13 - Building a Personal Brand in a Corporate Environment w/ Glenn Pasch

Welcome back to another episode of Instant Impact with your host, Elyse Archer. Elyse chats with Glenn Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital, an Inc 5000 agency that specializes in helping dealerships generate qualified leads. His firm has worked with everything from single-point dealerships up to companies like GM, Lithia, Berkshire Hathaway, Asbury Automotive, and Subaru. Glenn is an expert at all things digital marketing and shares steps he takes to build a personal brand in conjunction with his company’s brand. He brings experience that can help anyone running some sort of brand online cut through the noise. Glenn and Elyse talk about the history of Glenn’s personal brand and how it grew alongside his company’s brand. In early 2010, Glenn was building a business of his own, realizing they were the size of a small shop—about 10 or so people were on this team. Eventually, Glenn says, they stumbled into some verticals in the form of the automotive industry. This lead to Glenn going to expert panels and realizing he needed to find a way to be the one at the front of the room. Through digital marketing, Glenn has now built up a substantial brand both personally and professionally. To explain how he got there, Glenn shares that he had to come to a conclusion: people like to have a face for a company. He turns towards some of the biggest companies in the world. Microsoft, for example, had Bill Gates, Apple had Steve Jobs, etc.. Once you realize that you are the company, things change. This can feel selfish at first, but once it clicks, Glenn mentions, you’re able to build a team that can provide the same quality of work you do. Elyse brings up a key to building a personal brand beside your company’s is having a separate, personal website that bridges into your business’s website. This way, your personal brand can be used as a lead generator for your company’s revenue stream. Eventually, other people will go along the journey with you. What people think of you becomes what they think of the company. When that evolves, Glenn adds, people will start paying more attention, and you can introduce them to your team. Elyse inquires into Glenn’s impressive presence on social media. He says it was easy to forget about promoting himself when you’ve got your head down running a company. He found building a team that can help with his posting is smarter than forgetting constantly. He hired someone to build a calendar for him—one that would show what to post on which platform and when. Glenn offers some insight into how he built up his brand:

1. Figure out where your audience is, what platform they use, and learn from it. It’s better to do one platform well than to be overwhelmed by trying to manage multiple.
2. Make individual content for the platforms you post on. Make sure that specific audience knows this post is for them.
3. Find a way to make your posts consistent. Have a standard bit of content that you produce every week, have your team write a blog, and pull from there. It helps to schedule what you’ll post, when, and why. Over time, people will come and connect with you.

Once you’ve established a long-term outlook, Glenn brings up, you can start looking at analytics. Report your results, but don’t get discouraged. Look, listen to your audience, and learn from the posts you’re putting out there. Get into the mentality of helping people, not just providing a service. Elyse notes that it’s a slippery slope when it comes to promoting on social media. A brand can quickly become a “me monster.” The real magic, Elyse says, happens when posts are focused on the audience instead. She shares that she tries to connect emotionally to her audience in order to better communicate with them. Then the conversation turns to the type of content that we put out for a personal brand. Videos, Glenn says, can be an effective way to reach your audience. However, a lot of people are insecure about their voice, their appearance, or their public speaking skills. He reminds us that people will meet us eventually, anyways. Something he has found that helps is having a conversation with a friend and recording it with a camera behind them. A lot of people will be surprised at how naturally they speak when they aren’t focused on the camera. Finally, Glenn offers some tips on how to cut through the noise of today’s market. Google UTM, he says, can offer some great insight into where your ad clicks are coming from, allows you to label your ads individually, and generally is a useful tool when it comes to publishing ads. In addition to that, having proper SEO writing on your website is essential to coming up as a search result when people are looking for a service you provide. What you’ll learn in this podcast After listening to this episode, you’ll walk away with some actionable steps you can take to cut through the noise on social media. You’ll get some tips on how to build a personal brand alongside a professional one, and you’ll have insight into what it takes to post quality content, consistently. Contact and Events Glenn is hosting a 2-day manager training workshop in New Jersey, July 24-25th. This is great for individuals who lead teams. Often people are put in charge of a team without the proper training. Glenn can offer the skills they need for success. Connect with Glenn on his social media: @GlennPasch Or go to his website: http://glennpasch.com/ Request a free Brand Strategy Call: http://thebrandbuildersgroup.com/callelyse