Branding Room Only Interview With Stefanie Marrone: Loving LinkedIn
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Description
Stefanie Marrone is a legal marketer who has served law firms of all sizes and various B2C and B2B companies. With nearly 20 years of experience in legal marketing, she has worked for renowned firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Morrison & Foerster.
Stefanie not only runs a successful blog, The Social Media Butterfly, where she discusses current issues affecting lawyers and legal marketers, but she is also a frequent conference and webinar speaker on social media and marketing-related topics.
In this episode…
LinkedIn is far more than a necessary evil. Many professionals will set up a LinkedIn profile and fail to cultivate connections or promote themselves. However, the platform can be a powerful tool, especially for personal branding. Even small changes can make massive improvements.
Stefanie Marrone knows this better than most. She was an early adopter of LinkedIn and has used it as a powerful vehicle to establish her brand. This has led to a fruitful career as a consultant and now as a Director of Business Development at a successful law firm. She is dedicated to sharing her experience with others and now wants to share her thoughts with you.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paul Edgar speaks with Stefanie Marrone, to talk about using LinkedIn for personal branding. They touch on the biggest mistakes and tips of branding, how Stefanie uses LinkedIn, and how to utilize your time.
Mentioned In Branding Room Only Interview With Stefanie Marrone: Loving LinkedIn
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Hi everyone, it’s Paula Edgar. I am the host of Branding Room Only, and I bring on industry leaders and influencers to learn about how they’re using their skills, their talents, their experiences to create and amplify their personal brands, and also what all the tea is about the people’s whose personal brands, who they know about, who they aren’t good.
Any who today for our guest, I have one of my great friends, Stefanie Marrone, who’s gonna be talking about all things branding, and Stefanie is a legal marketer, author, blogger, and frequent public speaker. And so welcome Stefanie.
Stefanie Marrone: Thank you so much. It’s so great to be here. Congratulations on launching this podcast.
I love the name of it. I love everything about it, and I’m so excited to listen to it and be a guest.
Paula Edgar: Thank you so much. And so the first thing I do is start off with a bunch of questions that I ask to all of my guests, and we’ll get into your expertise, which we both have in common is our love for LinkedIn.
But start me off with this, Stefanie, what is your elevator pitch?
Stefanie Marrone: Ooh, elevator pitch. It’s tough, right? And it’s funny because you and I spoke on a panel recently where we talked all about personal branding and having an elevator pitch. So for me it’s you know, my job has changed a lot in the last few months.
So I had a different elevator pitch when I was a consultant versus now where I’m in house as a marketer. So I feel like that’s also something folks should think about is like, you know, you may have multiple elevator pitches for, you know, depending on like what the circumstances are, but I would say that I, and also like what you’re trying to accomplish, right?
Like you might be like wanting a job or you may be wanting to get on a board, like, you know, so my elevator pitch right now for where I am would be that I am a legal marketer who’s worked at some of the most prominent law firms and I’ve seen everything and there’s nothing I pretty much haven’t done.
And I love what I do. I’m so passionate about what I do, especially with regard to social media marketing and I seem to know how to interact with lawyers because I still get hired. So that’s, I guess, my self-deprecating elevator pitch. I also love to produce content and so you’ll find me on videos and you’ll find me on my blog.
Paula Edgar: Awesome. Fantastic. All right, so tell me, how do you define personal brand?
Stefanie Marrone: Okay, so personal branding, they say a lot is what people say about you when you are not in the room. And I agree with that. There are conversations about each of us that are being conducted every single day. Conversations about, you know, my background, your background, my expertise, your expertise.
What we both do and how we do it, and people asking for recommendations. And so your personal brand, whether you like it or not, is something that follows you around and we all have a lot of control over it more than we think that we do. Those are my dogs, Paula, as you know. So we’ll just pretend that that didn’t happen.
