SBBM #9 – How to Build your Personal Brand

Posted by Luke on Wed, Aug 26th 2009 in Interviews

Luke Harvey-Palmer, Founder of Buzzle, shares some absolute gold in respect to building your personal brand both online and off. Luke is a guy who spends every waking hour building the personal brands at the very top end of Australia’s business community, and he has kindly given us 30 minutes of his time to tell us how its done. Personal branding is an often overlooked part of a small business’s marketing mix, but this can all change if you take on board Luke’s sage and simple to implement advice. So, pens at the ready…and play!

Durration: 33:18

Small Business Big Marketing Podcast

 

Download and listen later

Luke Harvey-Palmer’s Business – www.Buzzle.com.au

Luke Harvey-Palmer’s Blog – www.LukeHarveyPalmer.com

Tim’s Brand Character Process

Tim on Twitter

Luke on Twitter

Check yourself out online – www.KnowEm.com

We’re also looking to create a product or service that will allow our listeners to work with us on their marketing. We’d love to hear from you as to what form this would take. So, leave a voicemail on Skype at SmallBusinessBigMarketing or email us at questions@smallbusinessbigmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!

Podcast Transcription

Tim Reid: Lukey, Lukey, Lukey. I got a bit of heat last time for…I think that’s how I introduced you last time, is that right?
Luke Moulton: I think it is actually, yeah.

Tim Reid: Yeah. Got a bit of heat in the kitchen from that one.

Luke Moulton: Did you really?

Tim Reid: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Luke Moulton: Timbo, how are you?

Tim Reid: Couldn’t be finer, mate, yourself?

Luke Moulton: Yes, very well thank you.

Tim Reid: You are looking radiant.

Luke Moulton: As…

Tim Reid: In that dress.

Luke Moulton: As are you in that moo moo you always wear.

Tim Reid: Great. Hey, we’ve got a ripper interview; we are going to get straight into it. Just to confuse you, listeners, and hello to you wherever you are in the world, we’ve got another Luke on the end of the line.

Luke Moulton: Yes, we’re speaking with Luke Harvey-Palmer from Buzzle and what does Luke do, Tim?

Tim Reid: Luke, he is…he’s a personal branding expert. And there’s just some real gold in this upcoming interview. And I would suggest, listeners, that…get a pen and paper out.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: And pause, stop, rewind, do whatever you need to, but there really is some good stuff. And personal branding, I think as we say at the end, you know, can often be overlooked as a marketing strategy for your business. I think overlook it at one’s peril, Luke.

Luke Moulton: Indeed. So don’t sit back and relax.

Tim Reid: That’s it, yeah, yeah. And only listen to this if you’re serious.

Luke Moulton: Yeah. Sit up and take notes and over to Luke.

Tim Reid: Correct.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: This is Luke.

Tim Reid: Is that Luke Harvey-Palmer?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: This is Luke Harvey-Palmer.

Tim Reid: There’s only one, isn’t there?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yes, look, the…Google me and you’ll see there is only one.

Tim Reid: Correct, correct. So you would be a specialist in what?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: That would be personal brand campaign management.

Tim Reid: Lovely, Luke. So, mate, it’s clearly Tim and also another Luke who…

Luke Moulton: How are you, Luke, how are you going?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Luke, this could be very confusing, couldn’t it?

Tim Reid: Correct.

Luke Moulton: It certainly could.

Tim Reid: Correct.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Luke one and Luke two, although I notice that Tim calls you Lukey a lot.

Tim Reid: All right, well we’ll go with that. My sidekick here will be Lukey for the next 15 minutes and you’ll be Luke. So, Luke, personal branding, mate, that’s interesting that you should say look you up online and you’ll be up the top. What’s personal branding about, surely it’s more than sort of being found online, what’s your definition?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Mmm, very much so. Look, in its simplest form, Tim, and Luke, personal branding is…and your personal brand, is what people think of when they think of you. Now, one of the things I like to talk about to explain that often is in simple terms if people are having a conversation at midnight over a red wine and they’re talking about you, what are the things that they’re saying. Those things that they’re saying, that’s your personal brand.

Luke Moulton: Is that to your face or behind your back?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Look, either or.

