This episode of #TBNE features the Amazon Best Selling Author and #AccidentalBrandStrategist, Kate DiLeo and we sit down and talk about her work and her book ‘Muting the Megaphone’. Kate and Rob met virtually during the early days of the pandemic and have become good friends so this was a fun episode to record. Kate shares her tactical advice on how to build your brand, how to leverage personal vs professional brands, and how to mute the megaphone and create a brand that resonates with your buyers and audience. This is a very tactical and fun episode, so check it out, and get your copy of Kate’s book today! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
This episode of #TBNE features the Amazon Best Selling Author and #AccidentalBrandStrategist, Kate DiLeo and we sit down and talk about her work and her book ‘Muting the Megaphone’. Kate and Rob met virtually during the early days of the pandemic and have become good friends so this was a fun episode to record.
Kate shares her tactical advice on how to build your brand, how to leverage personal vs professional brands, and how to mute the megaphone and create a brand that resonates with your buyers and audience.
This is a very tactical and fun episode, so check it out, and get your copy of Kate’s book today!
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
Connect with Kate:
Social handles:
Get the Book: https://katedileo.com/book/
Connect with Rob:
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com
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We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit:
EPISODE 75 :
KATE DI LEO
Intro
00:00:01:00 - 00:00:35:14
Rob Napoli
how we do in Bear Nation. We are back again with another episode of the Bare Necessities podcast. I am your host Rob Napoli, and today a long awaited. In fact, we just have like a 25 minute catch up before we even started the pod. My friend. And an amazing now number one best selling author, Kate DiLeo from Kate DiLeo, a brand she's a brand architect.
Main video
00:00:35:23 - 00:00:59:22
Rob Napoli
She's an accidental brand strategist, which we're going to get into, like how you accidentally became a brand strategist running your own company where you've worked with over 200 organizations to craft brands that bring more prospects to the table, more clicks, more customers. You help stand out above all the noise. So I'm excited to get into this. Kate, how are you doing?
00:01:00:18 - 00:01:15:08
Kate DiLeo
I'm great. Thank you so much for having me today. I mean, first off, I love in the world of post-COVID how you and I met in general through that season and we stayed friends for how many years now. And so now to be on the podcast, it is an honor. I'm excited. I love.
00:01:15:08 - 00:01:28:15
Rob Napoli
It. I still can't like believe and how we met and like still being friends and like the fact that we still haven't had a chance to actually meet in real life. Like, that's like coming soon. I have to feel it is.
00:01:29:01 - 00:01:29:11
Kate DiLeo
Oh, yeah.
00:01:30:11 - 00:01:35:19
Rob Napoli
It will hopefully come out to New York soon. Or like I'll be back in Minnesota or something, you know?
00:01:36:00 - 00:01:37:11
Kate DiLeo
I know, totally.
00:01:37:24 - 00:02:01:19
Rob Napoli
So, yeah. So I'll I was thinking a lot about why I wanted to start this, but, you know, you just wrote a book and I want to get into your accent. BRAND Sorry, sorry. But we were talking about this pre show and I was like, ask question like how, how does now the book is out? How does it feel to be done with the book?
00:02:02:22 - 00:02:21:07
Kate DiLeo
Great. It's amazing. You know, I think that writing a book is never something I wanted to do. If you had asked me, like, two years ago, Kate, you should write a book. I would say that's the dumbest idea ever. Like, who has time for that? That is not cool. But honestly, you know, it's funny. Rob is like this book kind of wrote itself.
00:02:21:07 - 00:02:44:12
Kate DiLeo
I wrote it in a single week over the holidays. And I I'll tell you, though, there was a lot of takeout pizza and a lot of cabernet to make this book happen in that week. All right. There was a lot of take out, but, the book came to fruition. And I do have to say it is a huge feeling of just almost relief and excitement to know that I was able to finally take the process that I've done with so many clients over the years.
00:02:44:12 - 00:03:00:14
Kate DiLeo
Right. And help write that down. And just a tiny little 100 page book to say, okay, here's your practical steps from A to Z of what do you actually need to do to build a brand that wants more work? And so that's really what the book it is. It's not their strategy. There's theory, but this is supposed to be a how to guide.
