Your Personal Brand Matters to Scale Your Business | Drea Buer

Mastering Social Media Branding with Drea Buer: Insights from Respect the Brand

In this episode, Shawn welcomes Drea Buer, branding expert and founder of Respect the Brand. Drea shares her journey from various jobs to becoming a successful branding professional. The discussion covers the importance of personal branding, tips on content creation, leveraging social media platforms, and maintaining authenticity. Drea provides actionable advice on how to effectively use social media for business growth, tapping into platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Listeners will also learn about Drea's podcast, 'Before You Knew Me,' which emphasizes the significance of sharing personal and business stories. Tune in for practical strategies to boost your social media presence and generate business through authentic branding.

Learn more about Drea Buer at:

www.respectthebrand.com

https://www.instagram.com/respect.the.brand/

00:00 Navigating the Niche Dilemma
00:26 Introducing Drea Buehr: From Sales to Branding
03:06 The Journey to Personal Branding
05:42 The Power of Authenticity in Social Media
10:16 Balancing Authenticity and Professionalism
15:55 Content Creation Strategies and Hooks
23:44 Choosing the Right Platform for Your Audience
31:58 The Ever-Evolving World of Social Media
32:14 The Power of Social Media for Business Owners
33:04 Building Connections Through Social Media
34:28 The Importance of Personal Branding
35:20 Creating Engaging Content
36:33 Leveraging Social Media for Business Growth
39:10 Overcoming the Fear of Social Media
46:43 Tips for Effective Video Editing
49:49 Utilizing AI Tools for Content Creation
51:22 Drea's Podcast and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

 You're always pressured into finding like what niche you are and being able to speak to this exact target audience. And sometimes that's not the right route. Sometimes it is. It is a matter of having a conversation with whoever it may be to learn, do we go this route or do we go that route? But in all reality, the strategy is still the same to be able to move forward.

It's just a matter of how. You do it. It really is a matter of finding out 

personal brand expert, social media pro, marketing genius, overall amazing woman, and a friend of mine, Drea Buehr, founder of Respect the Brand. I'm so excited to have you today. Before becoming a branding expert, What was your career path like, and what made you pivot into this space?

Oh, my word. Thank you so much, Sean, for having me on here. And that is a loaded question.  I'm like, where do I even start? Do I start with the 31 jobs that I had prior to finding my career in sales? Or  I will not bore you with all those details. If somebody wants to come at me and say, what are the 31 jobs?

I'm happy to tell you, but come message me individually, but it was great character building, great learning experience. And as we all probably know today that our whole life is just full of sales. And so when you sit there and you think about that and you don't really think about it until you go into a sales career, I really started the career through my brother.

And many people know Ray has. with property milled, super proud of him. He was the 

tech mogul Ray Heston,  

and he is a. Special human being but he actually they were just starting out the company, right? They've gone through a couple sales people. They were trying to find out who's gonna work and that well It ended up that he saw a spark in me in order to you know Fill that role for them and we would have a conversation here and there but I can very much remember sitting on the floor in my kitchen and Spearfish, South Dakota.

He was in Rapid City, South Dakota, by the way. So like in 50 minutes away, and I'm sitting there talking to him and all of a sudden I get off the phone and I talked to myself saying, I think I just accepted a job without realizing it. Like I feel like I was zig zig lerd into accepting this job that I didn't know I accepted.

Like he was so into Zig Ziglar at the time and it was like, ah, learning so much via sales. I had to legitimately call him back and say, did I, I need to know that we're on the same page here. Did I just accept a job and didn't realize it? And that is where the story started. I mean, he's the reason I even got into the property management space.

He's the reason I even thought I could have a sales career. He's. You know, the reason I know so many of you today, and quite frankly, it was an awesome journey. I think you wanted to know what brought me to my business through all of that. Is that, was that the other question? 

Yeah. Like what you got, what got you into the branding space?

Okay. 

Yeah. Okay. So that's a, yeah, a whole different animal there before property meld, I actually moved down to Texas and I didn't know a soul there. It turns out that my face actually broke out while I was down there. Terrible Texas weather. I blame it on their atmosphere. And I ended up working as a vet tech.

And then one of the vet techs was selling Rodan in fields. And so she's like, you need to try this. And I said, okay. And I did. And it helped. It literally healed my face. So in that sense, anybody who's in sales anyway, when you get to use something and it actually works, like you have this product to stand behind and say, I'm an example, right?

And I was like, okay, cool. It's an MLM, you know, type of a situation. And I became one of their consultants, well if you got so many people to sign up under, you basically paid for your product. And I said, why wouldn't. I do that. And I didn't know a soul in Texas. I didn't know anybody around me to just go knock on doors.

And so I leaned into social media at the time. That's really where it all started was telling my story about. My face issue and the solution that I found and then everybody just through my story telling my story through social media Was like, oh my gosh, I need to try this or hey Do you think it would help for this or that and that I mean that's really where the social media Branding even started like diving into that personal branding world and my family is full of entrepreneurs and so my dad has a has been excavating business that he's like retiring out of, I keep trying to get him to sell me the company and he just won't let it go yet. 

And then he also had the Hespin Herfords at the time. My brother has two companies himself. Brady has started multiple companies. My husband, I mean, throughout all of their entrepreneurial spirits, I was able to like really dive into what social media can do for them, all based. On what I was able to do through Rodan and Fields.

That's where it all started. 

So that experience planted the seed, if you will, to, and you probably saw that. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm guessing that you really saw the potential of what strength social media can bring, especially when you have a transformational story, like you you're experiencing some issues with your face and then you use a product and it cures it or solves the problem.

