Today, we dive into the world of personal branding and thought leadership with the incredible Kelly Schuknecht. Kelly, a marketing strategist and founder of Two Mile High Marketing, shares her insights on how entrepreneurs and business leaders can elevate their visibility and establish themselves as industry experts. We discuss practical strategies for positioning oneself as a thought leader, including writing books, securing speaking engagements, and the power of leveraging podcasts. Kelly's journey from being the “person behind the person” to running her own successful business is both inspiring and relatable. So grab a seat and get ready to unlock the secrets to becoming the go-to expert in your field!

The conversation kicks off with a warm welcome to our listeners, setting the stage for an engaging dialogue about success and visibility in business. We introduce Kelly, a marketing strategist and thought leadership expert, whose mission is to help entrepreneurs and business leaders amplify their voices and establish themselves as industry authorities. Kelly shares her journey from being an unsung hero behind the scenes in various companies to becoming an entrepreneur in her own right. She discusses the importance of personal branding and visibility strategies that drive business growth, focusing on how she assists clients in positioning themselves as thought leaders. The episode dives deep into practical examples and anecdotes from Kelly's career, illustrating how strategic marketing can transform an expert's presence in their field. By the end of the episode, listeners gain valuable insights into building their own thought leadership platforms and the actionable steps they can take to elevate their visibility.

Takeaways:

• Building a personal brand is essential for establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
• Helping clients amplify their voices can lead to significant business growth and visibility in their marketplaces.
• The journey to becoming a recognized expert often begins with sharing valuable content on social platforms like LinkedIn.
• Developing a one-sheet and preparing presentation briefs are vital steps for aspiring public speakers to succeed.

Links referenced in this episode:

• 2milehighmarketing.com
• speakerhub.com
• linkedin.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Two Mile High Marketing
• Speaker Hub

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success, the podcast.

We hear from amazing leaders and their rise to success and the tips, tricks, and all the things that they did to get to the top of their game.

And today, I had the absolute pleasure of introducing you to Kelly.

Oh, my God.

I cannot.

I just like, what?

I was like, wait a minute, how.

Do I say this?

I just wanted you to say it wrong so then I could make a joke out of it.

It is not an easy name to say.

It's okay.

It's Schuknecht and nobody can pronounce it, so it's okay.

Jacqueline.

I was like, I'm like, wait a minute.

I just like, totally stopped there.

All right, so let me tell you a little bit, listeners, about Kelly, because she's really quite amazing.

So Kelly is a marketing strategist and a thought leadership expert who helps entrepreneurs, author, and business leaders amplify their voices and establish themselves as industry authorities.

And I'm going to add experts as the founder of Two Mile High Marketing.

She specializes in personal branding, content marketing, and visibility.

Visibility strategies that drive real business growth.

She is a sought after speaker and a consultant.

And whether she's helping a professional land speaking engagements, guiding an entrepreneur through writing a book, or building a marketing strategy that converts, Kelly is passionate about helping experts get visible, establish credibility, and attract new business.

So, Kelly, welcome to Unstoppable Success.

Thank you, Jacqueline.

That was a great intro.

Thank you so much.

Oh, you're welcome.

Well, you know, the bio helps so much.

So, so Kelly, you know, what you do is so, I think quintessential to, to business today.

And so I'd love to, for you to start and share a little bit about, about what you do and how you help people position themselves as experts in their industry.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, so I want to take a step back.

So I was an employee in a company for two different companies, but for 20 years in my career.

And I, I say that I was the person behind the person.

So that I like to call it that because a lot of people go, oh, yeah, that's how I am.

Right?

Like, they, that resonates with people.

I, I, I was the person behind the person.

I was behind the scenes running a company and elevating my bosses in their roles, right.

As CEO of their company.

You know, I was helping them write the book, get the speaking events, get on podcasts, write the articles, right?

All those, like, thought leadership tactics that we were taking, I was helping them do that and I was helping them grow Their companies.

And that was great until the company that I was working for was acquired and I lost my job.

And yeah, so I took a minute to go, okay, so I can keep being the person behind the person.

I can find another job where no one knows who I am.

I'm just behind the scenes helping companies grow, right.

Or I can bet on myself and start my own company.

And so that's what I decided to do.

I decided to start my own company and I took all of that experience that I had in working in publishing, working in marketing, helping elevate thought leaders.

Again.

Those were my bosses, right?

And I just took, took kind of that approach that I had taken in, in my marketing job and turned it into what I now do with, with multiple clients, helping them go from being the expert.