00:03:00:21 - 00:03:17:05
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I think, oh, that's what I loved about when I read it. You know, part of it was like, take me back to like marketing when I wanted to go back to my master's thesis and I was like different parts of like took me back to like when I was running, you know, as the head of brand for a company that took me back to all these little things.
00:03:17:21 - 00:03:36:24
Rob Napoli
And the two things that really stood out to me is that there's a lot of business books out there that are like 300 page strategy guides, all these big things. And that's that when anyone has time and attention for, it's like, Here's the book right here. Look at this meeting, the megaphone. I love it. Go check it out.
00:03:36:24 - 00:03:58:14
Rob Napoli
But it's short, it's simple, it's easy to read. It's what, not even 100 pages, right? So, like, when you get through it and as you read it, it's so practical. And for many of us, especially in my audience as a founder, you're working on branding. You're working on 15 other things. Yes. Let's not overcomplicate it. Like I talk about that in my book, The Social.
00:03:58:14 - 00:04:15:00
Rob Napoli
So I talk about with all my sales stuff, I don't overcomplicate it. Go with the basics and create a strong brand that doesn't take up all your time. And so that's what I really loved about. I was really excited about when I got to read it. It was just so much fun too, because I also. Because I know you well enough.
00:04:15:06 - 00:04:22:16
Rob Napoli
Yes. I like reading. I like you reading to me like you were like narrating the book in my head as I'm reading it because I know you well enough. It was kind of crazy.
00:04:23:01 - 00:04:50:04
Kate DiLeo
I will. I really appreciate that. Yeah. The thing that I just and it's so funny because here I wrote a book and I don't read a lot of books because they're so long and they say the same thing over and over again. You're like, I don't have time to read 300, 500 page strategy books don't die. But the thing is, is I think at the end of the day, like what we crave as marketers, as leaders and sales, as just entrepreneurs is we want practicality.
00:04:50:04 - 00:05:09:09
Kate DiLeo
At the end of the day, it's like, give me my one, two, three. And that's what excites me is whenever I can give somebody the one, two, three of what you need to do to go build a brand, great, please go do it. Just go stick with the basics. The things about branding is that this is not unicorn rocket science, this is practical stuff.
00:05:09:22 - 00:05:23:02
Kate DiLeo
And your brand is a practical and tactical revenue generation weapon for your company. And that's what I want people to understand with this book is like, you need to get back to understanding that your brand is your path of least resistance to revenue.
00:05:23:09 - 00:05:48:22
Rob Napoli
I love that. And so when I come back to the book, but you spent the last decade plus in this world of branding, and you always like to say that you're an accidental brand strategist and you have this goal. If I was in anthropology or something, like, how do you fall into this like branding world? Like what? Tell me how we got here and why I fell into this world.
00:05:49:04 - 00:06:11:04
Kate DiLeo
So I call myself an accidental brand strategist because I had no intention of going into this. Just like you said, I really did intend to pursue a PhD in linguistic anthropology. Robin Linguistic anthropology is actually the study of how language shapes culture and then how culture shapes language. So what's funny is I haven't like deviated too far from that original love, have I?
00:06:11:04 - 00:06:27:24
Kate DiLeo
But the thing was, is that when the market crashed here, I was about to start graduate work, right? And I had a professor that honestly told me I just remember this conversation. He said, listen, I love you. You're it's great that, you know, you want to pursue this, but we don't know where this field of science is going to be.
00:06:28:16 - 00:06:45:09
Kate DiLeo
I actually think that you should leave academia, Kate, go get a job, go pay off your undergrad debt and then come back after a few years when you have some real world experience. Right. So I ended up leaving and you know, by the way, of course, my Italian father was like, yes, please leave my house. Like go get a job and leave my house.