How do, how do you like coach people through that? Type of transformational journey when you're talking about how they should build their brand. 

Oh man. Great question. You know, it's funny because everybody is like, what's your niche. And I just created a video about this, of being a multi passionate person.

It's not out yet, but it's a very real thing. I'm a very multi passionate person. Like how do you build that into a brand? Like I love to do this, but I'm also working this and this is who I am. I mean, when you really look at all the full facet of who you are, that builds. You're entire brand identity. And the nice thing that I was able to learn through being able to help my family, you know, expand on their businesses was that the strategy is always the same.

It doesn't matter what niche you're in. And when I started into, when I started into the actual business of mine through lots of encouragement through mentors in the. space, uh, family, et cetera, you're always pressured into finding like what niche you are and being able to speak to this exact target audience.

And sometimes that's not the right route. Sometimes it is really, it is a matter of having a conversation with whoever it may be to learn. Do we go this route or do we go that route like one or the other? But in all reality, the strategy is still the same to be able to move forward. It's just a matter of how you do it.

It really is a matter of finding out who you are as a person, how you want to be perceived. I talk about often that even if you're Not actively on social media like building out a personal brand. You're still posting things on there You're still building a reputation whether you know it or not therefore you are building a brand that people see and when they see that Similar thing that you're posting about they're thinking of you, right?

That's all about building the personal brand So it's how you want to be perceived who you are as a person and the one thing that I am adamant about is like not being Just one lane focused. I do believe that everybody is here on this earth for a reason and they have a purpose and they have an opportunity to make an impact through their network, whatever that may be, and really diving into who they are as that person and bringing that out of them as well as what they can offer for the business.

Cause like you said, when, when you think of sales, like it's not.  I just had this conversation with somebody else the other day. They're like, don't say sales. And I said, are you kidding? I'm proud. I am proud to be a salesperson because I wouldn't be working for anybody if I didn't believe in their product, in their service.

I wouldn't have my own business if I didn't believe in what I could do. And I've seen it for myself, right? And so having that opportunity to really express and educate people of the solution that you have to make their lives better, that's over here as well. Also being able to show people who you are as a human, and you're not just a template.

You know, can the template going out there and it doesn't hold any weight. It doesn't hold any emotion. 

I love that. I think, you know, there's a lot to unpack there, but I think one of the biggest things that social media provides is an opportunity to impact more lives at volume. So whatever content you are.

Providing in the marketplace, it actually has an opportunity if it's used properly to impact more people for a positive goal or a positive gain. And I think, so, so one of the things that wrapped my head around are like, why would I even want to produce any content was a few years back, Kristen and the kids, my wife and the kids gave me a journal.

That said, uh, it's basically for your kids to be understand what journey your, your father has gone through in their life and to journal the, you know, these life events and, and those things that like who makes, or what are the things that made you the person you are? And I heard, uh, Patrick bet David once.

One time say the reason that you should do content of some foreign long form podcast, you know, do videos or whatever is so that you can pass on that knowledge to your kids. And I was like, Oh, that's the light bulb moment. I actually needed to hear because like, if it's for just the world, it's hard to understand what impact you're making besides views and subscribers and all the jazz, you know, those vanity metrics that there are, but to actually have like a library of resources.

For your children to access, to understand who their father or mother, whoever is. I thought that was really something that took me to that, you know, to get past that little thing. Now, I want to ask you, you mentioned something that, that seems like there is a balance or maybe a line that gets crossed or could get crossed between what we want to put out the message that we want to put out, but not to, to drown out authenticity off. 

That was the buzzword of 2024, right? 

How do you, how do you coach people in balancing that? Like there's a line that gets crossed sometimes. Obviously you want to be authentic, but you also don't want to be like, you know, showing your dirty laundry. 

Absolutely. Yeah. And actually I think I'm going to take that a different direction than probably what you're expecting.

Maybe in the sense of like, I don't really look at. I honestly have never thought of somebody airing their dirty laundry on social media, you know, so that's why it's like, not even really gonna attach, like, take that direction. 

What about like extreme political comments? Oh, 

I have, yeah, I got an experience of that too, but let me, I don't want to forget that, I'll tell you.

But when it comes to somebody on social media actually being authentic is the hardest part for them They would rather put out the templated stuff that they don't have to be in that They can just try and like ease through and don't get me wrong any  Anything on social media is better than nothing But i'm almost afraid to say that because if you are just posting to post It's not going to get you super far like it'll give you  Like it's not going to give you nothing, but it's not going to push you towards the goal that you're looking for.

And so I actually have to come in a lot of the time is it's like, what did you do with your dogs today? You know, did you do anything with fun with your kids this weekend? Like let's get some life out there. Let's show people who you are a little bit.  the business because people can, they can record. Well, they can.

They can record all day about their business, because that's like their world, they're living in it. There it's what they're most comfortable with, but it's really uncomfortable to share life. And so I probably do more of the coaching on. Hey, let's. Show who you are as a person, as well as being able to do the easy part of like talking about your business and what you have to offer because that's just second nature.

But to be authentic and be vulnerable and put yourself out there, that's where people get stuck. And lo and behold, once you start putting your life out there and you are being authentic, you quickly learn that people aren't judging you. They love you and they want to support you and they want to see your life.

