Do you need a brand rebirth?
Maybe your personal brand doesn’t really fit you…
Or maybe you don’t have a personal brand and don’t know where to start…
My guest Tanika Vital-Pringle is here to help you define your personal brand in 3 easy steps.
Tanika will share why creating your brand isn’t complicated—it’s about recognizing your superpower and communicating it with the world.
Join us to create your brand so you can attract clients who are aligned with YOU.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Tanika Vital-Pringle: After creating your brand, understand what you need to do to create the magical pull, and then devise a strategy so that you can push it out.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me the vibrant coach. And I am here with a special friend. A friend I made just a little while ago and we both got certified as StrengthsFinder coaches. Yes, you can talk to either one of us figure out your strengths. But Tanika Vital Pringle is the Global MBA and CEO and Chief Brand Strategist of this company write it down, Brand Rebirth. It is a boutique leadership development and brand strategy agency.
She helps executives, leaders, managers and teams rebirth their personal brands while strengthening their employer brands. And she equates an employer brand with an organizational culture. Her why is that she believes that success happens when people think outside of the box and challenge the status quo. With over 20 years, now if you could see her you would not believe this, with over 20 years. With over 20 years of experience working for Global Fortune 50 companies and beyond Tanika has a purpose of helping individuals and companies boldly unleash their authenticity. Please welcome to the show Tanika.
Tanika: Yeah. Hi Nicole.
Nicole: I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here. We have reunited. All right. So my first question always, I told you earlier, I’m collecting definitions of leadership. What is your definition of leadership?
Tanika: A good definition of leadership that I follow is an individual who is bold enough to discover themselves and share their gifts with others. An individual who was bold enough to become self aware enough so that they can allow others to rebirth. And for me, rebirth is about a change that leads to a new, to a new period of improvement for a brand. And when we think about leaders, leaders have personal brands, as you know, and so this is my definition of leadership.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, that’s a big responsibility for like every human on planet Earth is to understand what their strengths are. And so like I alluded to, in her little intro, both Tanika and I, we went through StrengthsFinder, coach training, and also we both went through the manager team training, so we’re both qualified to do that for you. So call us. Call us up. Call us up. Because Tanika you’re down in Texas, right?
Tanika: I am. I am in Houston, Texas.
Nicole: Yeah. So for all those Texas folks, she can giddy up and come on over and see you and take care of what you need. Alright, fantastic. So you alluded to kind of a little model that you go through with people, right? You have like this three step process that helps people discover their personal brand. But would you kind of talk a little bit about what a personal brand is? Does everybody have one? What is it?
Tanika: Yes, everyone does. I would first talk about what is a brand in general, because my first passion is brand strategy. And I’ve been doing working in the brand strategy management space for a while. And my formal definition for a brand is a brand consists of vivid and tangible associations or attributes that exists in one’s mind, or their heart about a product or service. And all of these things collectively are used to create the magical pull towards the customer.
So in essence, a brand really just consists of words, words that have meaning. So for a personal brand, when you think about what I just shared, a personal brand consists of vivid and tangible associations and attributes that exist in someone’s mind. What do people say about you when you are not in the room? What are those words? What are those associations?
And because we connected with Clifton StrengthsFinders, Clifton Strengths, it’s a part of the part of the associations that make up one’s brand as well. But they’re association. They’re not, you don’t start off with a traditional logo or brand expression tools like websites. Really just consist of associations that generate what we call brand recall. So when I say, when I say Nicole Greer, to your customer, they’re going to have to tell me something about being vibrant.
Nicole: They do. She lights up the room. She’s full of energy
Tanika: Exactly. And I experienced that when we were both, you know, doing our professional development. And I was brought to you, that’s what the magical pull is about because of your energy.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And you know, I love you know, you say what gives a brand, a superpower? I mean, I’d like to kind of go through that you say that the first stage in figuring out your superpower? And tell me if I’m getting this, right. I mean, it’s not only for my company, or whatever I’m building, but it’s also me personally, right. Like, I got to figure out my why. So talk about how you go through the why discovery with people and help them figure out that first. Why is that the first step?The why?
