Show Notes
Why Personal Branding Matters
- Personal branding helps grow a business, boost sales, and gain visibility
- Useful for:
- Freelancers
- Solopreneurs
- Employees wanting promotions or new roles
- Builds trust and top-of-mind presence with clients, bosses, and peers
Carrie’s Personal Brand Journey
- Started during her time as co-owner of Church Street Coffee & Books
- Created two personal brands:
- Carrie Rollwagen: personal, books, writing
- The Localist: business-related, buying local
- Used her brand to stay visible during freelance work and land a job at Infomedia
The Emotional Side of Branding
- Acknowledges discomfort: branding oneself feels “gross” or cringy
- Concept of “Climbing Cringe Mountain” – success requires pushing through awkwardness
- Importance of knowing that personal brand ≠ personal identity
Exercise #1: Unique Value Proposition (4 Quadrants)
- List 10 things in each:
- Skills
- Expertise
- Personality
- Passion
- Example: poetry, crafting, journalism, local business advocacy
- Use AI to help summarize into a mission/brand statement
Exercise #2: Brand Constellation Map
- Visualize all personal projects & platforms around a central “why”
- Include current + future goals
- Helps maintain brand alignment and clarity
Picking Platforms with Purpose
- Start with 2–3 platforms (don’t overextend)
- Choose at least one that:
- Can collect contacts (email/newsletter)
- Provides detail source (website or blog)
- Match platforms to your goals: promote, monetize, or network
Branding Goals Breakdown
- Promote: social media, blog, newsletter, podcast
- Monetize: courses, books, consulting, speaking
- Network: LinkedIn, podcast interviews, newsletters, speaking events
Going Pro: Visuals & Branding
- Importance of professional branding: logos, color palettes, fonts
- Build a photo/video library for easy content creation
- Invest in professional media if you’re monetizing or representing a company
Mentors & Resources
- Follow creators or mentors who inspire you
- Use them for strategic ideas — not to copy, but to model after
Final Tips
- DIY is great at the beginning, but going professional can supercharge your efforts
- Be consistent but flexible — repurpose content as needed
- Your brand should reflect who you are and where you want to go
Episode Transcript
Carrie
Welcome to one quick question with infomedia, your source for answers to your questions about websites, digital marketing and more. I’m your host, Carrie Rollwagen, and if you’re in the Birmingham area, we’d love to see you on the third Thursday of each month at these live events. Grab Your Free tickets in the show notes to this episode, or anywhere you find infomedia, including our social media accounts. I’d love to see you there.
Carrie
On today’s episode, we’re sharing the recording of our most recent live one quick coffee event. We’re talking about personal branding. Creating a personal brand is essential if you’re a freelancer or a solopreneur, but it’s also helpful if you’re building another business, or if you want to move to a new job or show your current boss that you’re indispensable. I’ve been building my own brand and my localist brand for over a decade, so I’ll walk you through why it’s important and how you can start your own.
Carrie
Okay, we’re gonna go ahead and get started, but if you’re in line for coffee and tacos. Stay in line. Please prioritize getting caffeinated, and we’ll kind of filter in as we go. Welcome to One quick coffee. We want to thank little professor for having us. And also we are sad because this little Professor location is going to close, so we are still going to continue to have one quick coffee, and we’ll be across the street at the sage. So we’ll, I’ll say more about this at the end. And then if you sign up for the email and sign up, you’ll get an email about where you can park and all that, which is basically the same exact place because it’s across the street. But we are sad, but keep going to little Professor Homewood, but this event will be at the sage. Yeah, thank you. Yay. Yeah.