Tim Reid: Just what they’re thinking.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah, look, it’s just what, you know, what they’re thinking, hence the red wine, Luke. People tend to be pretty honest there once they’ve had a few drinks after midnight. But, look, either or, and typically there’s something to learn from that regardless, if that’s what people think of you then that in many ways, they are the attributes of your brand. And so like most good organisations…

Tim Reid: How do you…what’s a brand, we’ve had this conversation before, but how would you define a brand? Because it’s a pretty…it’s a heavily used word in marketing circles.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, Tim, you’ve got some great background in this space as well and when I’m asked that question I like to talk about brand and break it down to the bottom line. In many ways we talk about personal branding and the work we do with people, we say to them this, that a brand is really about increasing your value. And why are we able to do that? Well a brand is about the emotion. It’s about the emotive elements of marketing, it’s about the emotive elements of selling and promotion whereby if, as I said before, people think of your brand, it’s those words they think of, it’s the feelings, it’s the things they feel in their heart as much as in their head.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And so it’s still a bit…

Tim Reid: More so.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Sorry?

Tim Reid: More so. More so in their heart than their head.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Very much so. And we talk a lot about engaging brands and how do you have an engaging personal brand so that people take an interest in that brand, they want to know more, they’re inquisitive, or they want to be part of that.

Tim Reid: Lukey, if ever ever the brakes were deserved, this is the moment, because you know how emotional I get about branding, don’t you?

Luke Moulton: Yes, you are…you’re always very particular about branding.

Tim Reid: Well, you know, this is what I reckon; I reckon it’s a very overlooked part of businesses and in particular small businesses marketing. Because they go, oh, it’s sort of airy fairy stuff, I don’t really get it, and as a result they kind of just go launch straight into doing the ad or doing the website or doing the logo or whatever without really thinking about what it is they stand for and how they’re going to emotionally connect to their audience.

Luke Moulton: So how should they actually go about…

Tim Reid: Excellent question.

Luke Moulton: About finding out what their brand is?

Tim Reid: It’s an excellent question. Well let’s go back. So Luke had some great definitions around brand, my favourite definition, and I think we talked about it when we interviewed Michael Klim a few episodes ago, is that a brand is simply an emotional attachment, right.

Luke Moulton: Mmm.

Tim Reid: So you need to get, you the business owner, need to get your prospects and your customers emotionally connected to your brand, to your business. Because if they’re emotionally connected, it’s much harder for them to leave and it’s much easier for them to make a transaction. So how do you do that? Well I reckon the question that you’ve got to ask yourself is what problem am I solving for my customers. And if you can demonstrate that you’re solving a particular problem for your customers, your customers are going to, by default, go these guys really get me. You know?

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: Like they’ll get all teary and they’ll love you, like we do about Apple, you know.

Luke Moulton: Yes, correct.

Tim Reid: But, you know, Apple is a great example, I mean, Apple could…Apple could whip me in a public square and I’d go thank you. You know?

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: But that’s the power of a brand.

Luke Moulton: Indeed. Especially if it’s Steve Jobs.

Tim Reid: Well, yeah, you know, anyone. Anyone who…

Luke Moulton: Anyone from Apple.

Tim Reid: Yeah, anyone who had an Apple business card and…but anyway we won’t go there. But, you know, that’s the power of a brand and I often say to clients if you don’t believe in the power of a brand, then just personalise it. Think about the clothes you buy, the car you drive, you know, the shopping powder you buy…the shopping powder. What was I saying there? The washing powder…

Luke Moulton: Washing powder.

Tim Reid: …that you buy in the shop.

Luke Moulton: Yes.

Tim Reid: But, you know, like think about those things and why you buy them. Ask yourself why do I buy them and there’ll be an emotional reason.

Luke Moulton: Should your small business brand be about what you want to be as a business or should it be a reflection of your personality?

Tim Reid: Reflection of your personality, I reckon.

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: Sometimes that’s hard and in fact it’s a very very good question, Luke, because…I think I’m about to tell a story in the next part of this show.

Luke Moulton: Yes.

Tim Reid: But it is, it should be, you know, it’s hard when a number of people who own the business.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: When it’s a one person show, it’s easier, but…

Luke Moulton: And just on that point though, Tim, you’re…not to bang on about Twitter, but your Twitter ID has been Timbo Reid, so why do you want to change that to The Ideas Guy, which is your business name?

Tim Reid: And who said I was going to do that?

Luke Moulton: Well we had a bit of a chat before the show and…

Tim Reid: Yeah, we did. We’ll talk about it later.

Luke Moulton: All right.

