w/ Sigute Zitikyte, Personal Brand & Business Coach
"Personal branding leads the right people to you."
This episode is all about PERSONAL BRANDING FOR ENTREPRENEURS. To discuss it, we're joined by Sigute Zitikyte.
Sigute is a personal brand and business coach who believes that being multi passionate is your superpower. She's been doing this over a decade, helping mission driven companies, including Shopify, expand their reach through partnerships and community. She's now on a mission to empower ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs through personal branding.
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
1/24/2023
Kurt Elster: In the past on this show a common refrain, and certainly one of my favorites, has been people buy from people, not brands. And my example is with huge multinational conglomerate corporations, why do they bother hiring very expensive celebrity spokespeople? Because you need a face to the brand and it isn’t always necessarily going to work to be the founder when you are Target, or businesses of that ilk, but as a small entrepreneur professional, solo freelancer, whatever you want to call it, you actually have a great advantage in that you can adopt personal branding. But it’s scary, right? We’ve all heard that anecdote that the number two fear in America is death and the number one fear is public speaking. Public speaking outranks death. I’ve heard this in high school. I heard it in college. Seinfeld does a bit about it. It’s a common refrain.
If you think of personal branding and the internet as a form of public speaking, we understand why this is so intimidating for a lot of people. And so, I’ve got someone here who is going to walk us through personal branding. We’re going to discuss personal branding for entrepreneurs and our expert today is Sigute Zitikyte, a personal brand and business coach who believes that being multi-passionate is your superpower. She’s been doing this over a decade, helping mission-driven companies, including Shopify and Mindvalley expand their reach through partnerships and community. With the rise of personal brand businesses, she’s now on a mission to empower ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs to stake a claim in the online world. That’s you. That’s who I’m talking about, dear listener. You can do this.
Sigute, welcome.
Sigute Zitikyte: Thank you.
Kurt Elster: Would you please unbutcher your name for me?
Sigute Zitikyte: Sigute.
Kurt Elster: Thank you. I just get so self-conscious about screwing up people’s names, which inevitably leads to I screw it up. You’re a personal brand coach. You were previously at Shopify. That’s kind of interesting. The question I often pose to people who are subject matter experts up front, why the heck should we listen to you? What business do you have to tell me how to go about my personal branding?
Sigute Zitikyte: So, you’re right. I was at Shopify. I was at Mindvalley before and my role in both of those companies was working in partnerships. You might be wondering what the heck does that have to do with personal branding, but if you think about it, building partnerships you are putting trust in other people. You’re finding people and then you’re bringing them onto your platform, right?
Kurt, when I joined Shopify, you are pretty much in the onboarding documentation. It’s, “There’s Kurt Elster and his amazing podcast,” right? I quickly learned about you and that just speaks to how amazing you are at building your brand. But all that to say I got this outside view of who are these people, what are they doing to stand out, to get our attention on the inside to build these partnerships, right? And that’s, if you think about what personal branding is, is kind of an invitation for people to invite you, give you opportunities to have deeper conversations with you. I know for myself, as an introvert who… There’s certain conversations I love having, but maybe I’m not gonna be the one to bring them up. My personal brand is the thing that kind of leads me to the people. They can see the topics and the things that I’m passionate about.
So, I saw all that in that world, and then I transitioned out from those companies to build my own brand, and I have my own newsletter, and through that kind of this next iteration of my career blossomed, and I call that a personal brand based business which consultants, freelancers, anything that is based off of your expertise, and I find that that transition is often the hardest for professionals because we’ve been used to having, like I always joke, having the company name tattooed on your forehead, right? I was always a representative of Shopify, so if I was getting on a podcast call like this talking about eCommerce, I could have all the confidence in the world. And then you get on a podcast like this and you’re talking about yourself, and your mission, and your own business, and it’s like you freeze up.
