Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today, we're joined by Fifi Mason, personal brand and visibility coach, and we're talking about authentic personal branding. Welcome, Fifi.
Fifi
Hi, and thank you so much for having me.
Esther
Not a problem. So personal branding is quite a broad spectre of things. So we could be talking about what you write, what you say, what you put on, what you present to the world. Melanie is looking confused for some reason. Do you not think this is broad spectre?
Melanie
Well, I would have gone with spectrum, personally, but spectre sounds terrifying.
Esther
Okay, but broad Spectrum, I have been corrected. By the grammar police here. Where would we get started with our personal branding, Fifi?
Fifi
It is very broad, I suppose. What is the term? What does it mean? And how do you get started? Yeah, there's a lot there. Well, personal branding really is about how you are being perceived in life, but in general, it's more online, more of your online perception. There's a really great quote, and I'm going to butcher this, by Jeff Bezos, and he says something like, Your personal brand or your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.
Melanie
Yeah, I've heard that before. Yeah.
Fifi
Yeah. That does summarise it a lot. It's about how you are perceived by how people connect with you, relate to you, remember you, and what you're known for. And that's what I talk about more than anything. And it's taking control of that, taking control of how you're being perceived, but in a natural way. So you're not faking it, you're not forcing it, you're not just pretending faking it. You're being yourself, you're being authentic. And it's just really taking control of that so that you're showing up in alignment with your own values, with who you are, with what you want to be known for. Hopefully, that answers that question.
Melanie
Being monumentally memorable, try saying that fast, is what you're aiming for. One thing you mentioned to us before we started recording is that you really like to support people who are normally a little bit quieter than you, you're more introverted. Why would they Why would you find it any more harder than anybody else? I'm sure they know that that's what branding involves, but why would they find it harder?
Fifi
When you're showing up as yourself and promoting your own business, It's you. You are the service provider. Maybe you're a coach or a consultant or a freelancer of some kind, and you have to be the face of the business. That can be quite a challenge for those who are more introverted, inward-focused, less likely to be the ones in the spotlight, it really becomes a bit more of a challenge for the quieter types. I completely relate to this because it's my journey. It was my challenge when I started out as a freelancer. I was a brand and website designer for the first year of my business, and I found myself hiding. I myself not wanting to put any of my personality into it. I had a business name. I just had this one photograph that I was happy with, that I used everywhere. To be honest, it probably didn't even look much like me either. It was really the best picture I could ever find of myself. I was not putting any of my personality into my content, and it was all very generic and bland. That became a problem for me because I started attracting the wrong kinds of clients, the clients that just didn't value my expertise, even though I'd worked in industry. They didn't respect my opinions, what I could bring to the table. They were demanding a lot more from me. There was personality clashes. There was so much going on that I... I mean, even some of my clients, they left me in tears. I would get off a call with them and I would be... I just burst out into tears because I was like, Why am I having to work with this person. It became clear it was because I was not attracting the right people, the people I actually would like to work with. I went on this self-discovery journey It turned out to be more of developing my personal brand, learning more about what it means to be more visible, show more of my personality. This became what I fell in love with, that whole process of figuring out who I am, what I'm all about, how I'm going to communicate that to the world, and really just get to a point where I was attracting those clients that bring me joy and light me up every day. That became the journey I went on. Then as time developed, it became clear that it was because of my quiet introverted nature that a lot of those struggles, that a lot of things happened and I had those struggles. I thought, I fall in love with this process, and I know who the who really needs help in this. The most people like me, I'm going to help people like me do this to develop a strong personal brand that aligns with who they are, what they're all about. I feel that those who are quieter, more introverted, are the ones that might struggle a bit more with this. I found they self-silence and they they hold back because of certain fears as well. We could probably get into that a little bit.
Melanie
A lot of this would be also a bit of confidence coaching on top of everything else, I assume. I mean, I probably don't appear as a very introverted person, and in fairness, I'm not these days. But when I first started my business, I had a huge amount of imposter syndrome and a terrible amount of fear and I hid behind my brand for the first year. I think it's not just the more introverted people. I think everybody feels like when they first start out, but it's just worse for people who start off at an introverted point. Do you feel there's a psychology or a mindfulness that you're doing as well?
