How Personal Branding Helps Business Growth

Kathy (host):  

Well hello there and welcome back to Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina. 

Kathy (host):

Personal branding has been one of the biggest business and personal development buzzwords over the last few years, and it is everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. You can find people teaching you personal branding on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and even like today, on podcasts. There are even classes in colleges and universities that you can take on the subject. And if you’ve never thought about it before, personal branding is all about your thoughts, your beliefs and values, and how you present them to the world. It helps you stand out amongst the crowd by being authentic, you can gain trust and influence. Those that have a solid personal brand also attract business and career opportunities and many have become thought leaders and have grown their influence. Why are we talking about this on this podcast? The reason for that is because as you are developing your personal brand, you can leverage it to help you grow your business. We’re all about growing the business in a healthy and sustainable way on this podcast. So that is why we’re going to be talking about personal branding, what is it, how looks like, and what it really means for you and your business.

Kathy (host):

And just a quick reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps on the topics that we discuss, and each one has its own blog post, as well. You can find the links and the detailed topics in this episode show notes, or you can go on the website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast. 

Kathy (host):

Today, my guest is Erica Castner. She’s a Brand Strategist and Founder of Castner Consulting. For over two decades, Erica Castner has helped business owners + personal brands expand their reach and online presence. She is the founder of Castner Consulting, specializing in helping business owners and creators find, connect, and convert prospects into clients. She is also the host of the Voices of Impact podcast and recently became an Ironwoman. Wow! How about that? Join us. 

Kathy (host):  

Welcome to the show, Erica.

Erica (guest):  

Oh, thank you so much, Kathy, for having me. I’m so excited to be here today.

​

Kathy (host):  

I’m so excited you’re here because we’re going to talk about the thing that’s been everywhere lately. And it’s personal branding because if you spend any time on LinkedIn at all, everyone seems to be talking about personal branding and how to actually use it to grow your company and not just grow your company, but also grow your own influence as well. I want to talk to you about like, what is personal branding? And how do you actually leverage that to grow your business? If you can just walk us through what personal branding really is?

Erica (guest):  

How many hours do we have today, Kathy? No, I’m totally kidding. I’m totally kidding. In this simplest form, I like to think of personal branding as an opportunity and an extension of our own brand in the simplest form, right? But how we begin to leverage that I think it depends on where people are positioning their message, and their audiences, there’s lots of opportunities to position our brand awareness. 

Erica (guest):  

But is every platform the best fit depending on a business owner’s goals? Probably not. And not only that, but as small business owners, especially solopreneurs, or entrepreneurs, we have a tendency to probably take on way more because we think, “Oh, we’re watching this influencer do this, we’re watching this other person who’s a shining star in my industry do this.” And we start accumulating all of these things. 

​

Erica (guest):  

I’m sure we’ll dive into this today in terms of leverage ability. But one of the things that I have found in my own personal brand is being able to talk to people. So whether that is talking on this platform, like you and I are doing today on the podcast, whether it’s talking in front of multiple people on in-person stages on virtual summits, but being able or even having those ones on one conversations, I know LinkedIn is a great tool for people to connect one on one or through messenger because it allows them to form those partnerships. So that again, everything kind of happens in terms of expanding our brand and putting our leverage ability out there through conversations, and I’ve got some fun ways that we can do that to expand our reach without burning ourselves out. We’ll talk about that today. I’m sure.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, we definitely will because I’m really interested in that. And I’ve noticed that too, that there is no one size fits all approach to this. It really depends on what type of business you have, whatever brand you trying to develop, and what really fits with your personal style because what I’ve noticed from my own business, one thing that I really I only use LinkedIn because that is kind of like my bread and butter. And I love LinkedIn. I try using Facebook and Instagram, just the thing just burned me out. I realized there’s just not a good fit. And my customers are not in those channels either. Looking at where your customers are, if you’re more of a consumer company, you will go more towards Instagram and Facebook. But if you’re more B2B, LinkedIn would be a really good place to do it. But I do have a question about the other ways, like the summits and the person-to-person ways to expand your personal brand. If you could talk about a little bit more about that. How does that look like? What are some of the options there?

