Personal Branding for Senior Leaders with Alyssa Gelbard 

Alyssa: [00:00:00]

Mike: Alyssa Gelbard is the founder and CEO of Point Road Group, a personal branding firm that helps companies drive revenue and enterprise value. Through strategy, training, and coaching, they strengthen how leaders and teams come across every day because this influences whether someone chooses to do business with you, refer you, stay a customer, or work for you.

Companies across industries bring Point Road Group in when they miss sales targets, have aggressive sales goals, or are going through a time of change like scaling, M&A, or exit planning. Alyssa, welcome to the show

Alyssa: Thanks, Mike. Excited to be here

Mike: I’m excited about this. Elisa and I have a lot in common. we met because we are both, and I’m gonna sound like I’ve got a big ego here, but it’s okay, we are both award-winning Vistage speakers, and that’s how we met.

So, a- and we’re also, we also have three out of four New York sports teams in common.[00:01:00]

Alyssa: Three and a half. Three and

Mike: and a half, three and a half. That, so, so Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, and

Alyssa: Giant

Mike: Giants. If you’re a Jets fan, you have to also be a Giants fan because you need to be happy every

Alyssa: Makes a special kind of person to be a plus one

Mike: So, so all that being said, excited to jump in, and talk about personal branding and what that has to do with building a great company and a great team.

But we’re gonna start the way we always start. Elisa, from your experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?

Alyssa: Well, that’s an easy one to me. it’s communication. if you don’t communicate with each other, then no one knows what’s really going on. And I mean genuine communication, not surface level communication. If you don’t know what’s going on in each area, that means people are, holding information close to the vest.

That will affect problem-solving, decision-making, and everything else in the business. But that’s… But I would say communication from everybody, not [00:02:00] just from one or two people, right? It has to be balanced communication across

Mike: Yeah, I have a feeling that theme may come back to us when we talk about branding across the organization and, probably a lot of how that communication looks externally, but maybe some internally as well.

now your company Point Row Group’s tagline is driving revenue and enterprise value through personal branding.

now a CEO typically thinks of branding as company branding, and that’s a line on the, you know, within the marketing budget. So how do you connect the dots on that? When you say he- help us understand how personal branding fits into, to the company

Alyssa: So personal branding touches absolutely every area of the business, right? So wherever a person, wherever an employee is, that’s, their personal brand comes through. why is it important? So how you communicate and engage every single day, in person, online, what people see about you [00:03:00] if they’re looking you up online, all of those things, that influences someone’s in- interest in building a relationship with you.

It also gives you credibility, but building a relationship with you, that leads to building trust, and that leads to business. So whether it’s referring business, staying a customer, being an advocate, a custom- an advocate for your business, wanting to work with you in the first place, wanting to work at your company, and then ultimately even investing or buying it too, all of your actions and behaviors actually have an influence on that.

And your personal brand is, comprises so many different things. it’s not just one thing. It’s a lot of things together

Mike: So we’ll dive into that, but I think the interesting part of what you said, and when you think about it, it becomes obvious. when we think of brand, we typically think of company brand unless you’re a smaller entrepreneur, like I am, and my personal brand is important. For a company, we think company brand, but you know, no shock, a company is made up of people, so you start to think, well, [00:04:00] yeah, it makes a whole lot of sense that

Alyssa: And people

Mike: personal brand is as important as a company brand.

Alyssa: Right. It is. And

Mike: people buy from people, yeah

Alyssa: exactly. Exactly, and people do make the mistake and think personal branding is a part of marketing. It is not. Can it be a part? It’s part of every area of the business. every functional area and overall leadership, personal brands affect everything

Mike: So if we start with, and I know it doesn’t end here, but this show is about building a great leadership team, so I wanna start with the leadership team. If you think about the personal brands of the members of a senior leadership team, what are the characteristics that make a strong personal brand?

Alyssa: So I’ll even take a step back before why is it so important. Leaders model behavior for everybody else, so if they’re not paying attention to their brand, you can’t expect anybody else in your business to do it as well. So when you think about w- as a leader, what are some things that are really important?

Well, [00:05:00] how you communicate. Since we said communication, you said it would come up, I might as well lead with that one, right? How you communicate in terms of what you say, what you write, how you listen. All of those things are part of your personal brand, and having a strong… and paying attention, that is important of course.