00:06:45:09 - 00:07:08:04
Kate DiLeo
Right? Like he was like, go. So I go and here's here's what I want you to know. I fell into branding out of curiosity because I took a sales job. I took a sales job cold calling IT professionals to sell them 20 $500 training classes. That is stupid because I teach people hate to be called and they hate to be sold too.
00:07:08:06 - 00:07:30:15
Kate DiLeo
Right. So here I am. Oh, my God. Rob, come out. We've all been there. Right? Smile and dial 40 to 60 miles a day. And they put you through two weeks of training and they give you your scripts and they subscribe all your leads in the database to marketing campaign. And it was crap. So I had a sink or swim moment and I had to step back for a second and ask myself in that job, Hold on, if I'm on the other end of this call, what would I want to know?
00:07:30:15 - 00:07:45:12
Kate DiLeo
To want to have a conversation? And all I did is I decided to just throw out the scripts, unsubscribe everybody from the campaigns that I was going to do it my way. And I called these people up and I just said, Hi, my name's Kate. This is what we do with this company. This is how we solve your problem and this is how we're different.
00:07:45:12 - 00:08:14:08
Kate DiLeo
Boom, boom, boom. And then I shut. It worked. I got emails back. I got the calls back. All of a sudden, I was running a $1.2 million a year quota and crushing it over 100%. That was it for me. I really didn't realize I was the light bulb of wrath of understanding. Screw the complex sales scripts. This is about a provocative and simple and heart point brand pitch that's going to compel somebody to go, okay, that's interesting.
00:08:14:08 - 00:08:33:15
Kate DiLeo
I want to have a conversation. So long story short, I ended up getting recruited out to go build brand in the agency world and then in corporate America. And then I was a site hustler. I was building brands on the side for years, having kids, got a young family, and then three years ago I ended up taking this to be my full time thing.
00:08:33:15 - 00:08:36:07
Kate DiLeo
But now it's almost 300 companies I've worked with globally.
00:08:36:14 - 00:08:54:19
Rob Napoli
That's that's absolutely wild. And so, you know, it's so interesting because I, you know, I ran a sales and service company. Right. I help companies enter the market and run their app out. And one of the things that was always fun to do for me was writing scripts like writing the email cadences and writing the scripts that use it.
00:08:54:19 - 00:09:11:07
Rob Napoli
I always say, Hey, I need you to like give me the meat and potatoes of your business first and I'll kind of refine it. And it was always fun for me because I got to have some creativity to it and but I'd always be like taking everything out there, like write these big long things like, This is terrible.
00:09:11:07 - 00:09:26:19
Rob Napoli
It's all about you. There's nothing of substance here. There's nothing that makes me want to be like, Yeah, I'll have a conversation with you. And then you, like, rip it all out and you show saying, What is this like? This is, this is, this is it. This is how you're going to get more meetings. This is just being genuine and authentic.
00:09:27:08 - 00:09:45:21
Rob Napoli
And so I love that. Like, I feel that at my card and it's such a fun thing to do and so cool that you kind of, you kind of had that lightbulb moment and it kind of changed your trajectory and now you've made such a big impact. And so I love this idea of branding, right? And there's like kind of multiple layers of branding.
00:09:45:21 - 00:10:10:01
Rob Napoli
I talk a lot about personal brand, but, you know, there's you lay out in your book kind of three core sections are topics. And you know, the first part of it, you talk about hunting the tone. And so when brands come to you, it's like, Hey, Kate, we need branding work. And you're like, okay, let's start with like the decision to hone your tone.
00:10:10:01 - 00:10:30:14
Rob Napoli
Like, what does that look like? Like, think about most your clients. They're coming to you because a lot of these times they've had a business that's doing they're doing revenue. They're probably doing at least half mil mil mil plus in revenue in their home country or even in this market locally. And you're looking at it and you're like, well, let's let's kind of go back to the beginning and let's hunt.
00:10:30:20 - 00:10:46:23
Rob Napoli
That's kind of how in the tone a little bit like what is that process like? And more importantly, how do you get them to look at it in a way that to make it makes sense, you know, because everyone's like, Oh, we're doing a billion in revenue. Like, this is our brand, but we're coming to you for help.