And. So that, I think, is where most people get stuck, rather than, you know, really erring on the side of dirty laundry, for sure. On the political side, that's just a game that you choose to play, honestly, and you're not wrong for it, you're not right for it, it's indifferent, it's who you are. Uh, the political side, I, I guess, anymore, like, showing your faith out there is so political to some people, and whenever I started my business, I felt like I had the f Freedom to share about my faith and my journey and christ and all those things and I did not feel wrong for it at all I want to and I want to bring everybody to christ that I can and if that's through social media I'm gonna do it.

Nobody can tell me different but that also you have you get to choose if you want to do that because if you are Say you are talking about the politics of Republican and Democrat. You're taking a gamble because there are people who aren't going to want to work with you based upon those.  And the same thing with my Christian beliefs.

I mean, if they don't want to work with me because of my Christian beliefs, then that's okay with me. I'm willing to take that gamble, you know, and I will never forget. It was when I first started at property meld and I think we were in Coronado. Maybe it was somewhere in California. Maybe it was Arizona. 

It was a NARPM event. It was 

a NARPM event and maybe it was in Arizona, but. I had a lady come up to me and she knew I was Ray's sister, you know, but Ray, at the time when he was on Facebook, he would post politics and everything. And this gal comes up to me, she says, I'm really interested in property mail, but I just, based upon, you know, what Ray was posting politically, she did not want to have a demo with him, but she would have a demo with me.

Now, my political views probably aren't that far off from my brother. Like we grew up in the same house, right? But as a fact that I was not just pushing it out there and making her uncomfortable in that sense. I mean, that's really what it is. And so she felt comfortable in having a demo with me. So, I mean, that's, it's just a pick your poison, right?

Like if it's very important to you to be political and that is the case, you will draw people that are aligned. With your values, but you're also risking people not wanting to talk to you because of them. So it doesn't make you right doesn't make you wrong You just have to understand that there are either rewards or repercussions that come with it 

Yeah, and I think there actually can be rewards in it in the sense that you are aligning Your message with maybe your ideal customer. 

Um, yeah. And you know, if you, if you have alignment with the, the morals or the, you know, whatever, yeah, I guess I would call them the morals of, of your stance. Then, uh, then it's, it's more than likely that you'll have a common ground to, you know, accelerate a business with, or, you know, a relationship with and so on.

So, yeah, thanks for talking through that. Now let's shift a little bit to the tactics, you know, so often you hear in the. Content creation space that, you know, we have about three seconds to capture somebody's attention and attention is the, it's more precious than gold attention. You got to have someone's attention because everybody's vying for someone's attention.

And therefore, as a content creator, we need to be highly respected. Full of other people's attention when they are, you know, an audience. That's the flip side of it. So how do you coach someone to like, you know, those nice short choppy videos that are just point, point, point, point, point, and you're getting, you know, a higher retention rate in that or versus that raw, we're just talking, it's kind of laid back and that's just who I am.

What's, you know, when is the time for each? Whew.  

That is a very hard question to answer because. There is time for each. So originally, whenever I start working with anybody, it is a matter. And that's why I tell them like, this is not a, this happens overnight ordeal. It is a matter of your trial and error.

You might do the super choppy and it works great for you. You might do the super long and all of a sudden you went viral, you know. So, depend upon the context, depend upon your topic, your industry, depend upon who you are. It is going to be different for everybody. And so you have to play with the different variables of the content that goes out there.

And I guess the best way to do that is go scroll through whatever feed you want to. I typically lean towards Tick tock nowadays, but honestly, tick tock is setting the algorithm for every other platform out there at this point. I know there's so many people that are like anti tick tock, but as I was talking to you earlier, I have a property manager, absolutely just crushing the tick tock game and you wouldn't think that property management is sexy.

Can we say sexy anymore these days? Is that PC? I don't know.  



It is the boring businesses are the most.  

I was just thinking of the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama, but you might not know that if you're not on TikTok. But 

glimpse every once in a while on X. How about that? There you go. 

  📍  I have a belief that we are one conversation away from changing our lives. This is why I love this podcast. I get to talk to really amazing people. And I love being curious about their lives.  We're all about helping as many people as possible. And we can make a huge difference by passing this along to anyone who might need to hear this. 

Can you do me a favor and share it with someone in your circle? You never know, your simple share could be the spark someone needs to make a big change.

Thanks for helping us spread the word and for being a part of this journey. 📍  

   📍 But TikTok really is setting up the algorithm for all the other platforms because of the way it is set up.

But that to digress back into how do you decide what type of content to make and keep people's attention, you have to scroll through, see ones that you're drawn to, maybe it is the long form content, maybe it is the splice, maybe it is the ones that you spend all day creating, uh,  that are How I'm popping in here and popping over here, like waving over here.

And it's just like jumping you to different places. Maybe it's the dancing videos, you know, maybe it's the recreates of the, the voices, the songs, you know, stuff like that. There are so many, but not all of them are going to feel aligned to your person. And so like, if you chose. Three, maybe you choose five.

You're like that caught my attention. I'm going to write that down. That's going to be one that I try, right? That one caught my attention. I'm going to write that down. I'm going to give that a try. I love 32nd dance videos. Like I love to do 32nd dances of my own. I'd love to bring that into my. feed one of these days.

I just haven't. But what is easiest for me is to be sitting right here and having this conversation with my camera, right? What's easiest for me is to do a selfie here. What's easiest for me is to put my phone up on a tripod while I cook. My eggs in front of everybody showing them how much money I have these days because I have three eggs, right? 

You are 

rich i'm so rich. Yeah, so that's what's easiest for me That's what's aligned to me and I like that I also do like, you know Just bringing my dogs into it making it a little fun Like I love having the little microphone that I talk into So there's like four of mine already that I feel aligned with and you will see all of those on my social media.