Carrie
So I’m Carrie Rollwagen. I am, oh, I have a slide for this. I’m Vice President of Strategic Planning at infomedia, so I think I see a lot of clients. So I’m not gonna go too much into infomedia, but we can help you out with your website, with your digital marketing presence. We have a sister company that does that, pretty much anything you want to do online. We can help you with and specifically, I’m going to talk about a lot of things today. What I try to do in these talks is give you a DIY way. So I hate when I go to talks and it’s just like a sales pitch about what they do. So I’m not going to do that. So we will give you the DIY, but also everything we talk about today, if you’re like, you know, I don’t want to do this on my own. We also provide consulting services and services for that, so I’ll kind of mention that as we go as well. All right, so I am actually the speaker today, so I have introduced myself. I am Carrie.
Carrie
So today we’re going to talk about personal branding, specifically, how to use personal branding to grow your career and business. Alright, so there are a lot of things a personal brand can do for you. This is not the full list, but this is kind of what I’m going to focus on today. It can help you grow your business. So if you own a business, or if you’re a key part of a business, and you want to grow that, it can be really helpful for people to not only have like a logo and a corporate entity to latch onto, but also a person, especially if you’re a small business or if you’re a nonprofit. It really helps for people to have that. It also in this, you know, world where we’re all kind of numb to all the advertising that we see, having a personality kind of does help to cut through that and give a little bit more authenticity. So it can help grow your business. If you make sales for a business, it can also help you make sales. So if you’re developing your LinkedIn, if you have your own podcast or have your own newsletter, this can be really helpful. So a lot of you know Clay Conner. He’s one of our sales people. He also has a newsletter that’s part of his personal brand, so he can sign people up for his newsletter, and he can write about things like why a headshot is important to have, or, you know, why you may want to change your about page, or whatever it is, in a way that is actually helpful and not salesy, and that kind of helps to lay a foundation. So when he does make a sale, he kind of has that foundation there. He’s staying top of mind with people. So if you’re making sales for your company, this can be really helpful.
Carrie
Now, say you’re like, I don’t do either of these things. I just work at a company. Well, a personal brand can also kind of make you more sticky. There’s probably a better term for that, but I didn’t have one. You know, you don’t always your boss doesn’t always see what you do, and maybe your boss is what you do, but your boss’s boss might not, and they might be the person deciding whether or not you get a promotion or whether or not you get a raise. But if they’re on LinkedIn, or they’re on Instagram and you’re getting out there, that’s another way to get in front of those people that you may not be able to get in front of at work. And then if you’re looking for clients. Or if you’re looking for freelance work, it can also help you to stay top of mind for these those people.
Carrie
So throughout the talk, I’m going to be talking about my personal brand, or personal brands, and these are kind of interchangeable to most people who follow me. There is a little bit of difference, but it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this talk. So I have the personal brand that is Carrie Rollwagen, which is weird for me to say that Carrie Rollwagen is a brand, because I am also Carrie Rollwagen, but I have a weird last name. I might as well use it so I have a personal brand for that. When I post about things like books and writing. I tend to do that under like the Carrie Rollwagen brand. But I also have a brand called the localist, which is about small businesses and with so I have a podcast called The localist. I have a book called The localist. So when I talk about business related things, when I talk about small businesses or buying local I tend to put it under the localist, but there is no localist without Carrie. Again, this is weird to say. So every time we talk about the localist, we’re also saying like the localist with Carrie Rollwagen. So to some extent, this is a differentiator for me, more than it is a differentiator for my audience. So you can have essentially two brands that kind of work together as a personal brand, or you can do one or the other. You can have your own person or you can kind of develop a brand of something that you support. And I’m going to be using these examples throughout the talk, because most of this stuff I know from research and from working with clients, but part of the reason I’m doing this talk is because I also actually do this. So I can also say this is what people will tell you to do, and it’s actually really annoying and it doesn’t work.