They already are, right?

They're already the expert in their industry.

They know their client, they know their stuff, but they're busy and it's hard to take the time to do the things that we need to do to establish, establish ourselves as the thought leader so we can continue to grow our businesses.

So that's where I decided to kind of lean in.

And it's just been amazing how many people are, you know, really wanting to build that personal brand, to build their thought leadership platform, to become known as the go to expert in their space.

And so it's been a really, really amazing journey in helping people do that.

That's.

So when you say to somebody, you know, you're the expert in the industry, what does that actually look like?

Yes, yes.

So I want to, I, I almost sidetracked myself.

So I'm glad you asked that question because I wanted to tell the story.

So here's an example.

I had somebody come to me.

He had been in, he had been an accountant in a firm for 30 years.

He'd worked there for 30 years.

Clearly he knows accounting, right?

Like he knows finance, he knows business finance.

He, he'd worked with a lot of law firm clients and so he really understood law firms.

He understood a lot of industries, but that was one that specifically he just really enjoyed and, and understood.

Well, so he came to me and he said, I, I want to be, be known as the virtual CFO for law firms.

And so we came up with this plan.

We made this, we jokingly called it the 12 step plan for him to go from being, you know, a heads down accountant behind the scenes.

Again, like he already knows his stuff here, you know, but, and we wanted to position him as that, that expert.

So we, you know, we helped him Write a book.

We helped him get speaking engagements, we helped him get to go to networking events, we helped him get on podcasts.

And so we, this plan, kind of all of these things that we were doing were helping him be seen online, in, at events as that expert.

Right?

He already, I wasn't making him the expert.

He was the expert.

We, but we were helping other people start to see him as that expert.

And he, after about a year and a half or about a year, he went to an event and he said, he, he told me afterwards, he's like, Kelly, I went to this event and people were coming up to me going, you're the guy with the book.

Because they were starting to see all of those things that we were doing.

And you know, it's like they, they would see something on LinkedIn, they would see, you know, see him on a podcast.

That was all part of their, their industry.

He was meeting them where they were, but they were starting to recognize him because of that.

Wow, I love that.

I love that.

It's.

And people want to know.

People have said to me, I want to be the person that people want to see when they walk in the room, like, and that.

So that helps you gain that confidence too, of being that.

I love that story.

So, you know, being a thought leader, you know, how does it change?

How for that client?

Like, how did it change him?

Well, so in for his specific example, he, I mentioned he had been in his firm for 30 years.

He knew he was five years from retirement.

So as a partner in his firm, he knew he had to retire at 65.

And so he was around 60 when we started working together.

And he wanted this to be the legacy that he was leaving behind in his company.

So he was growing this not out of his own ego or wanting to, you know, be a certain thing.

It was more of, he wanted to, to grow this and leave it behind for his company so that now somebody else would, would come in.

He hasn't retired yet.

We're not at that five year mark yet.

But he wanted somebody else then to take over and, and you know, they had now this service line within the firm.

So for him it was really more of a legacy he wanted to leave.

The other clients that I work with are often earlier in their career.

They're, they're, they're, you know, mid, mid to late career maybe, but they are wanting to establish a thought leadership platform because they're wanting to grow their business, they're wanting to bring in clients.

They're, you know, they, they.

I, I would Even say for myself, I had a point in my career where I would go out to events and I would listen to somebody speaking and I would go, I should be teaching this.

Like, I, it's like you realize mid career that you know what you're talking about, right?

And you, you, you have this, these skills and experience.

And so I started having this draw of like, I should be speaking at events, I should be teaching these things and, and taking what I've learned and, and helping other people do what we've, what I've seen work.

Right.

So I think that it can be different things for different people that what you're really trying to get out of that.

But I think it can be really rewarding when you get to that, that spot in your career where you realize how far you've come and that you now have something to give back.

Right.

So a couple of things you just said, I think that, you know, being able to give back and knowing and that realization of knowing what you know.

So I think it's for a lot of our listeners, they want to have that unstoppable success in their business and that's really key.

So if you were to say to them, okay, if you want to, you know, get speaking engagements, like, what are the top five things that people should do to get to be a speaker?

Oh, great question.

Nobody's ever asked me that question before.

That's a great one.

So top five things.

Okay, so some of the things we do.

First, we help people develop a one sheet.

So you're, you don't need a one sheet for every application that you put out there, but you, but when they ask for it, you better have it, right?