They agree on personal branding, so that was a great, like exclamation mark there. I think personal branding is a lot of different things. It is a little, you know, it’s tricky when you are working in house and trying to build your brand and I had a situation like very recently that I wanna talk about that I’m sort of navigating.
But your personal brand is everything about you, your expertise, and it also is, your reputation and so much of our personal brands have been like blurred between personal and professional now. So we even say we have like you have a personal brand where you have a professional brand, but the two coexist and they intertwine in so many ways because of social media.
So that’s my long-winded way of telling you what I think a personal brand is.
Paula Edgar: And I love that. I love that you gave the caveat about the fact that the personal and the professional blend, because you know, sometimes I’ll, you know, be speaking or going to speak somewhere and they’ll be like, you know, can we talk about professional brand in addition?
And I’m like, I, it’s all the same. Because, because who you are personally and who you are professionally, they meld to form what your brand is. Right? And, and you talked about your expertise and your experience, et cetera. It’s all of those things and how they come together and what I love about the concept of branding is that, you know, you can be and have the same resume as somebody else, but how you and how your stuff shows up is your brand.
It’s your mix of that magic as opposed to just what you’ve done or just, you know you know what your credentials are. It’s how you bring it to the table.
Stefanie Marrone: There are so many people who do what you do and who do what I do, and especially, there’s a lot of lawyers, a lot of M&A lawyers. There’s a lot of litigators.
Your personal brand is defined by your unique experiences and the lens that you bring to those, the experiences that you’ve had, and how you look at the world. And that is what I love about personal branding.
Paula Edgar: Me too. All right, so describe yourself in three words or phrases.
Stefanie Marrone: Oh my God, that’s so hard. Okay, here’s, here’s what I would say. I would say that I am incredibly enthusiastic and passionate and creative. I am always looking at things a little differently and bringing in different ideas. I’m an ideas machine, as you know. I give you homework. Yes, you do. I think what has differentiated me through the years as part of my personal brand is the fact that I always like kind of question things, but like, in a genuine curious, excited way. You know, why do we do things the same way that we do them? Could we do them differently? And that’s been part of my personal brand. And there was a point, Paula, when I worked at a firm that I won’t name here that, when I was suggesting we’d use LinkedIn and they, they were like, wait, what? We don’t need LinkedIn. Like, that’s, that’s crazy. Lawyers don’t need it. They get business because of like how good they are at the law. And I’m like, no guys, that’s actually like not true. So I really tried there to be an innovator and I think I would use that as an adjective as well, like kind of innovation. Hundred percent.
But sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks or they, the dog doesn’t wanna learn the tricks. The dog just wants to lay on the couch and watch Succession.
Paula Edgar: No, it, it’s so true because as you were talking I was like, innovation is definitely something that comes up when I think of you engagement and, and, and also like quality, right?
So it’s not like just. Yeah. The amount of content, it’s, it’s the richness of the content that you produce. And so it is why I think we quickly, quickly, you know, connected because we both have a high standard of what we wanna put out here.
Stefanie Marrone: A hundred percent. And you know what? Everybody, like, there’s a lot of people again, who do what you do, who do what I do, but there’re not a lot of people who talk about it in the way that we talk about it.
So bringing it to life in a different way. And that’s your personal brand too. And you’ve done an amazing job building your brand. I mean, there’s certain things about you that I could, I, you know, I could list my three adjectives or words about you. And there’s also like color and I hope you’ll talk about that on another episode because like, I feel like, you know, your, I associate you with red and with purple.
Me, not necessarily. Although I am wearing a dog shirt today, which I think is like actually part of my brand. Like a hundred percent. I’m a dog lover. For those who don’t know, I have two French bulldogs and I talk about them a lot. Oh yeah. One of them. Yes, Lucy and Scarlett, you can follow them on Instagram @lucyscarlettfrenchies and one of them barked while we were on this, but like that’s part of my brand.
I call them my Chief Frenchie Officers. And so I love that we don’t have to take ourselves like so seriously and like be so buttoned up anymore post pandemic. That makes me, you know, feel like you can have more of a personal brand and navigate this very buttoned up world that you know has been kind of shaken up a little bit.