Carrie
So what has my brand ever done for me? So it’s done, actually, almost all of those things that we talked about before. So I used to be a co owner of Church Street coffee and books. That’s when I started developing the localist brand, and probably when I started developing my personal brand too. And at the time, the brand helped people to come to church street. They helped people buy more books and more coffee and understand why it was important to buy local. So at that point, it got me new customers, but then I sold Church Street, and I became a freelance writer, which is something I’d been doing for a while, and at that time, I kind of pivoted the purpose of my personal brand in that before, it was bringing people to church street, but then it was reminding people that I existed. So I’d already been a freelance writer for a while, I already had the contacts to do freelance writing, but I wanted them to remember that I existed. And it seems there are ways to make a brand as a writer work, but I couldn’t think of any that would work for me. I’m like, am I going to just post a picture three times a week with me? Like, this is me writing with a pencil, this is me writing at a computer. And then I’m like, if I’m posting a bunch of stuff about writing, then I’m attracting other writers. I’m not attracting new clients. So again, because I’d already made those connections, I wanted to use the brand essentially just to come up in the feeds of the people I’d already made connections with. And that worked really well. And I did find a correlation between when I would put a localist podcast up and then when I would start getting calls like because they’re thinking, I’m looking for a writer, they open Instagram. There I am. Oh yeah, let’s use Carrie.
Carrie
So that worked a little too well. And one of my freelance clients hired me. Thank you, Jason. So then I started working at infomedia. So for one thing, I think that helped me to get full time work. Because again, I was like he knew that I was not only building things for infomedia, but I also was doing this personal brand, and it was coming up in in my potential boss’s feed. And I think it also helps me as I’ve moved up in my career at infomedia, because like my boss, which is, I think he probably feels awkward, everybody, please look at him. I’m just kidding. We haven’t always worked in the same building. He owns multiple businesses, and now we’re in the same building, but we used to not be. So there would be, like, weeks at a time where I wouldn’t see him, but he was still seeing me because I was coming up in his feed. And I do think that was probably contributing to the fact, I mean, I can do, I do my job. Well, that’s the main thing. But I don’t think it hurts that you’re reminding some I was reminding someone that I existed.
Carrie
It also helps me to promote things I care about, like I actually, genuinely care about small businesses. I genuinely care about books and writing. So there’s fulfillment in that as well. And to some extent, it helps me future proof my career. Now I happen to be happy at my job, so I. Not really thinking about the future, but it is good that I have something that isn’t just branded infomedia that I can take with me later, because you may not be in a position where you love your job. You know plenty of people are like, well, this is a first step for me, and I want to do something later, or I’m really unhappy, or maybe it’s just unstable, and you don’t know what’s going to happen to your job. So being able to develop this personal brand, yes, it helps magnify the company that you’re working for, but it’s also something that you can take with you later, to use to get another job, or just to use as a platform like wherever you go.
Carrie
So the thing is, this is a weird topic, though, because thinking of yourself as a brand is weird, like the existential part of it is not awesome, but this is kind of just terminology for something that already exists. We’re probably all on the internet. We probably all use social media, so to some extent, you have a personal brand already. This is really just about, can we direct that to something that works for us? It is helpful to know that your personal brand is not you, you know, like and, and a lot of I think that is helpful. But I did want to kind of address that that like I do think to some extent it feels gross, but also it’s like this is already happening, and there are ways that we can kind of direct it in a way that feels authentic and real to us. And that’s what I want to talk about today. Um, also, we kind of have to get over that and just get over the fact that it feels gross to promote yourself like it’s weird for me that I’m talking to you and I’m up here on a screen also talking to you, and that there are like pictures of me all over the internet, that’s weird, you know, like and sometimes it feels self promotional, and that can be scary. But there’s this creator that I follow. Her name is Courtney Johnson, I think, and she talks about how, like, if you are going to succeed in some kind of personal branding zone, you have to climb cringe mountain. Basically it’s like to get to success on the other side, you are going to have to do stuff that feels cringy, that feels self promotional, especially because to some extent, you’re not going to launch with a brand that is perfect. Because if you try to make things perfect in the digital space, basically you have the idea you spend so long making it perfect that now it’s not on trend, or it’s not in the zeitgeist, or whatever it is. So it doesn’t really work. So to some extent, we have to just get out there and try stuff. There’s definitely stuff now there is a balance there. I haven’t posted things online that I’m ashamed of that’s different, but I posted things online I’m like, my hair looks stupid, or I now know that that’s not a good way to shoot a photo. You know, like, that’s just it is what it is. And if you want to succeed in this area, you do have to be willing to go through that.