00:10:46:23 - 00:10:51:15
Rob Napoli
Like, how does that like does that do you ever feel that friction? How does that conversation go?
00:10:52:05 - 00:11:15:15
Kate DiLeo
Yes. Yes, there's always friction there. You know, I think the big thing that companies sometimes underestimate is the level of fear they have when they start a branding process. Fear of becoming something that they think they're not supposed to be letting go of the legacy of why they created the company in the first place. Then you have Founder Fear Syndrome, where every founder I work with is like, This is my baby.
00:11:15:15 - 00:11:35:09
Kate DiLeo
It's also my identity. There's all these layers of complex emotion when you're dealing with somebody's brand. But the thing is, is that when I'm sitting down with folks and when I try to help them understand is, listen, you can spend all your time and energy trying to come up with the coolest message, but if it actually doesn't sound like you and feel like you, you're never going to speak it.
00:11:35:16 - 00:11:55:18
Kate DiLeo
You're going to go slap a really cool message on the home page of your website and your sales people will not use it, and then it's going to feel totally disconnected between sales and marketing. And there you just got your rev ups in the foot. So in order to prevent that, you have to actually start with phase one, which is identify in the most practical way.
00:11:56:01 - 00:12:14:07
Kate DiLeo
How does your company and brand show up in the world? Are you funny and humorous? Are you super serious? Are you a teacher? Are you an inventor? Now I use a very simple question to get people thinking about this, which is if you're brand were a person, who would you be? And I ask my clients to choose a public figure or celebrity.
00:12:14:15 - 00:12:44:20
Kate DiLeo
Are you Tom Holland, Oprah Winfrey, Anderson Cooper, Simon Sinek? The list can go on and on. But what we're listening for is I want them to think about the talk track in their mind. How does Oprah sound? You know how Oprah sounds. And here's the art behind this. When you pick out a tone of voice and you stick with it, it infiltrates every part of your sales and marketing so that every sentence is actually crisp, it's clean, and it prevents this corporate blur mumbo jumbo.
00:12:44:20 - 00:12:50:13
Kate DiLeo
That happens whenever we try to write. Yeah, that's why tone of voice is imperative.
00:12:50:24 - 00:13:14:16
Rob Napoli
So I love this, this, this question because when we are happy, we created our heart person. Like who is that day? Because so my question to you and the reason why we had to create this way is that there's two of us as co-founders, and Phil and I were at very different personality types. So if you're working with a brand that has kind of a couple of different key leaders, and you're asking that question, they both might say it sounds different.
00:13:14:18 - 00:13:28:01
Rob Napoli
How do you get like how do you get like co-founders or like brands that have multiple key leaders are talking through this kind of on that page to define that person that is are that kind of, you know, who would that person be? How do you get that gets into that point.
00:13:29:07 - 00:13:48:22
Kate DiLeo
You know, is so interesting. So one of the things that we have to help understand is that there's a difference between you as the leader versus your brand company as a whole. And as soon as I give people permission to say, listen, you can answer this question for yourselves individually, but if we think about the brand, how your customers experience you, what's the consistent tone of voice?
00:13:48:22 - 00:14:08:06
Kate DiLeo
And then they go, Oh, well, then they're going to see this side of us. Okay? So it's interestingly enough, founders do get really aligned on that. C-suite teams kind of go, No, no, this actually is who we are, isn't it? And as long as they're recognizing that they can totally have freedom to be their own persona here. But when we think about building a brand, we're just going macro level.
00:14:08:06 - 00:14:29:03
Kate DiLeo
We just want to go up a level, okay? We're not replacing you and your greatness and your personal brand. What we're trying to do is help you understand that your brand as a whole is a summation of those parts, but you have to have that really clearly defined because if you're just leading with three individual awesome personal brands as founders, you actually will not have a corporate brand that's going to sell.
00:14:29:24 - 00:14:35:08
Kate DiLeo
And then you're not to confusion in the marketplace, inability to gain partners, all of this other stuff that happens.