So when you're scrolling through of what you like, what captures your attention, you're writing them down, you're taking note, you're trying them out on your feed yourself because your audience is different than my audience. And it wouldn't even matter if you were in the. Same industry as me, this doing the same thing with me, your audience is still going to be different than mine because of who you are.

And that's where the authenticity thing comes into play that so many people are uncomfortable with because it is very vulnerable. If my hair's not done that day and guys don't have to worry about this as much. If my makeup's not done that day, if I haven't washed my hair and I have to wear a hat because this is the second time we have to record this, Sean, that is  going to be the case. 

You have to do something that you're willing to recreate. You don't have to just follow the dancing trends and make yourself super uncomfortable to learn the dances. You do not have to. So that would be my first part of advice of picking those. The second thing Hooks. Hooks, hooks, hooks, hooks, hooks. How many times have you seen hooks?

How many ti Do you even know what that means anymore? Because there's so many 

Three seconds. You got three seconds. Ah, yeah. 

So, now, the thing about hooks  is you got your visual hooks. You've got your sound hooks. You've got your written hooks. You've got your verbal hooks. Like there's so many hooks. I did a video just recently too.

I'm going around my house doing visual hooks. I'm like, this is a hook. This is a hook. This is a hook. This is a hook. So 

did you feel like you were fishing? Yeah, 

well that, and it's like, try to say you put them together and it's like, you just sound like a broken record for sure, but it is important.

They're all important. You can put them all in there at once. You can put one in at a time. Again, it's going to be a matter of trying them out. Like, what is your audience loving and what are they not loving? So you have to pick a lane. You go in that lane for two, maybe three weeks. And then you do an audit of your content.

Did people like this? Did they not like this? And I'm not saying that it has to go viral in the sense of like, Wow, I just got 10, 000 views or 1, 000, 000 views. That doesn't mean that's viral. Viral means if you are consistently getting 20 views on your content, and then all of a sudden you got 300 views on this piece of content, that's viral, okay?

Like, it doesn't mean you have to all of a sudden get 30, 000 followers. Like that's not the purpose. And I'm trying to, trying to bring it all together for you. When you're looking at your own content in your own lane, you don't have to compare yourself to everybody else to see what is happening for you.

So if you are getting 200 views and all of a sudden you get 300 views, that was a hit dissect that piece of content. Try out the one thing that you think might have been the hook or you know, one thing that people might have liked the way it was recorded, whatever the case, but it is a matter of trialing, picking first trialing, and then dissecting, and then trying again.

So you're constantly evolving and that is the thing with social media, you're  you. We'll never be able to just stick with one template forever. You are going to have to always evolve with social media because my gosh, how many times has that evolved even over the past three years? 

And the algorithms are always changing.

Let's take a step back before that even. So we've talked about the hook. That's grabbing someone's attention within the first few seconds and then maybe some hooks throughout the video if it's long form especially. What about the packaging? I'm a firm believer about like if it's not  It doesn't have intrigue or some reason for me to click that.

I'm not, I'm just going to move on. Right. The content of the video might be phenomenal, but I'll never know that because if I don't have a thumbnail and a title on it, I don't know how TikTok really works on that. I think, I assume it's like more like Instagram, but Instagram allows you to do a thumbnail.

What about the thumbnail? And what about the title? Should those match? Should they not be the same words, uh, but have the. Same theme that's pointing somebody in the direction of the content so that that the content is satisfying the audience's Perception of what the thumbnail is right and so on break that down a little bit.

The answer is yes and no  You wanna know why 

you wanna know why the answer is yes and no because it depends on what platform you are in Like when you're talking about what you just told me you were probably thinking of YouTube, weren't you? 

Well, yeah, that's that's true Yes Called it.  Well, I mean, I think Instagram has a, I mean, yeah, Facebook really doesn't have that element at all.

They do, but it's 

not, it's not a big deal. Like it is on Instagram or it is on YouTube. TikTok has the opportunity to again, not a big deal. Honestly, every platform is. So different and linkedin like videos are great But on linkedin like you could write a book and that's gonna get more views  Like you're writing out this long like business to business conversation and people are reading that on linkedin versus going and watching your video So every platform is different but to the platforms that it does matter Yes, the title does matter.

On YouTube, you can get Tube Buddy, which helps you kind of pick out like keywords and, you know, SEO optimization. And does this thumbnail, is this a good thumbnail or not? You know, like, so there's different things that you can have help you with that. But it really does depend on the platform. And YouTube does, it does care about your thumbnail.

It does care about the title that you put on that. That does matter. Instagram, it does matter. I feel, I feel this is not, this is not a, nobody take, everybody take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like Instagram is getting less and less. I'm going to sound like I'm exaggerating a lot and you're probably going to hear some comparison.

So many of the time it pains me because they let that stop them from getting stuff posted, right? Like just post it. And you can always go edit the cover photo later if you really wanted to. On Instagram you can. TikTok you can, but only up for seven days. And uh, Facebook you just can't.  So. 

And YouTube is, you could change it as many times as you want.

Yep, 

YouTube you can too. So YouTube and Instagram are very similar in that sense. Uh, LinkedIn doesn't have that option at all. So if you want to cover photo on that. You are editing your video prior to, and you are putting the cover photo on there for the first, like 0. 5 seconds.  So it is, they're all different.

Where would you coach someone in finding where their audience actually resides on their social media spectrum? I didn't realize it's like B2B. It seems logical that LinkedIn is the platform and a lot of B2B business, you know, like. A lot of business owners are in LinkedIn, but yeah, for instance, you talked about a property manager who's going viral currently on Tik TOK.