Tim Reid: Back to…back to Luke.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Your brand really is about all those things that, you know, conjure up those emotions around…

Tim Reid: So, Luke, this is interesting, only recently, last week, I had this wonderful client of mine who, she’s quite eccentric, right, eccentric, eccentric, however, one says that, but she’s mad and her personal brand, if she honours it, is so beautifully strong and unique and has qualities and values that I don’t know another brand in business that has similar kind of values and personality. So I sit with her and say fill out…I was going to use her name then, but I won’t, fill out your brand character form which is my way of identifying people’s brands, yeah. And she gets her team involved and it comes back, the way she describes her brand becomes very formulaic and very corporate and everything that she’s not. And I sent her an email and I said, don’t share this with your team, but this is your team talking trying to describe a business and it doesn’t reflect who you are at all, because you’re this beautifully unique person. And she said, “I wanted everyone to get buy in”, but all of a sudden she gets this clinical style brand. So what’s my question there, it’s like how much of the business owner should influence the brand that a business is trying to create.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Look, amazing, we live in really amazing times. You know, we’ve…just recently I’ve been doing some keynotes and have written quite a few blog posts on this whole notion of where are we now, and I know, Tim, you and I have probably had a conversation about this offline, you know, what is the 21st century now, what is post GFC, post the global financial crisis, what really is happening to markets and to businesses and to consumers, to customers.

And so it’s totally related to I guess that question, Tim, in that people I guess expect different things now and one of the blog posts I wrote today was about trying to get this whole notion going of a father and son day. And I feel like my generation, you know, X generation, we’ve got a real disconnect with our parents, and in most cases they’re baby boomers, because so many things were expected of them or so many of the values they grew up with which is go to university, get a (9:43), get a job, work to 65, retire and die.

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And so I think a lot of businesses, a lot of corporations, still think in many ways we’ve got that hanging over our heads, we’ve still got that sort of baby boomer. And Barack Obama uses a term, post boomer, and a I think a lot of business is struggling, Tim, with this notion of letting go of these things that were heavily related to corporate brand and what a corporation must be, it must be serious, it must be understood, it must be clear, it must be black and white, and we’re just starting to get comfortable with having our personalities, what I call the fifth P, and there’s four Ps to marketing and I won’t bore your listeners with that…

Tim Reid: Give it a go, mate, see if they’re the same ones I know.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Look, let’s see, let’s…you know, I’ll make these up, but the four Ps of marketing as most of us with any sort of academic training understand marketing to be all around product, price, placement and promotion.

Tim Reid: Lovely.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And so the fifth P we like to think…those things are great but, you know, I can go to China now and get a product ripped up.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: I can be on the Internet and be in Mongolia selling product. So the only way really to differentiate now and to have your business really stand out is…

Tim Reid: Ah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: …is through the fifth P, through your people.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And to answer your question, to bring that right back, I think a lot of people…and, look, I’m not going to hazard a guess at your client, your contacts, as to, you know, their age group and, you know, people in the business, but we just…we need to learn to let go a little bit and need to recognise that people buy people.

Tim Reid: Yep, nice.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And that people…yeah, they really want to feel the personality in your business. And if you are the business leader, look at many great businesses, you know, Branson what he’s done with Virgin and Serge and Larry with Google.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And Jobs with Apple. People get a bit nervous…

Tim Reid: Hey, speaking of Virgin, I did interview the head of people at Virgin a few years ago…

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah.

Tim Reid: …and the great quote that he left me with was, “People can copy what we do but not who we are”. You know, and that’s what it’s all about. Is that the kind of bottom line?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: That is, that’s the bottom line. And I think for your question again, bring it back to the question, the person you were talking to is…it is very much about just getting comfortable with that, I think we know it, intrinsically we know it.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: But we’ve just had it so heavily ingrained in us that that’s not what business is about, it’s not personal. I think we’ve changed.

Tim Reid: It is, yeah.

Luke Moulton: So, Luke, when you work on someone’s personal brand, what are you actually working on?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: We believe there’s…there’s probably…I like to talk about the three As, Luke, or should I call you Lukey.

Tim Reid: Hang on, I’m just writing down the five Ps. We’ve got the three As. And make an allowance for the four Ds.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Being a marketer and a strategic marketer…

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And, you know, having a background with some pretty clever sort of consulting types…

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You know, Tim, that models, the rules of three, four…

Tim Reid: Correct.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: They’re everywhere.

Tim Reid: Analogies, stories, acronyms, bring them on.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yep, look I love them…

Tim Reid: What have you got, the three…what was it, the three As?