Carrie
But one of the good things, and this is the same creator, she says, like, the only people who are judging you for being on cringe mountain are the people who have not succeeded in this area. Everyone who has succeeded also had to go through that. Yeah, that’s also, I think there’s a Teddy Roosevelt quote that’s like, it’s being in the arena. You know, that’s probably a nicer quote than cringe mountain. But whatever, the that you want to be in the arena, you don’t want to be the person just saying, like, oh, that’s, that’s weird and whatever. There will be those people who do it, but most of those people just haven’t tried to do something essentially. It can also help, though, to have a bigger cause that makes it worth it to you, to get out there. It does help me that I actually care about small businesses and I want to promote buying local. So it’s like, do I feel like putting my face on the internet today and having my dad text me and say, you look tired, not really. My parents also watch the videos of these. They like, make dinner and watch them on their TV. So, hi, Dad, stop doing that. Very cute. No, not really, but when it’s like, okay, but I do want to promote this business, like I did this, like somebody came in and came on my podcast, and I want to talk about them, or even promoting this event like it’s like, I want to share this with people that does help me get over myself a little bit and say that this is worth doing.
Carrie
So knowing your purpose or your goal can help. So I want to kind of talk about a few exercises to do that. And what we’re really getting at here is kind of writing your mission statement. Now, your mission statement could be something that you share with the public, but it doesn’t have to be. This is just something that is kind of helpful for you to have a touchstone of, I’m, you know, I believe in what I’m doing and also does the thing I’m about to promote actually kind of mesh with my mission statement. So the next two exercises are kind of just going to be things that helped me to kind of get clarity on what a mission statement should be.
Carrie
So the first is finding your unique value proposition. So if you’ve been in the corporate world at all, you already know this term, but usually we don’t use it for people. But again, mostly time people are not brands, so we’re just going to go with it. So I really like this exercise. Essentially, you have four quadrants, skills, expertise, personality and passion, and what you want to do is make a list of 10 things in each of those quadrants. So expertise would be something that you would put on a resume, like you’re saying I can do this thing, and I can prove to you that I can do this thing. Skills may be something like that, but skills also may be like I happen to have the skill set I wouldn’t necessarily put on the resume, but it is part of who I am. Passion are going to be like those causes that you care about, and personality is probably obvious, so I’m just going to share mine with you, so this will make a little more sense.
Carrie
All right, so under expertise, I’ll do that first, because I think that’s the easiest thing for us to do. I wrote a book, I was a reporter, I was a bookseller, I have a podcast. These are things that I would I could put on a resume that’s like, these are things I have done, but skills are things. Most of the skills are things that I wouldn’t necessarily put on that so learning and researching are big parts of what I do, but I’m not going to put like, I like to learn on a resume. You know, like, that’s weird. People also think it’s weird when you say it in real life, by the way. Photography is something that is somewhat of a skill, but not something I would sell to people. I’ve been in a dark room. I know how to shoot on my phone. That’s about it. We have professionals who do a much better job than I do, but it’s still a skill set that I have. It’s just not something I would sell to people. If that makes sense. Then there are things like creating systems and product naming that I have done professionally. And then you have things like poetry and crafting that are not going to go on a resume. Probably, I don’t know what your job is if you’re doing that, but please tell me what it is, because that sounds fun.
