Saying “Yes” Builds Your Brand

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday and while talking about my transition to solo entrepreneurship he asked me a great question. “How will you keep your brand present when you’re highly unscalable?” I didn’t have the answer when he asked me but it got me thinking. How will I do that when I don’t have the big power of Salesforce propelling me forward.

I’m so lucky to have a powerful in-house guide that I go to when I have tricky questions to address….it’s my husband. He asked me a similar question when we moved to Colorado from the Bay Area 6.5 years ago. “How will you stay relevant and present now that we live in Colorado?” I also didn’t have the answer then so he gave me a suggestion which was very simple but impactful, “you’ll say yes to everything.” I scratched my head and wondered what on earth that had to do with staying relevant? Up until that time I was notorious for saying no to anything outside of work. Work itself was all consuming at the time so the thought of saying yes to things sent me over the edge both personally and professionally. I had the luxury of being in San Francisco so staying relevant wasn’t as hard. But in Boulder Colorado, that wasn’t going to be the case. So I made a commitment on the spot to make that year the “Year of Yes”. I said yes to all requests for authoring blogs, speaking on podcasts, being interviewed, presenting at meetups, and keynoting conferences. Suffice it to say it was an EXHAUSTING year but guess what…he was right! It worked and my brand was nearing an all time high even out in Boulder Colorado.

So now I’m at another turning point contemplating that same question but in a different phase of my life. Now that I’m out on my own, I realize that my personal brand is even more important than ever. A zillion questions came to me that I needed to answer like:

“what makes me unique from others in this field?”

“what type of clients do I connect with?”

“what makes me happy?”

“how do I stay relevant when I don’t scale?”

“what does success look like?”

I don’t have all the answers yet. It would be naive of me to think I could have all the answers just 1.5 months into this new solo entrepreneur journey. Asking myself those questions though, kicked me into high gear. It reminded me of those wise words from my husband to “say yes” and since it worked before, I reinvested in the advice again. To keep my brand fresh, relevant, and aligned with my core values I said yes to:

• Hosting one of Jake McKee’s Community5 dinners at my home with fellow local community professionals
• Co-hosting a FY20 Planning workshop with Maria Ogneva at the CMX Connect meetup
• Keynoting Bill Lee’s Summit on Customer Engagement
• Being interviewed by MomRelaunch Founder Reena Gupta on the power of hiring moms that are re-skilling and re-entering the workforce
• Creating my own business brand with the talented Mayumi Yamamoto and even got my own stickers!
• Finally, I’m writing a blog weekly and that’s just me getting started!

“Say Yes, and you’ll figure it out after afterwards ― Tiny Fey