Tanika: So this is the first step, thank you for the question, Nicole, because it is the first step in self awareness. Many people as you know, are unfulfilled in some way. They are stuck in some way, and they are functioning. They’re, you know, walking around as imposters really in their roles. They’re on autopilot. But they themselves don’t feel fulfilled. They don’t really know why they do what they do, and why they operate the way that they operate.
And so, you know, becoming emotionally intelligent, becoming self aware, all of these go hand in hand, but discovering your why is really important. I believe that discovering your why, which refers to how you operate, helps you understand and leads to your purpose. But simply put to answer your question. I also have a I’m also certified by the Why Institute. And basically Why Institute is a place where we believe that there are nine Why’s in the world. And they everyone falls. Yeah.
Nicole: I want to talk about this a lot. I want to talk about this a lot. Can we do that?
Tanika: Yeah, sure. So, you know, so we can talk about like these nine why’s and you shared my why I’m one of nine. And we have, you know a why. And it just speaks to our motivations and why we operate the way that we do, and they don’t change. And that’s powerful. And that helps to make you unique, and helps give you those these unique brand attributes, all personal brands must have.
Nicole: Okay, all right. So you said that you have one of the nine why’s. So tell me it again. What is your why?
Tanika: Sure. So my why is to challenge the status quo. And to think differently. This is what, this is how I operate. If I operate like this with clients, I’ve operated like this, when I was an intrapreneur, working in a corporate space. I was always asked to do something involving innovation. I was always asked to do something about coming up with new ideas. If you want new, if you want to generate something new come to me. If you want someone to follow a process, you need probably to go with a make sense why. Or a mastery why. A person who who likes to follow processes and they they’re good with following those things and generating results.
But my why, the way that I’m wired, I’m made, they way I was born, is to think differently. Someone popular with my why is Steve Jobs. I’m working on having his success. But Steve Jobs is someone who’s known to have I think differently why that makes sense. I mean, he built a whole brand, Apple, just really on that. So it’s quite powerful. And when I think about what I do in a community, or when I’m doing something with my church, or I’m serving on a committee, I’m that person that you’re going to call into, to broaden your thinking to think differently, to add some new value, to bring us some divergent perspectives, to speak boldly, to bring out that authentic voice.
And it just what I learned my about my why, officially last year, it helped me to understand why I built Brand Rebirth and how it relates to being authentic. I mean, wanting to pull that out. Now with the why, it’s called Why Discovery. It’s like a tool you take from short five to seven minute, kind of like we call it a discovery, we don’t call it an assessment. It really is a discovery. Whereas Clifton Strengths is an assessment or DISC is an assessment. A lot of the tools that I know that you use. So basically you’re not you’re ranked against all of your nine why’s and then you have your top three become what you call your Why.os or your Why operating system.
And those who are top three. So my top three are challenge the status quo, think differently. My second one, my second tier is a better way. So always think about a better way to do something and help people think about it. And ultimately what I bring is I contribute. That’s my third why is I contribute. I help people, I you know, I help add value. So the Why.os, that is what it is. But my first and foremost is to challenge the status quo and think differently, for better for worse. I will always do that in most situations.
Nicole: Yeah, and I would say in 21st century world it’s probably for the better. Things have got to get better. So we need you so desperately. Yeah. And so I have, I’ve got the I’ve pulled up a list and it says, these might be your why’s. Contribute, trust, make sense, better way, challenge, mastery, clarify and simplify. So.
Tanika: Trust is in there, I think you said that one. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, trust. So you sit down with people, and you help them figure out their why. And I’m gonna tell you that will help people get unstuck, and out of the dark.
Tanika: Right. You need to know yourself. You can’t expect to convince people and others if you haven’t done the work on yourself. And it’s actually therapeutic. I view it as a form of self care. And there’s so much content once you discover your why so many podcasts you can listen to by Dr. Gary Sanchez, our founder. And so just it’s just a great discovery tool, actually. And I know that and I feel that Clifton StrengthsFinders builds upon it nicely.