And I think that’s what stops a lot of people from building their personal brands, even though we know and understand the value of brands for businesses. And so yeah, now I’m a coach, personal brand and business coach, and so I am here to share all the goody, juicy stuff that I hear from people who want to build personal brands, and kind of the resistance that they face.
Kurt Elster: So, you spent 10 years on the other side of this. You were developing partnerships. And so, you’re looking for individuals, for people, and obviously the way you do that is through I assume social media, through word of mouth would be the two ways, and you were able to uncover partners, influencers, people who you have to, through the lens of the internet, figure out should I work with this person and are they going to be an asset or a liability? That’s what it sounds like. Am I right?
Sigute Zitikyte: That’s the keyword is asset or liability, and also how is that working relationship going to be like? If I find somebody to bring them on so we can put them on our platforms, whether it’s on stages, or podcasts, or just doing collaborations, are my teammates gonna hate me for bringing someone who is, as Shopify would say, don’t be an asshole, right? So, you want to make sure that there’s that cultural fit, and we resonate, and they have a good mission, and they’re an asset, and trustworthy, and one thing because you mentioned it, I was doing this for 10 years, so you can imagine how social media and that world has shifted over 10 years, right? Instagram didn’t exist, then it existed. Now TikTok has come on, before it didn’t exist.
So, when I look back over those 10 years, there are some basics that prevail, right? A strong website presence, or people, especially if they have some kind of newsletter email list, that is something that you can see that longevity and that commitment. It’s have I heard their voice, right? That’s a huge one, is have I heard them on a podcast, or on a stage, to just hear what are they like when they’re speaking and is it even them coming up with these ideas? Is it someone they hired, a copywriter that’s doing their work for them?
So, kind of seeing them in action is really, really important, so any kind of even real-life stage talks that you can film and put up online is valuable. And then social is great but comes and goes. Different ones are popular at different times. And also, you can buy followers, right? Sometimes you have to look at what are the actual comments in there, what are the actual conversations happening, not just the number on the screen. So, it’s a science, and an art, and all of these things combined.
Kurt Elster: So, a little bit like influencer marketing, or like collabs. What was the thing… We rebranded influencers. What other name do we call them now? It’s something other than influencer. I forgot what it was.
Sigute Zitikyte: All the different words.
Kurt Elster: Oh, creator. Creator.
Sigute Zitikyte: Yes.
Kurt Elster: There we go. I want to develop my personal brand. I’m willing to be uncomfortable with putting myself out there. That’s the thing that’s scary, is because you are defining, “This is who I am. This is what I’m putting myself out there as.” So, what if I fail at that, right? And the answer is you switch it up. You change. And if you failed, it means no one was paying that much attention to begin with, so no one’s gonna remember, right? There’s always that stuff that pops in your head like, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that one weird thing eight years ago that no one laughed at that joke on the elevator.” Guess what? Nobody but you remembers that. And I think there’s developing that personal branding, that’s the thing you have to remember and the thing… Well, that’s the thing that I go back to, anyway.
So, what’s step one here?
Sigute Zitikyte: I love that you said that. Step one is understanding that you will have that fear, and that nothing has gone wrong, and that doesn’t mean that you are not smart enough, or ready to have a personal brand, right? And I think back when we had a very sort of small box of who could have a personal brand. You had to look a certain way, you had to probably be extroverted back in the day, have a certain way of speaking, and showing up, and you had to have a billion dollar business before you were allowed to speak, and now it’s completely shifted, right? What Shopify has done, let’s think about it, is allowed anybody to start a business, to get into eCommerce. You didn’t have to go through these selected channels. You can start it yourself.