Luke Moulton: The three As.

Tim Reid: Okay.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: They help me remember.

Tim Reid: Okay.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: They help me remember otherwise I’d never be able to remember this stuff. But to answer your question, Lukey, the three As are really about availability, affability and ability. So what we’re really working on there, availability is just that how do I find you. You know, if I have to try and find you and try and transact with your brand and who you are and what you stand for, how available are you.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You know, if I Google you do I find you and if I find you what do I find about you. Is it clear, does it say exactly what you do, does it contain your promise. And can I learn a bit about your personality and what really makes you tick, that’s your availability.

Tim Reid: Lukey.

Luke Moulton: Timmy.

Tim Reid: This is a big one because…they’re all big, aren’t they, every time we stop. That’s probably why we stop.

Luke Moulton: That is why we stop.

Tim Reid: Yeah, correct. But…

Luke Moulton: Reinforce the point.

Tim Reid: That’s it, that’s it. And, gosh, availability, you know, I am amazed at the amount of times, even just simplistically like you go to a website and you’re trying to find the contact details of someone and…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: Yeah, like they’re not there.

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: And what really annoys me, if they’re not there but there’s a form, you know, like an email form to fill out.

Luke Moulton: Yeah, yep.

Tim Reid: And you go is this really…is this going to go into the big black hole.

Luke Moulton: Yep. I was actually trying to contact an advertising agency recently and I went to their…I went into their people section to find out, you know, who the movers and shakers were within the business and I…I did a search on a couple of the people higher up and I couldn’t find anything on them.

Tim Reid: Amazing, amazing.

Luke Moulton: And they’re in the advertising agency.

Tim Reid: Businesses are people, listeners. You know that, that’s why you’re our listeners, you’re smart. But tell all the other people that aren’t listening that businesses are people. But, you know, the other thing too is availability. Like, guys, there’s a fellow Iggy Pintado and we interviewed Iggy, we Iggy-fied Iggy, a few weeks ago. He’s the…he is the connection expert.

Luke Moulton: Yes.

Tim Reid: Iggy kindly did for me last week a social media audit of my brand.

Luke Moulton: Right. And what did that entail?

Tim Reid: He just looked at my presence online and was it consistent, was it ubiquitous, was it limited, was it, you know, how was I looking online, and he came back and he said, you know, basically, you know…and this is all about connection, connectedness and availability, it comes back to being available, and he said, you know, you’re strong on Twitter, your website’s good, I like your blog, you know, you’ve obviously got the podcast, but here’s the gaps, you know. And then…

Luke Moulton: What were the gaps?

Tim Reid: He said there’s no video of you. There is…you are not on YouTube. As a marketing person you should be on YouTube and I said you’re absolutely right. So I’m now doing…I now Tweet each morning, I ask him for a marketing question and I post…I do…I answer that question to video, it’s normally a two to three minute answer and I post it on YouTube. And you can check that out, guys, at…my YouTube ID is The Ideas Guy and then the letters TIG. And it’s just, you know, like that builds your brand. And, you know, if you do…Iggy’s amazing, I mean, you key in Iggy Pintado into Google and, boy is he available.

Luke Moulton: It’s about the first 30 pages.

Tim Reid: Yeah, yeah. As we said at the time, there’s not a lot of Iggy Pintados in the world…

Luke Moulton: No.

Tim Reid: So he’s been blessed with a name. But, yeah, so I guess the question…

Luke Moulton: Could say he’s dominating his niche.

Tim Reid: He is. He is the niche. You know, the question is, listeners, that…how available are you and should you be more available and you’ll probably find the answer is I could be more available and what are you going to do about it.

Luke Moulton: Yep. And I think, Luke, give some tips later on in this podcast, so stay tuned.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Your affability is really your likeability, how much…how likeable are you. And there’s a set of behaviours around that, it’s the simple stuff, Lukey, like just listening, you know, just listening in conversations.

Tim Reid: Is this about everyone loving you?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: We use the term making great people popular. So love, respect, you know, Tim, I’m all for hugs, I love a hug and love a backslap.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: But popular, without taking it too far, is just simply about people wanting to talk about you, people wanting what you’ve got, people wanting to buy what it is you’re selling.

Tim Reid: I don’t think I’ve ever hugged you. Have I hugged you?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Uh, probably not. We’ve probably done…

Tim Reid: We’ll take it off air.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: I think…yeah.

Luke Moulton: You two spent some time together…

Tim Reid: We did.