And I can go into super detail about each area, but just top line, what your LinkedIn presence looks like. Even if you’re not active on the platform, people look you up there all the time. What are they seeing as leaders? same with your, if you have bios on your website, what are they seeing, in terms of before they’ve even met you?

how you introduce yourself. I think that’s a huge part of your brand. It’s one of the areas of missed opportunity for most execs. People, you know, lead with… and I shouldn’t say just executives. Across the board, people tend to lead with title, company, et cetera, and don’t really get into, more important things that, people should know, not just your title and company, right?

What are key things you want someone to know? Those are just… How you hold yourself, your executive presence is a part of your personal brand. Your actual [00:06:00] presence, your, kind of the visual piece, that style, what you wear, that’s part of your personal brand. That’s important too. Those, so those are just a few, I think.

certainly there’s more, but those I think are a few important ones for leaders

Mike: We, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go negative be- before we come

Alyssa: Oh, it’s so much easier to go negative

Mike: what… Yeah. We’re from New York, right? we

Alyssa: but for, from personal branding, it’s always you think of the negative side first

Mike: Yeah.you know,and we’ll come back around, I kinda noted all the things you said, and I wanna come back around to at least some of them.

But where do you think, again, thinking of senior leaders, where do most senior leaders unintentionally undermine their credibility, their personal brand, their presence? ‘Cause I wanna start with that, ’cause if those are the biggest issues that people have, let’s dig on those. So where do they unintentionally screw up their brand and their credibility?

Alyssa: I would say, let’s see, I’ll pick three quick ones, where that make it really easy to understand. So [00:07:00] since we mentioned LinkedIn, that’s an easy one. Like, I don’t need to pay attention. I’m not look- You know, a lot of it is they’ll say that whole old school way of thinking, “Oh, I’m not looking for a job, I don’t need to pay attention there.”

Or, or, “I’m not on there, so I don’t need to, have a good presence.” That’s easy. That’s a quick win, right? To get that updated. another is their, how they introduce themselves, right? It’s a missed opportunity when you’re meet… And granted, it depends on the setting, but there are certain things that you can say that really have you think about how someone else is taking it in and where you miss an opportunity to talk about, the value that you know, problems that you solve, the type of customers who you reach, a geographic area, certain expertise, whatever it is, that still can come out in a few seconds, but that can really have an impact you know, on an opportunity.

and then the third is, I would say, it’s kind of a part, it’s a subset of communication, and it’s two real easy ones, and since you said negative, I’ll go to the negative, which is, if you’re always late and if you take [00:08:00] forever to respond to emails. Those are two where that have, they set such a bad tone in so many ways.

You can miss opportunities. It’s not a good example for your team. It has an external impact as well. So those are just some easy ones.

Mike: So let’s actually dig in to those and now go more positive with what people should do about it. So what should … and maybe I just said I’m gonna start with the positive, but I’m gonna ask it in a negative way. For LinkedIn, what do you see as the single biggest mistake leaders make on their, on LinkedIn, whether it’s their LinkedIn profile or how they interact on

Alyssa: mistake? Ooh, a single one’s a hard one. can I say… Oh, God, I have so many. but I’ll say they don’t brand their, a visual. They don’t brand their banner, right? So it’s just something that’s not there, and they’re the, they’re a leader of the business. They have to be representing the business well because- Yes

yes, it’s your profile, but you also represent the business. headline, just saying [00:09:00] that kind of just title, and where it’s so generic it could be literally anybody. and I would say, and then, there’s probably a couple of other areas certainly. Having an, either not even having an About or an About that doesn’t read generically, and even having a headshot that looks like you today and that looks like a leader of a business, and that’s relevant and that would resonate with the people you want to be reaching externally

Mike: and why is, ’cause I’ve certainly seen, I’ve seen the LinkedIn w- with no headshot, which tells me they don’t give a crap about LinkedIn at all, right? It’s like I’ve got three connections, no headshot, and, barely, let alone a banner, forget about it. they don’t even have the headshot.

But why is for those leaders that say, again, sticking to start with LinkedIn, for those leaders that say, “Hey, I’m not looking for a job. LinkedIn isn’t important for me.” Or those leaders that may even say, “Hey, I get contacted by too many salespeople, so I don’t want all my stuff out on LinkedIn ’cause it’ll [00:10:00] just make it a bigger pain in the ass with people contacting me.”

for a senior leader of an organization, why is the LinkedIn profile important?