Carrie
But those are those kinds of things are helpful for this exercise too, because when you’re creating a personal brand, it’s really good to have things that are not just the sort of things that would go on your resume. It’s what makes people want to follow you, what makes you feel human, essentially, and the same things with passion. So passion would be like, I really care about local businesses and books and writing. But then there are things that are a little bit more murky. Like, I like demystifying confusing ideas. That’s weird. But like, there are a lot of like, in the world of websites and marketing in particular, there are a lot of people who try to confuse you so they can charge you for more stuff. I really hate that. So, like, that’s kind of what I do here. So again, this isn’t something that is, necessarily wouldn’t go on a resume, but it’s still helpful for the exercise. And then you have personality, which is, was the most difficult for me, because it’s like, I am anxious and judgmental. So normally, by the way, you wouldn’t share this exercise. You just want to be honest with yourself and be like, okay, cool.
Carrie
But I will tell you, it’s no surprise to anyone I work with that I’m anxious and judgmental, unfortunately, but I’m also loyal and creative and sometimes funny, um. So this is like, this is also part of how you’re going to present yourself. Now, if you’ve been to one of my talks before, you know, typically my first thing is not like go to AI, but I do think AI is actually helpful in this exercise, because you’re really just trying to get like, a summary of this, and I think because it’s so personal, it’s kind of hard to do it yourself. So this is AI, how AI described what we just saw. I help people and brands communicate clearly and creatively by turning complex ideas into compelling stories, strategies and systems. Nice alliteration. Bravo, AI. But again, like this isn’t something that I’m going to put this is not great for my Instagram bio. It’s a little cheesy, but it is helpful for me, and this is good enough because this is mostly just an internal tool. So I do think the exercise is helpful so that you come up with something and you should tweak it if you don’t think that it’s right, of course, but something that you can kind of stand behind, and you can say, you can use to say, because Carrie Rollwagen as a person, is different than Carrie Rollwagen on the internet. It doesn’t mean internet carrie is fake, but it’s not my entire life and personality, you know. So this is kind of helpful when you’re trying to guide like, what do I share? What do I not? So I think that this is helpful for that.
Carrie
So the next exercise I want to do is something that, and I’m not. Obviously, I’m not making you do them here. You can do them on your own. But also. If you do, if you’re like I actually want to be guided through this. We can do this for you at infomedia, so you can come and work with a consultant, and we can go through this with you. But the next one, I learned this from a master class by Elaine Welteroth, and she calls it a mind map exercise. I wish I had a different name for it, but I don’t, so we’re going to go with that. So what you do is you kind of have your why in the center, and then you think about all of the different things that you’re doing, your platforms or your products, and kind of like they’re floating around this, I guess, like a constellation. If you’ve seen the Netflix thing on Martha Stewart, she does that like she has this too. I like the people who are like, Yeah, that’s a good show. So what I like to do here, though, is not just think about the things I’m doing now, but think about what are the things that I might want to do in the future. Like, if I have a dream scenario of the personal brand becomes a really big thing, what would fit in that? So this is mine, and I color them in when I do something. So that’s what’s colored and not so there are things on here that I don’t do now, like I don’t really do editorial writing much anymore, but I would, I hope I do at some point in my life again. So it’s here, and I think this works with my brand, and then you see things like podcasts. I have one quick question, and the localist, those are already. I have those already. There’s a book attached. So as I kind of do things, I put it in this kind of constellation, constellation. It’s not up to date because I have a course and another consulting client, but pretend that it is. But this was really helpful to me, because I do so many different things, too many different things I would say, and my family and friends would definitely say, but it’s sort of helpful for me to see, how do those fit together, what fits in that and what doesn’t. So if I wanted to do something like, I don’t know crafty, like making a design out of melty beads. I do that, or have done it, but it’s not something that belongs in my brand, if that makes sense. So this really helps to kind of get clarity on what you want to do there and and make sure they relate to a why statement that would be your mission statement. So my mission statement is what we buy, read and do is more powerful than we realize, because that’s kind of what ties all this together for me. I do think passionately, like what we do as individuals has a lot more impact than we think it does. So you can look at all the different things I do and they tie back to this. So the localist book is about buying local, and so is the podcast. So that’s about like, you know, what we buy is more powerful than we realize. I post about books, and that’s about reading, and then I do talks like this, and it’s like, what you do and trying to share about a personal brand, where it’s like, you too can do this, you know? So like, you can, kind of, you don’t need to know this. This is more important for me than for anybody following me. It is on my website, but it’s not like it’s just like the tagline on my website. It’s not like everybody you better know my mission statement. No one cares, but it is helpful for me as I continue to produce things, to be able to go back to this.