Luke Moulton: …not too long ago.

Tim Reid: We did.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yep.

Luke Moulton: Surely there was a few hugs then.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: There would have been.

Tim Reid: Yeah, yeah. Righto. Okay, so you’ve got your…what was the last one, the?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Ability.

Tim Reid: Ability.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Ability.

Tim Reid: Yeah, okay.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: It’s pretty simple.

Luke Moulton: So you’ve got to walk the talk, is that essentially what it means?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You’ve just got to be good. Yeah, exactly. If you’re selling something, you’ve just got to be able to do what you say you’re selling. You know, whatever it is that you stand for, whatever it is that you are selling, you’ve just got to make sure you can do it and that’s about testimonials, it’s about credibility, it’s about having a background, it’s about having the right ticks in the box, we’ve all got a degree, you know, we’ve all got some sort of education these days and so that’s the ability piece.

Tim Reid: I don’t know if we’ve all got a degree. But, hey, Luke, bringing this back to small, medium business owners who have…these are the people listening to our podcast who have a need to get their message out into the marketplace, I just want to…how does this apply directly to the owner of a business that’s got to do that? You know, we’ve just had a guy in here who…his whole responsibility is to, you know, get the message out around his product.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah, yep.

Tim Reid: Is it about…and Luke and I were having this conversation before, is it about, yeah, you’ve got a product or a service to promote but surely before that and first and foremost you’ve got yourself?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah. Look, a great set of research came out about two or three months ago now on trust, you know, and the fact that 87% of Australians, and this is not a statistic made up on the spot, but 87% of Australians wouldn’t buy from a corporation they don’t trust. So how do you get trust, how do you get people to trust what it is you’re trying to sell? And for us that’s really easy, it’s all about trusting the people, and it’s all about connecting with the people, the stuff we said before. So I think the message, the very first thing, you know, is we don’t get too hung up on social media, we don’t get too hung upon the Internet and the web, but I was saying to someone tonight that, you know, Google knows all, Yahoo, whatever search engine, you know, it knows all. So a good place to start for a lot of business owners is if they just simply type their name into Google, start there, see what comes up. And they’ll be surprised. I find a lot of things about people, you find that they love cycling or they love long distance running, they love horse riding, those things are important, they’re vital, that’s often how people decide whether or not they’re going to do business with you. I think for every business owner they need to be conscious of that. They need to recognise that this is not about technology, this is not about bloody Google and search engines, this is about just being found and what is it that people are finding when they do go looking for you. That’s…I think for any business owner that’s absolutely vital. Because it can be quite a surprise for some people. They can be brand-less, i.e. they don’t find anything, or they find a mishmash of things that are quite confusing. And for a lot of business owners, that’s probably a good place to start for that reason, Tim. You know, a lot of business owners are actually not clear exactly what it is they do and what they’re selling.

Tim Reid: I had a really interesting experience, and I’m not sure how this girl can alter this, but I was in the offices of a large corporation today, I was introduced to someone, I then went back to my client’s office and he said, come on, I’ll show you something. And he pulled up on Google a fairly incriminating article from a newspaper about this person I’d just met. So I’ve gone from meeting a person who seemed very affable and friendly, to then going and reading a newspaper article within a minute on Google that showed that this person had been involved in something, you know, not very nice.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Mmm, mmm.

Tim Reid: Now, you can’t go and delete that from Google, so how do you manage that as part of your personal brand?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Look, this is…that’s a great question. This comes back to that affability, you know, and that likeability, and the fact that you felt probably your stomach tighten, Tim.

Tim Reid: Mmm.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You know, you read that article and you saw what was written there and your first instincts, we all do, I mean, an animal, we’re pretty simple as human beings…

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: We’re animals, it’s all about fight and flight, do I stay or do I run.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And your first instinct is, ooh, this doesn’t sound good, I don’t want to get to know this person. And we actually work with a lot of clients on this basis. I guess you could call it a little bit of reputation management.

Luke Moulton: All right, we’re just going to pause Luke there and talk quickly a little bit about reputation management and what you can do to manage your reputation online.

Tim Reid: My reputation?

Luke Moulton: Your reputation.

Tim Reid: Why are you going to talk about my reputation?

Luke Moulton: Because you really need to manage your reputation.

Tim Reid: Yeah, I do, don’t I.

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: I do, I do. No, you mean just generally managing…

Luke Moulton: Generally.