And so, of course personal branding follows that. Now everybody should be speaking, and can be speaking, and can be selling a product and then talking about how they started that product or offering a service and being able to build a personal brand around it. So, I think it’s just in your head taking that fear away of, “I have to be someone before I can do it,” versus let’s… You know, Shopify spreads entrepreneurship. Let’s spread personal branding to everyone because we are in a position where we can all be leaders like that. So, that’s definitely the first one, is embracing that, and step two is then start getting that inner clarity of who are you, and I would actually say…
So, when I work with my clients, we have the first phase, which is clarity. The second one is then when we start to package up, okay, so this is who you are, now why are you doing what you’re doing? That’s conventionally called the positioning and messaging of your business. And then in the third step it’s looking at okay, which social channels make the most sense? Which online platform makes the most sense? Let’s bring it out into the real world.
So, the first phase is that clarity of who are your people and what are your values. I think your core values would be a really great place to start.
Kurt Elster: All right, so step one is first just get out of the way the fact that we have to make a habit of making ourselves uncomfortable, right? It is okay to feel a little bit of that stress and fear if it’s you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I was never… Certainly, I was never in the armed forces, but in the military they say, “Embrace the suck,” meaning you are going to accept that what you’re doing, what you may be doing is not fun, makes you uncomfortable, is awful, and you’re just gonna own that. Just accept it up front. We’re not complaining about it. And move past it.
And when things work out, you’ll discover, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad. That wasn’t so scary in this case.” And so, all right, we get that out of the way, and really it’s like give yourself permission is what’s going on here. Easier said than done, certainly. And then we need clarity, and it sounds like this is where we’re defining, we’re trying to find our positioning, which is so hard. I provide… I’m going to offer X for Y audience to help them achieve Z tends to be, or like I’m gonna do that, and then unlike competitors, this is how I’m approaching it differently. One of those positioning statement, fill in the blank, ad lib phrases. Is that the way you go about it? Early on, it’s so open ended. I think that’s a lot of the difficulty.
Sigute Zitikyte: Yes. And it’s such a work in progress, so you can have that ad lib, you know, I help so-and-so to do so-and-so, and I’m different because so-and-so, right? But just know that for that first year even, this is gonna be something you’ll be coming back to and tweaking, and it’s the same. There’s so many parallels with you’re starting a business. You’re gonna put something out there. Test it with the market. See how they react. And what I often find is the thing that we lead with, the first phrase that we put into that ad libs, is very surface level, and it’s very kind of the thing that comes from the tip of our thoughts, and then as you speak to people, they kind of mirror back things to you that you’re like, “Oh, really? Is that the help you want? Or is that how much deeper we can go? I didn’t even notice that I was helping you in this way but calling it something else.” So, definitely that market fit.
Kurt Elster: Hugely beneficial to get out of your own head by having a discussion with someone else, and it sounds like in this case we want to talk to our target audience. I remember this had to be 10 years ago, I emailed my newsletter, my list of less than 1,000 people, probably less than 800 people, and was like, “Someone challenged me to ask what am I good at of people who read my writing, who read my newsletter,” and I did it, and like 15 people reply, which is extraordinary for replies on a newsletter, and they were like, “Oh, you’re really good at taking complex topics and making it sound easy or simple.” I had no idea. I really didn’t. But when you see a bunch of strangers consistently telling you the same thing, you go, “Okay, now that becomes part of your identity.”
If you were just in your head or bouncing it off someone who knows you really closely, they may not necessarily give you that same impression. And so, talking to the target audience, big deal, big hack, but nobody wants to do it, right? I didn’t even want to pick up the phone. I cheated. I sent it via email.