Alyssa: So yes, we all get contacted too. I would say, for a couple of reasons. One is, let’s go to hiring. When someone is looking for a job, they go to LinkedIn to look at who are the peop- what, tell me more about the business. Who are the people behind the business? Especially these days, people really wanna have some connection also, to understand the culture of a company, and they’re looking at people.

And so if they see a leadership team that has… doesn’t seem to care about their presence at all, they can’t learn anything about them. And what does that say about, to me, what does that say about a company and culture if you have leaders who, just really don’t care? I think what’s also important is even if you are personally not on there, actively engaging, you’re still a leader of the company and people are going to look there, not just potential talent, but also prospects or people who refer for business.

And it could be just, [00:11:00] “Look, I’m sending you an email introduction to somebody I know, and I’m gonna say how I know them, but I’m gonna embed a link to their profile so you could learn more.” And how it helps is not just being informative about that person and it’s your online credibility, and I believe right now it is the second most quoted…

I know it’s on ChatGPT, I don’t know about all the platforms. But it’s the second most quoted source, so, you need to be there. You should have a, a conscious presence. but when a… So when I’m sending an introduction to someone, it gives you some information and then if I’m looking at your profile before, I can see what do we, what might we have in common.

Maybe we worked at the same company 20 years ago, maybe we’re from the same area, maybe you went to the same school as myself, a spouse, a friend, a, a child, whomever. maybe we volunteer in similar organizations. I don’t know. There’s so many different places you can look for commonality, and I think that also really helps.

But for me, just, [00:12:00] I mean, the primary reason is overall credibility. You’re lead, you’re a leader of the business. This is should be something that you should do, and it’s not something that takes a lot of time at all, and it can be… of course it should be updated as you evolve professionally, but it’s not like it’s something you have to, you know, constantly do all the time to at least have a decent presence there

Mike: Yeah, and as, as much as, AI is changing so much of what we do, one of the things that hasn’t changed, I mean, when we, a few weeks back, whenever it was that we talked, of course the first thing I did before we talked is looked you up on LinkedIn. I mean, that’s just what people do before you talk to someone, whether it’s someone you’re selling to or someone that wants to sell you or a vendor or whatever it is, a potential, partner, employee, first thing you do is look somebody up on LinkedIn.

and so it makes sense that you wanna give that, that right first impression

Alyssa: Yeah. Yeah

Mike: Okay.

So you talked about, so we talked about what the biggest [00:13:00] mistakes were, and you talked about LinkedIn. you also talked about the way you introduce yourself. Talk a little bit about that and what, as senior leaders, what should we be thinking about when we’re introducing ourselves at a network event to a vendor, to a potential client?

What should we be thinking about?

Alyssa: Right. Now, granted, when you introduce yourself, depends on the room, right? And whether it’s one-to-one, one to a few, or one to many, it, do you have a commonality with people in the room? And then of course, that that can influence what you say. But assuming you don’t know somebody, or even if you do, what are the key thing…

I always think, what are the key things you want someone to know about you, right? Yes, you might say your title and company, but very often people don’t know what the company is. So what are the problems you solve? there’s different things that you can say. Maybe it’s an easy service, right?

Or an e- you have easy product where you can describe it. But who do you serve? Who do you help? Because if you are, especially in the example you said, Mike, if you’re networking, what’s someone gonna [00:14:00] listen for? So they know either how they can help you, who they can introduce you to. But also, I think most people default to something too short, so then it ends up being generic and then I don’t know how, I don’t know either how I can help you, how I connect with you.

or people go the opposite direction. They go, right, we know people like that, who go on and on, and then you tune them out because you’ve lost them. So, there has to be a happy medium, but what are the most important things you want someone to know about you? So then in your example of a networking event, they could then introduce you to somebody else, right?

And say, “Oh, have you met Mike? He…” something like that where… but where I see is people miss the opportunity because they sound generic. They just kind of have something short. And yes, there may be, and I’m saying, taking that off the table, sometimes there’s situations where we can only say a word or two.

But if you can say more, what can you say that makes you memorable and unique? And I don’t mean that sounds hokey or rehearsed with a, you know, tagline. I can’t stand that. But something that’s genuine, you know, to you [00:15:00] and that feels authentic to who you are

Mike: And that’s where I wanna dig in, because what I typically see, and I’ll tell you, I have struggled with this throughout my career, where, what I find is people, either say something like, I’m an accountant,” and that’s it. And it’s like, okay, where do you go with the conversation from that I’m an accountant, or I’m an attorney, or I’m a business coach, or I’m a plumber? But the challenge I have is whenever I’ve learned to do more than that, there is some formulaic, say, who you help and how you help them and result… and it all sounds really nice, and when I write it down, I’m like, “Hey, that’s pretty good.” But then when I have to say it, it sounds like a bullshit tagline.