Erica (guest):  

Let me back up here. My whole personal brand career really began in 2015. And prior to that, I had worked in a variety of companies all with the emphasis of working with businesses and helping them with sales strategy. My first 11 years of my career, were all in the retail space. I worked with brands like Victoria’s Secret, Lancome Cosmetics, Dillard’s, Maurices, and those companies had the privilege of multi-million dollar budgets that were supporting them. And then when they would come into the storefront, which is where I started my retail career, my job was pretty much done, because those people that were coming in, were already sold on the idea of needing those products. And so all I had to do was ask him a few questions, engage in a conversation, and make that customer experience, awesome. 

Erica (guest):  

Translate that into the service-based world. When I shifted into the service-based world in 2005. And then again, 10 years later, starting my company in 2015, I found that the coolest way for us as service providers, especially business owners, or service providers, is to talk to people that are already talking and marketing to your ideal customer. So what does this look like? In your case, Kathy, with you being in the financial strategist space, you know, obviously, it’s going to be talking to business attorneys, it’s going to be talking to other consultants like myself. It’s going to be talking to maybe other CPAs, like other financial institutions that are somewhat related to yours, right? It’s engaging and sharing ideas on maybe speaking opportunities for partnership opportunities, things that are going to organically lead us to our target market. 

​

Erica (guest):  

So if you already know as you’re listening to this today, if you already know who your target market is, instead of trying to be everywhere to reach that target market, start thinking about the three to five industries who are already talking and marketing to your ideal customer. And then you can build relationships with them and find out what’s going on in their industries. How are they leveraging their brand? Can you partner with their workshops, their content creation, there, like, whatever it is that they’re doing? How can you share that space, so that you can create affinity partnerships, and, again share resources that are going to be valuable for both your audience and their audience? 

​

Erica (guest):  

And that’s where I initially started. But you know, and then I developed from there, because once I started having those conversations, it was like, “Oh, Erica, you need to be a part of this speaking thing that we’re doing in Tampa, can you drive and I live in Florida, can you drive two hours to the thing that we’re doing, but it’s going to be a roomful of people that need to know you?” Like, “Yes, please sign me up.” And then before you knew what I was doing more of those opportunities, then landing podcast interviews, but for our business owners who are like, “I don’t know where to start!” start by having conversations with people who are already talking marketing to your ideal customers, three to five industries that are likely going to lead you to more referrals, and you can lead them to more referrals as well through your audience efforts.

Kathy (host):  

I love that. And there’s actually a name for that. I didn’t come up with it on my own, obviously, because I’m not a marketing person. But as I’m going through the journey of growing my company, there’s this thing called content-based networking, where you actually coming together with people who are in the similar industry, the complementary industries, like you just described, and create content together for the benefit of your customers that you both serve. And that’s essential, I mean, full disclosure here. That’s a lot of the goals of this podcast. Because if you go and look at all of the topics that we talked about on this podcast, they’re really helpful to the growing businesses. And the people that I have on this podcast are the people that serve and support these types of businesses. And I use it a lot with my clients as a content resource as well. And it’s great, it’s kind of like a gift that keeps on giving because the client gets get a lot of support, and the people that I meet through this podcast can get business from it. It’s a really beautiful thing and I absolutely love this type of like-giving mentality and like everyone benefits from it.

Erica (guest):  

And you know, we said off-air prior to jumping in and recording this, that I have a podcast. There I think there’s a lot of value in what you bring to the table and you talk about things that I don’t talk about in terms of your services, but it’s information that my audience needs. I become more valuable as a leader in my industry when I can bring In other resources, other powerhouses like yourself, Kathy, to my audience and vice versa. You become automatically more valuable to your audience when you can pull the people like you’ve been doing for your podcasts to add value to their life because obviously, we can’t be everything to everyone. And so what we do want to serve the customers that we have in front of us, our audience, and that sort of thing. So you’re creating tremendous value beyond what you do by being a connector or conduit for these kinds of connections. 

Kathy (host):  

And I think also, as a service provider, since we’re both in that space is you naturally, I see that for myself like I want to stay in my lane, I want to stay in my lane and finances. And I see that the business was struggling with other things, and I want to help them out. Obviously, I am not going to expand my reach in terms of my expertise, but I can bring in people that are able to help out. It’s not just in terms of the content but in terms of you or creating the network of people that your clients can tap into as a resource when they need one. I think that’s super valuable, not just to the clients, but also to you as a business that you can provide more services, not yourself. But you know people that provide those services are complimentary.