Fifi
Well, yeah. This ties into self-silencing. I do believe that it's not just the quieter of our society that do struggle with this. Many, many people will struggle with self silencing. This is holding back your thoughts, your ideas, your opinions, your experiences, your personality, even, for fear of perceived consequences. Sometimes it's real consequences, but most of the time it's perceived consequences, that we think something bad is going to happen. There are actually five reasons that I've identified as the most likely reasons that people self-silence. We could go through them today if we wanted to, but imposter syndrome is one of those or ties into one of those. It's more fairness fallacy as well, which I could talk about. But really, it's a mindset, it's a confidence, but also it's these fears and doubts in ourselves. That is a real struggle, a big struggle for a lot of people when they start out. As they move through their business at different stages, they're going to hit different obstacles. Yeah.
Esther
Do you find that this quiet silencing or self-silencing, it happens more with one gender than the other? Are women more susceptible to this or more prone to be introverted and stepping back and letting their male counterparts have the stage light and the limelight and be front and centre and getting all the clients, and they're just happy to take in some of the whatever's left? Or do you find it's more balanced than we might think?
Fifi
That is a great question. I haven't done enough research to know for sure, but from observations, I do think there is a lot of females and women who struggle with this, but equally, there are men that struggle with it, too. I think it more comes down to if there was a female perception of this, it would be more that we are more agreeable as we are for some reason. The males maybe are a bit more assertive, potentially, but that's still a generalisation. I think there's no observation to be sure that there is anything to do with gender, sex, or anything. I think it's individual. It's very much something that most people are probably be challenged with at some stage. I think even if you don't at the beginning stages of your business, if you were to get down the line and you have a lot to lose, for instance, that's when something could come up. It's more of a, I'm going to hold back from saying that because maybe I'll get cancelled. There's different levels, different stages of where self-silencing and the self-censoring if you want to call it that as well, is a problem.
Esther
Interesting.
Melanie
I think some of the issue is, certainly was for me in my first year or so, is I wasn't sure exactly who my customer was. I would agree to do stuff for people that I hadn't necessarily thought out because I wanted the business. I wanted to look helpful and resourceful and useful. I was doing stuff within my remit. I wasn't painting houses or anything like that. But I said yes to a lot more things when I first started because I didn't want to look like, I didn't know stuff or couldn't do stuff or wasn't prepared to try. Now I've reached a point where if I don't want to do it, I won't. I don't know if that's down to confidence, but I've just reminded myself, I do work for myself. I can say no.
Fifi
Yeah, that's an interesting one because it was like that for me. I think a lot of people, when they're starting out, they'll take whatever they can get. And that ends up being maybe the wrong kinds of people. This comes down to part of taking control of your personal brand, taking control of how you perceive who you want to work with, putting that out there in the world, knowing your niche, your audience, so that they become the people that come to you. They are the ones that are attracted to you. What I describe as is a lack or a need of these three things. These are the three Bs, belief, balance, and belonging. Belief is all about figuring out your values and your boundaries and what you stand for and your principles, understanding what you're all about. Then you need the balance, which is around being sure that you're working within your core capabilities, that you are working to your strengths, working to, doing the things that you enjoy the most on your passionate about and making sure there's a balance there. Also, considering what your capacity is and your energy is. Then there is belonging, which is what you alluded to there, where you need to find who your people are, you need to find your place and understand your purpose as well so that you're doing all the right things in your business. When you have belief, balance, and belonging, once you have these three things, everything becomes a lot easier. It's easier to make those decisions. It's easier to say, This person doesn't align with my personal brand, so I'm not going to take them on. Rather than it being more of a decision of, should I or shouldn't I? You just know you have these rules, which is what I was going to talk about today, impact rules, how I help my clients create these rules from this.
Esther
Interesting. Just before we get onto the impact rules, I just wanted to circle back because you said that whenever people are coming up through and they're growing or their business is growing and they're reaching different stages of life and of business, then obviously some of these things can change. So the belief, some of their belief systems can be changed or challenged along the way in their life. They may have been brought up with one belief system on this is what you should do and this is what you shouldn't do. And then as they get older, they start to question everything. Then as older women, we go, Did we really get told all that? It all just goes throwing out the window. Balance as well, work-life balance, kids, family, older parents, all these sorts of things, so it can change as time goes on. How do people then change their narrative without, like you say, getting cancelled and people going, hey, but five years ago, you didn't say that. You said the opposite of what you're now saying. Because people do have a long memory and the Internet remembers everything. So how do people get around that when they are growing, when they are changing, when they're adapting to life in general? And they go through something maybe traumatic and go, hang on, I'm going to reassess everything. I'm going to re-figure everything out. Actually, instead of believing that or instead of saying that, I'm now saying this. How did they get around that? Can it be a short, sharp change, or does it have to be gradual and changing a couple of words here and there so people don't really notice by the time it gets to the-.
