Employers: Don’t Stop Your Team From Building Personal Brands

This is John Garrett coming to you with another episode of Green Apple Slices where every Monday, I always call The Rachel Fisch, Accountants and Alliances for Sage Canada.

Rachel: Hey, John. How are you?

John: Doing great. I almost put “the” in front of your title. Then we all know it’s weird.

Rachel: It’s just a train wreck when you do that.

John: The Rachel Fisch. Not a train wreck at all. That’s totally.

Rachel: Not at all. No.

John: Yes. Yeah. We always get together, hang out, talk through an article we find online. This one from Forbes, “Employers Don’t Stop Your Team From Building Personal Brands,” an article by Christine Michel Carter. I thought that this was a little different and interesting.

Rachel: Me too, actually, in reading through it. I mean it totally makes sense. There are some organizations that are like, “No, no, no. We don’t want to feature one person. We want to make sure that it’s always the company that’s represented.” Well, people represent your company. So when you have an opportunity for some to step out and be the face of or the voice of your organization and they do it well and people will do business with that person or with you because of the trust that they have in that person. It’s not ever a bad thing. Yeah. It had some really great point.

John: Yeah. I mean I’m sure that that’s something that happens with you, I mean, being on the Green Apple Pod – no. But I mean all the personal branding that you’ve done on your own, I mean I’m sure that that helps with relationships with Sage clients and customers and partners and all of that.

Rachel: For sure. Yeah. It’s actually been really interesting going from my own practice to Deloitte and now to Sage, how the “me” part of that has actually stayed consistent. My handle was Fischbooks because my company was Fischbooks. But then by the time I got to Deloitte, I’m like, “Fischbooks was me.” So I just kept my handles all the same, kept my networking base and my friends and peers and everything like that. Those haven’t changed very much either. Yeah. Sage has maybe benefit from my ability to build partnerships, but I mean that’s part of my job. So that totally makes sense.

John: Absolutely. It’s a good thing. It’s just an example, Exhibit A, Your Honor, of why it’s a good thing. It’s all Rachel Fisch.

Rachel: Right. Whatever.

John: Yeah. But I mean there’s so many benefits. She lists five here that I think are really great and the first one being, “The Halo Effect.” I’ve seen it when I speak at organizations. It just comes up that somebody loves to do something outside of work or somebody has another thing. It’s like, “What?” Everyone just glows because it’s like, “Wow. That’s awesome that this person’s on our team.”

Rachel: Yeah. It reflects well on the organization that they’re from when you meet these really inspiring people. So why would the company not want to benefit from that? Absolutely.

John: No, I think it’s great. It’s a cool thing. It just gives you something to relate to those clients and those partners with above and beyond the colleagues. It’s really cool. And besides talking work.

Rachel: I mean the title is, “Don’t Stop Your Team From Building Personal Brands,” but I actually think if we dared take this just a little step further, I think that —

John: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Hold on. Hold on.

Rachel: I know. I’m getting crazy.

John: It’s all that sun in Arizona you’ve got the other week.

Rachel: And then straight to Saskatoon. Did I mention that part?

John: Nice. Nice.

Rachel: There’s 1,700 miles between Phoenix and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where I was last week. Anyway, so yes, hot and then freezing cold. Now, I’m at home so I’m good. Should they not stop their team from building their personal brands? They could actually be integral in helping some of their staff build personal brands, right? You want amazing brand ambassadors working for you. So if you see people who have that knack and ability and would represent you well, feed it. Educate it. Lead it, right? And really grow that side.

John: Right. No, I agree. I agree totally.

Rachel: I thought you might.

John: Because I know better.

Rachel: Yeah.

John: Before you hang up on me. Yes, Rachel, what you said, it’s absolutely correct. But no, it totally is because companies and organizations and firms need to realize that they hired the whole person, not just the technical skills part. So nurture and shine a light on all of it and good things happen to the organization. One of the other five was, “Increased reputation and expertise-based referrals.” It says here that they found that, “…81.5% percent of professional services referrals don’t come from your clients – they’re from people who have never worked with your firm at all.” Those are people that we come into contact with. Those people with personal brands, they come into contact with the people that are doing their passions and interests outside of work. Then that’s where those referrals are coming from. And 81.5% is a lot.

Rachel: That’s kind of overwhelming.

John: I am not an accountant anymore practicing, but that sounds like a lot. So it’s probably worth looking into.

Rachel: Of course, there’s, “Greater employee engagement and greater satisfaction,” which is amazing. But I, again, really tapped into that last one, a prepared group of future leaders. If your CEO is the only one that anybody trusts to be your brand ambassador, what the heck happens to your brand when they leave or when something happens, then who represents you? Then what does that look like? So by establishing multiple ambassadors within your organization that, again, represent themselves and you really well through their personal brand, then you’ll have that redundancy. So I think this is where companies do need to get involved so that there’s also a consistency between the ambassadors as well.

John: Yeah, absolutely. The more of this that happens, the more retention that happens. Then if you’re retaining people, then it’s easier for you to develop that next group of leadership. It just helps in always to just let people get out there and be themselves and shine. If they’re not doing anything illegal or providing bad advice, then who cares? Go nuts. Because the same people that do these things or care about these things are called clients. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where it happens.

Rachel: Just in case you’re interested in that sort of thing.

John: But if you want to read the whole article, you can go to greenapplepodcast.com. Click on the links there. You can check out all the other interviews every Wednesday, professionals known for a passion or interest outside of work, which is always so fun and then every Monday, with Rachel. You can follow her at @Fischbooks. I’m at @RecoveringCPA. The show itself is at @GreenApplePod. We’d love for you to jump in there and hit subscribe and maybe leave a review so people know what they’re getting into when they hit play.

Rachel: They never know what they’re getting into.

John: No, no. I don’t even know what I’m getting into at the time. I’m the one running this thing. But have a good rest of the week, Rachel. We’ll talk next Monday.

Rachel: You, too, John. Talk to you later.