Carrie
Alright, so let’s say we found our mission statement. Where do you want to post? First of all, find, I think when you’re finding platforms, you find like social media platforms or website or whatever, I would start with two or three platforms. Really probably start with two. If you’re doing something brand new, if you’ve done a little bit more, it’s kind of fine to add something else, but kind of start where you’re doing, like, a few things well, and then you can kind of build onto that. I would say at least one of those should either be set up for monetizing. If you don’t have much of a following yet, you’re probably not going to be able to monetize yet, but at least if that’s part of the goal of doing this, if you’re like, I want to be selling courses eventually, make sure one of those is set up as a platform that can help you do that, or collect contact information. So, I mean, like emails or phone numbers. So just make sure at least one platform is not tied to like, well, I have a bunch of followers on Instagram, but if Instagram blocks my account, then I have no way to get in touch with them. So try to make sure one of your, at least one account, is doing that. And then one of them, I like to have a source for details. So what I mean by this is probably a website, but have something where you can share something on social that’s just quick and fun, and they can go somewhere else to get all the details. So that may be like for this event. I’m just going to link to link to the Eventbrite, because that has all the details. But for a lot of events, they don’t have ticketing, or they don’t have things like that. So it’s helpful for me to have one place that’s my website that’s like, OK, I know Carrie posted about this. I don’t know where to find it, but it’s always going to be on my website. So it is helpful. You can also use a newsletter for that, but. Not as helpful, because that’s only going to go to people who’ve already signed up. So it is not as good. You should buy a website from infomedia.
Carrie
Alright. So also, when you’re thinking about your platforms, prioritize what you want to get out of it. So there are more things than this, but the three main things I think a personal brand can do for you is help you promote ideas. It can help you monetize and it can help you with networking. And it’s really helpful to figure out which one of these is the most important to me right now. It doesn’t mean that you can’t pivot, like when I left Church Street and did a free and went to freelancing, my priority pivoted. But right now, go after one of these, and you probably will get a little bit of the other two. But if you try to, like, constantly promote ideas and then constantly monetize and also use it for networking, that’s just a lot to start out with at first. So kind of figure out where you really want to go with it.
Carrie
Alright, if you’re if your priority is promoting, then you’ve got it easy, because that’s pretty much what social media is set up to do. I listed these, but you could really say any platform. So this is basically what my personal brand is right now I’m not really monetizing it in a major way. I have a job. I like it. Keep me employed, please. So that’s not a huge priority for me. Networking has been a priority in the past, but it’s kind of like already going because I have a podcast and I have new people on it every mostly every week, so that is not something that I really have to prioritize. So now my my, my goal is promoting. I think I technically have all of these things. I probably, I don’t. I’m really active on Instagram, Tiktok, that’s book stuff. So if you is, Instagram is my business stuff, Tiktok is my book stuff. So like, blog, speaking events, and I do have a newsletter that you should all sign up for. There’s a QR code at the end. My husband says, I promote that too much in this talk. But I’m like, I’m teaching you to promote your own stuff, so you’re welcome.