Nicole: Yeah. And that’s really your phase two, right? So phase one of figuring out or what gives you your brand superpower is you figure out your why, and we just listed those. So now you’ve got your why now you’re up, you’re motivated. You’re like, I know, I know what to do. I got a sense of purpose. And now I need to understand what my strengths are. So let’s dive into one of our favorite new subjects, you and I. Let’s talk a little bit about the Clifton StrengthsFinder. So first of all, can you kind of share what that assessment, don’t miss earlier, she said, it’s an assessment. The earlier one was a discovery. Everybody write this stuff down. Okay, so tell us a little bit about Clifton StrengthsFinder.
Tanika: So Clifton StrengthsFinders is a wonderful assessment. It also helps you to understand a lot about yourself. We all are born with innate talents. And there’s been a lot of research that’s been put into Clifton Strengths by noted psychologists for a number of years. And what’s great about this, this assessment is that I think over 28 million people have been assessed, and the tool has gotten better and better. So what it is, is that once you are assessed, it we will identify really your top 34, your 34 talents, right. And then they will be ranked from one to 34.
And your first 10 are the ones that you use most of the time. And then the ones in the middle, between 11 and what when we say 28 are the ones who don’t use as much. And then the ones like 29 to 34, the ones you really don’t use a lot. We don’t consider those to be weaknesses, we consider those to be talents that are just not used. If they get in the way of you creating some form of success in your life and your career, yes, they will be considered the weaknesses. And then both Nicole and I are trained to help you channel your strengths to overcome any challenge that you’re having. So that’s number one. So there are talents, they are sitting there.
It’s kind of like, I know how to exercise but am I working out or I know how to play the piano, but if I’m not practicing, so you have to so just naming it, that’s just the first step. But then you actually have to claim them, you have to understand them. And it’s best to work with someone like Nicole or I to understand these and basically work on them so that they can become strengths. And then once they do become strengths by understanding them and knowing how to apply them to yourself to your personal brand to everything, then you can kind of like aim them, if I have that right. Yeah, you can like aim them and put them to good use.
Nicole: They say name, name it, claim it and aim it.
Tanika: Yeah, name it, claim it and aim it. Put them out there. So that’s when they become strengths. But the purpose of us doing this is to identify them and then you know, name them so that we can get to the aiming stage. If we don’t get to the aiming stage, they’re just there. They’re just pretty words on a page. They really are. So my um, I don’t know if you want to discuss our strengths, Nicole, or.
Nicole: I do, I do. What’s your number one? Okay, so right out of the gate now don’t miss. I bet you. I will bet you that her number one strength and her number two, number three, number four, number five, probably support her why. Okay, so tell us your why again, tell us your why again.
Tanika: My why is to challenge the status quo and to think differently.
Nicole: Okay, and so then she turns and goes to stage two. Now don’t forget, this is something you can do with Tanika. So, stage two, you figure out your Clifton Strengths and you have these top five and really what they say a gallop is you have to, again, name that the we’re going to name that they’re yours and then you claim them. You start putting them to work, you start practicing with them, and then you point them at the things you want to do with your life. Right. Okay. All right, so what’s your number one?
Tanika: So my number one strength is ideation. No surprise. It goes ideation, belief, connectedness, woo, and strategic.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. So let me just tell you what woo is. And this is probably already happening. You’re like, I love listening to this to Tanika, okay? It’s because she wins others over. Okay? That’s what woo stands for, like so you can woo people in, it’s easy for you to make connections and make relationships, right?
Tanika: We love meeting new people, and listening. We don’t get tired. A lot of social breath, a lot of social breath in meeting people and connecting with them. We don’t get tired of it.
Nicole: Correct. Correct. So her why is to challenge and then ideation now. So when you first hear challenge, you know, depending on your again, your strengths, your personality, your why you may, like every time I’m gonna meet with Tankia, she’s gonna challenge me. Well, yeah. But how is she going to do it? She’s gonna say, I got ideas for you. I got ideas for that. So she’s just an idea machine. So how have you taken ideation? And you know, you’ve named it because you’ve taken it, you’re actually now certified in Clifton Strengths. And now, you’re claiming it, but how do you aim it in your in your day to day? How do you take ideation and put it to work? What are you aiming it it?