00:14:35:12 - 00:14:56:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I bring that up because I see this happen a lot where so many founders are so hellbent on building their brand and at their personal, they don't realize that they're trying to build a brand on their personal brand. They're going to try to bring themselves into it. So like I challenge you to build your personal brand and understand who you want to be as the leader, as Rob Napoli, as this person.
00:14:56:19 - 00:15:18:13
Rob Napoli
And then now what is your company want to do? What is the brand meant to do and where does those two things overlap and where are they separate? So that way you can actually know that this is who I am as a person and it's over here and it's okay to be authentically me. And this is my bit, my business, and I see it happen kind of backwards where it's like, Oh, this is our brand.
00:15:18:13 - 00:15:29:19
Rob Napoli
And like they're trying to put so much of themselves into the brand and they're not letting the company brand be its unique voice, you know? So that's why I asked that question. I love.
00:15:30:00 - 00:15:50:14
Kate DiLeo
Out. Okay, so get this now. This is where it gets tactical. You ready? So if you think about the job of your brand for your company, it is to do what? Sell it's truly to get more prospects to the table. Ultimately, this is the thing that captures your audience in the first 15 to 30 seconds for them to want to get on the dang call right or to take the next step brand is about conversions.
00:15:50:14 - 00:16:10:15
Kate DiLeo
People, here's the thing. What that looks like tactically is having things like a tagline and a value proposition and statement and differentiators that really speak to the heart pain you solve for your customer. So I want leadership teams to get aligned on that the like for sure. Kate This is the pain we saw hundred percent. This is how we're different.
00:16:10:15 - 00:16:36:00
Kate DiLeo
Great. Slap it on your home page. That's your core brand messaging from a sales perspective. Now, personal branding for founders is more often than not. What I find is that they have a vision in them, and there is the sense of impact of what they want to do and how they want to change the world. In the world of branding, here's where that comes into play mission statement and vision statement and values.
00:16:36:15 - 00:17:02:16
Kate DiLeo
And then really strong bios on your leadership team. Now, those don't belong on a whole page of your website, but they do belong on the about page of your website. What I want founders to realize is listen, let your brand sell and then allow your impact section to be the platform on which you build your personal brand. So what that starts to look like is for some of my founders, they start giving TED talks and evangelizing over here on how they want to change the world.
00:17:03:04 - 00:17:28:07
Kate DiLeo
This is where all of a sudden you can go teach, you can start writing and guest hosting and all this other stuff, but watch how that impacts stuff has a purpose. People will find you staying that way and recognize if you try to go sell with that, you've missed the mark. Allow your sales language to sell and empower your sales and marketing team to run that race for revenue generation.
00:17:28:07 - 00:17:59:10
Rob Napoli
I absolutely love this. And I was you know, I've talked about in my book, I've talked about it in my course that I do, and I actually just saw who was talking about it. It was back call and say that flipped the script to are coming up there's talk about personal brands and I've always said this like if your goal of your is a founder your goal of your personal brand is to like leverage your vision and your impact and it helps drive to the company because more people know you than the brand and it helps kind of them see the brand, understand what the brand is and what the brand sell.
00:17:59:15 - 00:18:20:09
Rob Napoli
Like, if your goal, whether you're a founder or an SDR, is to build a personal brand to get more meetings and sell, you're doing it wrong, right? It will help correct in the selling process. But it is all about your vision and the credibility and impact and doesn't have to be being a thought later. It's just like you're putting it out there and you're engaging and you're being your authentic self bingo.
00:18:20:10 - 00:18:33:00
Rob Napoli
And it will help drive that. But you need to let the brand have its own voice to sell because your brand does that for you. It actually what leaves you of having to be like this hard core salesperson all the time, and it allows your brand to do the work for you.
00:18:34:10 - 00:18:51:03
Kate DiLeo
Now, here's here's how this works out tactically. You ready? So what this typically looks like, guys, is that you would have a corporate brand website, you know, Bob's, which is dot com, that's the corporate brand, right? And that's where they sell the widgets and the whole sales and marketing team are all talking to their customers, too, by the way.