Fifi
That is a wonderful, wonderful question. It's something I'm going through right now, to be honest, because I, and I'll explain this. Over the last few years, I've had a bit of an awakening around freedom, freedom of speech, and a lot of things going on in society. I want to talk more about this. I haven't really ever been political, if you would say it's political, but I want to make this shift into being a little a bit more outspoken around certain things that I think are important. What I'm doing is, and yet you could do this as a gradual thing, you could do this as a, I'm just going to do it, so not even really think it or overthink it. But what I'm going to do is to a reintroduction of myself. So it's going to be maybe an open letter or just a post that I put out there into the world that says, This is important to me. And if it was something that someone had changed their opinion on from the past, maybe they had some opinion and they've changed it. Maybe they would just own up to that and be honest and be this, this is the journey I've been on. This is how I've come to this realisation now. I'm going to explain why I'm doing this. And that's what this reintroduction would be. It would be something that just explains your point of view and is truthful and honest. And then just being someone who is open to change even those opinions as well and just say, this is where I'm at. This is the journey I've been on, and I'm open to shifting these perspectives in the future if new things come to light. But this is what is important to me right now. These are my values. These are the things I'm going to stand for. And just be open and honest and authentic. That's what I would say to that.
Melanie
Brilliant.
Esther
You mentioned there the impact rules. What are those impact rules and how can people learn more about them?
Fifi
Yes. Impact rules is based off of those three Bs. This is the programme that I work with my clients on, helping them to create their own rules for how they show up in the world. It's really, firstly, starting to look at the belief side of things, what their values are, what they stand for, and creating principle rules around those. For me, it's speak up for what you believe in, even if it goes against popular opinion. That's something that It is one of my rules. It's a rule I've put in place that I'm going to live by, at least now, for the foreseeable future, because it's something that is one of my values. It's just really digging into what you stand for, what you're all about, how you want to show up and be seen within your principle rules and creating those rules for it. Then you have power rules, which is how you create the balance. One of my favourite, I can give you an example which makes it easier to explain, is think in frameworks. You might have noticed I've got a few frameworks I've already mentioned, the 3 Bs and then they've got impact rules.
My approach, this is my approach to communicating, to living in my core capabilities because I love frameworks and I'm very visual thinker and I have all of these frameworks that I create. This is me living in my power. So thinking frameworks is one of my rules. Another example of a power rule would be to do the things today that tomorrow you will thank you for. That's just something that I think I will always, always keep as a rule for myself. It helps me in everything I do so that I'm always preparing for the next thing.
Melanie
It helps procrastination.
Fifi
For sure, yeah.
Esther
Unless we're talking here about doing lots of leg exercises at the gym, then tomorrow you will not thank you for those.
Fifi
That's very true.
Esther
Maybe in about a week or a year, but not tomorrow.
Fifi
Yeah, tomorrow you will probably be swearing at you, but at least next week you We'll be thankful. It's having those power rules, those rules that help you make the right decisions. They help you work within your own core capabilities, your zone of genius, if you will, and they just help you to stay on track. Then the final one is purpose rules. This comes from belonging, the the lack of belonging or the need of belonging. It helps you to really get clear on who you help, your place, your people, and your purpose. Also, what is interesting in all of these is how your approach to working with clients becomes apparent. One of my purpose rules is every experience is an opportunity to inspire. Now, that's my purpose, but also it's a purpose every day that I can use to observe the different things going on in the world and then just create an inspirational way of expressing that. So pieces of content, a social media post, for instance. So every experience could become an opportunity to inspire with a piece of content. So it's my approach as well to how I do my business. It's my purpose because I want to inspire people and through my own experiences being authentic. But it also becomes an impact statement that I can actually say to my clients, every experience is an opportunity to inspire. So these rules also also become the rules that I share with my clients as my methodology, as my approach. So it really encapsulates so much to come up with these principles, power rules, and purpose rules and helps you with finding and discovering what you're all about and really expressing that and communicating that in a way and embody your message and embody your methodology every day. That is the whole concept of impact rules.