Carrie
Anyway, but if your goal is promoting, you kind of have your pick. Most of this is set up for promoting. If your goal is monetizing again, if you are starting out, you’re probably not going to be able to monetize yet, but it is helpful to think, what are you going for? Are you wanting to do a course, write a book, do a podcast? The way to monetize a podcast is selling ads, which is kind of an uphill battle, but you have to have a podcast first before you start selling ads. Consulting, speaking events. All of these things kind of feed into each other, but it’s good to know, like, where are you going first? Now, if you’re trying to monetize a course or a book, just know that for you’re only going to get a tiny fraction of your followers who are going to buy that. So I wanted to mention courses, because I think a lot of people are like, quit your job, start a course. You know, please don’t do that. It is helpful to have, like, I have a writing a couple writing courses that I have here. I really liked creating them. We had good sales. We had, like, a strong percentage, but most of those succeed either because people have a huge following, so the two to 5% of people who are buying it are enough, or they are pushing this hard with marketing. So we do have a marketing company, Uptick marketing. So if you say, like, I really want to do this, I would say, if you don’t have a big following, invest in the marketing to push behind to push that. Same with a book. Now, if you want to make money off the book, good luck to you. I did make money off my book. I definitely didn’t make a salary off of my book. But if you were trying to use a book to leverage getting speaking events and getting paid for those that can kind of help, that eventually can work, but most of these, if you’re starting out, you’re not, probably going to be monetizing a ton right now, but kind of set up what you’re going for so that it’s not you’re not having to switch platforms later.
Carrie
If you’re using it for networking. The things I would recommend LinkedIn for sure, if you are in the business world, and we actually have a package at infomedia, where we will film and take photos for you and audit your LinkedIn and kind of get you set up for that. But LinkedIn is the place to be if you are mostly using it for networking like that. If you are making something, or do you’re like a creator, or something like that, if you’re selling in person, probably Instagram would be that. If you’re selling globally, you may want to look at Tiktok, that’s going to be those things are a little bit different. But typical what we would consider networking is probably gonna be LinkedIn. A podcast can also help you network, because you’re literally bringing in a guest constantly. So that was a huge thing for my network, is that I bring in a guest now I’m connected to that guest. Usually people will say yes to a podcast. It’s also free promotion for them. It looks good for them to be like, Wow. They thought I was so important. A podcast is also funny, because now everybody has podcasts, but somehow people still kind of read it as you were important, because you’re on a podcast and like, Okay, I published this myself. Now infomedia does but, but it does help. And so you’re bringing in those guests that can be really helpful, and then those guests typically will promote it to their following too, especially if you have some kind of video involved. So that is really helpful, and that’s why I don’t focus too much on networking now, because I have that consistently going on anyway. Newsletter can be really helpful for networking, because you’re getting people’s emails, and so you can continue to connect with them. So say you are that sales person, you have a newsletter, you get the emails, then you can see, oh, I saw you were working on this thing and whatever. You can also kind of do that with LinkedIn, with their, I forget what they call their blogging, but they have a so you can kind of do that with that too. And then speaking events too. If you’re me, you just completely melt down after a speaking event and revert to introvert Carrie and so I talk to no one. But if you’re not like that, you can have a speaking event and then networking with the people who come. Oh, and I do have, if you sign up for my newsletter, which I have a QR code, but also there’s a link in my Instagram profile, you’ll immediately get, like, a DIY podcasting guide if you want to start there, if you do want to start with more of a professional version, which I do highly recommend, because switching to the professional version at infomedia has been amazing for me. It’s like just showing up and doing an interview is incredible. Then you can talk to us at infomedia. We can do that for you. And then eventually all these things start coming together. So I may get a listener or a guest to the podcast, and then they may come to a speaking event. They may buy my book at a speaking event and then listen to another podcast episode. Or you may come to an event and then sign up for my newsletter, which, by the way, you should do like now it’s a joke, so I have to say it. And then you might find the podcast from that, and then follow me on Instagram and then hear about another speaking event. So eventually the idea is these things start feeding on each other.