Sigute Zitikyte: But that’s the best way to start, right? And what you were saying at the beginning is you’re like, “Oh my God, what’s that thing I said eight years ago on stage? That was so stupid and I’m so embarrassed.” Sometimes writing is actually the best way to start, right? So, forget launching your personal brand on a podcast overnight. Maybe start writing some articles on LinkedIn. Maybe just make some posts here and there. Get things through words. Build your confidence. Get that feedback and then allow yourself to grow. So, even though it feels like you chickened out, hey, embrace that. It got you started. Look where you’re at.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I think there’s advantage to just intentionally seeking out, like don’t get caught up in the medium. There’s a lot of it’s like, “Well, everything’s portrait video this year.” That’s a thing I’ve been yelling for a year. “Everything’s gotta be portrait video!” Well, what if you’re bad at it? What if you don’t like it? What if you’re not ready for that? Okay, start somewhere. Start where you’re comfortable. For me, I don’t particularly love writing. It feels like homework. And yet that’s where I started because I was not ready yet to do podcast monologues, which are really, for me, I find very difficult. Ask a guy with a stutter to go do a face-to-camera monologue. It’s not the easiest thing in the world.
And so, starting with where you’re comfortable, and then when you get good at that, then branching out from there. Okay, life gets easier. So, yeah, we want to make a habit of making ourselves uncomfortable. We also don’t want to intentionally make it really difficult on ourselves. And so, all right, I’m gonna give myself permission to embrace the suck. I’m going to figure out an early positioning statement of like who I am, what I’m offering, who it’s for, knowing full well I’m gonna change it. I remember figuring out our positioning statement and it was like every week I tweaked that thing, and it was months to years before I really was like, “This is it. We’re just gonna go with this.” And now it’s been unchanged for like seven or eight years. And even now, maybe I’ll revisit it.
But all right, so we get there, and now we’re gonna find where are we comfortable. Where can we start promoting ourselves, creating content? And one thing you said, I brought up email list. I had an email list. I still have an email list. I write every week for it. You brought up email list and you said strong website. Those are not social media items. What? Sigute, I thought email was dead.
Sigute Zitikyte: Email is not dead. Here’s the thing. If you look at these big personal brands, they have everything under the sun. They’ve got their website. They’ve got their emails. They’ve got their social. They’ve got portrait on Instagram. They got TikToks. They got reels. They have everything. And what else they have is a team of 20 people managing those things.
Kurt Elster: Oh. It’s true.
Sigute Zitikyte: Boom. The secret’s out. So, just to break, shatter, spoil that Santa Clause secret is that these teams create it, and even if somebody has a multi seven figure business and has hundreds of thousands of followers, they also might not like reels. And so, they hire someone to create their reels for them. And so, if you’re somebody who’s like, “I feel awkward and I don’t want to do it,” maybe take that shame off of yourself that you can try it, but just know that you shouldn’t be and you can’t be on every single channel, doing everything, because then guess what? You’re not serving your clients on the backend.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Absolutely. And it really… With contractors, with the gig economy, it does not take long, it’s not a huge hurdle to pretty quickly being able to hire out for a few things you don’t like doing. Like we have to get our podcast transcribed. It is the right and smart thing to do, so that was one of the first things we outsourced. Ah, okay. If I can get transcriptions of a podcast made, can I hire a copy redditor… Copy redditor? I combined writer and editor.
Sigute Zitikyte: That’s a new position.
Kurt Elster: Someone who just writes for copy for Reddit. No, I hired a copywriter who can then take that transcript and start forming that into blog posts and newsletters, or we could use that as part of a welcome series or tweets. Okay, if I can get good at a podcast and doing interviews, and I’ve got these transcripts, and I’ve got these posts going, can I add video to that? Well, I don’t know, but I like to fiddle, and so I bought a book called, “How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck,” and then I went, and we started adding video. Oh my God. Okay, so on day one when I started doing this, the idea of doing any of those things and being successful at it, doing them was terrifying. The idea of being successful, where people would actually pay attention to it, somehow that was even worse.
And yet, there is no such thing as overnight success. I think my wife said, “Hey, you gotta shout into the void for six months before one person will pay attention.” And I have found that to be true. And so, all right, we’re stacking the bricks. We’re starting slow. We’re building this. It takes time. How long does it take time to see success? When should I go, when should I pack it in, and when should I keep going?