Melanie
I've got to ask, what age range is your largest customers?
Fifi
Oh, interesting one. I don't think there is a specific age range.
Melanie
So you don't have an ideal audience?
Fifi
I don't think the graphics is the It's the same as having an ideal audience. So demographics doesn't impact things. It's not to do with age, it's not to do with gender. It's all to do with who they are, what stage they're at, what they want to achieve. I work with quiet coaches, life coaches, and impact makers, those people that want to make a difference, make a change in the world, who want to inspire and uplift and educate and help other people. That's my ideal audience. That's my people.
Melanie
What about older people? Would they be harder to help open up, get out of bad ways of doing things? Because one thing that you seem to illustrate a lot in what you've been saying is control. People who feel the fear more feel the fear that they're losing control more. As I was listening, I was actually starting to write stuff down, if you noticed. There was a bit of feeling that fear, feeling that... Because it's all very personal when you're running your own business. It was exactly the same for me and how I think most people feel is, Oh, God, if they have a complaint now, it's, I can't give it to the boss. I am the boss. There's this fear that we all have. You were referring to belonging, which is straight off Maslow's hierarchy of needs, straight off it. It takes a while for you to find your tribe. It took me four years to find my tribe and even longer to secure it. I think younger people may to embrace change faster, whereas older people, not all of them, of course, but older people have to get out of bad habits and serious long term self-doubt and serious long self-hatred to feel that they're capable of these things. Hence why I was asking about the age ranges. Would you treat your 20-year-old consultants, well, your 25-year-old consultants, to completely different to your 55-year-old consultants?
Fifi
No, absolutely would not. I think it comes down to the actual problem they have. It's nothing to do with age. It's where they're at, the Because no matter what age you are, you could be at a different stage. You can be at the same stage even. Someone who started at their 30s in a business and someone who started in their 50s in a business, they're going to be at the same stage.
Melanie
But what if you're 55 and you've been doing it for 30 years and you still have that self-loathing and self-hatred and complete lack of control?
Fifi
I think it comes down to the reason why and getting clear on that. The first part of all of this, when I talk about the different stages, so I have three stages of getting visible, becoming known. It starts with the show up stage, which is when you're stuck in your head. It's also what I call the me stage. You're stuck in your head and you need to get to the message stage, which is when you start to refine your message and get clear on it, to then become the messenger, which is the final stage.
Melanie
I like that. You do like threes, don't you?
Fifi
I do. How do you get a number? And they also have the same letters to start with as well. So M-M-M. I love it.
Melanie
We like M-M-M.
Esther
We like M-M-M. Monday morning. Fifi, it has been an absolute pleasure. How can people get in touch with you, learn more, hire you? What's the stages that they... Are there three processes for finding you and clicking through on your website?
Fifi
There isn't. There's just one link.
Esther
Oh, come on, Fifi. You're letting down your personal branding.
Fifi
Well, I'm making it easy. Got to make it easy, haven't you? So just go to fifimason.com/connect and you will find me there. But I do have three different resources.
Melanie
Of course you do.
Fifi
I do have a book as well, which is on Amazon. So the resource that would help anyone who's listening today is the Authentic Self Personal Brand Assessment. And it really just helps you go through those three Bs, the belief, balance, and belonging, and assess yourself, where you're at and where you need to focus a bit more. Then I have some fun quizzes as well to help you figure out if you're self silencing or what reason why, and also the introvert visibility style quiz to figure out what your is. Some helpful resources, and my book is on Amazon, Stop Self Silencing, which also covers a lot of the mindset side of things that we started to discuss today.
Melanie
This has been so fascinating, hasn't it? I've been very compelling listening. So thank you so much for your time today, Fifi.
Fifi
Oh, thank you for having me.
Melanie
I think we'll sign off for now, but we will be back very soon with another podcast.
Esther
Bye, guys.
Melanie
Bye.
Wow. That was deep, Esther.
Esther
That was good. I like the threes. The threes are good. They're easy to remember.
Fifi
frameworks is my thing.
Melanie
It just gets you thinking. So many people just think it's just, let's start up our business and we just got to build up some self-confidence. But there's a hell of a lot going on behind in the background, isn't there? You have to try and draw it out of people, don't you, Fifi?
Fifi
Yeah, that's what I do. That's what I love to do. It's my favourite thing. Yeah.
