Rebranding, losing my nerve, and hiding in plain sight [honest share time!]

Well, hello. So you know how last episode which I admit was a little while ago now, there's been some really big gaps between episodes lately, I apologise. You know how I was saying, like, I feel like something needs to change I was kind of treating it like season two, I didn't know where I was going with this podcast. Well you may have noticed, there's a new name. So I did decide what I wanted to do. Welcome to the Seen, Heard, Paid Podcast, where we believe that success isn't just about what you need to do. It's about who you need to be. I'm your host, Kat Elizabeth. And each week, I'll be bringing you practical advice, honest stories and the occasional dose of tough love to help you go from industry's best kept secret to in demand brand. So you not only get paid to do what you love, but can build a platform that creates meaningful positive change, and inspires the people around you to do the same. Let's get into it. So welcome back, and welcome officially to Seen, Heard, Paid. It was time for a change. And I'm going to use this episode, I feel like we're probably going to go on a few different tangents. But I want to get you caught up to speed because as I've kind of been hinting at, I've had a really kind of interesting, slightly scary journey going on behind the scenes for a while now where I've been experiencing all sorts of shifts, making a lot of changes to how I run the business. But behind the scenes, you couldn't really see it. But I could also like sense that there was a change that was needing to happen, I guess, in the way that I show up in my in my brand. And as well as myself because we're talking about personal branding here. So I guess the first thing that I wanted to admit to you, by the way, I hope you'll like the new name. I'll explain it properly soon. But the first thing I need to do is get something off my chest, I feel like I've been hiding in plain sight. So despite the fact that I've managed to kind of keep sort of showing up this year, it's like I've been doing it in a very safe way, I've been phoning it in a little bit, which I don't feel good about. It's just I didn't know what else to do. And something that we are going to really embrace moving forward with this podcast is that we don't need to apologise for whatever we're doing, essentially, like I mean, unless it's hurting somebody, that's a completely different story. But if you're doing something that you believe you need to do, you're going on some sort of journey that involves you disappearing for a while or pivoting multiple times or, you know, just things changing, that is okay. And it has to be okay, if we don't make it okay, then we don't give ourselves the space and the permission to go through the journey that we need to to find the clarity to know what we need to do next. So I've kind of been doing this very, like big, like shedding of all of the expectations that I had for myself, all of the things that I'd kind of set in motion that I thought I had to see through and really went back to basics to go what what do I actually want now for for my business for my brand, for how I want to spend my days. So all of those questions, begin this like unravelling that classic, you know, when you pull a thread, and then it just keeps going. I feel like I started to pull that thread. I don't know towards the end of last year. And it's just been this like probably six or seven month thing of just like pulling and pulling and pulling. Well there is no there's no sweater left, just a pile of wool. And apparently I need to re knit my sweater. But it's been amazing at the same time. And the thing that I'm most excited and relieved about is I feel like I'm coming out the other end now. Finally knowing a little bit more about who I am and how I want to show up and the podcast rebrand is all part of it. So I better explain that first because I'm sure your just but why because it's funny like The Personal Branding Project it's it gets a lot of search traffic, you know people searching, if you're listening to this right now, there's a good chance you found it because you were searching for personal branding podcast. And I will try and make sure that that doesn't change. I'll use my SEO magic to to keep that happening. But I launched this podcast before I actually had the business that I have now. So I don't know how much you know about my sort of self employment journey but you know, I was a full time copywriter for a good four years before I launched this podcast, maybe it was three and a half years. I don't know time all blends together. But I was very much kind of in freelance mode back then I didn't have like I hadn't really put effort into building a personal brand and I started building a personal brand on YouTube but it had nothing to do with copywriting or marketing it was to do with acting. So, you know, once I started to really see where I wanted to, I guess the merge the two sides of my life in my career where it was like the the acting and sort of being more public facing and then like the behind the scenes copywriting, that's when I landed on the personal branding thing. And the first really like big step that I took was actually coming up with the name, The Personal Branding Project, and launching my podcast. I didn't, I don't even think I had quite figured out what my my service offering was going to be when I launched the podcast. So you can see how, you know, there was so little I knew when I launched this podcast, all I knew was what I wanted to talk about, you know, which is personal branding, because I love it. And I, you know, I'm going to be talking more about like, I guess reconnecting with why I think it's, it's just so important and really kind of sharing about some of the ways that it's really kind of changed