Transcript
Speaker: In staffing, everyone says they have great service, great candidates, fast response times, and strong relationships. But buyers hear that from everybody. So how do you actually stand out before the sales conversation even starts?
Speaker: In this episode, we're talking about personal brand, company brand, and social selling without the cringe. This isn't about becoming LinkedIn famous, or chasing likes or posting just to post.
Speaker: It's about building trust, credibility and visibility with the right people. So your outreach feels warmer, your conversations feel more natural and your reputation starts working for you before you ever make the ask.
Speaker: So how do you break through buyer skepticism and become someone people genuinely trust? Well, if you're in staffing, sales, recruiting, leadership, or you're trying to just build a stronger voice in the industry, stick around because we have a perfect guest.
Speaker: Welcome to Staffing Made Simple, podcast series powered by Simple VMS.
Speaker: Welcome back to Staffing Made Simple, brought to you by Simple VMS. We are the agency-preferred VMS where we have real conversations with staffing pros, industry leaders, buyers, and partners actually working in the industry. I'm Rob Geist, the Senior Vice President of Growth with Simple, and I'm joined by my co-host, Casey Wagonfield, who has been called a lot of things, and co-host is probably one of the safer ones.
Speaker: Thanks, Rob. I appreciate that. And you know what is probably one of the nicer names you've called me. So I appreciate that. I think that company wide HR training wheel that's really hitting home. So thank you for that.
Speaker: And I am excited about this one because we are talking about personal brand that obviously leads into company brand and social selling. And I think it's one of those topics that can sound bigger and more complicated than it really is because it isn't about really trying to be famous on LinkedIn or posting just a post. It's about trust.
Speaker: And staffing, a lot of people say the same things. They have great service candidates, response time, relationships. All that may be true, but buyers are hearing that from everybody. So how do you build trust and credibility before you ever get on the call, before you send a message or make the ask? Because that's really what I'm excited about for today's guest, which is Kendra Cato.
Speaker: Kendra is the director of strategic partnerships at Advanced Partners and has spent nearly 20 years across sales, marketing, strategy, and research. Over the last decade, she's become really strong voice in the staffing industry as a speaker, an author, thought leader, a founding member of the Women in Color Staffing.
Speaker: I've gotten to know Kendra over the past few years, and actually when I was in staffing, I got to meet her. And I was able to watch her session at the Staffing Sales Summit on personal brand and social selling. And what I really liked was just really how practical she made it. and wasn't about becoming an influencer. It was about building that trust and finding your voice and creating a better conversation before the sales pitch ever happened. So with that said, I know said a lot there.
Speaker: Kendra, appreciate you. And welcome to Staffing Made Simple. Thank you, Casey. Thank you, Rob. I'm so excited to be here with you guys today. And I always enjoy seeing your smiling faces at these conferences, at these shows. So it's a lot of fun to work together. So thanks for having me.
Speaker: We appreciate you. Before we really jump in, you maybe just give a listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, how you ended up in this lane of staffing and partnerships and brand and growth?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. I started my career, I thought I wanted to go get my MBA. And my daddy said, do you have MBA money, honey? I did not have MBA money. So I decided to get into business writing and started working in M&A, creating valuation reports and just learning more about how to look at different financial documents and understand a company's value and learned a ton through that, especially how to speak to executives and Because this was before the days of LinkedIn. And so they didn't realize they were talking to a 22-year-old Black girl from Ohio when I'm asking them about their numbers and their EBITDA and their forecasts, et cetera.
Speaker: So my background's always been around executive client management, thanks to that early experience that was not an MBA, but taught me more than I would ever learned in school. And then i had also ended up going back to school at one point for interior design. So I have a background in interior design as well. Had my own business for over five years.
Speaker: And I was really spending my days editing high-end spaces because I didn't want them to look like a cluttered retail catalog, that good old JCPenney's catalog from the 90s. So I eventually traded the whole floor plans for more of the corporate funding, working more with staffing clients through my time at Bullhorn on the software side.