Tanika: Well, the thing is, how I, and thank you for the question. How I aim is it, when I’m working with clients, I have a personal brand leadership coaching program, where I will coach you. It’s a 13 session program. And I will basically coach you through the development of your brand, and then I’ll help you develop a strategy around it. So I’ll help you focus on discovery, strategy and then activation. And so to answer your question, I just finished working with a client who just she just graduated from the program, and how I aimed it, ideation is I not only coached her, I also consulted with her.
Because as you know, with consulting we can solve. So I helped led her to her true, by unearthing and discovering, helping her to discover her why and really understand it and apply it to, you know, her life and her life transition to the client that’s moving from a CEO position to the chairman of the board position, only. There will be a transition. And I came up with helped this client come up with a number of options for the next phase of her career. A number of fascinating options. But I gave her a number of options.
One of them was to develop a book, and I came up with a number of book titles. It kept me up at night in the shower, my mind, I could not sleep. I came up with book titles, I designed the book titles, because I’m a creative. You know, more than an average coach would do. Because I had a lot of ideation that figured by presenting her with these options based on knowing her why was her and her why is one that, she’s a trust why. So she builds relationships based on trust. And if she doesn’t trust you, she’s not going to do business with you. That’s one thing.
And I’ve been we also did a Clifton Strengths because I understood her unique brand profile. And another thing that I forgot to mention is everyone has unique strengths with Clifton Strengths, no one is the same. And that’s so powerful. So in branding, you need to have unique attributes, you need to have what you call differentiation, you need to have something that’s different, we call it a discriminator, a unique selling proposition something. And how you describe yourself and your strengths definitely help you plug into that.
So one of the ways I helped her was because I understood her and her number one strength, Nicole was restorative. So she was the ultimate analytical, the problem solver and her number two was analytical. So she has had to have a problem to solve all the time. So and how I presented things to her was how she could solve problems. That was the filter. How she was going to serve someone a client or what she was going to do. I had to approach it as an angle and then give her a number of options as well.
So that really helps. I have connectedness. I think you have connectedness. You do I remember, okay. So people exceptionally talented with connectedness, have faith in the links of things. And we believe that there are few coincidences that almost every event has a meaning. And so did this client. So I basically found the linkages between our strengths as a way to connect with her to help make relevant ideations choices for her.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, one of the things that as I’m listening to you that I’m reminded of, because again, both Tankia and I we just got certified in this just like a couple months back. And one of the things that we did in our training was so cool. So you take like your first strength and your second strength and you brand yourself based on this first and second strength, right? Yeah. And you give yourself like a little name. So your first is ideation. What is your second one again?
Tanika: Belief.
Nicole: Belief. Okay, so did you give yourself a little moniker about your first and your second?
Tanika: I did it for other people. You know, I do it a lot for my clients. Like I totally pair them with their top five to 10 strengths. And unique statements.
Nicole: Well, I got one for you. I’m going to brand you. You can keep it, you can throw it out because you’re the brander not me. Okay. But like, you know, if you think about it, she she’s an ideation. But then she also has belief and it’s kind of like, she is a creativity evangelist.
Tanika: You know, right. Yes that’s awesome. And you know.
Nicole: Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Tanika: Honestly, I’m a brand evangelists.
Nicole: That’s right! Okay, so she already told me the okay, but I think I would change it to creation evangelist like, you gotta be rebirthed.
Tanika: Yeah, you’re gonna be rebirth. Brand evangelist is an actual term. It is an actual term. But the creation evangelist is not, so you have created a new one, Nicole.
Nicole: Okay. That’s how I see you, which is fantastic. Alright, so okay, so let’s talk about where we are. And like, what gives us our brand superpower. Number one is you figure out your why there’s nine why’s. Then you have your why now you’re all jammed up and excited. And you’ve got purpose, meaning in your life, and now, it’s like, how am I gonna live out my brand? How am I gonna, or how am I gonna live out my purpose? How am I live out my why? Well, I’m gonna figure out what my strengths are. So that’s phase number two. Phase number three is brand.