Erica (guest):  

Yeah, and I always love it when people come up to me, and they’re like, “Oh, my goodness, I cannot thank you enough for hooking me up with Sally Sue over here, because she just changed the game in terms of ABC problem that I had.” And you know, because I was able to vet Sally Sue in this example, right, I was able to build that relationship with her and know what she’s all about, I was able to make that connection and let them do their due diligence with each other. But they remember that, like whoever is getting referred that connection, they remember that I was the one that did it. So again, it’s that top-of-mind awareness. And that’s probably another hot button on LinkedIn right now, too, is you know, staying top of mind and staying relevant. 

​

Erica (guest): 

And for our listeners today who are trying to find, those subtle ways that aren’t going to burn them out. That is another way just make it a game to connect three people that you know, a day if you just made that a game and said who’s going to connect today? You know, obviously, with great intentions, you would be so amazed at what your bank account, what your visibility efforts would look like, in 90 days, if you just did that consistently, and made it a point to genuinely connect people with one another really cool stuff.

Kathy (host):  

Are there any other ideas that you have when it comes to expanding your reach? So we talked about connecting with the providers or with businesses that are complementary to yours, connecting with three people a day? Are there any other ideas that you have that people can use to expand their reach?

​

Erica (guest):  

Yeah, so my specialty right now is really helping people identify speaking opportunities for expanding their reach. No, I’m not talking in the traditional, I am including this. And let me back up here. I guess in the traditional sense of being in a room full of your ideal customer, being able to talk with a microphone and letting people know who you are, and how you can help them is a way that you can do that. 

Erica (guest): 

But in today’s digital age, there’s so many ways that we can leverage video, we can leverage podcasting, we’ve kind of alluded to that already. We can leverage, even virtual summits, but getting access to those opportunities, again, start with having those conversations. So it’s one of the conversations and a lot of people, make the mistake of thinking, “Well, I want to scale. I want to scale. I can’t have these one-off conversations all the time, because I’m never going to scale.” That is where the magic is. 

Erica (guest): 

Because if you try to go pitch yourself to a bunch of speaking opportunities, or a bunch of podcast guests, you know opportunities. There’s a good chance that the person that’s on the receiving end of those pitches if they don’t know you, they’re going to pick somebody that they likely know. Or they’re going to pick somebody that they likely have some sort of awareness of where maybe they don’t know them personally. But because they’ve been visible because they have proven their worth and their value in the industry. 

​

Erica (guest): 

People that are picking podcast guests, or people that are picking speakers for big conferences, they are going to pick names that they know. People that they have already trusted. So part of our responsibility as business owners is to be our own, beat our own drum, like go out there and start engaging in conversations, and not necessarily just selfishly, but how can we find out what other people are doing, and letting people know that we want to expand our reach through speaking opportunities. 

​

Erica (guest): 

And if we start doing that, if we start telling enough people that eventually people are going to be like, “Oh, you know what, Kathy, I was just talking to her the other day and she needs a podcast guest for fill in the blank industry.” And because if you’re listening to this and you jumped on a call or you connected with Kathy and her LinkedIn, all of a sudden you are top of mind and Kathy’s eyes. You’re top of mind and this other person’s eyes. 

Erica (guest): 

So again, we want to look at this big prize and we say, “Gosh, I want to be the speaker on these podcasts and I want to be the speaker at this conference.” But if we’re not doing this baby step of building relationships, and I don’t want to say babies up it’s a huge step but doing that foundational work to build those relationships like, “Oh, we could pitch 11 trillion people, and we’re never going to get our foot in the door because we haven’t taken the step to initiate conversation and build trust in that report.”

Kathy (host):  

And people that listen to this podcast know that, like, I absolutely love actionable things. Let’s say a hypothetical problem where someone wants to go and be a speaker on a TEDx talk, right? What will be the steps that you think someone will have to take to get there because being a relatively unknown entity, business, or personal brand, going to a TEDx talk? It’s a big jump. So like, what are some of the steps that you think someone can take to get there to get to that stage?

Erica (guest):  

Well, I haven’t spoken on a TEDx stage. But I’ve spoken on a number of other big stages. And one of the things that I can suggest to somebody that is looking at TED or TEDx, or some other big known name conference, in your own industry, is what are you doing to go speak to three people at the same time? Like, what are you doing right now? 

Erica (guest): 

Let me use my own example for a moment. So before I started my company in 2015, I knew what I was going to be doing and I just hadn’t made that announcement yet to the world. And one of the things that I did was I hosted my own workshop. And it was the scariest thing because I was like, “I don’t know who’s going to show up to this thing.” And I didn’t have very many people showing up I think, to the people in my room burnt my husband, and then our teenage, his daughter, but my stepdaughter and five other people that I begged and pleaded to come. I didn’t have an empty room, right? And I showed up for those seven people in that room as if I was showing up for 700. So that’s step number one is think about what is already accessible to you in terms of those speaking opportunities.

