If you asked your clients to describe you, what would they say? Today, customers want to know who you are. We’re living in the age of personal branding. Christina Minshull spent 15+ years in brand and social marketing for companies like SportCheck, WestJet, and LinkedIn. Today, Christina helps CEOs, Founders and brands unleash their LinkedIn potential through her company “The Brand Audit.” Across LinkedIn and TikTok she’s amassed a 25K following and earned LinkedIn’s Top Voice for Social Media and Brand Strategy in 2023. All without spending a dime on advertising. You’re about to hear Christina’s best advice on personal branding and being a thought leader on LinkedIn. She tells us why it's important, how to form deep connections with your target audience, and she shares countless bits of practical advice that will keep you and your personal brand humming along.
If you asked your clients to describe you, what would they say? Today, customers want to know who you are. We’re living in the age of personal branding.
Christina Minshull spent 15+ years in brand and social marketing for companies like SportCheck, WestJet, and LinkedIn. Today, Christina helps CEOs, Founders and brands unleash their LinkedIn potential through her company The Brand Audit.
Across LinkedIn and TikTok she’s amassed a 25K following and earned LinkedIn’s Top Voice for Social Media and Brand Strategy in 2023. All without spending a dime on advertising.
You’re about to hear Christina’s best advice on personal branding and being a thought leader on LinkedIn. She tells us why it's important, how to form deep connections with your target audience, and she shares countless bits of practical advice that will keep you and your personal brand humming along.
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Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "I Am Running Down the Long Hallway of Viewmont Elementary," "I'm About to Do the Second Hardest Thing I've Ever Done," "Stories About the World That Once Was," " The House Glows (With Almost No Help)."
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:00]:
If you asked your clients to describe you, what would they say? About your expertise? About your values and beliefs? Today, customers want to know who you are. Just a few weeks before this episode, LinkedIn hit 1,000,000,000 users, And many of the platform's most popular thought leaders are incredibly open with their audiences. We're living in the age of personal branding. Christina Minshull spent 15 years as a brand and marketing executive for companies like Sport Chek, WestJet and, yes, LinkedIn. Today, Christina helps LinkedIn users to launch and grow their personal brands through her company, The Brand Audit. Along with over 18,000 TikTok followers, she's one of LinkedIn's top social media voices of 2023. Christina's company blossomed out of a desire to solve her own problem. She wanted to build a community that would support her both on and offline.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:57]:
Living in a single income household, she was determined to teach others how to do the same. So she started posting on LinkedIn. She leveraged her years of expertise. And after 1 month, she gained over 1,000 followers, all without spending a dime on advertising. You're about to hear Christina's best advice on personal branding. She tells us why building a personal brand is more important than ever, how to form deep connections with your target audience, and she shares countless bits of practical advice that will keep you and your personal brand humming along. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and this is And So, She Left, the podcast about incredible women founders, and the wisdom they uncovered beyond the corporate world. It's no wonder why Christina's launched herself into personal branding if you dig just beneath the surface.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:11]:
According to FounderJar, content distributed by employees tends to generate 8 times times the interaction when compared to brand channels. Authentic relatable content coming directly from individuals is much stickier than traditional formal PR and marketing messaging. But as Christina explains, it's usually easier said than done.
Christina Minshull [00:02:34]:
I think now more than ever, the attention economy is is at the forefront. We're seeing attention spans really dip. I'm I'm sure you've seen that, like, recent Microsoft study where they're saying millennials and gen z have the attention spans of goldfishes, and that is true. So It's all about kind of entertaining the audience, capturing that attention initially.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:03:03]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:03:04]:
Before you get into kind of those sales conversations, before jumping into that sales process.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:03:12]:
Yeah. And people want to know who they're dealing with, so a big component of showing who you are is to show not your business side, but maybe your your personal side. And tell me about your own transition from the corporate world to being a business owner. What were the challenges that you faced?
Christina Minshull [00:03:30]:
Yeah. So I spent 15 years on the corporate side leading brand and content and social teams. And most of the companies that I worked for were large enterprises, so 10,000 plus employees, Massive, teams, massive budgets, massive resources. And shifting to a solopreneurship journey, You don't have all of those people to kind of connect with and communicate with and collaborate with. So I think the biggest challenge for me going from the corporate world to being a founder of a consulting company It's really the changing of my own identity. So as a founder, I've really focused on how do I create my own community, both in real life as well as online.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:04:27]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:04:29]:
Really thinking about, well, how do I create my own personal brand and my own personal kind of ecosystem where people are naturally kind of drawn to that and want to learn more, want to connect, want to collaborate. And so I've been doing a lot of social media on TikTok and LinkedIn to kinda create these communities online. And then offline, I've been going to a ton of tech networking events, conferences, setting up coffee chats to really kind of build that offline community.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:06]:
The power of referral, I find is one of the most successful things that you can have in a business because you don't have to do any selling. The selling has been done for you.