my life building this brand for myself. But that, yeah, that podcast, that version of the podcast, that was me just figuring things out and just getting started. It's like, I started to feel like I outgrew it, or it just got stale. And I didn't feel like me anymore. Because I have so much more clarity and direction now like I have like an actual vision and a mission for what I'm doing. And I didn't kind of infuse that into the podcast when I launched it. The podcast was a total experiment. And I'm so glad that I launched it when I did not knowing much. Because I want to talk about that more today as well of just the importance of taking action in order to lead to clarity. But something had to shift. I've just been getting this, this overwhelming feeling lately that something needs to change, I need to do something externally, to really signify this next chapter in my business and my brand. And the podcast, the rebrand of the podcast just felt like the easiest, but also like the most significant thing that I could shift because it was the thing that started the whole journey. And so you probably already make the connection with the name if you've listened to episodes before. But if you're just joining me, so Seen, Heard, Paid is really a piece of my framework. So I have a five pillar framework for the strategy side of building a profitable brand. So it's get clear, get seen, get heard, get paid, repeat. And I also have a programme called Seen Heard Paid Academy. So it's like, it just kind of pulls everything together. The OCD and me really likes tying things up nicely with a bow. But also, this whole idea of getting Seen Heard and Paid like this is kind of the underlying thing that is like connecting us to becoming that in demand brand. Like these are the three really big things that need to happen getting seen is about finally being visible. And I don't just mean in like a traffic perspective, like, I mean, that's a huge part of it, you know, getting traffic to your website, and you know, getting followers, but also, because this is personal branding, we're talking about, I mean, being seen for who you are, and seeing yourself for that too. You know, not trying to become somebody else, but finally really embracing all of the strengths, the quirks the uniqueness that you have, and letting that be seen, which is a terrifying experience. Would you get like we're gonna dive more into just how terrifying personal branding really is. If you're doing it right. Ggetting Heard. That's like your next level. So this is where we start to embrace the fact that you have unique thoughts and perspectives and have like a view on the world. You have something worthwhile like you have a message and a story that is worth sharing. Yes, I'm ripping off Ted, the Ted tagline right now. And getting heard is like, I feel like getting seen believe it or not, is the easiest part. Like that's why it comes before get heard. Getting seen is like what I was able to do relatively easy like when I started building my YouTube channel, don't get me wrong, it took a lot of work. But the visibility piece is more about strategy like you can you can get people finding you Okay, and you know, you can create your Instagram feed and you can have a nice website and you can do all of that without having a tonne of skin in the game. But like that only really gets you to to like expert status. So the you know the go to expert if you've taken by the way for full context like and we'll probably do an episode on this next week. I really break down the the journey of personal branding into four phases. Okay, so you've got industry's best kept secret, and you've got personal brand in progress. You've got go to expert in your niche, which a lot of people think is the end game, but actually, in demand brand is the end game. So you can hit that go to expert status with just a tonne of visibility and just getting known for that thing that you're really good at. And that's great. But I really believe that the next step is the one where you actually start to change the world. Which for me like that is that is the endgame. It's not just about me, my life, my clients lives, I'm just trying to think about the ripple effect that I can potentially have. But that is not going to happen until I'm heard. So get heard is about developing that thought leadership. It's about standing up for what you really believe in and sharing things that you're scared to share, because you know that some people are going to disagree. And this is where you know, you can become a little bit more polarising, now everyone's going to love you anymore. But you're also going to then find your real people who are so in line with your message. So getting heard is about really embracing and living your values embodying your brand. And that is when we start to have a much bigger impact. So that is the get heard piece of seen heard and then paid well, I mean, I do want you to get paid to do what you love, like, come on, like if you can get paid to do this, if you were able to, you know, leave your nine to five or not have to burn yourself out because you're taking on so many clients because you're under charging, like whatever the in some way, there's a good chance right now you're being underpaid, even if you don't realise it. So getting paid is like this is the cherry on top. But when we go deeper into getting paid like this isn't just about you, when your clients invest in you, they're actually investing in themselves and their own transformation. And as long as your audience stay free as in like their freebie seekers, and they just keep consuming your free content, their transformation is going to be very limited. So that is why the end game as much as like it has, it's going to be fantastic for you to share lots of free value, you know, stand on a, I mean, I'd love