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S5 EP12: The Persistent Amanda Webb
Amanda Webb isn’t a pushy person—unless she absolutely needs to be, in which case she’ll keep showing up until she gets what she wants! We go through Amanda’s backstory, from film crew, to hamper-maker, to her current career as a data and analytics consultant, to parse out the strategic moves that helped Amanda to get known.
I’ve known Amanda Webb of Spider Working for years. While she started as a digital marketing generalist, Amanda has really built her name for data and analytics in recent years, especially Google Analytics (for which she is a certified trainer with Enterprise Nation)
But, like many of us, Amanda didn’t start out in marketing, and she shares how her time in the film industry and a small business owner helped her build the tenacity and skills that eventually helped her launch her own successful consulting and speaking business, becoming globally known as an expert on how to make sense of analytics and succeed with data-driven marketing strategies.
Of course, we also discuss what lights Amanda up, what she truly delivers beyond just marketing insights, and what cats have to do with any of it (spoiler alert: not much, and she likes it that way!).
In this episode:
“That's me: I am going to be the next Mike Lee!”
Hustling to get those union tickets signed (including in the pubs)
The importance of persistence
“Let's face it…I'm never going to be the female Mike Lee.”
“I know! I'll start a business!”
Death of a Saleswoman
“You’re not coming up on Google…”
Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging
An opportunity in recession
“I was everywhere”
Getting more widely known via video
Irish Blog Awards
Agorapulse, Social Media Marketing World, Meta and Google (via Enterprise Nation)
Helping people feel clever
Cats, knitting, film, and boundaries
Find Amanda:
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to theLet's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 EP11: Flying Anyway with "The Queen Bee" Dani Wallace
Dani Wallace defines herself by the feelings of empowerment, joy, and safety she brings to her community—not by her rough upbringing in Preston’s council estates, or her bouts with domestic violence and homelessness. Like the humble bee, she “flies anyway,” and helps countless others to do the same through her event, The Big Festoon, and her work as a speaking coach.
Today's guest is The Queen Bee herself, Ms. Dani Wallace!
Dani is a speaking coach who runs the I Am The Queen Bee community and The Big Festoon event.
She delivers confidence. She delivers encouragement. She delivers badassery. But what she truly delivers, at the root of all she does, is to deliver the message that success can feel safe.
Her event, The Big Festoon, certainly does that. Her community does that. She's even got a documentary film, “The Festoon Effect,” about what she does and the message she's spreading.
Dani definitely comes across as someone who is fully confident in the value of her own message and in her own authority to do what she's doing out here–but, as you'll hear, she's just like the rest of us deep down. She experiences self-doubt and energetic crashes. But she also recognizes the importance of the message she’s here on this earth to deliver, and the empowerment the sense of community she creates brings to others.
In this episode:
The council estates of Preston
Traveling the world as a performer
Call center training
Domestic abuse and homelessness with two children under the age of two
“Life is either going to continue happening to me or I'm going to happen to life.“
Gigging singer to early live-streamer (and mascara seller!)
“Show up, wise up, rise up”
Safety in success
Sharing her learnings
An “overnight success” 10 years in the making
Overcoming daily self-doubt
Creating what she needed most via The Big Festoon
“I’m really famous…”
Fly Anyway Foundation
Collaborations
Releasing her own film
Smashing the patriarchy
Telling your story while bringing actual value to the world
Creating that “joy space” that helps cement actual learning
Owning her origin story without leaning on it
The one thing about Dani’s energy you’d never guess!
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to theLet's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 E10: How I Built My Own Personal Brand
I’m back with a solo episode, giving you the details on how I built my own personal brand visibility from roughly 2016 through the present! From journalist to social media manager to personal branding expert to US-to-UK ex-pat, I’m sharing everything I can recall that helped me to get my name and brand out there!
I started the season back in September with a solo episode–and I realized I didn't really give you as much of the goods as I really should have. I did tell my professional story, I went through all of that history, and I even answered my own “searching” personal branding questions about my “why.”
What I didn't do is really get into the nitty-gritty of how I built my professional presence.
So we're going to take a walk down memory lane as to how I grew my own personal brand visibility, and hopefully some of these tactics can help you build yours as well.