Christina Minshull [00:05:17]:
I totally agree. And I've been in business now 2 years, and I have been able to create this client base without running any ads. So a 100% of my revenue has been driven by my personal brand.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:38]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:05:38]:
Whether that be on social media, on TikTok, on LinkedIn, or in real life. So I really truly believe in the power of a personal brand to create opportunity. One of the studies that I thought was kind of interesting is Edelman's digital trust barometer. And they come out with this digital trust barometer annually, and I think they've been doing it for, like, 9 or 10 years. They kinda measure the trust factor with people to organizations, people to institutions, like government institutions, people to corporations. And what we're seeing is, like, macro trends year over year is we're seeing this decline in trust in government. We're seeing a decline in trust in institutions. We're seeing a decline in trust in corporations and brands.
Christina Minshull [00:06:37]:
Mhmm. But what we're seeing is increases in trust in people. So increases in trust in influencers is at an all time high, in creators, in thought leaders, In CEOs, their report really, like, highlights how much people expect their leaders to be thought leaders, to speak out about issues or scenarios in their industry or in society as a whole. So I think we're gonna see this continued investment into personal brand because It's becoming more and more important that people connect with people instead of connecting to organizations.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:07:25]:
I find this fascinating. The needle has moved away from the brands and and governments and bigger entities to the individuals, just like you would in a normal social network, a social fabric. You know, like you trust the person who tells you, hey. I know someone who could cut your hair, or I know somebody who could whatever, and that's where the trust is built on an individual 1 on 1 basis. And I wanted to ask you, like, what are the components of a good personal brand? What makes it successful?
Christina Minshull [00:07:53]:
Yeah. I think at the core of a good personal brand is someone that really knows themselves before they talk to, their audiences. And what I mean by knowing yourself is knowing what you stand for, your personal values, your personal thoughts around your industry or societal issues, and knowing what you want to bring to the world, what kind of values that you hold, and what value you want to bring to a particular audience. So when I'm working with my clients, I do a lot of upfront discovery work with them. I get them to do a few different quizzes and a few different briefs to really help them kind of think about what they stand for and who they are. Because because I think a lot of people, myself included, have been in big organizations, and sometimes our voices get lost. When we're taking a step back to build a personal brand, we really have to kind of do some inner work and have some candid conversations with ourselves on, well, what do I believe as an individual? Gone is the day of, like, the old PR methods where traditional kind of PR folks give a script to CEOs and executives and say, read this in front of a teleprompter, read this in front of-
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:09:31]:
Right. Right.
Christina Minshull [00:09:32]:
-an audience. That old model of PR is dead. The modern take on PR is you really need to create these two way dialogues It's your audience and show them yourself as an individual and not just, kind of a spokesperson for the organization. So when we're kinda thinking about personal brand, I take the time to really get to know my clients both personally and professionally.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:02]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:10:03]:
So that we, and kind of meld those 2 worlds together and create quite a human voice that they can come out with on social media, online, as well as in real life, audiences are really demanding that of Individuals, they they see through insincerity. They see through inauthenticity really quickly.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:28]:
I like the the idea of the two way dialogue with your audience and not just being this, like, one-sided megaphone talking out into this void, and hoping that somebody's gonna listen to you. There are opportunities now for this dialogue, especially when you're engaging with the audience and the users and whatever platform that that you're using. And then you get to hear some feedback from your client base, especially for the ones that are very much pro, whatever your brand is and what your values are as well. This is really fascinating.
Christina Minshull [00:10:57]:
It's funny that you say megaphone because with anyone that I've worked for or with in, like, the past 10 years, I have this saying where I tell brands to put down their megaphones
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:09]:
Oh, wow.
Christina Minshull [00:11:10]:
And put on the headphones.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:13]:
Oh, I love it. Yes.
Christina Minshull [00:11:15]:
And what I mean by that is, like, so many brands just wanna talk about what they're all about and their brand messages and have these really carefully polished messages that they're kind of amplifying through a megaphone.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:30]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:11:32]:
But what audiences want is for brands to listen to them. They want them to put on those headphones and understand their pain points, understand their journeys, understand their needs, and tap into those.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:45]:
And so they can become a better solution provider to them.
Christina Minshull [00:11:48]:
Absolutely.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love this so much. How do you improve brand awareness on the market. Let's say you're coming in as a new company and you need to know who's out there and what your competition is. Like, how do you find a niche for yourself in in this very, very vast sea of so many solopreneurs right now and entrepreneurs?