Speaker: But I never lost that designer's eye. Right. And so as I've continued to grow my own career, i really realized that much like a beautiful room, your career needs to be selectively edited as well.
Speaker: Now, today, I'm the director of strategic partnerships at Advanced Partners. So I have the privilege of sitting at the intersection of high level strategy, whether it's funding, whether it's M&A, whether it's software options, and then also the human element, which we all love so much working in staffing.
Speaker: That's awesome. Me and Rob joke around sometimes having an MBA doesn't necessarily make you the smartest person in the room or predict success. You know, sometimes it's just having that experience. I agree. I know I talked to you several months ago during the Staffing Sales Summit about getting you on here to talk about this topic in particular.
Speaker: And maybe just to start off with a broad question here for you, but I always thought your personal brands build around trust and that's what you're trying to do. But is personal brand really the trust you build before the sales conversation even starts?
Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah. Your personal brand is really how other people are experiencing you professionally. So i look at it as my reputation, my point of view and what I'm known for. So that's what your personal brand is. What are you known for? And you've made a great point even in our opening, Casey. It's not about chasing vanity metrics or getting applause from strangers.
Speaker: It's really about being intentional with your digital footprint. Yeah. So I'm always asking folks to think of their personal brand as your digital foyer. It should warm up the room before you ever jump on that Zoom call.
Speaker: I'm the queen of sending random texts or dropping a locals only dinner spot recommendation and a DM when I know a prospect's going to visit my city. So there's no pitch, there's no anything. But I'm building that digital foyer. I'm warming them up and getting them comfortable, even trusting me with something as simple as what's the best rooftop for a Friday night in downtown Chicago, right?
Speaker: And so when you're able to pre-sell your credibility like that, your prospects, they're not questioning your capacity. When you do finally meet, they have a feeling that they know you on some level and they definitely already know your voice.
Speaker: Life facts, if they really want to, they know all about you before you ever meet, right? Especially if you do have that personal brand and have that credibility. Absolutely. You're not already following Kendra on LinkedIn. She's got a ton of great content and videos. that You said it exactly. but We met at a conference. I connected with you on LinkedIn and then I saw your videos and then I started to feel like I knew you even more than i already did.
Speaker: So what is the difference between being visible and being credible? Oh, that's a great one. So visibility, that's cheap. Anyone can post like a generic corporate press release to get attention.
Speaker: Anyone can chase getting a bunch of followers. But visibility without the actual substance, without the authenticity, that's just performance. And so credibility is an actual business asset.
Speaker: Visibility means that you might see my name, Kendra Cato, in your feed, but credibility means that you'll pick up the phone when I call because you trust my specific industry insights, you trust that I'm going to shoot it to you straight, and that you trust my own track record that you were able to see because of that credibility that I'm showing via my personal brand. And it's important. I did not become our referral source at Advanced Partners with the highest close rate just by being visible. Not at all.
Speaker: My first fiscal year, I was able to drive a million dollars in revenue. And that was not because I was chasing likes. It was really just by consistently showing up as a peer, having data, having insights, sharing my high authority perspective. And so just being very intentional about that and showing up with like more of a deep, credible perspective versus wanting to be seen.
Speaker: That's awesome. I meet with clients at times and I hear them say to me, Rob, there's no difference between any staffing vendors. They're all recruiting from the same pool. They're already doing the same thing. So in staffing though, as salespeople, we want to try to differentiate ourselves.
Speaker: Great service, great candidates, fast response time, strong relationships. How can building your personal brand help you break through and differentiate yourself? Well, when you think about differentiating yourself,
Speaker: You have to remember that if you're repeating those exact same lines that everyone else is you're being seen as a vendor. And what do vendors get beat on? They get beat on price. but How cheap are you and and how quickly can we get this budget approved? So you don't want to be seen as a vendor.