In this episode:
The beginning of Christine Gritmon Inc. in May 2016
“Be visible doing the thing that you want to be known for doing”
“Say yes to opportunities!”
How I pivoted my personal brand
“People who knew, liked and trusted me were up for coming along on this new journey because I focused on transferable skills and transferable values.”
Deciding who I was going to learn from
Networking before, during, and after events
“Don't think that speakers are these untouchable people who are on this whole other plane of existence from yourself. Go talk to them!”
“A slightly outdated tactic: I live-Tweeted events…”
Becoming a conduit to information.
Put yourself in the conversation and connect with others who are also part of that conversation
Rebranding (again!) to personal branding
“Take a look periodically at making sure everything is aligned” the things that you're offering, the audience you're offering it to, the audience you have, the things that you are doing. Make sure that it's all pointing in the same direction.”
“What worked in the US isn't going to work here…”
“Don't be afraid to realign, but make sure that you have something built on the fundamentals, the foundations that people have come to know you and trust you for, those transferable skills.”
“Don't be afraid to show up.”
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to theLet's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 E9: Keeping It Real with Teresa Heath-Wareing
Online business building coach Teresa Heath-Wareing brings her joyful authenticity to the pod as she discusses her growth from teaching mums at a play barn to taking some of the world’s largest stages, what she’s learned along the way, how she draws her (generous!) boundaries, and what truly inspires her.
The word “empowerment” comes up a lot in this interview with online business-building coach Teresa Heath-Wareing! Teresa is all about empowering people, including herself, to live the lives they want to lead via building their online businesses.
I've known Teresa for a long time, and her messaging has been remarkably consistent over the years. We discuss how she built her business up to the level of reputation and success she enjoys now, how she chooses where to place her energy, and her constant commitment to bringing excellence to everyone she encounters. We also discuss her decision to release a more personal podcast earlier this year and how she decides what she does and doesn’t share as part of both her personal and business lives.
In this episode:
Teresa’s first personal brand as an employee
“I basically started from fear and having my back up against the wall and knowing I need to make money…”
“They sort of borderline stalked you!”
What made people buy in to Teresa in the early days
Learning from the experts
Getting clients from speaking…then not getting clients from speaking
Saying yes to opportunities
“...doing the small stuff and working your way up to it”
Hustling: gift bags, selfies, and flying 5,000 miles for coffee
Choosing what opportunities to say yes or no to
Why marketing?
Delivering empowerment
Her sobriety journey and “Losing Parts Of Myself” podcast
What she will and won’t share
Find Teresa:
Instagram
LinkedIn
teresaheathwareing.com
Your Dream Business podcast
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to the Let's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
As mentioned in the podcast, check out Teresa’s appearance on “Social” back in 2019:
S5 E8: Ophira Edut's Star is Bright!
From hand-hewn street fashion as a teen in Detroit, to the glossy NYC magazine industry, to her present career as half of the AstroTwins astrology duo, Ophira Edut's personal brand has lived through many different incarnations (most of them in tandem with her identical twin sister, Tali). We go through Ophira's many professional adventures and identify some key threads that have always guided her, as well as attracted the notice of others.
You know I love having a chance to speak with non-marketers!
(Then again, is there truly such a thing in the world of personal branding?)
Ophira Edut has held many titles: teenage streetwear creator, artist, writer, graphic designer, web developer, magazine editor, feminist anthologist, author, and globally-acclaimed astrologer, just to name a few. We discuss her organic journey between all of these worlds, her motivations, key moments of recognition, and of course the companionship of her identical twin sister, Tali, with whom Ophira shared almost all of these adventures.
The biggest message of Ophira's story is: do what you do, put your creativity out there into the world–and if opportunities arise from it, say YES to them!
Hear about:
Growing up an identical twin in a Middle Eastern family in the Midwest
Winning allllllllll the contests
Denim Rebellion and Double Vision
(and Urban Outfitters and Raven-Symoné)
Getting “Sassy” in NYC
Hues Magazine
Back to NY & getting online
Astrology as personal insight…
…and personal brand…
…and science.
Gloria Steinem!