Tanika: Yes, well, okay. There are a couple of things. So those are the superpowers but I actually have a 12 steps to create your personal brand. But to answer your question, like, because I know what you’re asking me about so many years ago, I created something called a brand pyramid. And based, and what, my 12 steps are based on this methodology. And what it is, in my recent former life, I was a Chief Brand Officer for a major energy company. And I did build brands, for organizations, for businesses, for companies, and I go through a similar process.
So as a result of doing that for a number of years, people on brand love pyramids. Similar to and I know you’re super familiar with this, is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Yeah, when you were at the bottom, these are your basic needs, and then your physiological needs, and then you move on. And you become, when you go to the top here, you’ve reached self actualization. So I have a brand pyramid, and titled The Brand Rebirth Brand Pyramid, that helps you get your brand self actualized.
And when you get to the top of the brand pyramid, that is called your promise, like you have a brand promise. So it starts off and I could share a visual later. But with your core values at the bottom, understanding your purpose, your pre vision, or your vision 7.0, your, understanding your competitors and how you enter into the market, understanding your customers in a deep way, understand your value proposition, then your discriminator which is your unique value proposition, your brand personality and then gets to get to your promise.
So all what I do is really based on the pyramid, but I adapt it for you know, the situation. And so with personal branding, I basically have taken the pyramid and put them into steps. So you’ve gone through the first two steps. So you know with that being, understanding your why, understanding identifying or naming, claiming and aiming your strengths. Also, understanding your brand pre vision is another step which is your vision. And I encourage people or I help people look at least seven years out. I’m not sure if you use the BHAG Nicole Greer, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
Nicole: That’s an oldie but a goodie.
Tanika: And so I follow a similar construct and framework, but I just adapted it, I don’t go 30 years out with the visioning. I go out seven years out. And we’re helping people and we go through the brainstorming process. And you know, we started with developing a manifesto statement and ultimately get this pre vision statement. And then the next thing we do is we, the understanding establishes personal core values as well. These are all things that are part of your brand. And understanding your core values and identifying meaningful values.
Not like oh, customer service, oh, respect, you know, like some, you know, meaningful, you know, values that mean something to you that will. again, magnetize people to you. One of my magnetic values is 10, like the number 10. And it’s actually on my company website under core values. And 10 really refers to being thorough. Measuring 10 times and cutting once. And it came from my grandfather, who was from Trinidad, because my mother’s from Trinidad and Tobago, and he was a carpenter. And so he did a lot of measuring before he cut once.
Nicole: Wait, wait, wait, wait, what was his name?
Tanika: William Bernard.
Nicole: Oh, I love William Bernard already. Okay, keep going. I love grandpa names. I love them.
Tanika: He was a great builder. And, you know, he built all across Trinidad and Tobago, and some other islands like St. Vincent. But he built churches, he built universities, he always shared the value with you know, my mother and her 13 brothers and sisters, and all the grnds and the great brands to really be thorough. You know, it’s better to go slow and get it right, focus on quality. So there’s just another way, but it has a story. And that’s what we need the personal brand.
Number tonight for but 10 is the one that I’d like to kind of share with you. Favor is another value. I’m a Christian, I’m faith based. And I believe that God grants us favor. And I you know, I want that to be for my clients as well. I pray for them. I don’t, I don’t have to pull them into prayer. But I want everyone to do well. And I believe that blessings come from above. So that is something that I value. So these are things that are important because everyone, these are things that make you know me unique.
The totality, you have your other amazing values as well. So establishing personal core values is important as well as a brand. Also performing a SWOT analysis is something that it’s a good exercise to do that I do with clients as well. And it looks a little different than you know, looks a little different from a company, but definitely performing SWOT analysis and actually, the Clifton Strengths fit nicely with, you know, the strengths portion of a SWOT analysis.