Speaker: And your personal brand really helps. It's a differentiator that helps make people choose you over a sea of other identical services. And that authenticity you can bring to it, it's like that original painting in a world full of prints, right? It's, hey, there's only one me as an individual. One me as a brand on the company level as well, not just my personal brand.
Speaker: So you really want to let those brushstrokes show that you're human. And I bring this up. I think this is so important because it guides everything I do. So even on my pinned posts on LinkedIn, I don't pin corporate brochures.
Speaker: I pin things that show my actual world. when I post about our latest book with the lady leaders, Rising with Courage, or I've pinned annual brunch I host with my closest girlfriend. in That's all about setting your intention for the year or even an invitation to come hear me speak.
Speaker: It's more of the human element, that human fingerprint, which is what helps us break through that corporate sameness that makes us all end up looking like vendors if we're not careful.
Speaker: And so in that way, you're moving from trading on commodities to trading on trust. A hundred percent. And real quick, you mentioned visibility. I think there's something to be said about being too visible too. and And you can lose credibility if you're out there posting to post or what you're posting isn't relevant to your buyer or your ideal client profile.
Speaker: yeah And we all know that person, right? Why would you post that on LinkedIn and four times today? So being careful what you post too, right? Don't post just to post. Make sure it's relevant, it's credible. Otherwise you get muted or people just stop looking.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so, so true. And not going even deeper than what you're posting, thinking about what your core themes are go to be for your personal brand, you know, like really honing in and perfecting your voice.
Speaker: These are three things that are important to me. And that's what I want to talk about over the next six months. That can be super powerful in helping avoid that posting just to post. Before I ask the next question, there's something Bob Baer taught me a long time ago. he was like, look, sales is like a bank, right? You have withdrawals and you have deposits. And I think this lines up with your personal brand.
Speaker: As salespeople, especially, we're always asking for withdrawals. Hey, can I meet with you? Can you do this? you know Versus deposits. Like, hey, here's an article I thought would be relevant to you. Here's something that I wanted to send you. No cost here, no sweat.
Speaker: And I think that's too what creates visibility and credibility versus just Hey, to your point, I'm posting brochure five times a week. Exactly right. Yeah, definitely. And I wanted to ask you, because I love the quote, your job title is the lease, but your personal brand is the deed to the house.
Speaker: I have my own interpretation of that, but maybe you can explain that to the listeners. Yeah, absolutely. i think the easiest way to explain how I got here is just telling a bit about my story because and look at our jobs, our titles and our business cards. Those really are just the lease, right? We're stewards of those desks and we're of those roles for a season.
Speaker: But our personal brand, that is the deed to the house because it's the only equity you actually own and you take it with you when the lease is up, whether that happens on your terms or someone else's. And I learned this the hard way.
Speaker: A few years back, I was on stage, the main stage at Staffing World. I'm in front of nearly 8,000 people. I'm rocking my favorite gold heels. And I thought that those heels and that title of mine, that meant I owned the house.
Speaker: But then less than a year later, that shimmer was completely gone. i found myself on a Zoom call. I'm sitting off camera. I'm snot-nosed crying. My favorite HR partner's telling me that I'm laid off.
Speaker: And I hung up that phone. And for days, weeks that followed, I just felt like those gold heels of mine were sitting on my closet floor mocking me, honestly. But while I was unemployed, I made a choice. I took a deep breath.
Speaker: And I invested in a brand manager to help me own my boys. And it was a massive investment for a girl with no paycheck and a shoe habit. But I really chose to reinvest in me.
Speaker: And i had treated my brand like a business. So I quickly saw that clients were still seeking me without me having to chase them as I was building this. And The encouragement I got from the industry and from my people was just so awesome.
Speaker: But what I realized was that they now knew what I stood for, title or no title. They knew what I was about because I spent that time with the brand manager building my what we call brand core, which is your core principles, your core themes.