And well, I’ll tell you what I wind up doing, and I think this is, i- in a lot of ways this probably really sucks, but it’s what I’ve defaulted to, is I don’t say I’m a business coach. I say something that I think [00:16:00] starts out interesting, but then I back out and I say, I’ll say to people, “I help build great leadership teams, but I wanna talk about you.

Like, what do you do?” Like, I quickly get it off me onto what they do, which

Alyssa: to, no one likes to talk about themselves

Mike: and so I think I start off by saying I help build great leadership teams. That’s, in my– I think a whole lot more interesting than interesting that I’m a business coach. Like, oh, like, and I should probably have something more after I help build great

Alyssa: A little bit because I think

Mike: but I just then throw it on them because I wanna hear what they do

Alyssa: Right. Well, ’cause that’s a good sales technique, of course. But,

but I feel like I should be doing a little bit more I feel there’s, like, a little bit more, but I think one of the things that what you’re saying, it’s nice to invite… You wanna invite questions, so, well, how do you do that? but yes, you could say a little bit more because they’ll, “Okay, great leadership teams.

Okay, what kind of companies? Where?” what size comp- I mean, I would have a million questions, but maybe I don’t have the chance to ask that, [00:17:00] and then maybe, okay, let’s say someone’s going around a room, and then we get, you end up talking to five other people, and I never got to talk to you, but I just don’t, I don’t know anything now, so I leave with there’s nothing in there where I might remember one thing

Mike: Yeah. So is there a, whe- when you help people with how to introduce themselves, is, and I hate to think of it as a formula, but maybe it is there a very specific

Alyssa: I don’t like formulas. I, I think it depends, ’cause it really depends on, your business, who you’re looking to meet, where you are in your career, your personality too, right? You can’t force… I mean, I think with anything with personal branding, nothing should be forced. Although, having a better LinkedIn presence I think is easy thing- easier thing to force.

But it can’t be in terms of your, all the things that come out in terms of how you communicate. If it doesn’t feel natural or authentic and it feels forced, then it’s gonna come out across as it’s not genuine, right? And that it’s not really you. [00:18:00] So I think there’s a kind of fine line between upping your game and kind of forcing yourself to up your game, but in a way that still feels comfortable to you and your personality.

So that’s why I don’t think, formulaically, I’m personally not a fan of that. But what I do, what I do and what my colleagues do is we really dig deep and say, “Okay, who are…” we ask those, some of those questions that you said, and other ones, and then you can start to pull out a more natural, comfortable way.

But, even start with just if you’re writing something down and you’re not sure what to say, what are the most important things you would like somebody to know about you? But also… Or excuse me, and also, who do you wanna meet? if you are, like if you’re talking about in that networking situation, who are the people you wanna be meeting?

And I’m not saying, “I’m looking to meet so and so,” but if you can talk about in some way in that introduction whether it’s a problem you solve or who you solve it for, whatever it… thinking kind of that one step ahead so people know, “Oh, [00:19:00] okay.” Right? Like in, for us, we work a lot with professional services firms and technology firms.

We also work with other kinds of businesses who, consumer products, manufacturing, et cetera. But if I, depending on the room, I might just talk about professional services, right? Depending. And at least that way, ’cause otherwise everybody’s gonna be all things to all people. And to your point, whether you’re in, whether you’re a general contractor, you’re a plumber, you’re an accountant, you’re an attorney, you’re in landscaping, it does- it doesn’t matter what it is.

Or whether you make,custom products. It d- it doesn’t matter. you have to, if you sound like you’re all things to all people, then people, that’s, you’re just gonna blend in

Mike: I’m gonna ask a question that I think I know the answer to, but I wanna hear how important you think it is and maybe some tips on doing it. but if you’ve got– you’ve got six people on a senior leadership team, and this goes well beyond the senior leadership team. But, when you introduce yourself, when it’s [00:20:00] more than introducing yourself, you’re in a conversation now, and people might be saying, “Tell me more about what you do, and who do you do it for, and how do you do that?”

Alyssa: Right

Mike: important is it that the leaders within an organization are all telling the same story?

Alyssa: I think it’s really important. Now, of course you can, you wanna… they’re not, clones, but it’s really important that they get on the same story because let’s say you are a prospect and they’re meeting a couple different people from the team, or you’re pr- you’re looking to work at the company and they hear different things.