​

Erica (guest): 

If you can’t go rent a room right now and go have a speaking and in-person speaking opportunity. Could you turn your camera into selfie mode and start talking on a live stream? What can you do to start exercising your voice now to start building up your confidence? Start building up what works, and what doesn’t in terms of your style of speaking, and doing that and making a commitment to do that at least 20 times before you even apply to something that’s massive or big, because the last thing I want anybody to do is like to go have their first experience with speaking. 

​

Erica (guest):

Go be something like a TEDx talk, where it’s a big deal, and they screw it up. They don’t like having the confidence and they don’t have the skill, because they haven’t practiced and they haven’t worked their way up. 

Erica (guest):

If you’re listening to this right now, and again, if you’re thinking aspirationally, I want to go speak at a big conference one day, if that’s your goal, or big podcasts, or whatever it is, start with something that’s local. If you can’t do that in an in-person capacity, go create content, create live stream content, where you’re exercising your voice. You’re practicing topics that resonate with you. But you can get some feedback from other people that will give that feedback to you. So you can figure out what works and what doesn’t. And then you can take that information and go apply for these bigger speaking opportunities. You’re more rehearsed. You’re more confident in those abilities, and you’re more likely to stand out because you have practiced them.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, I like that. Because it’s intimidating if you’ve never done that before going from basically zero to a 100. And there’s a lot of opportunities, unfortunately for failure. So like doing the baby steps, it’s something that you can get yourself more accustomed to, and more comfortable in that capacity.

Erica (guest):  

Yeah, and one of the things that I tell people too, it’s so funny, because I’ll get a lot of compliments on and I’m very grateful for these compliments, but I’ll get compliments. And let’s say, “Erica, you’re so confident in your speaking or you’re so confident in your videos.” And I’m like, “Okay, let’s go back to 2014. When I first did that event in my hometown, or let’s like, go back to my first YouTube videos, where my camera was looking up on my nose, and I sound a nasally.” You know, let’s go back to those moments where I did it all wrong. I evolved. I continued to go back to the drawing board and practice my skill. And now what you see, as we’re recording this, it is definitely a lot of years in the making to get to this point. 

Erica (guest):

So you don’t have to have a lot of years. But if you made a commitment, as you’re listening to this today, if you just said, “I’m going to make a commitment to go live for 30 days.” Even if it’s for five minutes, that will change the way you feel about speaking and talking and positioning your brand 30 days from now, because it’s something that you can gauge. You can look at the videos and see where you’ve come from in that short amount of time. It’s amazing and transformational if you just make those small commitments.

Kathy (host):  

And video is something that I’ve been thinking about doing in my own business because I like the personal aspect of it. And the way when I’m looking at how I’m looking at the businesses and how I’m looking at people that I’ve worked with is I always appreciate it when I can find videos of them because there’s just Something about it like audio like this podcast is definitely helpful. But I think the video aspect of it just gives you a lot more information. It just makes it even more human in that way. How was it for you when you first started doing videos? Can you walk us through this journey of like, why did you do it? And how did you get from struggling with it to like being really good at it?

Erica (guest):  

I’m gonna back up even further. And I promise I’ll make this super short. I had an inkling that I wanted to do a video back in 2009. And I remember buying a bunch of really expensive camera equipment. And if you’re listening to this right now, and you weren’t around in 2009, there weren’t a lot of resources that we have today that were easily accessible to upload video footage. I mean, it was a lot of work. And the equipment was expensive. It was complicated. 

​

Erica (guest):

And so I bought all these expensive, quote, and equipment. I remember being in my living room at the time. I was married to somebody else, not my current husband today, but I was married to somebody else. And I remember doing what I thought was going to be this like awesome video. And I remember this person, my ex-husband coming in and saying, “That sounds terrible.” And I put all that stuff, packed it all up, stuck it in our closet, and never looked at it again until I got divorced. And I needed to like part ways with this equipment that was now obsolete. 

​

Erica (guest):

Flash forward to 2014, when I actually started to do videos. I started doing some speaking opportunities I had at the time I was working for the Chamber of Commerce. And part of my job was to go out there and speak to people. And so I had just wrapped up a luncheon where I gave 12 tips on how to network or something along those lines. And I at the time, I had this little tablet, this Android tablet, and I was like, “Okay, let me just bust this out and see if I can do each one of these tips is a two-minute soundbite.” And that’s how my YouTube journey started. 