you to, I want to stand on it, you know, a TED stage, and I want to write a book. And there's so much that I want to do and I don't want you to be able to do. But I know from personal experience and from clients experiences that when clients invest, they have skin in the game financial investment in their transformation, that is when things really change. So it's just as important for you as it is for your clients that people are paying you. So that is what Seen, Heard Paid is all about. And it's the whole journey of getting you there. And kind of circling back to what I've been talking a lot about recently is that my approach is not just about strategy, and I said it in the in the new intro, this isn't just about what you need to do, it's about who you need to be. Because I have been learning the hard way that like you can do all the things and you can get a lot of results from doing them. Like I feel like the first few years of my journey were about doing doing doing. And you know, if you look at my my following, like the downloads the subscribers, the followers that you know, like, I've got some really great evidence that I know what I'm doing. But there was this missing piece of me really becoming the in demand brand from the inside out first. And so that is why my approach with everything now is that those that three pronged approach of self belief, because we really do actually need to believe in ourselves and what we're doing. And sometimes this means we have to go back and figure out what stories are keeping us really stuck, you know, what are we carrying, that is, you know, really blocking us like if we've if you're noticing all sorts of self sabotaging behaviours, if you get terrified when you ask for the sale, like there's so many clues that we have some stuff we need to work through, like that actually has to come first, we have to remove those blocks and those stories in order to then be able to have a strategy that actually works. Because you can absolutely follow all the steps. But if you know you're not believing it, if you've got all sorts of those blocks, then you know, the results don't actually come. You know, you could have two people and doing the exact same things, you know, checking off the same to do list, and one of them has full belief in themselves and their worth. And then one of them completely doesn't. And so you're going to notice two completely different results. So that is why we have to talk about the BE-ing piece of becoming an in demand brand. The strategy piece is the logical one. Of course you're here for the strategy. Everyone wants the strategy. And I'm going to I'm going to deliver don't you worry like I am obsessed with strategy, I love it so much. I'm you know, I'm a brand strategist. But I just I'm here to kind of I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't kind of say that. Well. Yeah, like the strategy is great. I can give you the strategy but I'm noticing all these other things that might stop it from working. And then the final piece is support because we need a support system in place and it can take so many different forms from you know, emotional support, accountability, down to practical like team support, systems support, you know, automations, all the things that are going to help ensure that we can keep showing up and doing this day after day without burning ourselves out, you know, without it costing us too much. So these are those three, like those three elements that we're going to really be focusing on moving forward. And I've talked about it a lot in the past, like more recently, but we haven't really like doven, dived, I don't know, I have not had a like a strong coffee yet today. So bear with me. But we haven't yet really sunk our teeth into what these mean. And so I'm really excited to kind of just reset the whole platform and say, okay, this is where we're going. And if some of what I'm saying now is no longer resonating, you're like, No, I just want you to tell me what to do I just want strategy will then probably no longer the podcast for you. But I do ask you, like, maybe bear with me, you know, maybe just open your your mind, open your heart to potentially what could happen if we did things differently, because I always talk about this, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And if you are struggling, if you feel like you've kind of hit a ceiling, in your own progress with your with your brand, whether it's like the revenue, whether it's your followers, how you're feeling day to day in your business, then there's a chance that we need to do something different, because if we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, well, yeah. You know how that one goes. So I'm, I'm here to shake things up a little bit. And all of this is modelled on my own story. Okay, the the journey that I have been going on, so many of the shifts I've been going through over the last 18 months, in particular, have been internal ones. And then, you know, slowly, eventually, that kind of ripples into the external shifts, as well. And I'm really committed to sharing very honestly, with you. And it kind of brings me back to I think what I hinted at the beginning of this episode is that I really, I lost my nerve recently, I got so in my head. And I think it's partially because I could feel that i was growing and moving past where I was, you know, and I didn't want to keep showing up in the same way on Instagram on the podcast. And it was following all these incredible people. And I just started to spiral. And then I was just like, it's not good enough. If I'm not showing up and doing my absolute best then I shouldn't be showing up at all. And I really just psyched myself out. And that is also one of the reasons that I've not been showing up consistently. It's also because I've been just way too busy trying to work through like a backlog of work because it has been a challenging year with some, you know, health stuff and everything. But yeah, I really lost my nerve. And I've not, I've really lost my confidence to show up here and speak with you. And it's just been so funny, because nearly every single day for the last couple of weeks, as I've been trying to get my nerves back up, I get some clue from you know, the universe, like I get just like a random DM going, Kat, I love the podcast, like I need more. You know, people just really saying how much something is resonated with them. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, you need to just get over yourself and just get back on the airwaves. Because this is just getting ridiculous at this point. So I just want to say thank you, like those messages mean, so much more than you actually realise. It's very important because honestly, I started to think, oh, no, I'm at the point of no return, like maybe I should just stop just stop podcasting. But I actually love this. But I think it just had to really let go of my ideas of what success looks like here. And what I thought I should be doing stop comparing to everybody else. Because guys like this happens at every stage of the journey. Okay, so so many of my clients who are very early on, are so worried about what everyone else is doing. And there's all the comparisonitis but like you, I don't think you fully grow out of that. You just raised the bar for yourself. So I'm comparing myself to people who have been doing this a lot longer. And I'm looking at their success and going you should be there by now you've wasted so much time and beating myself up. I just wanted to be honest about that. So that you know, you can see it's it's just very normal. And to give you some sort of practical tips of what I've decided to do is that I have really taken it down a notch of like I'm unfollowing or kind of muting anyone that I'm finding a bit triggering, I'm listening to less than reading less for a little bit, I decided that I'm just gonna ease off in July and not be listening to like millions of because I'm constantly listening to self improvement, professional development, marketing, you know, all the podcasts, I've got all the courses, all the books, I'm just always consuming, consuming, consuming, but that is it really starts to kind of bog you down sometimes and you end up with just too much information and not enough implementation. So I decided to get the kind of switch the balance and get back into creating mode less of consumption. And also, I've been doing like the work that I am doing is more like journaling and meditating and trying to do stuff where I explore my own gifts, and find my voice again, and stop worrying about all the scripts and the templates, and you're meant to do it this way, you're meant to do it that way. And just just do it my way. And I, I'm always aware that the more me I become, the more I'm going to, you know, there'll be people who love it. And there's going to, I'm going to lose followers as well. And part of the journey is just really embracing that embracing the unsubscribes and the unfollows. So, that is where I'm at at the moment. I know, this has been a huge kind of personal, personal dump, I guess. But I also hope that it's helpful just to show you that. I mean, one of the notes that I wrote for myself is this journey is not linear. So even though, you know, in my whole, like, in a best kept secret up to in demand brand, it feels like it's this natural step, step, step step to get to the top, just like with strategy, it's like, Okay, well, it's like get clear, get seen, get heard, get paid repeat, it often happens all out of order, okay, like I had all these kind of success with the visibility, but then I had to go back to get this, you know, get clear step and make sure that was kind of nailed down. And then I was jumping ahead to this, and then jumping around to that, like, it's a constant adjustment. So don't expect it to be completely smooth. Don't think that every single step that you take always feels like it's a step forward or step up, you know, you are going to kind of circle back. But ultimately, I can see that all of these round and rounds that I've been doing, like when you zoom out, you can see I was actually heading in the same direction, it's just not this completely straight path. So that kind of helps take a little bit of pressure off. And also, we need to remember that like, is this really about the end game? Or is it is it about the process is it about the journey, like I I get so caught up in a once I'm earning this much money once I have this in place, but then it's just year after year of chasing, chasing, chasing and knowing that once I get there, I'm just going to have the next goal set. So really getting the focus back to enjoying my day, you know, actually waking up each day excited about what I'm doing and enjoying the process, making sure I'm only working with people that I want to that I don't feel any resentment about what I'm charging, you know, like really just focusing on enjoying now so that I'm not in this hurry, not in this panic that I just have to get there. I have to get there. Yes, like there are milestones are great and exciting but you know, if it's all just about, oh, I'll be happy once I fill in the blank, then we've got a problem. Like that's not sustainable. So now the focus is on sustainability and really just enjoying the day to day. Just go look at my notes and see what else. Oh, yeah, and one of the things so that that whole action leads to clarity things. So this has been coming up time and time again, I just so many of my clients or it's funny, like people who want to become clients, but are kind of stuck. Like they feel like they're not ready to become clients yet. It's because they're waiting for