Speaker: What makes you you when you're building your personal brand? That's a great story. I'm sure you probably use that in your professional life all the time, right? My guess is a lot of people say, hey, I'm going start building my brand and they do it when they need something, when they're looking for a job. When is the right time to start building your personal brand?
Speaker: Today, truly, we're all in sales, whether sales is in our title or not. We are all in sales. We're all representing the company we work for. We're all representing ourselves and what we stand for. And the sooner you can put your voice out there, the better off you are. Don't wait until you need a job or you need to close that deal. Do it today. Like I said, it was a huge investment, especially given the fact that I wasn't working at the time.
Speaker: But if I had waited until I started at Advance Partners and accepted the role to make this investment, i would have sold myself short and I wouldn't have hit that revenue goal my first fiscal year because i would have been six months behind. I'm building that authoritative voice and building that credibility.
Speaker: As far you say, that like today, yeah. Absolutely start today because it doesn't happen overnight. I mean, you're not just going to build instant credibility with people overnight. And I think that goes hand in hand with the last one, right? The deed and the lease.
Speaker: Yeah. Because tomorrow you might be in a new job, but if you're continuing to build that professional brand online and build credibility and trust, that's your deed. That never goes away. Yeah, it's.
Speaker: And I know we mentioned this, but when we talk about finding their lane instead of just trying to talk about everything and losing credibility, how does somebody find that lane with work on their personal brand?
Speaker: I think first and foremost, defining what your lane is. I know that my lane is helping leaders build the ecosystems, the capital, and that digital credibility they need to scale their businesses.
Speaker: That's my lane. I spend time with that and clearly define that. And that's so important because when you try to speak to everyone, it's the fastest way to connect with no one.
Speaker: As my daddy used to say, everything ain't for everybody. So you really have to build a clear brand statement and one that captures who you are, who you serve and the so what, who cares? Why does it matter?
Speaker: And then identifying your specific mission, your non-negotiable values and the narrow lane that you currently occupy, really identifying those and then thinking about where you want to be three to five years from now.
Speaker: so that you can start dipping your toe there as well. So my rule of thumb is simple, right? If a piece of content doesn't bring clarity or elevation to my audience, it stays in my drafts.
Speaker: Even some funny ones or things I want to share, I'm like, how does it relate to my mission? How does it relate to my brand statement? and How does it relate to my lane? And if I can't make it work, then it stays in the draft.
Speaker: Yeah, one of my best posts last year, i related it to business, but it was me in a Buc-ee's onesie on the beach. Sometimes it's got to different too. Yep, exactly right. Exactly right. One of my best posts in the last few months, I was doing some spring cleaning and I threw out, we all have it, like the drawer or the bag or whatever it is with all of the cords.
Speaker: I looked through it and I was like, I'm throwing it out. And I wrote a post about it and I started it being silly, like, you know, Throwing that out made me think about how business owners, da-da-da-da-da-da. And i was like, I'm just kidding. I didn't really learn anything from this experience. I just need y'all to pray for me because I know I'm going to need one of those cords coming up.
Speaker: But it still was just authentically me and not taking myself too seriously. But tying it even back to that building your own personal brand, everything doesn't have to be related back to business.
Speaker: And everybody has a box full of cords. Exactly right. So Kendra, when I've seen you speak in the past, I've heard you say something about your floodlight versus your spotlight.
Speaker: Can you explain that to the audience? How does someone find their spotlight audience? Yeah. So a floodlight covers a wide area, right? But it can be weak while a spotlight is much more focused and much brighter.
Speaker: So it comes down to deciding, do you want to be a floodlight or do you want to be a spotlight? The trap of trying to help anyone and everyone is that floodlight. And it it will make you so much more invisible. It'll dim your light because You are trying to help everyone.