00:18:51:04 - 00:19:16:14
Kate DiLeo
That's cool. All right. If you're in SAS, it's this amazing platform and you're going to have people book a demo with you. Now, let's see. Bob is the founder. Bob can have Bob Smith dot com his own personal brand website over here. But to your point what happens is is Bob could have a consulting page on there that actually points back to Bob's widgets dot com or Bob could have a page over there that points back to the corporate work that he's doing over here.
00:19:17:01 - 00:19:37:14
Kate DiLeo
That is not to say to Bob through Bob's Smith dot com can't get paid speaking gigs or write his book and put it out there. But you see how that's kind of separated and all you need to think about when you write those brands is are they in a similar type of tone of voice? Would I have a similar experience over here as I would over here?
00:19:37:24 - 00:20:14:02
Kate DiLeo
Cool. This feels really aligned then. The only caveat to this is even for somebody like myself, I'm a full time solopreneur intentionally. I've got a team and I actually transitioned from a corporate brand to a personal brand. I just have Kate Dalio dot com. Why? Because much to my dismay, nobody cared about my corporate brand. They bought me they wanted me in the room in a situation if you are the brand and you are selling yourself and consulting services, then yes, put all the eggs in the basket of just a personal brand and go for it.
00:20:14:02 - 00:20:41:18
Rob Napoli
I mean, I made that mistake and I read in my website this year and I'm doing that. I've scaled exponentially and took me a year of my own doing and slogging through to figure that out and like, that's okay. I got you get that. That's okay. I needed that. But like, you know, it's funny because I read your book, I kind of was like, like, you know, it's like, come on, Rob, you know, this, you made this mistake and you fix that.
00:20:41:18 - 00:20:59:07
Rob Napoli
And it's like you, you could have saved yourself a year. So I love that you brought that up and brought that full circle because, you know, it happens all the time. And it's something that I think, you know, personal brand is. So, you know, somebody wrote a book on it and he does all kinds of talks and workshops out of it.
00:20:59:14 - 00:21:22:15
Rob Napoli
It's in flat to right now and everyone's trying to be an influencer and a thought leader and like, look, my posts have all these, like, so you should listen to me. I'm like, I don't give a fuck. Like, like for me, honestly, I don't care if my, like my post as one like or 50 or 100 like I care is the people that come to me and have conversations with me and are asking me questions and we're having dialog and there's an impact there.
00:21:22:15 - 00:21:23:18
Rob Napoli
My goal is not to be.
00:21:23:22 - 00:21:24:08
Kate DiLeo
You know what.
00:21:24:09 - 00:21:24:23
Rob Napoli
Thought leader.
00:21:25:11 - 00:21:48:05
Kate DiLeo
Your highest, your highest, your highest equity is your relationships and network. And in truly beyond that, Rob is like, can you keep your head down and do good work? You know, when I hear these people talk about I have a thousand followers here and a million followers there, I'm like, what's your revenue? You can have the coolest personal brand in the world, but can we go back to dollars and cents?
00:21:48:05 - 00:22:04:24
Kate DiLeo
This is what's so interesting. Everybody wants a personal brand. My question is, how are you monetizing it and have you monetized it and why are you monetizing it? Because, you know what? If you were a corporate brand, you were sitting in front of a crowd of investors at this table and you were going to investor and say, well, our company has 3000 followers.
00:22:04:24 - 00:22:11:23
Kate DiLeo
They'd be like, What? Why? What's your revenue? What's fascinating to me is we're not asking the exact same question for personal brands.
00:22:12:05 - 00:22:12:23
Rob Napoli
hundred percent.
00:22:12:24 - 00:22:14:15
Kate DiLeo
What are you doing with it?
00:22:15:00 - 00:22:34:18
Rob Napoli
Many, many things. And as I say, so many people think they're trying to get it to like sell more for the business. Like that is missing the mark. And there's so many I mean bingo hall deep into this topic. But I really want to highlight this because I talk about personal brand so much, I think it's really important to understand like, what is your personal brand do?