ultimate clarity about what they need to do before they make their move. And this is just not how it works. My YouTube led me to realising that I wanted to create online courses, that first online course and the failed launch is the thing that made me realise I don't want to talk about makeup, I want to talk about personal branding. The personal branding project podcast is what led me to really create the coaching business that I have today. And then you know, coaching enough people is what led me to end up redoing like I had a framework that I was using, I used to call it the personal branding blueprint now I have the in demand brand blueprint, they're two different frameworks, but I had to coach enough people to in order to find the clarity of that framework that was going to be the most helpful and then that's eventually led me to rebrand my programme rebrand my podcast like do you see how exhausting this is? But how if you can just kind of trust and just take the next step take the next move the answers come from the action not the other way around. I'm not waiting for answers to take action. Yes, there's a time in place for you know getting input from your you know, from mentors and coaches, taking your time like you want you want to plan before you know a rough plan before you do something. But just know that the most meaningful clarity comes from having done the thing putting it out there into the world and getting the feedback. I think I've mentioned this once before, but probably a very long time ago. It's buried in some episode but like you can't have the perfect online course until you've had enough students through it to give you feedback. And then you make the changes that you know based on the feedback and then you create you know improve the programme even then it's still never gonna be perfect but you know, a lot of people want to create the perfect programme and launch it ready to go like shiny and perfect and amazing. But if no students have gone through that program, how will you know that it's perfect, it's just your idea of perfect. So I think that is just the case so much with our brands is like we want to create the perfect content, have the perfect emails, the perfect feed, but without allowing ourselves to be messy and to experiment and to have real time feedback that will then guide the next thing. You know, that is the beauty of what we're doing. You can create a post and you can get the feedback and then you can post again tomorrow, you write an email, like it didn't get opened as much as usual. Okay, well, then it's probably going to show you that maybe that subject line was off, and you have the chance to improve the subject line next time. This is the journey. And this part can be really fun if you let it be fun. But if you see that every every single time you put something out there, if you don't get the result you hoped for you take that as a sign of failure or not being good enough, or then this is going to be exhausting. And I think honestly stop now, because it's not gonna get fed up. But if you can say that everything is just learning every single step you take every failure, every misstep, you know, every, you know, humiliation. Like trust me, there's just so many times where I've done something and just being like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. I think like, we're all so scared, like, I mean, I was kind of nervous about this relaunch rebranding, I was potluck part of me was excited. And part of me was thinking, what are people gonna think? Because there's so much to me that I've pivoted so many times, I've launched so many programmes, and then tweak them and relaunch them. And, you know, part of me is like, what are people just like looking at me going, Oh, my gosh, like, pick a thing, pick a lane. But you know, I'm just doing what I need to do. And you need to as well. So don't be afraid. Like, don't be scared of pivoting, of relaunching rebranding, shifting your message, it's okay. Just embrace it. If you're ashamed of it, though, everyone else will be feeling really awkward about it, too. So that's why I'm trying to just lead by example, wholeheartedly show up and say I needed to make a change. You may get it, you may not. It's okay. This is just me doing what I need to do. So, oh, this is a big one, I feel like I've barely drawn breath. I'm leave it at that. But I'm going to drop some hints about what we've got coming. So I am going to be talking a little bit more about the journey of personal branding. So I'm going to do a series on basically the journey from best kept secret to in demand brand. Because there are different things that we need to be focusing on at different points in the journey and not knowing which ones to focus on can really, that's where the overwhelm kicks in. And we can waste a lot of time and a lot of money. If we're trying to like for instance, do a go to expert activity, while we are a best kept secret. So I'm going to do a series on that. I've also got a series coming up on impact, creating an impact. And that's going to be coming up very soon. And I'm actually going to be featuring some really inspiring amazing people who are going to be talking about the different kinds of impact. So from stepping into leadership, creating a mission that's bigger than you are. I'm going to talk about just the the impact that comes from building a platform of your own. And yeah, so that's what's coming. So I'm gonna just stop talking now. Just leave it leave it at that. I'd love to know your thoughts on the rebrand good or bad. Thank you for being a loyal listener. And I cannot wait to really just like build momentum with you moving forward. And don't worry. I'll be back weekly from here on out. I'm done with my inconsistent recording days. All right. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.