So I'd say like maybe 1 out of 10 ask for it.

Or if you're sending an email, you want to have that one sheet.

So it's, it's a snapshot of who, who you are and why you're the expert and why they should have you speak at their event.

We develop three presentation briefs for each of our clients.

So that would be like, if your topic is leadership, for example, we want to have three different kind of approaches to how you would speak on that topic.

So we come up with the, the talk title, the description, and three key takeaways.

So those are kind of those back pocket things we want to have ready.

So when we're going out and applying for events for people, then we have those ready go.

Next, I would say is research.

So researching what events would be a good fit.

If you've been in the industry For a while, you probably are already going to events.

You probably already know which events you want to go to.

But, but if not, I mean, you know, doing some research around that, there's a lot of resources out there for finding events.

Speaker Hub, for example, is one of them.

It's a kind of a database where you can, you can search by location, by topic, by, you know, theme.

So, so you can find events that would be a good fit for your audience.

And then a couple of other things that we encourage people to do.

One is now it depends on where your target audience is.

In most, probably your audience's case, most people are going to find their audience on LinkedIn.

It's probably going to be B2B, professional services, industry kind of businesses, right?

So you want to be posting to LinkedIn regularly, because if you're applying to speak, people are going to look into you, right?

So you want to be putting out content that is, that is showcasing your expertise and helping them get to know you.

And why, again, why they should have you come and speak at their event.

And then the other thing that we do is we help people get podcast interviews, because that's another way, especially for somebody who hasn't gone out and done a lot of speaking yet.

Podcasts help you refine your message.

So you get onto podcasts, they ask you questions, you start answering questions, and you, you know what people are, what piques people's interest and what questions they have.

Right.

And then that helps you, when you're on stage, refine kind of how you, how you teach, what you're teaching.

Because now you know what people are going to be asking about, right.

And, and what those questions are that people have.

So those are.

That would be my five things just off the top of my head of just kind of, if you're trying to build your platform, that would be a good place to start.

Yep.

Okay, so now here's a crazy question I want to ask because I'm speaking about speaking, because somebody asked me this the other day.

They're new, they want to get out there and speak.

Speak.

But they don't have a sizzle reel.

Do people need a sizzle reel?

I would say no.

Eventually, yes.

But to start, you don't necessarily.

I was really lucky.

The first few events where I spoke, they recorded me.

So I had, I had some go to videos right away.

And, and kind of like I mentioned with the one sheet, not every application is going to ask you for a video or a sizzle reel.

However, if you have one, it is handy for when that comes up.

So eventually you want to be able to have some videos showcasing you speaking, but don't let that prevent you from starting to apply and research those events that you want to get into.

Okay, that's really cool.

That's really good to know.

So, listeners, one of the key things, I think, to helping you with that unstoppable success in your business, and even if you're, whether it's your own business or you're at a company, positioning yourself as the thought leader, either at your company or outside of, as an entrepreneur is really key.

So speaking, I think is great.

And I love the idea of getting on podcasts.

I think podcasters are, you know, there's a lot of different platforms out there too, to plug into to get onto a podcast, but I think that's, I think getting on podcast is really great because then it's also content that is easily reusable.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

So we encourage people.

Oh, sorry.

When, when you get on podcast, it's not just sharing the one episode, but that it's also the clips that you can, you can pull, even like things that you say.

So, Jacqueline, you asked me a great question, which I'm going to, to, you know, bookmark in my brain.

When this episode comes out, I'm going to go back and I'm going to turn that into a piece of content on the five things that you should do if you want to develop your speaker platform.

Right.

So that can be magnet.

Just putting it out there.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

So that's, that's what comes up when people ask you questions.

You just answer, you know, you're answering off the top of your head.

But it's, it's giving you some pieces that you can then turn into other types of content.

Yeah, I absolutely love that.

So, you know, this also comes also into branding because one of the things that I've shared and I think it's really key it keep.

Is that each and every one of us is a CEO of ourselves and we are the brand.

What we put out there is a brand.

And so how does, how do.

How is what you are doing.

Almost had horrible English there for a minute.

How is what you are doing tie into personal brand?

So I, I was speaking last week at an event and somebody asked me about that, like, how does an agency owner specifically, or, you know, business owner in this case take, go from like building a personal brand to growing their business because you don't want your business to be all about necessarily, or many of us don't.

Right.

But the reality is many of us are growing our businesses out of the personal brand that we've already developed, right?

So we, we.

We have become known in our space, and now that's helping us bring in clients.