Sigute Zitikyte: So, when I work with my clients, they come in and oftentimes they don’t even know what that business is that they want to launch, or what the purpose of their personal brand is, right? And we work for three months together and often by month two or three they… It’s not that they discover what they want to do, but it’s almost like we’ve peeled away that fear and intimidation of kind of getting to the root of what is their desire, what do they actually want to create, and so using that as a very small data piece and example is… Sometimes people can come on day one. All they know is they want to do something else and build a new career or business for themselves, and three months later we realize that they already knew on day one what they wanted, and it was just a matter of showing up, and speaking, and getting sort of the dust out first so then the real juice can flow, and then they can launch… Often for me it’s service-based, right? So, it’s consulting, or freelancing business within those three months, and so that just shows you in those three months what you realize is you already have a network that you can tap into.
So, for the first few opportunities or sales, you need to think about how can I connect with the people in my audience that are already resonant to what I have? And once you’ve done that, then we can think about let’s get new people into our ecosystem. But don’t overlook who you already have around you. Your first 10 sales will be somebody who already knows you in some capacity.
Kurt Elster: So, if we are pairing I’m starting my personal brand with also I’m starting my eCommerce entrepreneurial business, and that could be info products, that could be print on demand. There’s a lot of things here. Even if you don’t have that, I think there’s an advantage to start with a personal brand to A, figure those things out, because it’s lower stakes than buying a developing product, and I think it gives you an inherent advantage. It’s easier to connect as a person. You have existing network almost definitely, like a few people may not, and you have that safe space to explore and build an audience, which then enables you the greater success later.
Okay. If I’m building this personal brand, do I have to have a niche? Or niche, as they say in the rest of the world.
Sigute Zitikyte: Well, it’s funny you ask. You do and you don’t. And I think I want to start with the fact that I think what a niche has become, this gargantuan thing that we’re intimidated by, is not probably anymore what an actual niche is. And what I mean by that is if you’re still building a niche, you know, saying it’s women, age 25 to 35, who live in Canada, and who eat ice cream every night, that’s probably a little bit of I’ll call it an outdated definition of niche, and that’s the thing that’s probably tripping you up. And the new way to think about your niche, and for that reason I almost avoid that word, I think about it, who are your soul people, right? And then you start thinking, “Okay, these are…” Maybe they’re deep thinkers, or they are family is really important to them, and these are people that I can invite over for a glass of wine and charcuterie, and we’re relaxed, and you start to really think about how would your relationship with these people look. How would you hang out with them?
And if you think about it that way, then there’s so much more depth to it, right? And this really goes back to also brand archetypes, which I love, and that’s a whole topic on its own, but finding that journey that we’re all on, because we are all on one of nine or however many archetypes, and are you on the explorer journey, right? And I think, Kurt, we might relate on this, of like wanting that independence, and wanting to be on that journey, and on that adventure, and creating this financial independence for ourselves, and building careers that suit that for us, right?
And so, those are probably the type of people you’re gonna start attracting, but that doesn’t mean they have to be male or female. It doesn’t mean they have to be a certain age. So, I would just kind of update what we think a niche is and not limit ourselves.
Kurt Elster: So, instead of thinking about it as demographics, customer segments, personas, I’m gonna think about it more as authentic relationships, obviously that make sense to leverage professionally, but you’re gonna look at… You’re a little bit limited, almost in a good way, to you, who you are, and getting that out there and finding the people that will connect with you on that, on whatever specific topic… Oh, I think that’s the magic.
And putting yourself out there, that’s the hard part, and scary, but once you do, 100% not everyone is gonna like you, and that’s kind of the point. You want to find the people who do and that’s who we care about, and so you gotta put yourself out there so that that is obvious, so that they can find you, and now we’re getting somewhere. And so, we start to build this one-to-many relationship. It feels authentic and sincere because it is. It’s coming from a real place. Now what?