Ms. Magazine
“Adios, Barbie”
Teen Vogue and the birth of the AstroTwins brand
“Astro Style”
Astrology as a conduit for connection
AstroStyle.com
Syndication
Elle Magazine
Why Beyonce and Jay Z are still together (it was in the stars!)
Bringing individual skills to a joint brand
Tapping into commonalities
Providing hope and guidance
Find Ophira:
Astrostyle.com
“The Astrology Advantage”
Instagram
TikTok
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to the Let's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 EP6: Community Christina
Christina Garnett has been called “the mother of #MarketingTwitter”—but how did this CCO (Chief Community/Care Officer) discover her knack for bringing people together? As Christina says in this week’s episode, connection is a calling. And if you’re one of the thousands who’ve benefitted from Christina’s fateful December 2020 Tweet, you know it’s a call she has thankfully heeded.
When people in the know hear the word “community,” they think of Christina Garnett.
But Christina didn't always start out specifically working in community; her turning point in her personal branding journey was a specific tweet in December 2020:
If you have less than a 1,000 followers and work in marketing in some capacity, introduce yourself to Marketing Twitter.
— Christina Garnett (@ThatChristinaG) December 3, 2020
Say hi, tell us about yourself, and what you like to tweet about.
Make friends.
https://x.com/ThatChristinaG/status/1334486296018948102
You'll hear us talk about that tweet a lot in this week’s episode, and how it wound up changing her life and impacting her professional career in great ways. We also discuss what she was doing leading up to the fateful tweet, what she did with it, and how she has weighed her options since–including starting her own business as a fractional CCO (Chief Community Officer/Chief Care Officer) and advisor, helping companies foster better communication with their communities in all sorts of ways.
Christina, as you will hear, has a genuine interest in humans. She has a genuine interest in people, in connections, in listening and truly hearing what people have to say. And that has been the key to her success.
Listen and learn:
Community as a response to COVID-era isolation
The Tweet
Why it hit
Not overthinking it
Continuing to keep it real
Haters gonna hate
Pre-Tweet career
Pandemic
Medium article
Burnout, vulnerability, reaching out and getting known
Why people wanted her
Being a connector
Data driven strategy
The voice of the community
Parasocial relationships with brands, and how personal brands come into play with solidifying that relationship
Deciding not to become an influencer
Creating her own job title
What drives Christina
Why companies need community
What Christina specifically brings to the table
The personal and the professional
Find Christina:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pre-order “Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships: Use Emotional Connection To Build Loyalty”
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to the Let's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 EP5: Getting Word-Nerdy with Jess Zafarris
I met Jess Zafarris when she was an editor at Adweek, but it turned out she had a whole second personal brand: as an etymologist! We discuss how Jess built two brands somewhat simultaneously, the growth of her profile as an etymologist and author, and what lights her (and others!) up the most about her work as a “word nerd.”
I first met today's guest, Jess Zafarris, as a journalist in the marketing and advertising space (she was an editor for Adweek and is now editor at large at Ragan Communications and PR Daily).
But what we're really talking about today is Jess's other career—and other personal brand—as an etymologist and etymology author.
On her “Useless Etymology” channels, Jess presents word origins and history in an engaging and entertaining way, and is working on her third etymology book. We discuss how she concurrently built her careers as a journalist and a “pop etymologist” and how she’s balanced both.
Listen and learn:
Jess’s career in journalism
Her Adweek chapter, and building a name for herself
“How could you be so incurious?...”
Why this topic interests me (Christine) so personally
Jess’s research background
”It's kind of like linguistic anthropology–linguistic sociology, more so…”
Useless Etymology blog
Building TikTok accounts for both Adweek and Useless Etymology
“Once Upon A Word”
Jess’s brand voice
“I didn't want to jeopardize the career that was affiliated with my primary income…”
Growing Useless Etymology
Content lessons
“Words From Hell”
The violent history of the word “decimate”
“Offbeat word origins for curious minds…”
Jess’s book development process
“Useless Etymology: The Book”!
“I actually let my audience choose for me…”
What lights Jess up about etymology
“Have you ever tried to read the OED?”
