Branding powerhouse Michelle McCarthy is breaking down the exact steps you need to take to create a personal brand that takes you from invisible to in-demand.

Specifically, Michelle shares:

• The exact 4-step framework for creating a powerful personal brand
• The biggest pitfalls to avoid when building your personal brand
• How to create the right mindset for an authentic personal brand
• What you need to know before you rebrand yourself

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Connect with Michelle on Instagram

About Michelle:

Michelle McCarthy is a personal brand strategist with 15 years of experience working with everyone from solopreneurs to tech giants. Michelle's passion lies in helping successful women with bold ambitions step out from the confines of their current roles and build authentic personal brands.

She's developed a personal branding framework that guides women who want more by establishing themselves as the go-to in their industry. With a knack for spotting untapped potential and a genuine desire to spark change, Michelle guides her clients to embrace their uniqueness so they have an unforgettable impact. Her approach is all about keeping it real and aligning personal values with over-the-top professional goals. Her framework is designed to help these powerhouse women launch themselves into the spotlight, selling books, booking keynotes, and becoming established thought leaders.

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About Angela

Angela Frank is a fractional CMO with a decade-long track record of generating multimillion-dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of The Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs.

Her new book Your Marketing Ecosystem: How Brands Can Market Less and Sell More helps business owners, founders, and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies.

Angela is the host of The Growth Pod podcast, where she shares actionable tips to help you build a profitable brand you love.

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Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast, we have Michelle McCarthy, who is a personal brand strategist with 15 years of experience.

Working with everyone from solopreneurs to tech giants. She's developed a personal branding framework that guides women who want more through establishing themselves as the go to in their industry.

With a knack for spotting untapped potential and a genuine desire to spark change, Michelle guides her clients to embrace their uniqueness so they have an unforgettable impact. Her approach is all about keeping it real and aligning personal values with over the top professional goals.

Her framework is designed to help powerhouse women launch themselves into the spotlight, selling books, booking keynotes, and becoming established thought leaders. Michelle, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

I am very excited for our conversation today. It is right at the heart of something that I've been researching a lot lately and that is the power of personal branding.

But before we get started, can you share a little bit about why you're the expert that we should listen to on this topic?

Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, I have 15 years of brand industry experience.

I'm just going to set up my own graphic design agency and like, how hard is it going to be? Turns out really, really hard. And I thought that I would have all this because I'd all like the insider knowledge.

I'd be able to like, set it up, be a millionaire by Tuesday. Set it, forget it, you know, happy days. Unfortunately, it didn't work that way.

And I realized how difficult it is to create a personal brand and how different it is from a corporate brand.

And so I spent the past number of years researching, doing intensive market research and building my own personal brand, and now building the personal brands of my clients so that we can, as your intro said, step out onto stages, step out of our own way and have opportunities come to us. Go from invisible to in demand is how I like to package myself.

Amazing. I love that. Go from invisible to in demand. You mentioned that you got your start in corporate and now you do personal branding.

And so I'm curious to know what are the difference between a corporate brand or like A brand that we would be creating for our businesses versus a brand that we would create for our own.

Oh, my God. This is my favorite question. How much time do we have? No, I.

So when you're building a business brand, a corporate brand, you can, and I'm going to, like, simplify it a little bit. You can essentially make it up. You can decide who you want to be, who you want your corporation to be.

You decide on the values, decide on the personality. You literally make it up and curate it. And then you just. So long as you follow that strategy, everything will be right.

With a personal brand, it's so much more difficult to do that because.

And this is the biggest trap people fall into is they think that they can just create this quote unquote amazing Persona or their alter ego who they think people want them to be. And it's really hard to do that when you're showing up, you're trying to show up as yourself.

So what ends up happening is that because this big, butting heads with your inner self and there's a lot of inconsistencies and it's very incongruent.

So the biggest difference is to build a successful personal brand is you actually have to have to learn to like yourself and know yourself and figure yourself out and then put that out into the world. Whereas with a corporate brand, you can just make it up and just everyone will take you for face value, hopefully.

That's very interesting that you would put it that way. I think that somebody who is studying branding, like you said, they think that they can just make it up, but then it creates this tension.

So when you are sitting down to figure out your personal brand, what are some of the elements that you should be including when you're sort of mapping out the brand identity for yourself?

Yeah. So I like to break into four parts, and this is kind of how my framework is based. I haven't seen anybody do these four parts.