Sigute Zitikyte: Now what? Now you’ve connected and you’re getting feedback and data, right? And I hate to use those words because it sounds so corporate, but you’re building those relationships. You’re having these deeper conversations. And this is where I think we have to forget about being a business owner and being separate from “the others,” right? We’re all here to live lives that we love, and do cool things with cool people, and that’s what starting a business is. And you know the term business owner and employee, or customer or whatnot, right? They almost segregate one from the other. But at the end of the day, we’re all equal and your employees can be your friends, your customers can be your friends. Not literally, but you want to help them, and you want to conversate with them, and see what they like, and what’s working for them, and it’s this kind of symbiotic mutual relationship, and I think that’s the goal of personal branding, is connecting these. Maybe one to many, right? Maybe it’s not your DMing every customer, but just how you’re showing up, the conversations that you’re having.
Maybe these customers of yours aren’t having these conversations with anyone else, right? And so, that’s why they come to you for that, and it’s just this deeper connection, and just to think about it that way and sort of forget the fact that it’s, “Oh, I have to get this many numbers. I have to trick this many people into buying my product.” It’s completely the opposite. It’s building this community that are on this sort of mission together for whatever that mission is, right? Independence or whatever that is for you. And so, it’s thinking about it that way I think is really helpful, and takes the intimidation out of it, and just brings the love and the service out instead.
Kurt Elster: Oh, that reminds me. Ezra Firestone, Smart Marketer, they have a great tagline. They say serve the world unselfishly and profit. And that is a similar sentiment to what you’re suggesting, is hey, you want to… Eventually, this will develop into you have a community of likeminded people with a common goal in mind. Now we’re on the same team and things really start to snowball at that point. That’s like… That’s where you want to go. But once you’re there, I love your point about not obsessing over the numbers. Because you could get there, be successful, and have 1,000 people on your email list, but what if they’re 1,000 true fans? That is absolutely a business that can result in financial independence. But if you’re like beating yourself up because you’re like, “Well, I didn’t get to 10,000,” who cares? You’re there. Slow and steady wins the race. But it’s easy to lose sight of that, so it's important to remind yourself.
Sigute Zitikyte: I love Seth Godin, what he often says. He’s like, “Okay, if your goal is 10,000 members, then let me just buy 10,000 bots for you. Are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted? Or did you want something behind that?” And it’s exploring, okay, I need to connect deeper. I need to not be afraid to reach out and have those conversations. So, it’s more than the numbers.
Kurt Elster: Now, I think what’s interesting here is this has all been… I won’t say philosophical. It’s all been soft skills. We have not… You haven’t been like, “Here’s the tool you want to use,” like, “You gotta get Hypefury and you need to post on Twitter 57 times a minute.” That has not happened here. And so, I think it’s interesting that the personal branding coach is not caught up in like, “Well, this is the social network. This is the social media you have to be. And this is the right way to post, and this is the medium and the channel.”
Sigute Zitikyte: Oh my God. 100%. You know, I can share my own, here I am talking about having a purpose, and let me share mine. Mine is to help people kind of become authorities of their own life, right? And so, why would I come here and tell you this is the right way to be and the wrong way to be if I want you to build authority in yourself? And build that trust, and who are your people? I don’t know who your people are. You know who they are. And you know where they are. And you know how you want to connect with them, right?
I’m sure, Kurt, you have podcasts that you listen to, and then maybe podcasts that I listen to, and we might have some overlaps, but we also might have differences. You might like someone who talks this way, or I might like someone who cracks jokes, or I’m sure you like that too. But the thing is, look at who you’re attracted to. Look at what kind of information you like consuming. And then that’s a hint of what you like, right? And how you should be showing up. And so, that’s becoming an authority of, “Hey, if I like funny podcasts, maybe it’s okay for me to be funny even though someone else is telling me give the how-tos, give the information, follow the SEO.” That works for them and they’re an authority on their own path to doing that, so I think it’s just important to of course know what’s out there, explore, see what other people are doing, what you like, what you don’t, but the whole thing is as a personal brand, you want to be your own person, right?