Tim Reid: …one’s reputation.

Luke Moulton: As a small business person and for your personal brand and for your business brand. Probably five sites you should make sure that your profile is updated on. One…

Tim Reid: Should our listeners get a pen?

Luke Moulton: They should. Firstly, your business website. Make sure your name is on it and you’ve got a bit of a profile about yourself. LinkedIn is a good one.

Tim Reid: Excellent.

Luke Moulton: Facebook. Get yourself a Facebook page.

Tim Reid: Really?

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: Like, just like that…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: You reckon go and get a Facebook page?

Luke Moulton: Yeah. Yeah, I think…I think…

Tim Reid: Really?

Luke Moulton: Even if you don’t keep it up to date, at least register…

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Moulton: Register your profile.

Tim Reid: Yeah, true, true.

Luke Moulton: YouTube, once again if you don’t want…if you can’t be bothered doing a video, at least register your profile. And Twitter, as we spoke about before in regards to Tim and his business name, make sure that your business name is registered as your Twitter ID, even if you don’t use it.

Tim Reid: One of the things…I’ll answer that question now about Twitter, do you want me to do that?

Luke Moulton: Yeah, please.

Tim Reid: So like the idea was that if I had of known…if I had of had a complete understanding of the whole online social media scene when I started, what I would have gone and done is registered the same ID on every network.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: So my Twitter ID would equal my LinkedIn ID would equal my YouTube ID would equal my Facebook, blah, blah, blah. But I didn’t. And some of that was (a) just being very naughty boy, but the other part of it was that I think actually some of them just weren’t available. Like I couldn’t get The Ideas Guy, which is my business…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: …I couldn’t get that on every social medium.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: And I didn’t sort of have, like I just took what I could get, you know?

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: And in retrospect I’d like to go back and change it but still I wouldn’t have a completely clean slate because some of the time it’s just not available.

Luke Moulton: That’s right. Listeners, there is a great service out there, there’s a website called knowem.com, so k-n-o-w-e-m.com, we’ll put it in the show notes, but they can actually check around about 120 social media sites to see if your profile has been registered and they do actually provide a service where you can either go and manually register all your profiles yourself or for US$64.95 they can register all those for you. So check it out, knowem.com, it’s a pretty cool service.

Tim Reid: Cool. Back to Luke.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And the quick story I love, I don’t want to bore you with stories, but the quick story that I love is the story where someone, a friend of mine, was asked to define the tall poppy syndrome, some years ago, the Aussie great tall poppy syndrome, and what they really said was look, we don’t believe it really exists. We believe that if you achieve your fame and you achieve great things and achieving your standing through looking beyond your own world, in other words, not being focused on yourself and your own ego and your own gain, but focus on the community and humanity, the broader humanity.

Tim Reid: Right.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: If you can link your achievement to that, then tall poppy syndrome doesn’t exist. Australians will love you; Australians will support you and actually congratulate you on your success. And I think for business owners, executives, it’s very important to realise that and it’s very important to look back at their achievements and look forward as well and think, okay, what are some of the things I can do that are going to demonstrate to my target audience, to the consumers, to people reading Google, that actually I’m not so bad, because there’s lots of things I’m doing that are helping my organisation, that are helping my community, that are helping humanity. And so we’ve been able to turn around some pretty interesting situations with people where, yes, they’ve got a black mark, supposed black mark against their name, but it gets overshadowed because we get them out there doing great things, we get them out there aligning themselves with the charities they believe in. You know, we work out what are their brand qualities and we align those brand qualities with worthwhile charities and worthwhile causes.

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You know, giving a bit back and…

Tim Reid: Okay. So being action oriented, not dwelling on the past, but actually…I have a saying, don’t tell me you’re funny, tell me a joke. So it’s like, you know, walk the talk.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Mmm.

Tim Reid: Yeah/

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Very much.

Luke Moulton: Luke, is it also a little bit about taking up I guess more of that search engine real estate in terms of bumping off the bad stuff and filling it up with good stuff?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Mmm. Look, again this is a space, not being a search engine optimisation expert myself, I look at it pretty simply and I say this, I say to people I talk to that will Google, let’s not get wrapped around the axles. The guys who created Google as a search engine just tried to create something that works like the human mind. So, in other words, the human mind is inquisitive in what everyone else is inquisitive about. So if you’re inquisitive about widgets, then we’re all inquisitive, you know, if everyone is inquisitive about widgets, I’m going to be inquisitive about widgets. If it’s good stuff and people are talking about it a lot then there’s a fair chance I’m going to hear about it and I’m going to want to know about it as well. And so, Luke, Google very much, and the way I explain it to people, is don’t bullshit, do shit. And at the end of the day if you’re out there doing great things, then that will far outweigh the bad things that you may have done or someone may have assumed you’ve done.