Nicole: Right. So let’s slow down because there’s somebody out there that’s like SWOT, what? They’re thinking what the police are involved. No, no, no FBI. Yeah, she’s she’s talking like a business gal. So don’t miss this everybody. We’ve got a business gal on here today. Okay, so what does S stand for, W stand for, O stand for, T stand for?
Tanika: Thank you. Thank you, Professor Nicole.
Nicole: No, you’re about to be the professor.
Tanika: Know what I we’ve had conversations about your future professorship. So that’s why I said that. So strength, you know, so basically the S is for strength. What strengths do you bring. What you what are your strengths? So you can use Clifton StrengthsFinders to help you. And I did this for a client, and it was a great, great exercise. And then the the W is for weaknesses. So what are some things that we don’t do well, that you really need to improve upon?
What are some of the things that get in the way of your success, and when you think about your career. It could be a competency that you need to go further in your career or to get to the next level. Or if you’re a business owner, it could be something within your business line that you need or you don’t have. It could be resources, things of that nature. Opportunities are just that. They’re definitely they’re opportunities, things on the horizon that can help you grow.
So it could be professional development, it could be partnering, if you’re in business, it could be partnering from a team standpoint, as well. And then the threats are, you know, obviously those things that threaten your brand. Your competitors, your peers, there’s so many things that, you know, could be a perceived threat. But the great thing about the SWOT is after you have it, you have the data and you can make more informed decisions and do something about it. That’s it in a nutshell.
Nicole: Yeah, 100%. And the other thing about opportunity, because when I’m sitting here and like in my brain, my brain is screaming, oh, you know, all the people that are out there that want a better job, higher pay. And you know, that there are opportunities like mad out there right now. So as many of my listeners know, Tanika, I do recruiting. And I mean, people are looking for good people right now. I mean, it is really an employee market. You know how they say it’s a homebuyer’s market or a home seller market. Right now, it’s not an employer market. It’s an employee market right now.
And, you know, but people are like, well, I don’t know what the opportunities are. It’s just slowing your jets for five minutes and working with somebody who can ask you some questions like Tankia who can help you explore, what are the opportunities out there? Now, here’s the thing. If you are somebody who’s like, I know there’s something else I could do, or I could do better, I could make more money over here, do whatever you will you absolutely could. Now imagine that you had a resume that screamed your personal brand. I mean, this is going to set you apart.
Tanika: Right. You have to be unique. You’ll stand out if you’re unique. If you sound like everyone else you won’t.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. So so imagine on your resume, it said, you know, my why is to challenge or whatever, you know, this is my why. Yeah. And here and you put right on your resume. Here’s my top five Clifton Strengths. And then you went on to say, I worked at blah, blah, blah, company, here’s how I use them. I worked at data dot company, here’s how I use them. You know that?
I mean, as a recruiter, I would absolutely fall out of my chair, if somebody did such an amazing resume like that other than going managed a team. Manage the budget, you know, like, right, right, right. So I really want really want somebody to help me with that. Now, you’ve mentioned this thing, which I’d love to go down this little bunny trail with you for a minute, this thing of core values. You said, I can help people figure out their core values. And I loved your little story about William. Did I get his name right?
Tanika: Yes. William Bernard.
Nicole: William Bernard, who I love who don’t miss us, who built churches and buildings that house people in Trinidad and Tobago. I mean, hello, people, what a legacy this guy left behind, and 13 babies that he taught all this to. Okay, so that’s a good.
Tanika: One woman. One wife.
Nicole: And she is the saint. Let’s just get that clear.
Tanika: Yeah, my mother at 13 brothers and sisters. There were 14 total.
Nicole: Okay, so what was what was grandma’s name?
Tanika: Perline. Perline Bernard.
Nicole: Perline. Oh, my God, that you love her. You love her so much. Okay, she was pregnant half her life. Okay, so. So here, here’s the deal. So you sat down, and you figured out this 10? Now, tell me a little bit about your core value process? How could you help somebody discover these unique core values? Because I agree with you 100%. About three paragraphs back, you said people pick things like respect, honesty. I mean, these are very boring. And we can’t have that. We got to have this unique thing. 10, favor. How do you help people figure this out?