And now it's a matter of building up kind of the business next.

But I think that for.

For many business owners, especially on the.

This, maybe on the smaller side, we have a personal brand that.

Or maybe accidentally, but.

But, you know, we've created a personal brand and that is really important for bringing in that business.

One of the things that I have become known for is my personal brand that I've created, which I did completely accidentally because for, you know, 15 years while I was working in.

In jobs, I was an employee in companies, I was building a personal brand on the side out of just.

I enjoyed blogging, I enjoyed learning social media.

And so I was doing these things out of just practicing them.

I was researching different platforms and, and, and because of my background in publishing, I was talking a lot about book marketing or publishing or, you know, anything related to kind of what was helping authors.

And again, I was just doing that for fun on the side.

And one of the first things that happened when I started my business was someone came to me and said, can you help me write a book?

Because I became known in my professional.

The person with that publishing background who helps authors.

Right.

So that was the.

Being the CEO of my personal brand all of those years.

Again, kind of accidentally, but it turned into.

That's what I became known for.

Right.

So it's really important to be intentional about what you want to be known for and then make sure that you're putting out content that is going to help you become known for those topics.

Yeah, no, that's actually really.

And again, key thing there's.

Is putting out content about what you want to be known for and things that.

That also.

That you can actually speak freely about, you know, that, you know, when somebody asks you a question, it just kind of comes off.

You may have to think about it for a minute.

But it's something that, you know, inherently, it's almost, you know, it's that unconscious delivery because it's just.

It's second nature, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I had somebody again when I was speaking last week.

One of the questions was, how do I build a brand when I'm not the owner or the, you know, the founder of the company?

And that I just told him right away, I was like, that speaks to me.

That question speaks to me.

Because for 15 years I was not the owner of a company.

I was not the founder.

I was building a personal brand out of what I enjoyed, not what I was trying to.

I wasn't trying to get anything out of it.

I wasn't trying to, you know, I wasn't trying to build a monetary gain.

That you were trying to reap from that.

You just were doing it out of because it was something that you liked.

Yeah, yeah.

And so anyone at any stage in their career, even if you're not an owner of a company, but you're thinking that maybe one day you want to do something different.

Right.

You should be building that personal brand around what you enjoy and what you are good at, because you never know what opportunities that will open for you in the future.

Yeah, I absolutely love that, that you just said that, because I think it's really, I think this is so important both, you know, for everybody from high school students to everybody in their career.

I think that what.

And I'm.

And I'm going to say this, and I, and I really mean this with all best intentions.

What you put out there, people will see.

Yeah.

You have to be.

You have to know, are you going to cringe about it in 10 years in a good way or a bad way?

That's number one.

Like, how do you want, you know, do you want people to look at your profile and be like, oh, my God, she's an absolute partier and she drinks all the time, or he drinks all the time, or, or whatever?

Or do you want somebody to think of you like, what's that image?

You know, and, you know, Andy Warhol said it.

You got 15 seconds to make a first impression.

And it's very true.

It holds true today, whether you like it or not, online, offline.

It's part of your brand.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You know, and how you walk into a room matters.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I, I had a period of time, about a year, where I made a list of the topics I wanted to Talk about on LinkedIn.

Just the things that, that I wanted to.

I really was, like, kind of developing my own thoughts around these things.

I don't think I was intentionally saying I wanted people to know me for these things, but I was, you know, it was like, what are these topics that I can easily speak about?

And so I, I was doing that, and after a few months, I had somebody say to me, oh, you're the expert on remote work, or you're the remote work advocate?

Because I, I talk a lot about remote work on LinkedIn.

And it was that moment That I realized that here had been saying these things, I've been talking about these things on LinkedIn, and I didn't necessarily know that this person had ever seen a single post that I had made because I never, you know, I don't remember if she liked anything I had had posted or if she had commented on anything, but she associated me with that topic because she had seen those things on LinkedIn.

And that's where it's.

You, you know, if you're, if you're putting things out there on LinkedIn, you're thinking nobody's seeing it.

Kind of like you said, people see it.

I think it's, I don't remember what the stat is, but the majority of people on social media are.

What do they call it?

Like, they're, they're just scrollers, right?

They're, they're not putting out that content.

They're.

They are consuming that content.

So you may never know that certain people are seeing your content, but the chances are if they're connected with you on any social media platform, they are seeing it.

So you, you do want to be, be careful about what you post.

