By Kim Hanna
Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! Today’s guest Ryan Foland is all about ditching the act, keeping it real, and bringing his whole self to the table rather than playing some sort of part of what he should be, because what he should be is himself.
He’s the perfect person to talk with us today about this week’s topic, branding with authenticity.
Being known as authentic
Since Ryan is known as the authenticity guy, we asked him how that came to be. How did he have that moment where he realized this is his niche?
Ryan’s answer: “I was sick of trying to flip flop between what I was thinking I should be doing.” This was when he ditched the act.
For example, Ryan wanted to be a speaker. He tried to emulate what other speakers were doing, write blogs and tell others what he wanted to do. He soon realized he needed to do more than that.
He continues, “I had this moment I was like, You know what? I'm just so sick of having to rebrand myself. I was the guy who was running the entrepreneurship center at UCI. If I'm gonna get fired, I'm gonna have to come up with what I am next...and I realized at that moment that I need to build a brand that is who I am.”
How to Build an Authentic Brand
What happens if you’re not being authentic? Why is it important to be authentic? Check out what Ryan had to say on this.
“When I tried to build a brand that wasn't truly authentic, I sort of erased everything up until what I was now. And I think a lot of us do that where, when we build our bio or we're trying to take on a new profession, or even in this pandemic, we're trying to rebrand because whatever we did before maybe didn't work.”
“Sometimes we downplay or erase everything that's happened in the past and just get people to focus on what I'm doing now. But the problem with that is that you lose all of that experience that you can share. And I truly think that building an authentic brand is highlighting your experience and letting somebody else decide that you have expertise as opposed to just telling people you have expertise.”
“It’s a process, I sort of owned my whole story where I talk about not just the good shiny parts. I talked about how I was at a point to file bankruptcy and I actually mailed it in, and it got returned to me because I didn't have enough stamps on it. And for me, that was a change in my life.”
Why does he share those low points? He says, “It's about not trying to build a brand on your highlight reel. It's about trying to build a brand on your highlight REAL. And it gives you the opportunity to sort of be imperfect and to connect with people where they might find common ground.”
In summation, Ryan explains that we all have a lot to share. And you can talk about more than just the shiny parts, even though it’s not always easy. Ryan says he was fearful about sharing his bankruptcy, but now it’s something he’s proud of as it’s changed the way he looks at the world and who he is a person. As per the name of Ryan’s book, it’s okay to ditch the act!
How to discover your personal brand
Ryan has a process called the Rapid Reflection Discovery process. This is a way to discover how people currently perceive your brand. We have control over the content that we create, so a personal brand is the intersection between what people know about you and what you want to be known for.
How do you duplicate this as an experiment?
Ask your friends, family, coworkers, or followers to give you words and phrases that come to mind when they think about you. It's best if this is done anonymously. Have somebody collect the answers.
Then, gather that data but don't look at it yet. Take post-it notes on your own and decide all the things that you want to be known for. Think about in an ideal world, what do you want to be known for?
Next, look at these pieces of data. Ryan likes to put them up on a wall.
Then, group the post-it notes into groups. The outliers you get rid of, and you will have chunks of post-it notes that have a theme to it. The challenge is to pick three of those clusters. This is how you start.
Now, you have three things to start your personal brand on. Maybe it’s something professional, something personal and something that you do as a hobby.
Ryan says, “This process allows you to start with this common ground, and then you have the chance to evolve your content to then create digital breadcrumbs. People evolve to see you on your journey, so that that's where I hope people start.”
Find Ryan Foland
You can find Ryan at ryan.online. That’s it! There you can find his podcast, his four TEDx talks, and how to work with him. Also, check out his book, Ditch The Act!
Thank you so much to Ryan Foland for ditching the act, keeping it real and being here with us today to help all of us do the same. Make sure to tune into the live show, Let’s Talk About Brand, every Friday at 12 noon eastern on Facebook. See you there!