Carrie
So everything I’ve already talked about, you can do in a very DIY, scrappy way, and especially if you’re just an individual trying to start a brand, I would recommend doing that. But if you are like, either you work for a company where you need to look more professional or you want to eventually monetize and you really want to invest in that, I would recommend getting a little bit more professional, like branding and photos and things like that. For one thing, it builds trust with your audience, so especially if you’re asking your audience to spend money or to believe something you’re saying, like if you’re really if you’re saying something somewhat controversial, but you’re an expert at it, they will believe you more if they see like a logo and consistent branding and things like that. And it also will make building content easier. So now that I have branding from infomedia, putting a like a graphic together in Canva is super easy, where it was like a nightmare before.
Carrie
So a couple things that you would want to do, and this is the localist branding that I think is going to play for you, that infomedia did. They also did Carrie Rollwagen, by the way. So branding, I would say, is like logo, color palette, fonts, like you’ll see. This package has all of those things. It has a lot of different ways to use it. I would say, obviously, infomedia is the very best, so you should get from us. But if you don’t like do make sure that you’re getting a variety of colors. If you just get a logo and it has like two colors, that is really not enough to make it easy to make a Canva graphic, or to make a website or something like that. So I think they’re cycling through there’s several colors, and you see like they’re iterated in different ways. That has been incredibly helpful to me. It was a huge difference between trying to do it on my own. Also make sure the fonts they’re giving you are, like web fonts and stuff like this. If you come to infomedia, this is stuff we already think about, but just tips for if you’re getting it from somebody else.
Carrie
I also think it’s helpful to build a photo and video library. So having some library that’s like B roll of just you doing stuff that you can run behind social media, like you can just put some text on there, is nice. And then also having different photos that you can use. So you’ve seen throughout this, there are a lot of different photos of me. We have a bunch of photos of me podcasting or, like, working at a computer or doing a speaking event. And it makes it so easy to put together an event like this, or to put together an Instagram post to just have those things. And you can get from infomedia or from someone else, you can buy, like, a half day photo session where you can get a few costume changes or outfit changes, I guess it’s not costume. You can wear a costume if that’s your thing. You can change clothes a few times. You can go in different areas and kind of like get a little like a tool kit that you can pull from later. Yeah.
Carrie
And another thing that can really help is to kind of find mentors. not I don’t mean mentors like people you sit down and have coffee with, although that’s fine too. I’m available for that, but you have to pay infomedia. I don’t think that’s called a mentor anymore, but I there like I listed some people that I like to follow. I’m not saying that every single thing these people post is something that is usable to me, but these are people that I consistently see as from following them, like, Oh, I could do that. Most of them have books, have some kind of like, course, or things like that that or a podcast. So these are people I get ideas from yours are probably going to look different, but just find a few people who are doing things the way you think that you would like to do it, and just get ideas from them.
Carrie
And if you want to follow me, you can sign up for my newsletter. I know it’s a shock, Mike is shocked. and I actually scheduled it to go out after this talk, so you’ll get the DIY guide, and then the newsletter today is on, like writing a vision statement, so you’ll get that too if you sign up during this.
Carrie
Thanks for listening to our live one quick coffee event. Free Tickets are available wherever you find infomedia, on our blog, social media and YouTube channels. One quick question is brought to you by infomedia. We’re a web service company, so that means we can do whatever you need for your website, whether that’s shooting video, writing copy, incorporating digital marketing, or even redesigning your whole site. To meet with us, just head to infomedia.com and fill out that contact form we’d love to help. One quick question is developed and hosted by me Carrie Rollwagen, find show notes, including links to what we talked about on the podcast today at infomedia.com/quickquestion. Our producer is Alana Harmond. Our theme music is by Brad Davis, and sound engineering is done by our in house media team, including Paul Bryant, who’s in the studio with me today, and I’ll leave you with this thought, a real expert helps to clarify, not confuse. So don’t take website advice from someone who can’t give you a straight answer.
Carrie Rollwagen