I've seen people do two or three, but never the four. So I break it down into the first one is your brand strategy. So that will be corporate speak, the brand strategy.

For a personal brand, it's what are your values? What are your goals? What are your passions? Like what. What do you. What do you stand for? Who you are? It's the deep dive.

It's the stuff that everyone wants to go. Yeah, yeah, I know that. I've lived with myself my whole life. Of course I know that. The truth is, we don't.

It's floating around somewhere in that noggin. But We've never took the time to really figure it out and, you know, map it out on what it is that we really, really want and what we stand for.

So that is the first section. The second pillar is the mindset stuff.

When you're building a personal brand, it is very personal and you're putting yourself out there into the world and it can feel really, really vulnerable.

So therefore, getting over the mindset blocks and working on your mind and working on the parts of yourself, maybe you're afraid to be seen, that is huge because then it ties in. Every once you like yourself, it's, first of all, people are more receptive to your energy.

But second of all, you, you don't mind if you get rejected because it's part of it, unfortunately. So we work through all that mindset blocks. And then the third part is what everybody thinks when they think about branding.

And that's what I call the fun stuff. So that is mapping out your personal branding. Shoes, your colors, your fonts, your canva templates, a website if you need it. Logo.

Not everybody needs a logo. But all the fun stuff, what ends up happening is everybody wants to jump into that first.

But you need the first two because it's in the first two that you actually figure out who you are, what you stand for, what makes you unique. And then we kind of, we, I think of it like a, like a braid.

Like, we start weaving all those bits together and then we go on to the fourth step, which is what, when people say grow your personal brand, that's what they mean.

It's the growth aspect, it's the pitching, it's the growing your social media, it's the getting you on stage, getting you the book deals or whatever your goals are. So they are my. That's my four step process in building a personal brand.

So within all of these four steps, it sounds like there is a lot of work that each step entails. And I'm curious to know what are the biggest mistakes that you see people making when they're creating their personal brand.

I did this and it's so embarrassing. So it's referring to yourself in the like, either in the third person or like, as we.

So I mentioned earlier, I set up a design agency, whatever you want to call it, a design studio, branding studio. I say that it was me at my kitchen table in the middle of a pandemic. It was just me on my laptop. Okay.

But on my website, it was like, we are a multidisciplinary, you know, like global. It was, it was so it was so cheesy. I was. I thought that being. Seeing myself as a bigger business, people would be more receptive to.

It turns out it's not. People actually like to know the person behind the brand, which is why personal branding is such a trending topic at the moment.

So stay away from, you know, trying to make yourself seem more important than you are or, you know, talk about yourself in the. As a collective. It. It gets kind of cheesy. And then stop copying other people is the other thing.

That's why the first two parts of building your breast salt brand through my framework, sometimes it may look externally like you're not making progress, but you're just going to skyrocket past everybody else because you're going to be so sure of who you are. We're going to have picked out exactly what makes you different, and then, then we're going to run with it and it's going to be amazing.

That's, that's, that's my whole thing.

I like that a lot. Taking the time to make sure that you're building that foundation for that growth instead of building it and then.

And then rebuilding it and figuring out it's not quite right. And that may seem faster at first, but it's actually slower in the long run.

Um, I'm curious if you're doing that, you're kind of like doing it in bits and pieces and maybe you are listening to this and you figure out that, you know, you aren't going in the direction that you should be going. How should people approach rebranding themselves? And how often should you rebrand?

Yeah, this is a great question. First of all, if you are, you know, chopping and changing and kind of bootstrapping it all, like, we all do that when we're starting.

So I would give yourself some grace if you want to. I often use social media as an example or like to describe it, just because everybody's on social media and people get it.

But I do also want to emphasize that, like, quote, unquote, building your personal brand or growing is not necessarily just your social media, like how you, how you show up and you can absolutely build a personal brand without social media. So then if people were looking to rebrand, then what I would say is take a pause, first of all, go have some experimentation, See, see what sticks.

That's always, that's always fun. But the best thing you could do is actually do a brand audit.

So that's where you look at your messaging, how you're putting yourself out into the world, what People perceive of you, it is much better to get a third party to do this for you because they can actually be objective. And then from there you can figure out where the gaps are and what to do.

In terms of rebranding, my answer for a corporate versus personal are very, very different. A corporate brand or a business brand should look at rebranding every two to five years.