Erica (guest):

My video journey started was really just recording what I already spoke to in person, and just broke it down into two-minute sound bites. And that’s how it started. And then from there, I was like, “I really don’t like the way I said that. I really don’t like the way I look in this lighting. I really don’t like the way,” and so I just started making those adjustments. I also invested in video coaching and speaking coaching and other things that were going to help me position my message and say my message smaller and tighter. 

Erica (guest):

So through that process, it was just me studying my own, even though like if somebody’s listening to this right now and just thinking, “Oh my goodness, I can never watch myself on video. I will cringe.” One of the best things that you could do and you get yourself is to watch that and say, “What are my facial expressions doing? Do I talk a lot with my hands? I have a tendency to talk a lot with my hands.” So all of those things, you can gauge how you can progress. But then also, don’t be afraid to invite other people into the process. Meaning that if it’s a voice coach, and if it’s a video coach if it’s a public speaking coach, like whatever it is that you need to uplevel your skills, be sure to include them into the mix as well to help you out with that.

​

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, and I’ve actually started that journey as well. So right now I have a video coach. And because I do want to start making videos, and I’ve even had a speaking coach before, because I knew that for the podcasting, there’s certain things that need to happen. You have to breathe, even though sometimes I still forget to breathe. But it’s a journey. And for the longest time, I really could not handle listening to myself. And now, I just do it. It’s just one of those things and you learn from it. You might be cringing at first. It won’t be cringy. But you just gotta get over it. Right?

Erica (guest):  

It will. And I think the other important thing to touch on, Kathy, in this conversation, is making sure that you are consistent with it. You can’t expect that you go and talk once at something and then pick it up six months from now. And then you’re going to be good to go. 

Erica (guest):

The point of this, and what I guess I’m alluding to, is that if you’re going to speak this week, find another opportunity next week to speak, find another opportunity to speak the following week, and practice working yourself up. Because again, if you’re making that commitment to do it consistently, if you give yourself a 30-day window or a 90-day window to do X amount of speaking opportunities, or X amount of podcasts or interviews or X amount of live streams, and you make that goal, you’re going to be way more polished on day 30 Or day 90, whatever the chunk of time is, because you’ve made that plan to hit that, you know that the magical number of what you want to do. But you’ve got to practice that. And the only way that you’re going to get data and information on how to improve is if you actually do the thing, if you whatever it is that you’re doing, you gotta go do it.

Kathy (host):  

The people that you work with and start implementing this whole concept of personal brand in their business, how does that change their business? Have you seen some like really significant changes in the way how the business operates? Because they started on this journey?

Erica (guest):  

Well, absolutely. Because when we start talking about the things that we add value to in terms of our expertise, our messaging, like whatever it is now for our business owners to obviously have things to sell, their expertise is going to be things that lead with. There’s been opportunities where I’ve worked in the nonprofit space before where they’re donorship. That’s their big goal, right, visibility and donors and getting volunteers. Their messaging is going to be a little different. 

Erica (guest):

But the principles are still the same in the sense that when you have a plan, and I’m going to back up here when you have an end result, so whatever, as our business owners are listening to this today, think about the end result. If you ultimately want the person that is consuming your message to be a customer one day, you can’t expect that the first time they hear you is going to magically, literally turn them into a customer. 

Erica (guest):

Statistically speaking, it’s gonna take five to 12 touches with your brand, before they even take the next step, it doesn’t even mean that they signed the check, or they stroke their credit, or they swipe the credit card. It is a process. So having a plan, having an idea of what you want them to do. So in this business owner case, if you want your audience to eventually become a customer, what are the steps in reverse engineering it backward? That they would have to experience your brand? consume your brand, and learn more about your services? Is there a consultation process? Like what are all those steps leading up to it, and then you can carve a personal brand plan around those steps. 

Erica (guest):

And again, something that we did earlier in this conversation, Kathy, is not making sure that you are on all the social media platforms, because for most business owners, it’s not applicable. Figuring out, you know, again, what’s your end result? Who are those people that are going to be ideally your customer, where are those people hanging out, but then also thinking a little more strategically about the people that are already talking and marketing to your ideal customer? And the more times that you’re putting your message out there into the world, the more you’re accumulating those touches so that when those people are ready to work with somebody in your capacity, if you’ve been present, and you’ve been doing those touches subtly, or dramatically, doing it and decisively is what I want to say, they’re ready to go. And they’re ready to work with you because you’ve positioned yourself from a place of strength all along the way along their journey.