And so that means that landlords, people that own investment property are utilizing Tik TOK for maybe their social media entertainment and have found her as a, or what's that? I'm sorry. Or education. Or education. Yeah, exactly. 

Yeah. And also, you know, because a lot of the times when you have people on the property management side, they're sitting there wondering, how do I get my listings filled?

How do I get my listings sold? You know, or vacancies filled. So if you want to go follow her, you certainly can. She's, you know, up and coming, but it's Jenny Miller and Jenny with an E and then Miller, and if you want to use, find her username is Jenny Miller broker. She does a lot of things. And so when you talk about.

What type of content that you should be creating like she's on the rental side She's on the investor side and she's on the broker real estate side so like we are encompassing all of these together and there's a ton of people that are looking like the the resident side They're on TikTok. You got to find the people where they're at and happens to be TikTok for her right now.

Her Instagram is starting to blow up too. So it's exciting. Her LinkedIn and Facebook are still like really down here. But in my opinion, if you are putting in all of this, effort into making content, you know, it might be different if I can talk to you individually and see what you offer and how you offer it, like it might make sense to be like, Oh, just go invest in this.

It is really difficult, but it is worth it if you can get on all of the platforms and share that one piece of content to all of them. Because once things start taking off, Then you could be like, I'm going to invest all my time into TikTok. I'm going to invest all my time into Instagram, LinkedIn. It's there.

It's great. Facebook, it's there. It's great in this instance. Right. But being able to just focus on these two and they're getting the results that she wants, she wants her vacancies filled. She has. Uh listings that she needs to be sold and then here after she gets everything all settled down like Success stories that she tells me on a regular basis.

I'm like, yeah, like I want to throw a party with her Like I am so excited and to think that they're Just because i've been in the property management space to think that there's so many property managers that a don't think they need to Be on social media And then B, don't think TikTok's worth anything.

It's like, I have proof.  So it is worth if you can manage it because it is a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, but if you're spending all that time creating that content, throw them on, I would say LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are the top four I work in, but then you have YouTube and you have X.

And then you have Truth Social, you have Snapchat, you have, I mean, there's so 

many. Rumble, there's a million of them, yeah. 

So, there's so many, but if you can pick, like, these top four of where people are all the time, like, it's worth throwing your stuff on there and seeing what lands, you know? So it's difficult. 

Yeah, there's some platforms that, you know, and I know, you know, but, you know, there's some platforms that help you distribute the content out to various places all at once, like social pilot, and that'll take some burden off, but it does, you know, obviously those, yeah, I was going to say those platforms are so different that it's hard to generalize in the sense that it'll work in multiple platforms. 

Um, yeah, uh, I know what you're talking about. I was just gonna say that it does help but then if somebody knows this and I don't like I will somebody tell me I'm wrong, but as far as like anything to post to your personal Facebook. There's not something, you know, like you can post to Facebook pages. 

It's business pages.

Yeah. All 

day long. But on my phone, I can schedule out content on my personal pay or my personal profile on Facebook, but I can't do it on my desktop. Like it's right. There's so many nuances that I would love if there was just an easy button, but there is not. And that's why, like, I find it to be fun because you're always constantly evolving with the social media world.

And it's always finding out these tips and tricks, and you're always looking for the new, biggest, shiniest thing, and you can't get bored. It's never the same. 

Why would you tell that business owner that is Struggling to find leads, has no social presence, no brand branding, if you will, besides maybe a website and you know, the local people in the market, you know, know who they are to a certain extent.

Why would the power of social media and branding help them? 

Because it's the handshake. It's the coffee date. It's the, it's the sitting around the fireplace digital opportunity that we don't have physically in every place. And I say that super strongly because I live in Wyoming and when I was going through a lot of these companies I was working with in the industry, I was in South Dakota, so there's a lot of people that can't get it right.

I'm in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, we're all the same.  But it's It is a matter of here I am working nationally with people and being able to go to a conference which was a great opportunity to actually see people face to face, shaking their hand physically, right? But then like, let's follow each other on Facebook.

Like, I will tell you when I was doing my branding, my bread and butter was through Facebook. And it still is. But now it's TikTok, TikTok for me. But for Jenny, it's TikTok and Instagram, right? Like it's different for everybody. So when I friended them on Facebook or I knew that they were in property management or their phone number came across of like what their company is.

And I'm going through and looking at who's all working there and I'm going to find them on LinkedIn and  Facebook, like, so we can be friends and then. When we finally do meet in person, we literally didn't know we've never actually physically met because we were so interactive on Facebook and social media.

Right. And so that right there is the power of social media. You get to have the digital handshake. You get to have the digital coffee dates. You get to have the digital sit by the fireplace and get to know each other. Right. And without that, I mean, you don't have that easy no like and trust factor. You don't have the opportunity to be like, I can tell you there was a ton of times that I went, went from PropertyMeld, I went to a new company, and even then I went to a new company.

Both of those instances, even though I was no longer with PropertyMeld, I still get people to this day that are texting me or messaging me about PropertyMeld,  I'll be honest. But I'm like, I haven't worked there in years, but I built up such a brand that they, that's the only person they remember, you know, and that's beautiful.

And I love it. And I'll never tell anybody like, go kick, go kick rocks. Right? Like, it's like, I'll get you connected. And I did the same thing with citizens. And I did the same thing with rent scale, like, but having that personal brand. Get to you that no line can trust factor, even if you're not doing the hooks, even if you're not doing the edits to where you're splicing things up and you get really choppy editing, right?