The positive opportunities “Words From Hell” has opened up
Words Unraveled podcast
The topic of Jess’s fourth book
Find Jess:
Blog
Podcast
TikTok
Instagram
Useless Etymology Instagram
Books:
Words From Hell
Once Upon A Word
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to the Let's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 EP4: Paul Ince on Becoming BizPaul
How did my good friend Paul Ince become BizPaul? We discuss his humble tech expert beginnings, gaining traction on Twitter, starting (and ending) a business, delegation, the personal element of sales, and what lights him up the most about content marketing.
Today’s conversation is with a good friend of mine. Paul Ince, a.k.a. BizPaul, is the owner and founder of LikeMind Media, a content marketing agency in Loughborough, UK, as well as the founder of the MarketEd Live conference.
We talk about how Paul Ince, regular human, became Biz Paul, content marketing thought leader, back in the early days of social media. We also talk about being in touch with the things that light you up about what you do, and the challenges that can come along with expansion, especially if what your clients are really buying is you.
Finally, we get into my favorite thing about a personal brand: no matter what it is that you do, other people do it too, so what really makes you the right person for someone to work with? Because it's not about what you deliver. It's about what you personally bring to the table–and that, of course, is your personal brand.
A few of the things we hit in today’s episode:
Working for a national technology company
How the 2008 Beijing Olympic games indirectly led to @bizpaul
Becoming a content creator in the tech space
“I had no intention of setting up a business…”
Trying to sell an app people weren’t ready for…
…and deciding to focus on closing that knowledge gap instead
Paul’s first cringey business card
Paul’s first cringey pitch deck (it worked!)
Not the footballer
How events changed the game
MarketEd Live
Starting to take on help
Balancing BizPaul and LikeMind Media
“I don't really want to be known as the funky-shirted marketing guy…”
What keeps him in the game
What he truly delivers
What makes someone a fit—or not a fit⏤or LikeMind Media
What people are really buying into when it comes to BizPaul
“Maybe it's a Gen X thing. I suspect it might be…”
Find Paul:
BizPaul.com
PaulInce.com
LikeMind.Media
LinkedIn
Instagram
❤️
Get Started on Your Personal Brand Journey with a sampling of Christine's Personal Branding Questions here: https://www.gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand
Subscribe to the Let's Talk About Brand Newsletter that goes out weekly to ensure you don't miss a beat!
S5 EP1: New Season, New Format!
This new season's episodes of "Let's Talk About Brand" are going to be a little different⏤and who better to demonstrate than me? I go through my own personal brand development history, then answer a few key questions about my deeper motivations.
Welcome back to “Let’s Talk About Brand”!
My 2023 was a little bit hectic; I did manage to get some incredible episodes released in autumn 2023…and then I didn't pick it back up. But I’ve finally got my feet under me again. And I'm back with a brand new format—one that I’m debuting today with myself as guest!
On this season’s episodes, my guests will first lead us through their own personal brand development. Then, I’m going to take them through a few of the deeper questions I go through with my clients to get to the heart of their genuine personal brand: their motivations, the value they bring, all that good stuff.
Let's get to it.
My career journey before I built my own personal brand
Two life-changing things that happened when I became a full-time journalist
How I leveraged my personal brand to launch a new career
How Christine Gritmon Inc. has changed since May 2016
2020: amazing; 2021: awful; 2022: employed; 2023: laid off
Re-embracing my personal brand in 2024
Why I do what I do
The deeper needs people who work with me have
What I truly deliver
Bringing more personal elements into your personal brand
I'm very excited for this season of “Let's Talk About Brand” and the great guests that we have lined up. I'm not only talking to marketers this season! Just in the first chunk of this season, I have a magician, I have an etymologist, I have an astrologer—I'm just talking to people who have awesome personal brands, asking them for how they built them and getting some insight into what's beneath them.
So join me, make sure that you subscribe to “Let's Talk About Brand,” sign up for the weekly emails—and if you want to go to gritmon.com/talkaboutmybrand, you can get your own downloadable copy of some of the questions that I ask my clients (though, again, if you work with me, they're going to be customized, specific, and we're going to be actually able to make something of the answers).
I’m so excited to start the season. Let's go!
Reach out here:
https://www.gritmon.com
https://www.twitter.com/cgritmon
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinegritmon
https://www.facebook.com/christinegritmoninc
https://www.instagram.com/cgritmon
https://www.youtube.com/c/christinegritmoninc