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And by default people are going to be interested in that, people are going to be talking about that and in layman’s terms, Google is then going to find those things, those things are going to turn up. And that’s how we like to explain it; I know it’s a lot more complex than that.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: Luke, I know you’ve got a keynote to get to, but I want to ask you for our listeners who love a bit of practical advice, and that’s what our show’s about, wake up in the morning, they’re now inspired to go and improve or develop their personal brand, what is Luke Harvey-Palmer’s top five?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yep, good, so simple. First things first, own your domain, own your real estate, register your name.

Tim Reid: Okay.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Tim Reid, TimboReid.com, .com.au, whatever is available. LukeMoulton.com, go and register it now.

Tim Reid: Right, one.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Twenty four dollars, two years, done. The next thing is your really need to be in three places. You need to be registered online on something like Twitter. You need to be registered on something like Facebook and you really need to be registered on LinkedIn…

Tim Reid: Mate, you said before it’s not about being online.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Well this is the start, this is the start.

Tim Reid: Okay. Three?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: You need to have those things, you need to quickly get out there and register those things. The very…the next to last thing which is very very important before your final step is you need to be clear on your promise, what is it you do, what is it you’re selling.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: When you’re asked the question what do you do, you need to be able to answer that in five seconds.

Tim Reid: What do you do?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: I make great people popular.

Tim Reid: Beautiful. Number four?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And, you know, the next thing then is once you understand that I really encourage people to start to either…to look at ways, this is a little bit open, but look at ways at which you can bring that brand to light, whether it be writing a book, whether it be doing some public speaking, whether it be changing your business cards, whether it be writing a blog.

Tim Reid: These are very extroverted things to do.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yes, yep.

Tim Reid: So do you have to be an extrovert to be…to have a good personal brand?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Not at all.

Tim Reid: Righto.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah, I mean, not at all. In fact some of the greatest personal brands of our time are in fact in many ways introverts.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: I mean, some would argue…I would argue that Bill Gates is not a natural extrovert.

Tim Reid: Yeah, okay.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: But just through achievement, just through being able to get things done, through his ability, coming back to those three As, you know, he’s got a very strong personal brand. People are clear what Bill Gates does. So, no, look, those things, they are, they sound like marketing, they sound like self promotion, but you’ll find if you can just define what it is you do, Tim, be clear on what it is you do.

Tim Reid: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: There are so many ways…

Tim Reid: Totally.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: …in today’s world to get…

Tim Reid: Mate, I know. I mean, incredibly powerful to have that five second defining what do you do, answer to what you do is powerful. Number five, mate?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Well number five for me was really the whole piece, number four was…the big three, number four was work out what it is that you do and number five is then find a way to really communicate what it is that you do, whether it be online or offline. You know, get out there and tell people about what it is that you do.

Tim Reid: Yeah. Mate, that’s pretty practical stuff, Lukey, isn’t it?

Luke Moulton: It sure is.

Tim Reid: Okay.

Luke Moulton: Good stuff.

Tim Reid: Lukey, thank you…well Luke Harvey-Palmer in this case, on the other end of the line, thanks, mate. Good luck with your talk tonight.

Luke Moulton: Thanks a lot, Luke.

Tim Reid: And thanks a million for spending some time with us. Website to visit?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Is w…

Tim Reid: Or blog?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Yeah, www.Buzzle.com.au, Buzzle, which is my business.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Or my blog, ramblings on all things branding is www.lukeharveypalmer.com.

Tim Reid: Lovely. Hey, and one last thing, you shared a wonderful piece of practical advice, how does your voicemail go or when you answer your phone?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: When I answer my phone I always say, good afternoon or good morning, this is Luke.

Tim Reid: And what’s the thinking behind it?

Luke Harvey-Palmer: The thinking with that is that often people don’t hear the first five or six words that you say. When people ring you they just don’t hear what you’re saying for the first three…two, three, four seconds.

Tim Reid: Right.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And so by saying your name last, by saying good morning, this is Luke, the last thing they hear is your name.