Like if you just record the video for people to get to know you and what you have to offer and your daily experiences and your why story, your how I got started story, like, Start telling stories about yourself. Like, don't air your dirty laundry, which I don't feel like I have to say, but I'm going to because you brought it up, but it just start, just start talking to people like they were there.

Just like doing a cold call on a phone. Anytime that we had new people coming into sales underneath me, I'm all like, how would you talk to your family member? How would you talk to your best friend? When you're doing a cold call, bring that energy, bring that tone into the conversation, because it just makes a world of a difference, right?

The same thing with social media is you have this opportunity. To talk to the phone and it's funny, you know, you got your gen z and your millennials like  How would you answer the phone?  but  But you you have this opportunity to connect with them on a personal level and if they know nothing about you It just is so much harder.

It's like doing the cold call. That's super monotone. Nobody wants to talk to that. They just don't. But then you also have, and I mean, so many of you, I'm sure have heard about this is like the social media is now the Google review. Like people are hearing about Sean Austin Johnson and they're not necessarily Googling you, but they are on Facebook and they're looking up Sean Austin Johnson, you know, and seeing what you have to offer or they could be Googling.

And this is where like your SEO hooks, all that stuff comes into play, but they could be Googling like consultation.  I know you don't want that word in there, but. Then it's a like, depend upon the different type of consult that they're looking for, like Sean Austin Johnson's Facebook could come up or YouTube or the, they're looking at, do I pay this person or do I just quit my job?

Going with your pay or quit thing. Then you, your YouTube thing comes up, right? Like having that presence.  And it is definitely taking over the Google search for the yellow pages, I guess, is like, who do I call? 

No, I love that. I think there's so much, there's so much power in there. There's we forget how powerful social media actually is.

Causes people to transition from a completely cold. I've never heard of this person to an actual trust, like the people that we follow, you know, say for instance, I, I follow Ed Lawrence or someone of those, you know, the Instagram or YouTube or influencers or whatever, it's almost like, you know, them on a level that feels more personal than business.

And there's like this trust factor. Like if I was to sign up for services with this influencer. It'd be easy to get me through the, the sales process because I already know the dude and I already feel like I like, you know, like, and trust and all the things it goes where I, you know, kind of counsel people is like, Hey, if you're, you don't have anything out there, then, then you're leaving it all up for guests.

But if you have content out there, then people can actually. Discover who you are, your business, what you stand for, your moral alignments, if you will. 

You're right. I mean, when I'm talking about like the same thing happened to every different company that I went to of like, here I am now going to a new conference with a new company and people already know me.

They know I'm not going to work for a company that I don't believe in. And so it was a matter of not me going to them saying, Hey, do you want to set up a call? They're like, Drea, how do we get a call set up?  Drea, sign me up, like talk about a salesperson's dream,  

right? And 

people are sitting there like, I don't want to be on social media.

And I'm sitting here like, why would you not? Facebook legitimately prints me money. And that's not to say everybody's a number, but it does. It prints. me money as a salesperson. And to this day, I mean, I now think by the grace of God, I have a very successful business in the branding sector and I have never had to make a phone, like a cold call, phone call ever, like because of just everything that's going on on social media.

And I have also worked with people, coaches, you know, et cetera, of people that are showing up on social media. They're telling their story, they're sharing their knowledge, they are giving away the goods, they're giving freebies out that you want to use and you want to find. And then whenever they sit there and say, Hey, like, do you need extra help with this?

You're like, yes, because I've already seen all of your success stories. I know that you know what you're doing. So all of those sales calls that we normally have to where it's like, okay, now I think I like you guys. We just had the call. I think I like this. Can you set me up with somebody who's used you before?

Right? Can you give me some success stories? Can you show, can you prove yourself? Is basically what comes after that when somebody is not sure. And instead of going through that process, being able to share all this through social media already, they're already following you. They're already seeing all this.

It really, for the most part, takes that away. 

No, I love that. That's that's so, so true. All right. So you have convinced us all of why we need to utilize social media to build a brand.  Yeah, that right. I mean, I mean, totally a full believer. Now, how do we make sure that the content that we're putting out is actually generating business to us?

Like what's the bottom of funnel, if you will, aspect that. Like if I'm going to put all this time and effort into putting out content, how do I make sure that that effort actually pays me? 

Oh, so good. So good. You can go again. This is going to be going back and I'm telling you, TikTok  sets the algorithm pays for anybody anymore.

So you're 

a fan of TikTok. 

Can you tell?  I, I will say that TikTok has a really great opportunity. Let me actually see here. It's um, Content search insights is something new that they've brought up. And so like on Tik TOK, you got content search insights. You can do the same thing on Instagram. You can do the same thing on Google.

Heck, you could go to chat GPT. You can go to ask  what there's something else out there. Anyways, there's so many different platforms out there to find like your industry in the questions that people are asking 

and answer them, 

answer them. Yes! Like, start answering the thing that people are interested in.

They might not care two craps about, you know, what you're doing in the office all day, but they are loving learning what you're doing outside of the office. And I mean, I know that's super vague, but it's the concept of like, Searching what other people are searching for in your industry, and how can you provide that value?

How can you share with them? How can you show them? That is really where you should just start. But if you don't know how to start there, just start by sharing who you are and letting people into your world. Showing them that, hey, you showed up 7 a. m. I can remember,  like, this, when I, again, working at PropertyMill, one memory came up not too long ago of me beating Ray to the office.

Like, it was always a thing. 

I remember that. 

You see it? How many 

One, yeah, six, maybe? I don't know. 