Usually about two is a bit of a refresh and about five years they need a little bit of a little bit of a rebrand. Personal branding doesn't need that necessarily because again, there is a person behind the personal brand.

So everything's going to grow and evolve with you as you grow and evolve.

However, I would suggest doing that brand audit maybe every two years or so because it just makes sure that everything hasn't, you know, that everything's still really, really tight or where there's gaps, or if you're struggling because you've moved onto a new version of yourself, how to bridge that gap.

But within a personal brand, the chances of you having to rebrand are far less than when you're in the business world because it's just naturally growing and evolving as you are naturally growing and evolving as a person.

Interesting. So it seems like rebrand is really something that just kind of like follows you along as you grow and evolve as a.

Whereas with a business it needs to be more intentional because there's not like one singular person behind it unless you're a solopreneur. But generally speaking, it needs to be more intentionally done.

So that leads me to my follow up question, which is now you have your brand, you feel really good because you've done all this work to lay the foundation and you are out in the world and now you're looking around at everybody else's personal brand and you're like, oh my gosh, am I even going to stand out? Like, what are some of the key steps that people can take to stand out regardless of their industry or how crowded they feel their marketplace is?

The biggest secret of personal branding is literally one word. It's juxtaposition.

And what that means is taking something that you wouldn't normally associate and putting it into an environment that you wouldn't normally see it in or associate with it. The key to a personal brand that is going to stand out is finding what your juxtaposition is.

So perhaps you work in marketing, but on the side you love crocheting. Individually, they're not necessary. There's nothing stand out about them.

No offense to any of the crocheters or marketers out there, you know, but there's, you know, individually, it's not like, oh, my God, that's so quirky. It's like, okay, yeah, cool.

But if we meld them together and we really double down on that messaging, you know, maybe your logo has got, like, a stitch effect and maybe. I don't know, I'm not into crocheting, but maybe there's some crochet puns we could put. Like, we could name your services after your products after.

That's how you're going to stand out. That's why the foundation work. That's why it's so important, because we're going to figure out what that thing is for you.

I found this really, really difficult because I think of myself as a basic bee. I don't think that there's anything necessarily overly quirky about me or overly unique about me, but it's pulling in all those little threads.

Again, going back to the braiding metaphor. Oh, okay. You like crocheting, you like marketing. Cool. And you also, you love the beach, or you love. You love a cheeky margarita. Cool.

Like, we're going to weave them in together. And like, there you go. That is going to be the personal brand.

But the foundational work really comes in figuring what that is, because it's also not necessarily your hobbies. It might not necessarily be as. As obvious as, oh, yeah, you're really into crocheting. So it's really finding that foundational work.

And quite often the thing that's going to make you stand out is the thing that you have been avoiding about yourself.

So this is where it gets really deep and into, like, the mindset kind of thing is sometimes the bit that you're like, oh, my God, I really hope nobody, like, nobody knows that about me or nobody finds that out about me. And you're trying so much to kind of COVID this bit up.

Quite often that's the bit that's actually going to connect with people, and that's the bit that everyone's going to go like, oh, my God, I'm the same. I get her. And that's where you're really going to build that community.

So it's the foundational work and the pulling those threads together that's really going to set you apart.

I think that's so interesting. 1. I love your braiding analogy. It's not just, like one key.

It's all these things that are woven together to create your personal brand, but also the fact that you want to highlight something about yourself. That makes you more relatable, even if it's something that you're maybe uncomfortable sharing in the beginning.

And it creates this common, common thread that other people who have experienced something similar or are a similar way, they can relate to you.

Yeah, exactly. I think of, you know, the tiktoker, Elise Byers.

She's.

Yeah, she's amazing. And like, all her stories are, like, about how she embarrassed herself and like how she did this, how she.

There's one story where she like, flew across the country, like to meet this guy and he ghosted her at the airport. And like, if that was me, I'd be like, I'm not telling anybody that. Oh my God, that's so embarrassing.

But like, she has millions of followers and, you know, everybody loves her.

She's a fantastic, like, case study in vulnerability and being authentic and just showing those parts of yourself to really create connection rather than what we have been doing previously, which is, look at me, I'm an expert. I'm so polished and perfect. This is why you should hire me and my team while I sit at my, my table in my apartment. So, yeah, it's. It.

There's a shift and people want to. People want to see the behind the scenes.

They want to obviously make sure that you know, you know what you're talking about, but there's room for personality and that's how you're really going to stand out.

I love that. I have one more question.