Speaker: A spotlight is a narrow beam, but it has that intense, beautiful, bright light. And what that reminder is, is you don't need to be famous to the entire internet. You don't need to be LinkedIn famous. You just need to be a brilliant spotlight for the top 100 dream clients or prospects who actually matter to your goals. If you just focus on those folks and shine your spotlight on them, then you will see such a higher return.
Speaker: And I already know the answer to it, but when I'm talking to leadership and owners of staffing firms, they worry about people building their personal brand and then leaving and then taking that brand elsewhere. Is that wrong to have that fear?
Speaker: Yeah, it's absolutely the wrong fear. The bigger risk isn't that your employees build a brand and leave. It's that they don't build one, they stay generic, and then they represent your company as an invisible vendor.
Speaker: We are in this employee-led era where modern buyers, they trust an individual human being's perspective. 10 times more than an official company press release. They're looking for subject matter experts. They're looking for folks who know their lane and can help them sound smarter in meetings.
Speaker: So when your individual producers win and build that authority online, your company brand wins by default. And there's so many tools and things that companies can do, that firms can do. to help support their people that are building their brand so that it still has some of that company voice and branding and some consistency there. But hiding your people, that's a losing strategy.
Speaker: ah will stand on that one. When your team really builds that digital credibility, they expand your entire firm's market footprint. So it's a win-win for everyone. If you got that mentality, you're just training your competition's next employee. Yeah, legit.
Speaker: That kind of leads into this one. From staffing leadership, and I'm sure there's a lot of people that may need to hear this, but how do companies then give people those guardrails without making every post sound like a corporate hostage note?
Speaker: How do they give people that identity where they can still be the personal brand, but promote the company as well? Yeah, that's a great question. I recently spoke at Chicago's American Marketing Association chapter meeting with some folks from sales and marketing. And i' walked out with some real life examples on this. So I'm excited that you asked me this question, Casey, because I really feel that companies should not be handing their teams these strict lifeless scripts to copy and paste. And I know some firms for a fact do do that. And the results show. that It's a stiff, performative voice that completely kills trust. It's just so bland.
Speaker: But you can do things like provide clean themes. You can provide some compliance parameters and strategic priorities that give them a good starting place. But then you also want to give them the room to sound like actual real human beings.
Speaker: So there's things you can do. Having sales meet with your marketing team and share stories, current stories about prospects or clients. Having your service team meet with your marketing team and share some stories around current clients and service wins and things like that so that they can help argue with more personal antidotes versus here's our latest logo or, you know, here's our latest LinkedIn banner.
Speaker: But what it all boils down to is using the voice test. Read the post out loud. If it sounds like an automated corporate head talking, you need to throw it out.
Speaker: It needs to sound like you're explaining something to a work friend over coffee or sometimes to a really good work friend over an espresso martini. But you need to sound like you're explaining it.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think there's something we've said about using AI to help you with ideas, right? You don't have to use AI to build you a post. And we all know the ones that are, the one the long hyphens in it. That's a dead giveaway. You're using AI for content.
Speaker: But have it. Create a bunch of different themes that you can choose from. Say, all right, I like this one. I've got this picture. Now find some relevances between this picture and business. Through helping it use you to craft something that's going to get somebody's attention without actually just having ChatGPT post something for you.
Speaker: And when we talk about posting too, and you know, not posting just a post, but you know, you have to post about job openings that we have, but beyond just posting about job postings and company graphics, and how can we help you with staffing needs?
Speaker: I know this is a broad question, but what should staffing people actually be posting about to build that credibility and personal brand? Great question. And we could spend an hour on this. So I'd rather just share where you can focus your spotlight and start with three very distinct frames.
Speaker: One is your identity content. And this one is your shared lived professional experiences. This is how you build that true belonging and connection. So one is identity content. Two is your perspective shifting content. And this is where you challenge the status quo by refusing to call toxic concepts like severe burnout loyalty Talk about real client mistakes. Talk about retention issues. Talk about culture.