So if you are, you know, on Instagram and on LinkedIn, make sure that your Instagram, it could be fun and personal, but you also want it to reflect the side of you.

Yeah, but it's true.

There's a lot of people out there that, for lack of better word, they're voyeurs, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Lawyers of content.

Yes.

You know, they will look, they will scroll.

You know, they might not say anything.

They're peepers, whatever.

Peeping dogs, peeping content.

You know, but it's, but it's true that we need to, you know, that the impression that you want to make when people see you is the impression that you need to, to be sharing on social media because you are that CEO of yourself.

You are, that is your brand.

And I love how you brought up, you know, working and creating that personal brand because you, you're not defined by your company.

You're defined by you.

Right.

So if, if you think of that, like who you are, you're not the company that you work for.

You're the person who you are with your values and what you believe in.

You need to bring that to other companies.

And it does allow you, I truly believe, to make those jumps.

So if you're, let's say, doing PR today and you want to go into marketing tomorrow, it might be a very easy jump because you are not, it's not about the company.

It's about you.

Yeah, yeah.

And yeah.

So even if you are an employee in a company, you can be putting out content about, like in that example, putting out content about general marketing tips, you know, just establishing yourself as a knowledgeable ex expert, you know, even if you don't feel like it sometimes.

We don't always feel like that.

But just showing your expertise in that, in that field and, and you never know, like I said earlier, you never know what doors that will open.

So you, you might put those things out there and perhaps you find yourself in a position someday where you have lost your job and, you know, you open up to the world.

I, I'm now looking for work, and people see you as that person who knows that, that, that specific topic.

Right.

And, and so it just opens doors in ways that you, you may not know right now.

I, I think developing a personal brand at any stage of your career or if you're, especially if you're a business owner is really, really important.

Yep.

And you know, something that I also just want to share, because what you just said as a key reminder at any stage is.

Okay, right now, I've shared this quote.

You know, Warren Buffett didn't make his, you know, it was like 65.

He didn't have the wealth that he has today.

So anytime is the right time to start.

The key thing is you have to just start.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

You know, yeah, yeah.

And yeah, for many of us, the just starting is the hard part because we, I mean, everyone has, not everyone, but a lot of people have imposter syndrome and they don't, they don't see themselves, like I said, as that expert.

Right.

But it's, it's really just starting to produce that content and putting it out there, and you start to realize how much you do know when you put things out there, because people start asking questions and you go, oh, we, we just take for granted the knowledge that we have.

Right.

And, and you start to learn that you do have something to share with other people.

And it really becomes valuable when, when you, when you see people taking things away from, like, what you put out there and learning from what you're sharing.

Yeah, yeah, no, that is so true.

You know, and yeah, just take the moment to start and, you know, and you don't have to have a thousand followers or, you know, it could just be three, but just start somewhere.

So, Kelly, I love checking with you.

I think what you were doing is absolutely amazing.

And what you're doing to help people, you know, find and grow and be the thought leader and really have that, their spotlight moments.

And I'm going to say moments because it's not one and done.

So how can our listeners connect with you, learn more about what you're doing, maybe find where you're speaking or, or potentially hire you?

Yeah.

So if you are the kind of person who is looking to build your thought leadership platform, I do have a quick quiz on my website.

So it's2milehighmarketing.com and right on the top of the website, you'll see I have a thought leader scorecard that you can take.

And that thought leader scene scorecard is going to ask you some questions.

It takes about three minutes, but it helps for one.

In the end, it will tell you kind of where you fall as a thought leader and then it will also give you some, some things to work on.

So if you are really wanting to develop your platform, it will help you think through some of the things to work on to make your, your platform stronger and to, to raise up your score.

So, so that would be one resource for people.

And then of course, to connect with me on LinkedIn.

I'm, I'm very active on LinkedIn and, and if anyone's interested in learning more about thought leadership, connect with me there and, you know, reach out to me if you're interested in taking the next step.

Awesome.

Absolutely.

So listeners, don't worry, we'll put all of those links in the show notes and please do me the favor, listeners, and connect with Kelly.

Take the quiz on her website because that's really important.

And then do me the next favor and share this episode with a friend, a colleague or somebody else that you think this could benefit, that could benefit from this information as which I'm sure is everybody that you know.

So please share and again, make sure that you're connecting on LinkedIn.

And I appreciate you, Kelly, for coming on.

This is the unstoppable success.

Thank you listeners, for listening.

And again, thank you, Kelly, for being, being part of the podcast.

Here is to your unstoppable success.