Paula Edgar: It has been shaken up a lot. And, and authenticity is definitely a part of both of our personal brands, it’s something that I recommend.
Stefanie Marrone: That’s a great word. I love that word. Both. I think we will both define ourselves as authentic.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely. You’re never not gonna get me. So, next question is, what is your hype song? And let me give you a little context of the hype song. So hype song can be used in two ways. One is when you’re walking into a room and you’re about to give them all a hundred percent Stefanie, full thing. What song is playing in your head or hype song is Stefanie’s having a bad day…
What song are you gonna play in order to change that around and pick yourself up.
Stefanie Marrone: Okay, so in those two, I’m glad you said that. Thank you for the clarification. I would choose two different songs, but the song that is 1000000% my song and I’m like getting hyped up, like working out, like all those things and like I just love is Eminem’s Lose Yourself.
And I just like, it gets me going, it gets me really excited. It makes me feel energy and feel just, I don’t know. Like sort of, I could do anything and I, that’s actually the song that I always ask the instructors to play when I used to do spinning at Flywheel a lot. And so, I, I love that. I also would tell you like a lot of Janet Jackson songs like will get me going and be exciting and obviously I’m gonna say Beyoncé́ and particularly Run the World, and there are a number of other Beyoncé songs that just sort of like really motivate me and get me excited.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Lose Yourself is good. I love it as a song because it has that momentum that builds. Oh, in the beginning.
Stefanie Marrone: Yes. Yeah. That, that’s exactly like the do do do. Like I love that part of it. And then it’s like crescendos and then, yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s a good. It’s a good one.
Paula Edgar: Which is a good way of thinking about how you build your brand because I think that, you know, when you are brand building, sometimes people wanna go from zero to to, to it, but you have to do that building, you know, you can’t set a goal or a mission or vision about your brand and just get there.
You have to do the work, you have to put in the things in order to have your brand be consistent and be known for whatever the thing is. And so I love that as a song, and I love that as how it kind of navigates in that space. And so tell me, Stefanie, how have you built your personal brand?
Stefanie Marrone: Oh my God, Paula, let me count the ways.
I mean, you know, I mean, I don’t even know where to begin here with regard to that question, but I will, I will try to answer it to the best of my ability. So, okay. How have I built my personal brand? Number one. Social media, specifically LinkedIn. I am a LinkedIn evangelist. They don’t pay me. They should. It has opened doors for me in immeasurable ways, in every way, like either through getting a job, getting a new opportunity, making connections, feeling connected to people during COVID when I was home alone with my dogs and felt like the world was very lonely. I also used LinkedIn at a very early point in my career as I think one of the people who was an early adopter of it. So I was able to stand out and out of the 900 million people on LinkedIn, Paula, 1% of those people post content. And of that 1% probably 5% of that content is actually good.
So the other thing…
Paula Edgar: That just killed me. I know, right?
Stefanie Marrone: It’s a, it’s a crazy stat. The other thing I did to build my brand was, there’s a couple things, but very importantly it was, It was starting a blog, it was writing, it was speaking at conferences. And by the way, I was young. I look young now, let’s just be real.
But I was really young when I was doing these things and people would, you know, peers of mine would sort of, I think that weren’t necessarily my greatest cheerleaders. I think I had more guts than some people that I didn’t wait for opportunities to come to me. I made them happen. I went after them. I felt uncomfortable.
I aligned myself with great mentors who invited me to do things and who believed in me that I could. I remember the very first time I gave a LinkedIn presentation was an internal presentation when I was at Proskauer, and my boss at the time, who’s my mentor, Wendy Bernero, she’s like, you can do this. Shout out to Wendy.
She’s like, you can do this. You’re gonna be great. I had never done it before in that setting, and I couldn’t believe the engagement and it, it motivated me. And when you love Paula, something the way that you and I both love public speaking, you and I love connecting with people. We love LinkedIn. It shows.