Well, God, that team, they’re not on the same page. That’s a red flag to me if they’re not on the same page. So getting people on the same page is so important, and I think what tends to happen is why are they o- not on the same page? Well, often they join the company at different times, right? And they don’t under- they don’t even know…

It’s, a lot of it is you don’t know what you don’t know. They don’t know that they’re doing, that’s happening. And then of course, by the way, [00:21:00] when that cascades down to the rest of the company, then you’re in a lot of trouble, then you’ve got all these different messages going on. but I would, I will say, I go back to, okay, when was the last time you actually thought about kind of how you describe the company and then take it a step further and even wrote about it, whether it’s the about on your website or your sales materials or on your LinkedIn company page, like starts there, right?

Like if that says one thing, you’ve got your leader saying another, if that inconsistency basically has an impact on trust and if people don’t trust you, they don’t wanna do business with you. So to me that’s what it boils down to.

Mike: yeah, and this seems to me where company brand and personal brand come together, right? Is how, when you’re talk- how are you describing the company? and I’ll tell you, even you said it, people may be joining the company at different times, and I agree 1000%. and people that have been at the company for years, I coach leadership teams for a living, that’s what I do, and I will ask them all at different [00:22:00] points, “Hey, what differentiates you?

Like, what do you guys all, what’s the big problem you solve better than anybody else?” And out of a leadership team of five people, they’d all give different

Alyssa: Yeah. Yeah

Mike: all right, you may want to agree on that, because that again, if your, I would imagine if your personal brand a- and how you talk about the company is very different than the company brand, well, you s- I mean, that, that’s gonna impact your credibility.

So

Alyssa: 100%. and it’s funny that you said five people, ’cause that’s the example I always say to CEOs or heads of sales, “If we get five people…” To CEOs, “We get your leadership team together, five people from your leadership,” or to heads of sales, “If we get five salespeople together and we ask them to just, kind of describe the company problems you solve, how many different answers do we get?”

And that’s a problem. That’s a business problem. That is not a, “Oh, well, That’s a business problem

Mike: Right. And it’s a whole– That’s a much bigger problem than a– it is a branding problem, company and personal, but it’s a whole lot bigger than

Alyssa: And it’s easily solvable. It’s [00:23:00] not rocket science. Yes, it takes a little effort for you to alter how you maybe introduce yourself and talk about the business, but really, that is not a big pro- that is easily solvable

Mike: You mentioned before when you were listing out the parts of a personal brand, you talked about communication, LinkedIn, bios, how you introduce yourself. The last thing you mentioned was executive presence.

Alyssa: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Let’s dive into that. How do you define executive presence, and what should leaders be thinking about there?

Alyssa: So that’s a good one. So it’s an, it’s a hard one to describe, though. So executive presence to me is like that, it’s like that it factor, right? You know when someone has it, and you know when they don’t. And that’s also, I- it’s interesting, I’m sure you see this a lot. It’s also what separates people from becoming leaders.

Sometimes people will say,”Hey, we need some coaching for these high potentials ’cause we know they’re really great at what they [00:24:00] do, but they can’t go to that next level. They can’t go to leadership until they work on their executive

Mike: Yeah, they’re a little rough around the

Alyssa: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, so there’s a whole bunch of things that go into executive presence.

One, I think is self- kind of self-awareness, right? But it’s… Okay, so when you think about executive presence, people who, they have confidence, charisma of some kind. They, they can get people to, hear what they’re saying and get buy-in for something. they actively listen when someone’s speaking, right?

So they don’t just speak, they don’t just hear someone just to, “Okay, finish what you’re saying ’cause now I wanna go.” They actu- they engage, ask questions. They are attentive, too. So when you’re talking to someone, their head isn’t turned or looking down at their phone or looking anywhere. they are present with you.

I think it’s the ability to stay calm under pressure. I think that’s a big one. When… And pressure could be anything. It could be positive or negative, but, are they [00:25:00] calm or do they take it out on, lose their mind, take it out on other people? Do they get excited? Do they get short with people?