Tanika: Well, yeah, many ways. So from an organizational standpoint, I actually developed a masterclass on core values. I have eight masterclasses that I developed. It was a passion project going into the pandemic. And so these are on branding, but the same principles, branding up an organization. But the same principles apply to the core to the personal brand. And as a part of the process, I developed a core values guide with over 250 words to pull off of the shelf. Because I know everyone is not big in ideation, but an ideation person will find 250 words, and then categorize them in a special way, as well.
So there is a process that I encourage people to follow. I detail it in my consulting practice, but I can share that basically, you need to like group, you need to chunk the values, and then, and I chunk them for you actually. But basically, it’s kind of like going to a store, you can pull some off the shelf, to inspire you to think of some more or you can stop there with them. But the important thing to do is to find meaning, personal meaning. So I take you through a process where I create like statements, core value statements for each value, and I encourage you to do the same thing. You have to have a story for each word.
So instead of just choosing authenticity, I chose avant garde authenticity. Because I think differently. I want you to have that most original moment with authenticity. For me, authenticity, it’s about being respectful, relatable and real. And everyone has their own authentic voice whether they are an extrovert or an introvert or whatever the ordering of their Clifton Strengths profile is. Everyone has the opportunity to be avant garde to be new to be original in thought or something idea.
And I, because my purpose is to help individuals and companies boldly unleash authenticity, that’s what brand rebirth is for. I help to extract that out and make people feel comfortable. But with the core values we go through a process of asking you what you believe and what some really resonates with what’s important to you. And then I present you with some options as well and then we group you know their you know, values in terms of meaning and then find words that resonate with you but it resonates with your pre vision. It resonates you know, with your Clifton Strengths profile.
And before we, before we go deep, I try to understand how an individual determines success and if believe if they’re already successful, or they’re just a success. And all those things, help me understand you, and help you understand you, so that you can come up with values that are meaningful to you. Because you know one day, you might start a company or it’s beneficial for you that if you plan to stay within an organization, you want to make sure that their values alignment from a personal brands vision standpoint, and with the organization you work for. Because what happens Nicole, if you don’t have that values alignment?
Nicole: You got on the wrong bus, you’re going in the wrong direction? That is a problem. Yeah. And so I love what you’re saying about you got to have a story. And I just, that’s a big takeaway from me today. So thank you for that. Because I often will tell people, one of my core values is learning. Like, I love learning personally. Yeah, and that is one of my strengths, learner. So it I mean, it’s, it all kind of comes together.
And so here’s my story. I can remember I, my brother was nine years older than me. And I my mother passed away when I was little, but my grandmother kept like, came to the house, but she didn’t want to play you know, I mean, she wants to sit in a chair. And that’s okay. So I learned to play by myself. So I would line up all the all the teddy bears and the Barbie dolls and all the stuff and the Cabbage Patch doll. Okay, look it up people.
Tanika: I had one. I had a knockoff Cabbage Patch.
Nicole: Oh, okay. Well, I was blessed. I had a real one. But anyway. That’s right. So I had them all lined up. And I mean, like, I literally had like a little chalkboard and I would like have them do their homework. And I was so nerdy. I would like do their homework for them. Remember those pieces of paper that had the dotted lines and the lines, you would practice your letters, your cursive? Oh my gosh, I just would sit in there for hours and teach. And that’s what I do for a living today. I’m really I’m a coach and consultant, a trainer.
It’s all the same animal. Yeah, yeah. So learning, but that’s my little story that goes with it. So I’m gonna revisit that my own life. That’s fantastic. All right. Yeah. All right, well, Tanika, time flies when you’re having fun. And so it we’re at the top of the hour, almost here. And so, you know, people are like, no, no, no, one more nugget, one more nugget. So we need a Tanika nugget to take us out of here. What’s you know, there’s one special listener listening, and they’re like, give me one more thing to think about? What do you think?
Tanika: Could I do one thing before I answer that question? And I’ll plow through.