And so, only you kind of know how to show up, and only you know what platforms you like, right? I love LinkedIn, but a lot of people don’t like LinkedIn, or they prefer Instagram, so it’s knowing all of that. No tactics from me, but always happy to chit chat when tactics come up.
Kurt Elster: The strategic advice here is go with what you know. Because you’re attempting to find likeminded individuals and you want to be authentic, so the moment you’re doing something that you would not personally consume, you wouldn’t personally enjoy, that may come across as inauthentic, right? And you’re not gonna like what you do or necessarily be proud of it. And so, I think that there is tremendous power in that advice.
Now, it’s not a free pass to be like, “Well, I don’t like anything, so I didn’t do anything, and now I’m not successful.” You still have to put in the work. Where you spend your time and resources is where you’re going to see results, but you shouldn’t be doing it in ways that don’t feel right to you. That’s what I’ve taken away.
Sigute Zitikyte: Exactly. And you know, the channels that you use is part of your personal brand, so when I have clients come up and say, “Oh, I really don’t like reels on Instagram,” then I ask them, “Okay, well, do you want to be the type of person that uses a certain platform that you don’t like just because someone told you to do it?” And they go, “Okay, no. Right.” And then they don’t. But then the funny thing is a couple weeks later, once they’ve taken that pressure off, and that expectation off, they go, “Well, okay, I’ve been watching a few more reels lately. They’re kind of fun.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, it’s woo woo and it’s out there, but it’s what energy you go into it, right?” When someone tells you to do something versus you decide to do something of your own, it's a completely different energy that you come into it, and that’s personal branding, and that’s when you find something that you’re excited about, and you do it of your free will, that’s when you need to go all-in. Not because somebody told you to because then it won’t feel authentic, to your point.
Kurt Elster: Our advice has been general. I want to know… Well, in your experience, your professional coaching experience here, what is the thing that trips people up? There’s gotta be something that drives you crazy, that’s like the wrong way that people are going about things, and we touched on like, “Oh, I feel like I have to use reels, but I don’t want to.” Feeling like I have to use a particular tool or do things a certain way. What’s the common pitfalls here?
Sigute Zitikyte: So, I would say creating content that’s just regurgitating what’s already out there, and I just want to say caveat, we are all probably guilty of that, and we will probably all do it, but it’s getting out of that. I think that’s when the true kind of authentic personal brand happens, is when you I’m gonna say graduate from it, because it’s… We shouldn’t shame ourselves for it, but when you stop just regurgitating and doing what everyone else is doing, and you start… yeah, speaking, and it's terrifying, because you’re saying things that you haven’t heard anyone else say before, and you’re like, “Am I the idiot who thinks this or am I the genius?” And the line is very thin there.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I think that one might be a matter of perception. And that’s like you just have to accept that. And what’s interesting is even if you are perceived as the worst case, like, “Oh, you’re an idiot.” The algorithm loves controversy, right? Of all social networks. So, there’s even an advantage there. Now, I wouldn’t do this intentionally, but it helps take some of the sting out of it. The worst is content nobody sees. You’re like, “Wow. It’s not that they thought I was dumb. It's that nobody cared.” That’s worse.
Sigute Zitikyte: Yeah. That’ll demotivate you real quick. And I think that’s why people have a lot of… You know, we all struggle with the algorithms when they change, because you’re sort of wondering. Is it the algorithm or is it me? Who is it? Who’s the problem here?
Kurt Elster: Elon, get it together. My stuff, my tweets are amazing, you just need to tweak the algorithm accordingly.
Sigute Zitikyte: Exactly.
Kurt Elster: And so, all right, if we’ve got some of those common mistakes, what’s a few of the key things that you have to get right?