Tim Reid: Lovely.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: And they’re absolutely clear who they’re talking to and for anyone, you know, this is Luke, how can I help you, whatever way. The most important thing is what you finish with when you answer your phone and that’s why.

Luke Moulton: Good tip.

Tim Reid: Lovely, Luke.

Luke Moulton: Great tip.

Tim Reid: Thanks, mate.

Luke Moulton: Thanks for talking to us, Luke.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: Not a problem, thanks for having me.

Luke Moulton: Cheers.

Tim Reid: Cheers, bye.

Luke Harvey-Palmer: All the best, guys, keep it up.

Tim Reid: Bye. Lukey, what a…what a great interview.

Luke Moulton: It was, Timbo. There was a lot in that one, wasn’t there?

Tim Reid: Mate, it was chockers, as we say in the lucky country. It was full of marketing, and in Luke’s case, branding goodness.

Luke Moulton: Yes, Luke Harvey-Palmer certainly knows how to do personal branding.

Tim Reid: You know, there was so much stuff that I think personally small business owners we kind of look over, you know, we kind of get so stuck into getting all the marketing done, that the idea of building and addressing your personal brand is often neglected. So hopefully there’s lots of goodness in there to…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: …go and implement. Lukey, I’m going to get a little bit spiritual on you.

Luke Moulton: You’re going to wax spiritual.

Tim Reid: Yeah, I’m going to wax spiritual. Very clever, very clever. But I…I got this sense as Luke was talking about this old Mahatma Ghandi saying of be the change you want to see.

Luke Moulton: Yes.

Tim Reid: And I just like that idea of, you know, as business owners and as marketers, we do need to kind of walk the talk, you know.

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: And in addressing your personal brand and all the things that make up it, make it up.

Luke Moulton: Yes.

Tim Reid: Make up it…

Luke Moulton: Make it up.

Tim Reid: Thank you. Then you’re going to set yourself in a really good position to be harder to compete with, you know, I really feel that if you do the work on your personal brand and your business brand, you’re going to be less desirable to compete with and…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: Nice place to be really.

Luke Moulton: So how do you find those gaps in the market, do you look at your industry and say well what’s missing or do you ask your customers?

Tim Reid: Listen to the podcast.

Luke Moulton: Yeah, that’s a good start.

Tim Reid: Listen to the show we just did. What we’re going to do…so thanks, Luke, and…that was Luke Harvey-Palmer.

Luke Moulton: Indeed.

Tim Reid: Now over to Lukey here in the studio is what we want to do, listeners, is develop…we get a lot of emails from listeners saying, you know, what services do you guys offer, how can we work with you, how can we kind of help develop…how can we help you develop your marketing and branding. And what we want to do is ask our listeners, that’s you, to tell us the kind of issues and problems that you’d like solved.

Luke Moulton: Yeah. Yeah, how can we help you?

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Moulton: Yeah. So you can leave a Skype message to at Small Business Big Marketing on Skype if you want to Skype us and just leave a voice message, or drop us an email questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.

Tim Reid: So just so we’re really clear, listeners, we want to develop a product or a service that will allow you guys to utilise our services, on a very limited basis, you know, we won’t open it up to everyone, but it will be a kind of exclusive little offer…

Luke Moulton: Yeah.

Tim Reid: …that we’ll make in upcoming shows, that’s going to help our listeners, you, address your marketing and branding.

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: So Small Business Big Marketing ID on Skype or email us at…

Luke Moulton: Questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.

Tim Reid: Great. And, Luke?

Luke Moulton: Tim?

Tim Reid: Do you know who we’ve got next episode or is that a secret?

Luke Moulton: Ooh, no, we’ve got…we’ve got a good one coming up, we’ve got…

Tim Reid: We did say in a previous episode about an iPhone applications…

Luke Moulton: Yep.

Tim Reid: …kind of expert.

Luke Moulton: That’s definitely doing to be in our next podcast.

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Moulton: We’re talking to David Curry…

Tim Reid: Yep.

Luke Moulton: …who actually created his own iPhone app. And he tells us how to find a niche in the iPhone app market and then how to market it.

Tim Reid: Yeah.

Luke Moulton: So it’s a really interesting one.

Tim Reid: It is. And then there’s a few other good ones in the can.

Luke Moulton: In the can indeed.

Tim Reid: As they say.

Luke Moulton: So join us next time. We look forward to speaking with you then.

Tim Reid: That’s it. See you, guys. Bye.

Luke Moulton: Bye.

Lovingly transcribed by The Transcription People