Nicole: Yeah you can. No, no, you don’t have to go fast. Go slow.
Tanika: I won’t go into deep explanation for the for the 12 steps. But I got to like number five. Number six is actually to determine the problem you solve. So there are many ways to do that. But think about your brand like as something like functionally. What do you do in your role within that company? How do you solve problems for your manager for your, for the company? What problem are you solving? What jobs need to get done within a company? And how are you doing that? That’s another, that’s one thing to discover. The other thing is to really define and analyze your target audience. That is good for personal brand as well.
Who is your target audience, who’s that target internal audience? Who are you speaking to? And you need to define the audience who that audience is, and you need to analyze it. And there are many different ways to do that. You should also craft your own benefits and reasons to believe. This is something that we do on branding a lot because. They’re not features and benefits. Like features and benefits, you’re like where they’re also, why beleive in me? What things about me should you know something you should know these things.
And all these things will help you in building your brand that’s gonna help you with your resume, they can help you in so many different ways. The other thing is to devise your channel strategy. So channel is just, you know, place where something goes. So like right now, thanks Nicole. This is a podcasting channel for me. And for us. Your website is another channel. Internal communications or you know how you use speaking opportunities within your company. These are different channels.
So it’s important to devise a strategy, because a lot of people think with branding, you just need to start promoting, promoting, but you actually should have a strategy for your personal brand and be really intentional. So if you’re going to blog or if you’re going to have use LinkedIn as a channel. How are you going to use LinkedIn and what frequency will use LinkedIn? What type of editorial calendar do you need to have for yourself? It’s a once a year, is it quarterly, what is it? But have a strategy.
And then activating. You have done all this. Now you can activate your brand. And what I mean is that you can push it out and develop content. Like we’re developing content today. What are you going to do to send your content, to push it. It can be you’re writing a white paper and you’re sending it if you’re a writer, there’s so many different ways. It’s not always about video. And then the last thing I will say is evaluate.
That’s with anything you do, with any career. You need to evaluate, because you need to make sure that things are working. So those are like, the 12 steps. And they, they sit in three buckets, discovery, strategy and activation. So but a lot of what I do is I sit in the discovery space, because once you discover you don’t have to keep going back to it. If you think about marketing, marketing is the push, branding is the pull. So this is a nugget, I’ll share.
Nicole: Oh, I love this nugget. This is great.
Tanika: So branding is about creating the magical pull. Drawing people to you, drawing customers to you, drawing stakeholders to you. There should be some emotion. Branding sits in your, your brain and your limbic brain. You know, it’s it’s an emotional type thing. Marketing is something that you put a time limit on, it changes often. So I might be pursuing podcasting this year, but if it’s not working for me, but I might need to pursue blogging.
And then I need to look at the metrics on that or a Facebook ad or something like that. But there needs to be a metric associated with it. And if there has to be in. When you create your personal brand, your personal brand should not change. I mean, how many times should we be asking people to do Clifton Strengths, Nicole?
Nicole: One. That’s it.
Tanika: One. Yeah. Once.
Nicole: And them claim it and name it.
Tanika: Exactly. And aim it. So you do all of these once. Marketing, you change you do often you try so many things, you push your brand through many channels. So I would say a good nugget is understand, after creating your brand, understand what you need to do to create the magical pull, and then devise a strategy so that you can push it out.
Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so the nugget is good definitions that maybe you’ve never heard before. The brand pulls people in and marketing is what you’re putting out there. Okay, that’s fantastic. All right. So let me let me do this. You probably are like, well, how do I find her, you go to www.brand-rebirth.com. Also, of course, she is over on the LinkedIn. She’s over on the Facebook and also on Twitter at brand_rebirth. So you can find Tanika in all those places and you can always message me and I’ll get you hooked up, hooked up. Tanika, I am so so privileged to have had you on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. Thank you so much for your time and energy. And we will hear from you again, I’m guessing.
Tanika: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It’s a wonderful podcast.
Nicole: Thank you. All right listeners have a great rest of your day.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@vibrantculture.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