Speaker: It felt very uncomfortable to me at first because I'm just putting this out there in the ether and I'm making bold statements. I didn't want to rub anyone the wrong way. But actually, it makes you more interesting.
Speaker: And you don't want to be a jerk, but we all have pretty strong opinions about certain things. So figuring out to what that perspective shifting content is. And then finally, three is credibility content.
Speaker: So the credibility content's where you're leaning into your data, your market insights. I lean into M&A trends and case studies that help me really build that high level authority. So again, identity content, perspective shifting content, and that credibility content. If you do too much of any one of those, it will muddy the waters.
Speaker: So you really just want to prioritize iteration over perfection. And you take three to five core topics and you keep these three frames in mind.
Speaker: And then you bridge your expertise to your audience's needs. It really is a simple framework. And here's another nebulous thing you hear people talking about. Maybe you can put some clarity on it, on what it is and what it isn't. Social selling. What's it actually mean?
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, I'll tell you what social selling is not. It's not slide tackling strangers' LinkedIn boxes with these massive pitches the exact second that they accept your connection request. It's not that at all. It's kind of what I call social fitness.
Speaker: It's that practice of consistently showing up. It's participating as an industry peer or building a relationship ecosystem before you ever make a formal business ask. It's really about moving away from transactional networking and moving more toward that deep intentional influence.
Speaker: For sure. And it's funny when you say that, like sliding into the DMs. That's my pet peeve. You get a ding with a book or sales pitch. Personally, I want to try to connect with them first. Maybe a week after that, I send them a soft call to action, but really try to entice them.
Speaker: Maybe it's a video I send them of myself using Vidyard or a voice message through LinkedIn, but I try not to do it right after we connect. So Kendrick, in conclusion here, if someone wants to be known for something in the industry one year from now, what should they stop doing, start doing and keep doing?
Speaker: Oh, all right. So let's see, stop hiding behind those corporate logos, sending those generic checking in vendor emails and writing posts that lack a human fingerprint, and human touch. Okay. Stop doing that.
Speaker: They can start standing in your authority with a strict niche of one, a strict spotlight. They can start updating their digital foyer to focus on client problems and sharing their real perspective.
Speaker: And then i say what they can keep doing is keep showing up with consistency and putting out the high value perspective shifts, even when it feels quiet and nobody's clapping yet.
Speaker: Keep doing it. You'll get there. So that's what I'd leave them with. Awesome. Well, Kendra, this has been great. The perfect guest for this topic. And before we let you go, do want to give you a chance to plug anything you want so where people can connect with you, learn more about what you're doing at Advanced Partners, with the lady leaders, just what you're doing in the industry.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. You can connect with me directly on LinkedIn. We can skip the corporate fluff and just build a real connection there. If you're a staffing firm owner and you're looking to unlock work in capital or streamline your processes or scale your business, you can find me and our team at Advanced Partners on our website.
Speaker: And then keep an eye out for the Lady Leaders books, Together We Rise and Rising with Courage, where my co-authors and I share some deep applied strategies behind life and leadership. And then finally, if you're a woman of color in staffing or an ally that wants to get involved, you can join Women of Color in staffing.
Speaker: We're on LinkedIn. We have a website. You can join there and then be on the lookout for our monthly events. Kendra, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys and SimpleVMS, everyone making this production happen. Thank you.
Speaker: You're welcome. And everyone listening, if you got something out of this episode, make sure you subscribe, follow, share it with somebody in the staffing industry who's trying to stand out, build trust and sell in a more human way.
Speaker: Because your brand is not just what you post. It's what people believe about you before the conversation starts. We also encourage you to check out SimpleVMS at SimpleVMS.com to see how we help teams streamline processes and drive better results.
Speaker: Thanks again for listening to Staffing Made Simple. We'll see you next time. This has been an episode of Staffing Made Simple, powered by SimpleVMS, the vendor-friendly VMS.