I think that’s another one. and especially you look to someone who has executive presence can be really helpful in certain- in times of uncertainty, right? Especially now. And if leaders don’t have it, well, we don’t know what’s happening with our largest customer or the CEO is leaving abruptly, or this is happening or that’s happening, you look to someone with, to leaders who have executive presence that keep you calm and feel, make you feel okay and not create, kind of add fuel to the fire, so to speak.

those are just a few. I mean, there’s lots of other aspects, too, but I think those are just a few to mention. I could talk about executive presence for a long time. But what’s also interesting is everybody has a personal brand. Not every… And executive presence is part of it. Not everybody has executive presence

Mike:

You mentioned self-awareness when you started talking about executive [00:26:00] presence, and I don’t know if this one fits in executive presence. It certainly fits in, at least internally, what your brand is. But I think it’s interesting,I think most… many leaders are not self-aware enough to know what their brand is internally in their organization.

And I’ll give you an example, and I’ll give you this example ’cause it just happens to be maybe my biggest pet peeve in w-with leaders, which is leaders that talk, and talk, and you ask them what time it is, and they’re gonna tell you a story from when they were a little boy. and I’ve had, I feel like on every leadership team, there’s someone I am fearful of asking a question to, because I’m gonna have to shut them up or they’re gonna take the next half hour.

I have a, and may I have a… My wife’s uncle, he doesn’t listen to this, so I’ll just say, Uncle Richie, I could say it. He’s never li- He’s,

Alyssa: Richie, you’re about to

Mike: c- he could barely hear at this point, but he knows how to talk. [00:27:00] And, like, the sto- the tr- the story could be, so I returned it. Like, that’s the story, and the way he will tell it is, “So I called customer service, and it rang.

‘Hello. Hello, how are you?'” And the story will go for 45 minutes. the actual thing happening took 90 seconds, but he could tell. So I have this pet peeve around people that talk too much. but I think the sad part of it is if they don’t have a coach around like me to point it out, and they’re not s- a lot of people aren’t self-aware enough to know that, they never know that everybody around the table is saying, “Oh crap, Mike is about to talk again.”

Alyssa: Right

Mike: So is there a way on a team that, people could either be more… Is there a way for people to be more self-aware or a way for people, should people be asking how they’re coming across? How do you– ’cause you’re not always

Alyssa: I got that ball

Mike: brand or your executive presence.

Alyssa: that, I mean, that all gets into coaching, right? should they be asking? It’s… [00:28:00] That’s hard, especially if you have one person on a team who’s doing that, but no one else is. Of course, then I, then my mind goes to how did they get there in the first place? And do they belong?

Are they in the right seat, right? Are they… Is that the right role for them? And are they doing a good job, it’s just that their communication, they just take forever to get a point across? Or is it something more? And that could be something, that could be obviously a coaching opportunity.

But I would always want to know, i- is there more there? and, you could ki- you could, do you change a whole dynamic of how, let’s say, meetings are structured just to accommodate that one person to say, “Okay, we’re now gonna do it where everybody’s got two minutes to present whatever their issue is and end,” right?

I mean, it’s, you don’t wanna change…

Mike: Ev- everybody’s got two minutes, especially you, Joe. You only have two minutes.

Alyssa: Right.

I, think it

Mike: I think what this, I think what this opens up, and I hadn’t thought about this before this conversation, [00:29:00] and I’m interested in what you think. I- to me, my, part of my coaching to a team would be you need to help each other.

Like, on a… Now, I just bring up one pet peeve of somebody talking too much. It could be someone who’s very negative or someone who interrupts a lot, or, whatever the challenge is. I would send a message to teams, and I think I’m gonna start sending this message to teams, is you have to help each other, and if there’s someone that is coming across in a way that is hurting the team or hurting your ability to do something or, something that’s not positive, then part of your job as a leader is to put your big boy or big girl pants on and have the tough conversation and help people become aware if they’re not already aware of it

Alyssa: Right. Right. I mean, that could be in the context of, maybe everybody, they- maybe they do 360s of each other or something like that. But I think, when you talk about someone who talks too much, and then you said, or it could be other things, right? [00:30:00] Well, that’s how they become known, and then that’s gonna impact opportunities for them.

Maybe it’s a speaking opportunity. Maybe it’s a future job opportunity. Maybe it’s an opportunity, I don’t know, if it’s a division of a larger company to go, you know, to be involved in, some type of, special task force. I don’t know. You know what I’m saying? Like, it impacts opportunities for them in some way if people think of them as a person who is X or Y, who’s always late, who talks too much, who’s really, who comes across as rude in emails, who doesn’t respond, who, is situationally inappropriate, isn’t good at reading the room.

any one of those particular things. But to your point, at the end of the day, do you wanna work with somebody like that? If you are leading a company, right, and you are responsible for where this com- you know, the health of the company and where it’s going and strategy and all those other things, if there’s somebody who’s detracting from it with their brand, then you have to do [00:31:00] something about it.