​

Kathy (host):  

And this is essentially it’s a longer game than paid advertising. 

Erica (guest):

Oh, yeah, for sure. 

Kathy (host):

But I do want to make a distinction between what we’ve been talking now all the way up to now to paid advertising, how is it different? And is it essentially better because from what I’ve been seeing is that it does take a long time? However, once you really start getting going, the customers that come your way, the business that you build seems to be so much better than through paid advertising. Because now you really created this brand for yourself and for the business, went through the paid advertising it just it seems if it’s not done the right way, it just seems very, I don’t know, you can just waste a lot of money and a lot of budget on that.

​

Erica (guest):  

Well, you can waste a lot of time and energy in the organic strategies that we’re talking about today. Right? You know, if you’re not taking the time to do some of the things that that we’re talking about today, you will waste a lot of time, and you will spend a lot of your wheels trying to find your customers. 

Erica (guest):

And so from the paid strategies standpoint, I do I believe in using paid strategies? Yes, but there is a time and a place for it. I don’t recommend that people right out the gate start, who don’t have an audience who don’t have a proven concept, go through a bunch of money in paid advertising because you don’t have information in front of you that’s going to gauge whether or not your service is viable, the messaging is right. 

Erica (guest):

And so one of the ways that we can save a lot of time, money, and heartache, in the beginning, is by having conversations with people who are either your ideal customer or are you talking to your ideal customer. Letting them introduce you to other opportunities through referral partnerships or speaking opportunities or other content creation opportunities. Because then you start saying, “Oh, I’m hearing this conversation here. And this is actually what people are suffering from like in terms of the problem and I’m spending so much time advertising or talking about this problem when nobody really cares about it.” You’re getting real-time feedback from people and a paid ad, you’re trusting an algorithm to give you that feedback. It’s not the same. But you again, you can waste a lot of time and organic strategies to but paid advertising can be very beneficial once you get that messaging, right? And you get that point across in the proper way.

Kathy (host):  

Awesome. Erica, you gave us so many good tips. And I always have this one question for every single guest that comes on to the show, is if someone wanted to start working on their personal brand, and I have no idea what they start with because we give them a lot of options here. What is the one tangible thing that they can do within the next week to get them closer to building their personal brand?

Erica (guest):  

Again, it goes back to knowing what your end result is. If your end result is to sell X service, then what problem is that solving and making sure that the people that you’re getting in front of are on a platform, whether it’s LinkedIn or whether it’s speaking opportunities, or whether it’s another social media platform, one on one conversations, whatever you choose, you don’t have to pick all of those, you just have to pick one. But it has to be directly related to your end result. And if your end result is to get a service-based client, then making sure that you’re targeting either a service-based client or potential service-based client, or somebody that’s already talking to that service-based client and making sure that you’re engaging in conversations and putting yourself in those arenas where they can see you they can experience your brand, and that you can strike up conversations with them. It doesn’t take much I know, it’s it sounds like a big step. But it’s just really getting clear on that thing. And then being sure to say, “Okay, I know like I know, LinkedIn is where they need to be,” if that’s applicable, making sure that you’re putting yourself in that arena to strike up conversations and take it from there. 

Kathy (host):  

Awesome, Erica. where can people find you?

​

Erica (guest):  

Thank you for that. The best place for people to connect with me would be over at ericacastner.com/podcast. I have a plethora of opportunities and connections and resources that are free over on that section. So ericacastner.com/podcast. 

​

Kathy (host):  

Thank you so much for coming to the show. Erica. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

​

Erica (guest):  

Thanks, Kathy. You rock my friend.

Kathy (host):  

Thanks so much for joining us today. And I hope that this episode moved you into developing your own personal brands and that she gave you a lot of good ideas on how to actually do that. 

Kathy (host):

Next week, we’re going to be talking to Mary Anne Renzetti about CRMs and how they can help you forge meaningful customer relationships that inspire your customer loyalty, and retention. 

Kathy (host):

Also, if you love this episode, you can find all the timestamps, the show notes, blog posts, and links on the website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast. And before I go, as always, I do have a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on Apple podcasts, you could please go to the show and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves.  Because this helps the algorithm and it helps other people find it and benefit from it too. Thanks so much. Until next time!