So it allowed people to get to know me. This is a competition between my brother and I, right? I finally beat him to the office and I think I went live on Facebook. I'm like, Oh, excuse me while I open the door here.

Oh, it's so dark. Is nobody here? Like, Oh,  and so anyways, and then my brother shows up, like maybe. three minutes later, right? It wasn't that much, but it allowed you to like be involved in my life via business. It was fun. You still remember it to this day. And you know, I'm associated with property milled and I didn't sell anything in there.

Right? Like, so just allowing people to get to know who you are is, is a place to start if you're not sure how to answer the questions yet. That people are asking. 

Yeah. I love that too. It's like shots on goal and we naturally it's, it feels uncomfortable to be in front of a camera to start answering or, you know, answering questions or whatever.

But given the opportunity to just put the reps in and, you know, create that content that may not hit. But you're getting work done. You're getting reps in, you're getting better and talking in front of a camera and articulating your words and answering those questions and turn and return. That will help you build that audience.

If you will, that will actually generate money. 

Well, and that's a great point too. Like it is uncomfortable to be in front of the camera, but I will tell you that. It doesn't always have to be a video. It can be a picture, you know, so don't forget about pictures and like you can see the insights on Facebook, Instagram, all the things you can see the insights.

My photos perform better than anything on Facebook. And so guess what I'm going to do more of. Am I still going to post the videos that don't perform as well? Absolutely. Cause you never know what's going to take off. And I've already put in that effort 100%. But like, don't forget about the photos. Don't forget about writing out something.

And it's just language. It's just texts on the screen because that performs really well too. So the most important thing is it's not that you have to share. Through the video, it's not that you have to share through a photo, but my gosh, if you were just text on a screen people don't associate your face with that.

And so, they don't, they don't see you, they don't hear you, how do they know who you are? We don't compute that as humans. We just don't and so when you are pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and doing the video and sharing the selfie picture in the bathroom or whatever, then that's allowing people to get to know you.

They're seeing you, they're hearing you, whether they're hearing your voice or whether they're reading your text. So that is the other thing, but they have a face to associate with, and that's so important. So it doesn't all have to be video, but you should put some video out. 

Nice. Nice. Well, I'll take it for whatever this is worth, Drea, I love the videos that you put out and I know that you are meticulous about video editing and now, and had been doing, I don't know that you edit your videos anymore, but had been doing your own.

Video editing, that is a very difficult thing. A lot of people get. You know, tripped up on the video editing side because it is a new skill to develop. Yes. What do you, how do you, how would you counsel? You've got money. You've got a business. 

Oh my 

gosh. Not get tripped up on the editing side.  

I, I do. I love the editing.

And I mean, as many business owners out there, you always want. to put yourself in the shoes before you like hire it out, right? So that way you can like be sure of what you're looking for, how you want things. Like you can't explain to a video editor unless you've been in it yourself. Like, let's be real.

And I mean, you can, it's just only go so far. So when you're doing the video editing, I'll throw out just some easy like tips and tricks for that just for anybody starting out. So. Uh, you can find CapCut is a great one, by the way. So you don't want to talk on your videos. Okay, let's talk about reels that don't have talking.

There's so many things, Sean. We could talk here all day. And I was, I was worried I wasn't going to have anything to say today. Look at me go. So reels that don't have talking. I can't. I, if you guys ever followed me, how many times am I on a boat fishing? How many times am I out hunting and I'm just getting a selfie video and I can put that into CapCut and I can say, okay, I can search three videos.

I could use the same exact video. Okay. So three videos, video one, video two, and then I'm cropping it to a different section of the video. Video three, same video, but I'm cropping it to a different section of the video. CapCut will create an awesome video for you through that one video of three different splices of it.

And then you can add text to it to provide value to people, or inspire people, or motivate them. Like, that is so easy. Like, please do that.  

Yeah, that's a great place to start. Yeah, that's a really good advice. 

And I'm actually surprised I ran into somebody the other day that has never heard of CapCut or ever used it. 

Yeah, I mean, maybe they are not a Tik Tok user. Just 

kidding. I'm not sure. I'm not sure even where I learned that from.  But 

CapCut is a great tool. 

CapCut is a great tool. And CapCut 2,  it's not like the easiest. There's other easy ways. But like, you can go through and snip where you got your ums. Your ahs, your spaces.

Go cut those out. Cut them out. If you do have a choppy video from that, guess what? That attracts people's attention. They love it. And they don't even know. Nobody even notices. They don't even notice. Your video does not have to flow perfectly smooth. And I kid you not. I still, when I like record these videos, right.

And I totally trip up and I am like trying to think of what I want to say. I will literally, if I'm like this, I will freeze where I was at and I'll think of what I want to say and then I'll keep going so then I can splice it. And it doesn't look.  

Not as choppy. You 

don't have to do that. You do not have to do that because like Sean was talking about earlier, you know, capturing people's attention every three to four seconds, there should be something else happening in your video, whether it's a cut and it chops or whether something comes in or whether it zooms in or zooms out.

Something in those three to four seconds a piece, ideally, it will keep people's attention. So there's things like Descript now, there's things like V. io, they allow, or even Riverside. I know I joke with Sean a lot about that. I record my podcast in Riverside because it allows me to use. It's transcript to edit the video.

So if we said something that was repetitive, if I said the same thing over and over twice, three times, I can go in, click the text and then delete it and it crops it for me. It's perfect. It's wonderful. It literally 

strikes it out. It's so nice. It's so 

nice. And then it's like, Oh crap. I do need that word in there.