It’s one thing if, well, they kinda do this and it’s annoying. Does it… And does it have a impact though on your meetings every time? If the answer is yes, to your point, it’s, uncle talks just too much at every single meeting, and we– maybe it’s, and our meetings run late every time, or we don’t get to the full agenda,or, then that’s actually a problem that needs to be fixed

Mike: Yeah. And I think as a m- and I think i-i-it’d be easy to say, well, if it’s a member of the leadership team, then as a CEO you need to make sure you… And that may be true, but I think I, I would put it as a responsibility to everyone on the leadership team. If a peer on the leadership team is acting in a way that they’ve got this personal brand internally that…

and by the way, if it is someone that is interrupting or they’re rude or they’re talking too much or they’re not talking enough or whatever it is, i-if it’s impacting the senior leadership team, think about how much it’s probably [00:32:00] impacting their team

Alyssa: I know, I knew where you were going with that. And then, and that’s just internal. What about external? If they’re a leader of the business, they’re dealing with external, whether it’s in, doesn’t matter, finance, legal, marketing, operations, it doesn’t matter what it is. They’re, purchasing and sales.

They’re doing things externally. So if it’s happening internally, like you said, it’s happening with their team, but it’s also happening externally. People aren’t that, completely different, black and white, internal, external

You know what would be interesting an exercise as a leadership team for everybody to write down what do you want your personal brand to be? What do you think it is? And then have everybody else on the leadership team kind of say what they think everybody’s personal brand is and look So I’ll tell you, I do this exercise when I do CEO workshops, which is I use a platform, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard Mentimeter?

Mike: Yes. Yes. Like a polling.

Alyssa: So what you do, so you don’t know who’s… This way [00:33:00] it sort of anonymizes it, and you say, “Okay, tell me three words that describe the person.”

That’s it. So it’s anonymous, and they put- they type in their three words, and then there’s a big word cloud, and then you see what people think. And then if you see a word that’s repeated, the word is larger in the word cloud. And sometimes people say a slightly different version of the same word, but you can see it ’cause it’s visual.

So you can… In this way, it doesn’t put someone on, quite on the spot in terms of, “Oh, well, Mike, I can’t believe you said this about me.” This way you see it, and you take it in. And then what I ask whenever we do this exercise is, and we do it with leadership teams, as well as with CEO workshops, and I’ll say, “What words are surprising, if any?

What words are missing that you thought, would be there that aren’t, that you’d like to be there?” And if there’s words that aren’t there, then you wanna… What can you do to fill that gap, right? If I’m not… And of course, it depends on the room. I mean, sometimes you can do this [00:34:00] exercise with customers, you can do it, internally, externally, different types of folks.

and then you get interesting answers

Mike: I like that. ‘Cause it’s easy to say, “Well, our people need to be more self-aware.” And it’s like, yeah, but we could also help them become more self-aware by giving people more feedback, and I love that. I love

Alyssa: Yeah. Very often people don’t realize little things that they do that have the impact that they have on others

So part of it is just kind of shedding the light on it. I always say what we do isn’t rocket science, but it’s not things that people think about on a d- daily basis, that each thing taken by itself, okay, could be important depending. But then when you start to put them together and you get this whole picture of some- somebody, then it can be really important

Mike: So for a CEO listening or a senior leader listening that says, “Hey, I wanna upgrade how I show up and how my team shows [00:35:00] up,” starting Monday, “I wanna upgrade how I show up and how my team shows up.” Where, is there a best starting point for someone? Like, what’s step one?

Alyssa: I think, awareness. And actually we have, um, we call it an employee branding snapshot. It’s 20 questions, takes you two minutes, and you get a score. And it tells you, like, it ans- asks you some of the basic questions, and it’ll give you… That, to me, is a great starting point, ’cause it’s very clear.

Breaks it down to three different areas, and you’ll see. And then once you do that, then it’s like, “Okay, I see where I need to…” Because if you try to work on too many things at once, like for yourself as a leader, you’re gonna fail. Because I could tell you, I could tell you right now, Mike, “Here are five things that I would suggest you work on,” and you’re gonna say, “Okay, great, Alyssa

I’m gonna… that sounds great. Yep.”