00:22:35:00 - 00:22:56:00
Rob Napoli
What is your company brand do? How do you build that? And you know, the key to this is, is that there's so much out there. There's so many channels to be on. There are so many things to look at. And, you know, you talk about muting the megaphone. So I want to I'll ask you this question. Why did you say muting the megaphone?
00:22:56:00 - 00:23:02:19
Rob Napoli
Like, what does it mean to mute the megaphone? And how do how do we tactically buy into that concept?
00:23:03:06 - 00:23:22:11
Kate DiLeo
You got we are in the age of megaphone marketing. You're inundated with offers and features and benefits and da da da da da da da and sales funnel pages that are bajillion miles long and you don't know what to click and they're just like, overwhelm, right? Come on. You've ever gone to a website and are so much crap out there, you're like, I'm not to do, I don't know, to click.
00:23:22:11 - 00:23:38:04
Kate DiLeo
Right. And I think the thing is, is that in order for you to actually have a brand and a business that generates revenue and enables you to step into your purpose and live fully, you have got to be willing to say no to good and say yes to great. You got to be willing to go silence and go deep.
00:23:38:04 - 00:24:00:09
Kate DiLeo
You got to be willing to tune out what everybody else is doing for a damn second and really ask yourself, what am I here to do and what is my path forward in my life? It was interesting. I had a big personal journey and health scare that I talk about my book, that I had to meet the megaphones in my own life, all the so-called good advice, all the so-called best practices, all the coaches, all of that.
00:24:00:09 - 00:24:15:10
Kate DiLeo
And Ed and I had a pull back and say, Hold on a second. What is right for me and what is I really trying to say and what is the pain I solve for my customers? What if I just focus on that? What would that look like?
00:24:15:21 - 00:24:37:10
Rob Napoli
I love that. I mean, when I wrote my book and after I got down with it, I just posted that an episode earlier about like why I got off LinkedIn for like three months and then I just wrote a book on how to build a personal brand using LinkedIn. And then I was like, This got some like my LinkedIn feed, and so my shit got toxic and then I got imposter syndrome and there's all these things happening.
00:24:37:10 - 00:24:51:10
Rob Napoli
And you know, after the book came out, like I was right when my grandfather passed away, there's just so much my life. And I was like, you know, I'm stepping back from all this. I launched the book. I did all the things I got to where I wanted it to be. I have plenty of business happening. I'm having great conversations from it.
00:24:51:21 - 00:25:29:02
Rob Napoli
I don't need to be blasting out here and I don't want to be a part of this toxic environment anymore. I needed to like refocus on like what I do and the impact that I create and like really double down on myself and that like I needed that I had that same process that had to happen. And it was and I think so many of us in this overwhelming megaphone world, it's easy to be like, Oh, I don't stack up to that person or that person's like, You need to stop comparing yourself to others because yeah, it comes down to dollars and cents and like you need to focus on you and your journey is
00:25:29:02 - 00:25:33:12
Rob Napoli
important because it's yours, it's no one else's. And it's probably for a lot of people.
00:25:33:21 - 00:25:58:06
Kate DiLeo
Great brands follow the principle of like attracts like when you know who you are, when you know how you shop in the world. We know the problem you solve and you own that. You stand in that with confidence. The right buyers are going to look at that go, that's interesting. I want to have a conversation. The thing is, is that when you mute megaphones in your life, when you mute the megaphone of your marketing and your branding, you are really in a position of power and confidence that you've never seen before.
00:25:58:06 - 00:26:28:13
Kate DiLeo
Because here's the truth, my friend. We are not in the business of convincing. We are in the business of converting. It is not our job to convince everybody in the world to like us and buy from us and hope that that happens. It is our job to convert the ones who see value what we do. They heard our message they like attracts like and they go, yes, our revenue growth hinges upon our ability to say no to good, to say yes to great, and focus on the ones who actually have the highest probability of buying.