You can go back and you can bring it back to life. It's that simple. Plus, if you're not good at editing and you are creating long form content like this, then I mean, V does it. I don't know if Descript does it. I assume it does. V does it. Riverside does it. You can have AI create the reels for you. They'll even put captions on there for you.

So if you're not a video editor, there's simple ways to get started. And then, oh, the other one is Opus Clip. That's another one. So, so yeah, so there's simple,  everybody was not happy about AI coming out, but my gosh, do not just, if you need to get started and you don't have a video editor, utilize the AI.

No, I mean, everybody does. You're not going to be, you know, it's the, the algorithm isn't going to chump you for it. Like it just use it, make the content, get the content out there. 

Huge. Yes. Okay. Drea, you have provided some real nice value bombs today. So where can people learn more about you and what's your podcast about?

Ooh, okay. I love to talk about that too. Okay. So. You can find me at brand coach Drea basically on any of the platforms, um, or respect the brand. And you can find my website at respect the brand. com. And then also my podcast is before you knew me. So you can find that on all the social medias or YouTube or Spotify, all the things. 

It's awesome. I love that you bring that up because that podcast was actually stemmed from the wonderful humans that I work with on a regular basis, because how important it is to be authentic, how important it is to share your story, how important it is to be a person outside of your business. That's where people have a hard time, right?

And one of my jobs when I'm working with somebody is to read between the lines to find out who they are, to find out what they have to offer the world  and they're in for a lot more than they ever sign up for, right? But it is a matter of like, I see, I want to see this person for who they are and not just what they do.

And so this podcast really stemmed And did I want to start a podcast? Absolutely not. I actually had a bad connotation about podcasts because everybody that I knew, I'm gonna throw myself under the bus, but I felt like everybody who started a podcast, like I felt like it was just a means to be somebody.

Like it just didn't set well with me and I didn't want. I didn't want to do that. Like it just was unfulfilling. Long story short, here we are today. I have a podcast. It's called before you knew me, who would have thought you'd never say never. Right. But having these conversations with people, whether it's a personal story or whether it's a business story of how they got to where they are today.

I'm like, the world needs to know about this. Think of all the people that you could help with your story. And that's where the, before you knew me was born because. It is, before I knew them, I would have never known that they went through this stuff, right? Uh, and beautiful, beautiful things come out of it.

I have a gal who really, unfortunately, dealt with domestic violence in a very serious way. She came on, she talked about it, and she started a non profit domestic violence, uh, situation down in Florida. And she keeps sending me, like, We had our first meeting, the meeting went well, this is what we're doing.

This is how we're raising money. Like, wow. Amazing. And so all that to say is it's not just for the people that I work with. It's for anybody who has a story, whether it's to share with what they've done through business, because how many entrepreneurs are out there? Trying to make it and they could learn from you, right?

They could learn just a little something. And at that point you're sitting there and it's all like, share your story. You never know who you're going to help. And there's other stories out there to where if it just helps one single person, one person, that story that was shared was meant to be shared. And so that's what the podcast is all about, to be able to share who you are.

I mean, let's face it, it helps with your personal brand. It helps people to get to know you for who you are. And is that all you're posting out there? I mean, it might be if all you're focused on is speaking events, depending, you know, but it just compliments the other stuff that you're putting out there.

So, I mean, it does give you extra content. If that helps anybody to make the decision to come on the podcast.  

Yeah, that's really awesome. Where can people find the podcast? 

So it's on,  it's on spot. I mean, if you go to YouTube, it's on, it's before you knew me, it's on Spotify. It's on all of the other things I could hook up through Spotify.

Yeah, absolutely. It's all on there. I have an Instagram for it too. I think there's a Facebook page for it. I got a lot of Facebook. I 

love how you create an individual podcast episode thumbnail. So kudos  on that. Well done. Um, and thank you for having me on the podcast. I had a complete blast. So Drea, any parting thoughts today?

If I had to leave anybody with anything today, I will let you know that you were put on this earth for a reason and you have so much to share. Whether it's through the experiences that you've gone through or whether it's the journey that you're on now, You have so much to share. We were never put on this earth to be alone.

We were put on this earth to have a community. And even though people can be scary, it can be scary to connect with people. I highly recommend just being open to the opportunities that come your way. The people that come your way, the podcast opportunities that come your way to be able to share a little bit about who you are.

In order to help even one person, when you sit there and think about it, so many people are worried about having a million followers on Instagram, for example. If I don't have a million followers, I'm nobody. Well, that's one big fat lie. If you were in an audience and you had 300 people, okay, Here's your followers.

You have 300 followers, you put them into an audience and you're on stage and you have physically 300 people there. Holy crap. That's a lot of people, right? And if you have two people that come up after you and they tell you that they love, you know, they're hitting the love button. They tell you that they love what you just did, or they explain to you how you just made a massive impact in their lives one way or another.

Because they're commenting, okay? You're putting two and two together, right? Tell me that doesn't make you feel full. Tell me that doesn't make you feel special. Tell me that doesn't let you know that you have a purpose in this world. So, even though you might have 300 followers, or less,  Just know that those are 300 people that support you.

They're excited to learn from you. And if they're not, they'll leave. And that's okay. Because if you start building a personal brand, and you are sharing business stuff, you are going to lose followers. Just forewarning everybody and that's okay because they were never your target audience to begin with.

And so when you're looking at from a business perspective, don't get discouraged. Just know that you are weeding out people for more people to come in and what you have to offer is important.  

Great parting words. Drea, so awesome to have you.  so much. Thank 

you.

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