Mike: hold on. I have five things to work on? Wait a

Alyssa: No. No. But you know what I mean, right? You’re gonna say, “Okay, this is great. I see the specifics,” and then you’re gonna go back and do whatever it is that you were doing, right before we spoke. [00:36:00] But if you do it in, like, doable chunks, I wanna work on one thing.

One thing. And if I’m… Once I get that done, then may- then I’ll get to something else. But if you try to do everything at once, epic fail.

Mike: So for, we’ll put it, we’ll put it in the show notes. Before that survey you just talked about, where… Is there a link people can go to get that?

Alyssa: Yeah. Yeah, we have it on, we have it on our website, but I can also send you the link.

Mike: Yeah, send it to me and we’ll

Alyssa: an employee branding snapshot. And we put it together, the way we created it was kind of exactly what are the things that we see all the time where there’s opportunities for leadership teams and for businesses and for individual leaders, right?

What are the things that we see time and again? And that’s how we developed the questions.

Mike: So talk

Alyssa: interesting, it hasn’t changed either over time

Mike: No, that’s not something that new technology or, war in the Middle East or none of that changes

Alyssa: No, exactly right.

we make and how we come across. I’ve been doing this for, more [00:37:00] than 15 years and it’s the same thing

Mike: Talk a little bit more about Point Road Group and all, the scope of what kinds of work you do and what kinds of companies and individuals do you do it for?

Alyssa: So we, as you heard, we help companies drive more revenue by strengthening the personal brands of their leaders and then their teams because it’s, leaders model behavior for everybody else. So we will, we’ll look at through, by assessing kind of where the company’s at, we might do executive, excuse me, executive branding for the leadership team, and then say, “Okay, from there, now how do we cascade that to everybody else?”

We do workshops on LinkedIn, we do workshops on communications, on executive presence, and things like that, right? And how you present. All of the softer side of kind of brands, but really that are the key areas for really that can move the needle in personal branding. [00:38:00] However, sometimes, as you, we talked about earlier, maybe that company message isn’t what it used to be.

Maybe we have some just very, kind of plain Jane, LinkedIn presence because we just, our marketing person just kinda threw it up there, but we’ve never thought strategically about how we’re coming across as a company. So we’ll do that too with companies, depending on where they are. We’ll do that work for them, that sort of foundational work, which I think is key.

W- and then we also work with individuals, on their personal brand if they, want some more individualized attention on really how to sharpen all the different ways that they come across, whether it’s, a bio on LinkedIn, whether it’s their communication habits, all of the different, their presence, all of the different aspects.

Mike: So yeah, got it

Alyssa: the type of companies that we work with, all different types, but like I mentioned, heavily in professional services and technology and then, and some others as well.

Mike: And is it mostly big Fortune 500 type companies, small companies, mid-market?

Alyssa: So it’s more, it’s really in the kind of, [00:39:00] eh, I would say in the, 10 to, like, 100 million is a typical, but we do have clients that are larger. If it’s much larger clients, then we’re brought in more for workshops and individual, personal branding. So we do work on the larger company side, but our prima- where we help companies move the needle is in that, that space.

And I don’t, I, I always hesitate. The reason why I hesitated is everybody has a different definition of lower middle market, Small business. Everybody’s got… I always ask, “What does that mean?” So that’s why I say

Mike: why we have to talk revenue numbers, ’cause I spent, the first 15, 16 years of my career as a management consultant

Alyssa: Mm-hmm.

Mike: for Accenture, for Deloitte, and a small company was anybody below $5 billion, you were small.

I have some different definitions, these days, which are closer to the way you define it.

So if people wanna find out more about you, more about the company, and I guess probably the same place they’d access the survey you mentioned [00:40:00] earlier, where should they go?

Alyssa: Sure. our website, pointroadgroup.com or on LinkedIn, and whether it’s the company’s Point Road Group or me, Alyssa Gelbard. And I have-

Mike: and you better have a good banner on LinkedIn or

Alyssa: Mine is branded. I promise it is.

Mike: It better be.

Alyssa: It is. Gosh, if it wasn’t, I’d be in trouble

Mike: Well, this is great. I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. We don’t often think about personal branding as part of that, but hopefully, Alyssa has convinced you, she certainly convinced me, that it is.

So, again,

Alyssa: I haven’t and still don’t think it’s important, call me or email me

Mike: There you go. or we’ll have to do a second podcast and go even deeper. but, great stuff. Really appreciate it. Lisa, thanks so much for being on today

Alyssa: Thanks, Mike

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