It's not linear, it's abstract, because I'm

visible. Stuff comes from everywhere. Someone will

recommend me. I don't even know who recommended me on a WhatsApp

group somewhere else, in some country, somewhere else. Oh, you

got to talk to Alan. Who are they? I don't know how I touch

them. So all of those things are the magic that visibility

creates if it's done correctly and authentically and big, big

piece, don't sell. Never sell. I don't sell a thing. I teach. I'm

in service of others. I'm doing a podcast guesting thing in a

few weeks, and I was specific on the video. I said, No bait and

switch. We're not going to try to sell you a course. At the

end, we're in service to you, and if you like it, you'll come

back to us and go, these are the people I want to deal with.

That's what you do in your business, because that is what

differentiates you from everything, including AI.

Yeah, yeah. So true. So true. Alan, there's a

question that I ask them. I guess I'm interested to see what

you have to say, especially in the context of this

conversation. But the question is this, what is the biggest

secret you wish wasn't a secret at all. What's that one thing

you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?

So if you did nothing else today, after this

podcast, go on your LinkedIn and start commenting on other

people's posts. What does that do? Well, there's a

reciprocation factor. If I went on your post, Scott and did that

say, Who's this? Alan guy. He's pretty insightful. You have to

say something insightful, not just great video or like, say

something insightful, because then Scott will go, that was an

insightful comment. He'll comment back, and then other

people will see your comment, because impressions are also

measured on a comment. So I did one Gary Vaynerchuk. We've all

heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't need to reach Gary

Vaynerchuk, but he's got big following. I made a comment. I

had almost 600 impressions on the comment. So what am I doing?

I'm building my brand. I'm building exposure and people.

Oh, then I watch people connecting from that post. So

that's the secret, and that requires 15 minutes a week, so

I'm really too busy. No, you're not. You can do that. If you do

nothing else, do that and you watch it start to build, and you

say, Wow, what if I added original content to this? That's

what I would say the secret is.

So good, so good, so simple, too. Alan, I

love that. Alan, there's some folks listening and this just

the right thing, right time, right everything. And they want

to know how they can help improve their leadership brand,

and are wondering how you can help in that process. Where can

folks reach out to you if they want to find more and get some

of the comment content you talked about today?

Yeah, and there's lots. And there's lots of tools

we could help you with that are free just to kind of you can go

our newsletter and you get lots of great content there, but find

me on LinkedIn. Mention that you you heard me on your show, Scott

and Alan McLaren on LinkedIn, and just connect with me. Tell

me why you know, so that I know it's not no one's trying to

pitch me. And I'm happy to help 30 minute conversation for free.

Excuse me. Happy to help you, and if you turn out to be

someone that we can work with, then we talk about that. That's

fantastic.

Yeah, fantastic. Great. Alan, thank

you for being on the show. It was just a privilege and honor

having you here with us today. For those of you watching and

listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to

us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I

did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.