Christina Minshull [00:12:09]:
Yeah. Brand awareness is a very tough objective for smaller companies because it takes a lot of either budget or time. When you're a smaller organization and you're trying to get your brand out there and aware and get that mental availability, you don't have the luxury of budget. So you have to kind of be patient in building that brand. And you have to recognize that brand building is a long term game. It's not a short tactic. And if you invest consistently in building that brand over that long term, You are gonna see that net result, and you ultimately are gonna see more sales than if you just did lead generation. But what a lot of people do is they invest in some brand tactics or brand channels.
Christina Minshull [00:13:09]:
And 2 or 3 months down the line, they're like, well, it's not working. A brand is not built overnight. A brand is built over sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes decades.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:13:20]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:13:21]:
If you look at the, like, most successful brands out there, they continue to invest in brand, right, even when they're most successful. There's Apple who invests a mass of a mass of money into brand awareness, marketing channels, and continues to do so. And even Airbnb, they recently to shift away all of their, search and lower level demand generation content And invest more in brand, and now they're coming out with the results that that's been a very good strategic move for them. But what we've seen in the marketing environment is with the proliferation of digital, channels and the measurement opportunities that they afford, a lot of people have shifted their budgets towards that demand generation, that lead generation. They're not investing in brand, and they're forgetting that upper funnel. And so they're continually to put out really sales focused, really bottom funnel content. And eventually, that dries up because you're not creating demand, you're simply capturing it.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:14:38]:
Oh. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Yes.
Christina Minshull [00:14:41]:
Yeah. And so a lot of these companies, they are unsuccessful in driving revenue over a long period of time because they've only been capturing that demand, and they've been forgetting to create that demand.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:14:59]:
You were talking about brands take time to develop, and they require time and resources. In your case, you went from working in a big corporation that had 1,000,000 of dollars to devote to this, And then you have to then decide how you're gonna spend the money that you have for your own company, and then you have to decide at what point is it good enough? Like, is it what am I running out to perfection? Am I or is it just progress? Like, tell me more about that.
Christina Minshull [00:15:26]:
Yeah. I'm I'm very much about progress over perfection. And I think that our society is less and less focused on perfection and polished content. They wanna see that raw. They wanna see that unpolished content. They wanna see that human content. So for me as a solopreneur, I've really leaned into that movement. Gone are the polished, influencer, perfect lifestyles on Instagram.
Christina Minshull [00:16:01]:
It really is the era of the firsthand accounts on TikTok where you're speaking from the heart and you're just kind of candidly having dialogues with your community. So I've I've really leaned into that. I am a marketer that is kind of a mix of storytelling and spreadsheets. So I'm very much a creative person. I'm a person with so many ideas, but I also am a data nerd, and I'm constantly kind of analyzing my back end data to understand what my audience is resonating with. I really encourage experimentation. So analyzing like a scientist, but developing content like an artist and not being afraid to try new things and disrupt your industry and be a little bit contrarian, and see what your audience resonates with.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:17:02]:
That's what's so well said. Use the data as a scientist, but then develop the content as a as an artist, and the data that you're looking at though, what is it, what is it helping you shape though in terms of your future goals?
Christina Minshull [00:17:16]:
When I first started the brand audit, There was a number of different marketing services that I offered, and I have taken in both qualitative and quantitative data to inform what my products are going to be. A good example is on TikTok. A lot of people messaged me or commented that they wanted LinkedIn guides. They wanted downloadable guides that they could learn from. Out of that qualitative content, I developed guides that I now sell on my website.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:17:57]:
When you build your brand and you're building trust with the people, what do you think is the most important thing to do?
Christina Minshull [00:18:04]:
One of my former CEOs at LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, he he used to say trust is consistency over time. I think that quote is really true. It's it's showing up for people in a meaningful way over a long period of time, And that's how they trust you. And I have really been someone in my life where I hold integrity is, like, one of my strongest values, and I really focus on helping others and giving value to others and being a connector. So I think, like, a lot of the reason I'm successful in my current entrepreneurship journey is because of those connections that I've made in the past and because of the way that I've treated people and helped people in the past, when I kinda needed help on my entrepreneurship journey, they were offering their help, and I think that's what the world's all about is how do we connect one another and how do we help other people in their entrepreneurial ventures?
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:19:19]:
Yeah. We're at the point where we're making connections now 1 at a time. Every time you connect with someone, every time you click on something, every time you comment or post on something, There's that individual connection, and that's where it starts. You can't do it in in bulk anymore. Like before when the only media we had were radio and television, And it was a shot in the dark. You didn't know who was listening or who was watching. Now you know the names of every single person that is interacting with you if their account is real and it's not a bot, but you know, like if these are real people then you made a new connection. And so now you're a professional in this field.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:19:56]:
Do you ever regret getting into this, like, do you feel like, oh, I should've stayed where I was because it's just too much work right now or it's too complicated or like, how how do you feel now about being an entrepreneur?