00:26:28:20 - 00:26:49:18
Kate DiLeo
And for personal brands, it means you can't have FOMO. You can't sit here and try to create a brand like Seth Godin and hope that you're going to be him. You will never be him. Why are you on this planet? What are you trying to accomplish? And here's what's interesting. If you're listening today and you're going, I know I want to have a personal brand, but I almost don't know what that is.
00:26:51:00 - 00:27:04:14
Kate DiLeo
Good. Go silent, go deep and put the thing on the back burner until you're ready. It will become very apparent when the time is right. Don't force a personal brand because some marketers telling you to until it's ready and the time is right.
00:27:04:14 - 00:27:24:24
Rob Napoli
Absolutely. And one of the things that you can do as you are exploring that is what what content do you like to engage with? What are the things that make you happiest? What are the things that you're like? I want to make sure if I see this post like, Oh, this is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing, blah, blah, blah, blah, start tracking that and you're going to start realizing obviously the things that I'm passionate about, right?
00:27:24:24 - 00:27:39:11
Rob Napoli
These are the things that I want to be authentically talking about and that helps. It's like it's okay to meet all those megaphones, to take that step back and just engage, engage with the world and think about what are the things you engage with that bring you happiness and joy that you feel like I can't stop talking about.
00:27:40:00 - 00:27:40:10
Rob Napoli
Right.
00:27:40:17 - 00:27:41:03
Kate DiLeo
Exactly.
00:27:41:07 - 00:27:56:11
Rob Napoli
And so many of us are like so quick, I want to be the next sales. Fuck that. Just because you're in sales and you need to be a sales influencer, it could be all these other things. So I love that message and, you know, I know that could go, you know, talk for hours and we're out of time.
00:27:56:11 - 00:28:14:23
Rob Napoli
But I really appreciate this is so much fun. I love the tactical advice and all the things that you said and I just where can I find you? Where anyone out there is? I will one. If anyone out there is listening first, go pick a copy of me. The meeting, the megaphone, it is. I promise you it is an easy read.
00:28:14:23 - 00:28:29:23
Rob Napoli
Like if you have a two hour flight, you can knock this out and you'll read it a couple of different times because it's so tactical and it's something that you can just kind of go back to. And I don't say that just like because, you know, you're my friend. I say it like genuinely, this is this was really great.
00:28:29:23 - 00:28:37:07
Rob Napoli
And when I read it, it was just it brought me back to so many things. But where can the listeners find you so they can get in touch with you? Okay, well.
00:28:37:07 - 00:28:56:07
Kate DiLeo
You know what? You can find me first off, on LinkedIn. That's the only place you can find me on social media, by the way. So certainly by me, if you're if you're connected with Rob or you listen to the show, go ahead and find me Nikki DiLeo. And then, of course, if you're curious to learn more about this approach to branding and kind of the philosophy behind it, definitely feel free to take a look at my book.
00:28:56:07 - 00:29:02:18
Kate DiLeo
And probably the easiest way is just go right over to WW W dot Kate DiLeo dot com.
00:29:03:14 - 00:29:25:11
Rob Napoli
Awesome. I will make sure to have both of those links in the show notes. Make it really easy on me. Go click, go by follow up with their. I promise that it is worth your while to connect with Kate and chat with her. Kate, once again, thank you so much for joining in. I really appreciate you and congrats on for those that are listening out there that don't know this.
00:29:25:11 - 00:29:44:16
Rob Napoli
Yeah. For those listening I have you recently just got married and tripled your family size stuff. Congrats on that. Congrats on that book. I know you've got some really cool speaking gigs coming up so you should definitely check her out and see what she's doing out in the wild. It's super awesome. Thank you so much, Kate.
00:29:46:00 - 00:29:47:16
Kate DiLeo
Thanks, Rob, for having me. It's been a pleasure.
00:29:49:06 - 00:29:59:01
Rob Napoli
Absolutely. Bear Nation. Thank you again. Make sure you like subscribe, rate review. Do all those tier one things and until next time stay well and rise up.
Outro
00:30:01:18 - 00:30:09:12
Rob Napoli
Bear Nation. Thanks for listening to the bare necessities of entrepreneurship. We enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe and leave us a review.