If you are somebody who has a business, but you also want to develop your own personal brand, how do those two things play together? Especially if you are in the stage of your business where maybe you're trying to step back from the spotlight.

So that can kind of be its own thing for. To sell it or for some other business reason.

How.

How do those two things play together and what are the things that you need to keep in mind and creating your brand, but you're also still working for your business, if that makes sense.

Yeah, definitely. I actually, I actually just wrote an article for a publication yesterday on this exact topic.

So honestly, it does depend on your business and your goals. So if you were to sell it, and depending on what stage you're in, how you're going to do that is going to be very, very different.

Because obviously you don't want anything to come against that sale process. If you're just gearing up to maybe sell it, you know, are you going to be transparent about that? There's different things to keep in mind.

But in general, if you've grown a Business to a point, it has kind of taken on a bit of its own.

Quite often when we start a business, particularly if it's just us, it is kind of an extension of our natural personality most of the time, not always of who we are, but as it grows and evolves, it moves away from who we are.

So a lot of it will be figuring out your goals, figuring out, you know, figure out your business goals, but then also figure out your personal goals for your personal brand. So do you want to be known as an expert or be a speaker? Do you want to coach people? Do you want to use it to help sell your company?

Do you want to use it to get investment for a new company? So that is going to depend. Like, your goals are really going to depend on your approach.

You could start off similarly to how your business is presenting itself, and then you slowly transition and amp it up. It really does depend on person to person, but I do think it's super, super valuable. It's also almost like a bit of insurance.

So regardless of what happens in your business, you also have your own unique personal brand that you can build on the side. And yeah, it opens up a world, world of opportunity. So I know that didn't answer your question exactly because it does depend on person to person.

But I would say everybody should be doing it. Everybody is going to be doing it. And if you already have a really established client base, then I'd be getting on it now.

Because what's going to end up happening is as more and More founders and CEOs and teams lean into this personal brand, if you do it after the fact, it's going to seem disingenuous. Your consumers want to see the person behind the brand. They want to see the team. They want to make sure that your ethics align.

There's conscious consumerism, a lot of conscious consumerism, which means people want to make sure that they know, like and trust the person they're giving their money to. So I would jump on it as soon as possible.

But yeah, getting to know your goals and the reason why you want to create a personal brand and from there, build it. And then everything else that I said about getting to know who you are, your personality, and going from there, Definitely.

Yeah, I think that's so important.

It sounds like the key to everything is really starting with that foundation and understanding not only who you are as a person, but if you are also running your own brand, what the goal is for that, and then just making a plan for moving forward and what makes sense for you. And Your individual goals. Yeah.

And everybody wants to skip it. And don't get me wrong, me too. I mean I'm coming from a graphic design and branding background. I want to get straight in and do the design things.

I want to book my photo shoot. I want to decide on my colors and my fonts.

Everybody wants to do it because it's something, it's something tangible and it's fun and if you're a creative like you'll love it. So it's really, really hard to kind of put a pause on that and go back and do the inner work.

But I promise it is so foundational and it will just springboard the rest everything else and it'll make everything so, so, so much easier. And I pro, I'm not just saying that. I promise you it will. It'll make everything so much easier.

Yeah, it definitely is something that I am realizing that I need to go back to the drawing board and just think a lot more about. I've been doing that for my business and like the Persona that we want to be helping.

But I'm realizing as we're talking it's something that I haven't done enough for myself. So I know that there are so many gems in this episode and I know that you are somebod is so busy and I want to know what is next for you.

So next for me is practicing what I preach. I'll be honest. So I have a lot of speaking, speaking gigs lined up.

I in person workshops and I've just launched my coaching program which is a six month one on one coaching program. There is a lot of moving parts at the moment and yeah, it's just, it's all go, go, go for the rest of the year.

Amazing.

And if anybody is listening and they are interested in catching up with you online or possibly joining your coaching program, where's the best place for them to do that?

So on all socials my handle is im Michelle McCarthy. That is the easiest way.

And then in the, in the bio there's my link tree and you can, you can go, you can book in a free 30 minute strategy call, a personal branding strategy call.

I also offer the brand audits that I mentioned and there's my coaching program and yeah or else just jump in and say hi, I love to make new connections.

Amazing. And if you are listening and you are interested in any of that, all of it will be linked in the show notes for you.

So you can go right there and find Michelle. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Me too. Thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate it.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Growth Pod, please leave us a review. Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.