Christina Minshull [00:20:07]:
Well, to be candid, it wasn't actually my choice to be an entrepreneur.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:20:12]:
Oh, why?
Christina Minshull [00:20:13]:
So I was not forced into entrepreneurship, but I had to make the brand audit work because in the early part of '23, I went through the tech layoffs. And as a solo income earner that supports myself. I had to make something work, and so entrepreneurship was kind of my only option to support myself. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I think it has taught me so many different skill sets that I have really grown as a human and really grown as a business professional. Will this be my journey for the rest of my life? I'm not sure. I think, like, career paths are never linear, and I think I am someone that's always open to new opportunities and new directions.
Christina Minshull [00:21:11]:
Maybe at some point, I will go back for the right opportunity into that corporate life. But right now, it's really affording me the ability to live and support myself. And for that, I'm really grateful.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:28]:
I think that's well said and tell me how it allowed you to grow. Where was the growth happening?
Christina Minshull [00:21:34]:
As a solopreneur, you have to have a ton of discipline, and you have to have a ton of resilience, and you have to have a ton of get up and go and push forward
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:50]:
Mhmm.
Christina Minshull [00:21:51]:
No matter what obstacles kind of come your way. And so for me, it's really been an eye opening year in terms of resilience and an eye opening year in terms of taking intelligent risks and betting on myself, having the confidence to say, I think I can be successful at this, and putting the right structures and discipline around it to be successful.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:22:19]:
Yeah. You have to have that belief that it's going to work, otherwise you're not gonna go anywhere. If you wake up in the morning and say, another day where I'm probably not gonna get a client, well then you're not gonna get that client. Whereas if your mindset is, I believe this is gonna work. I believe this is I gotta put all my eggs in this basket and do it, then it's gonna work. I really believe in that. And in fact, when I started, I wrote myself a little on a cheap piece of paper with a marker. I just wrote the word believe, I still have it today.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:22:48]:
I'm looking at it now. It's faded away, but it's still there. And I've stuck it on my board, and I look at it every day. And it's it's an important part of the of the process.
Christina Minshull [00:22:57]:
I love that. There's power of manifestation for sure.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:00]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me about the advice that you would give someone who Who wants to start or who wants to jump from one thing to the other? What would be your, your golden nugget here?
Christina Minshull [00:23:13]:
I have a quote that I use often and I say fate loves the fearless. And I love that quote because I really think that Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You have to take risks in life. Yes. You have to fail in life. You have to put yourself out there in order to be successful. Like, nothing can be accomplished If you don't have that work ethic and you don't have that growth mindset, I think that's Also really, really important.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:48]:
Oh, love it.
Christina Minshull [00:23:49]:
Christina Minshull [00:23:50]:
I would also say, like, as an entrepreneur, you really need to surround yourself With those people that can help support you, help connect you, that community. And that community is often not your friends and family.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:24:10]:
Okay.
Christina Minshull [00:24:10]:
They might not get it. They might not get what you're doing. They might not be in that industry. Might they might not understand. So it's looking for the people that kind of Do get it. And finding that support system outside of, like, your natural support system And seeing who can kind of like help you on that journey.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:24:36]:
You're right. Sometimes your friends and family, as much as they love you and they wanna support you, If they're not doing it, that grind, that thing that we do everyday as entrepreneurs, then they may not understand what's happening or what you have to go through. And that community of People Yeah. You know that your quote that you talked about just now, it reminds me of, I forget what movie it was in. Somebody was saying, please God, let me win the lotto. Please let me win the lotto. And then God responded, please buy a ticket.
Christina Minshull [00:25:05]:
Right.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:06]:
You know, just you have to start somewhere, so.
Christina Minshull [00:25:09]:
And I do buy tickets. I buy them back just in case, you know, like
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:13]:
Cover all bases.
Christina Minshull [00:25:15]:
I would I would, I would be okay with, like, living, a Europe in a European villa for the rest of my life and just Sipping Spanish wines.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:24]:
So Yeah. You and me both. Let's do this. Thank you so much to Christina. You can learn more about the brand audit through the links in the episode description. If you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe to Enso she left wherever you listen. Your feedback helps us to better serve current listeners and reach new ones. You can also fill out our quick feedback form.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:47]:
It's just 5 questions long, and your response helps us to make the show that you want to hear. And so she left is made by Consulta and Ethan Lee. Consulta connects entrepreneurs and leaders with the global A roster of over 150 pre vetted consultants and experts, like Ethan and I, who can help organizations in any business area. From HR to finance, to sales and marketing, and even social media. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Catherine Vesilopoulos, and thanks for listening.