Sigute Zitikyte: I think again going back to the beginning, your positioning. That ad lib statement is… Start really refining that and working on it and knowing what you offer. Knowing who the people are. So, getting that down, and then I really am gonna go back to the brand archetypes. Really know what journey people are on, right? Because what is it? People buy based on feelings, and then they justify it on logic, right? So, that first thing-
Kurt Elster: I love that line.
Sigute Zitikyte: Yeah. You’re gonna pull them in with the feeling, and the feeling is that subconscious thing of the journey that they’re on, or the thing that they really resonate on. That’s how you hook people in. And then if your product’s great, they’ll be able to justify it. Yep, that pair of shoes, great reviews, et cetera, et cetera, I’ll buy it. But they’ve already connected and been sold on the feeling of the product.
Kurt Elster: Oh, that’s fantastic. And that’s, as a person versus a brand, it is much easier to convey emotion. And when you start to embrace multimedia, where it’s like you said, “Hey, we want to hear people’s voice,” but it’s not easy to start there. You gotta I think warm up to it unless you’re experienced with it. I was not a theater kid. It would have helped if I was. The more you put yourself out there is when these scenarios happen. And people aren’t gonna remember what you said, but they are gonna remember how you made them feel. And so, to your point, okay, if they will feel one way, and then you are attempting to sell something, all right, that’s… The emotion is what drives the purchase decision.
Sigute Zitikyte: Exactly. And I honestly would say if you want to start somewhere, go to your website and make sure that that feeling is built throughout there, and whether that makes sense for you to do that in your about page, to craft that story there, it’s also a really good foundation piece for you to have that story that you’re always working on in one place. And then it translates into your different social channels, or listen, again, if you’re looking at partnerships, or being invited to other podcasts, or anything else. These other people, AKA who I was for those 10 years, it’s very helpful to understand your mission, know what you stand for, know your values, and to find that I’m always gonna look on a website and find it there. So, kind of think of that as your home and everything else is just a continuation of it.
Kurt Elster: Building and developing this personal brand, the advantage, the reason we want to put ourselves out there and go through this, we’re going to build an audience. Ideally, that is going to become a community of likeminded folks. There is tremendous power and confidence that comes with that. That’s the thing that helps you go, “Oh, I’m an authority on this topic.” And from there, if we have that, it’s going to lead to new opportunities. Oh my gosh, like not only do we have an audience, do we have a community, do we have confidence. We’re an authority now and we have created what I learned at a TED Talk is a luck sale, where we… Yeah, luck may not be real, but we have done a thing that is going to create and lead to new opportunities for us.
And that’s the end goal. That is the real power here.
Sigute Zitikyte: I love that term. That’s so cool.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Luck sale.
Sigute Zitikyte: Love it.
Kurt Elster: Luck sale is a good one. You’ve got a weekly newsletter. I want to subscribe. Where can I get this?
Sigute Zitikyte: I would love for you to join. TheFridayNewsletter dot com. And so, it’s basically this style of conversation. I sit down every Friday morning, I write it out.
Kurt Elster: This is me signing up right now.
Sigute Zitikyte: I love it. And yeah, I think it’s just a great space for anybody who’s on that journey of building your personal brand, and also just on the journey of building an independent life, and reclaiming your career, and your business. It’s a great place because I know we always need… Maybe accountability is not the right word, but just to see that other people are also doing scary things, and putting themselves out there, right? It can feel sometimes that it might be easier to just hide under my duvet today than go and record my podcast or go do this other thing I signed up for. Why did I do it? And just to know that yeah, there’s a lot of us who feel uncomfortable on a daily or weekly basis, and that’s our life. That’s our magic. And on the other side of it there’s excitement, and joy, and abundance, and really cool people that you get to meet and have these kinds of conversations with, so highly, highly recommend getting on that journey if you’re not already on there and join us on TheFridayNewsletter dot com.
Kurt Elster: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Sound Board:
Sigute Zitikyte: Thank you, Kurt. This has been amazing.