So I think the passion for what I do shows and that that comes through, but I would say it’s LinkedIn, speaking engagements, and video, writing. But it’s also the fact that I’ve been really smart about maximizing these things. So if I speak at a conference, I’m gonna write an article about it, and then I’m gonna do a LinkedIn post and maybe I’ll do a video snippet.
It’s repurposing the things I have to build a consistent presence over time that then people associate me with being an expert in a certain area.
Paula Edgar: But Stefanie, where the hell do you find time to do all of this? I feel like there’s like six different Stefanies and y’all all do content and then you all come together as one, like, you know, like Voltron and then you post on LinkedIn. Where do you find time? Tell me how you, you navigate this and, and doing, being who you wanna be and showing what you wanna show on LinkedIn and everywhere else.
Stefanie Marrone: It’s, I mean, it’s such a good question. Ok. Here’s the thing, now I have mastered this. This is what I do for a living. It comes easy to me.
It doesn’t come easy to everyone. It is not easy to build your, I don’t believe that. It’s not easy to build your personal brand when you are working full-time. In fact, building my personal brand was harder when I was a consultant because I had a lot of clients, client work, client demands, people calling me, people wanting me.
I wanted to clone myself at one point. There are a lot of people, including my exes, who would be like, yeah no, one Stefanie Marrone is more than enough, but I make the time for it even though I don’t have the time to do it. And I think with anything in life, like if you’re busy, you can find the time for certain things.
You have to be efficient. The more you do it, the better you get at it. You stick to certain areas, so like for example, Paula, I’ve given you this homework, your content pillars, which you do. You talk about three to five things that fall in your wheelhouse that support your brand, support your business.
Same thing for me. You’re not going to hear me talk about computers. Because number one, I don’t know anything about computers, but number two, that doesn’t fit with my brand. Okay? So I’m gonna talk about LinkedIn. I’m gonna talk about women’s issues. Because that’s like, like a pet, you know, passion project of mine with through my Women Who Wow initiative.
I’m gonna talk about legal marketing and I’m gonna talk about personal branding, and I might talk about motivational kinds of issues that relate to people who are like us, but that’s it. That’s what I stick to. I don’t batch create my content. I know a lot of people do. That works for some people, it doesn’t work for me, but I’ll tell you what I do do. When I get an idea, I make sure I put it in the notes section of my phone. I write it down, I have a running list of things, and then I’ll go back and I’ll edit them and expand upon them. And I also repurpose, that is the word of the day for me. I take things I do and I turn them into other things. By the way, I repost a lot of my posts.
People don’t realize it. Maybe I’ll change up the image, maybe I’ll do a different video. But the content is pretty much the same because if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. And most people don’t remember what they had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what you or I posted on LinkedIn. So being smarter about the things you already have.
Each of us, Paula has a ground swell of content, that we probably don’t even realize. And so it’s just being smart about using it.
Paula Edgar: That’s something that you taught me that, you know, in terms of working, working smarter, not harder. And I’m trying to incorporate that, but to your point about being, you know, when you were out consulting, it being so hard.
Yeah, sometimes I’m like, I don’t even know if I ate breakfast today. So lemme figure this out. But I, I appreciate your point about prioritizing things that are important to you and that need to get done. Cause I’ve read something on Instagram the other day that said like, it’s not that people don’t have time, it’s just they don’t have time for you.
I was like, yikes. It’s the things that we, we find important that we prioritize and so if you find that you are someone out there who is like, I don’t know, make this important put this as one of your goals and then, you know, check it out for two weeks if you decide that you’re gonna prioritize it, how it can show up in your life in a different way.
And and how your brand will start to grow based on you prioritizing it.
Stefanie Marrone: Absolutely. And also can I say that, the New York State lotto slogan is something you’ve heard me mention, and I’m gonna mention it again. I am not suggesting we all go play lotto tonight, but what I am saying is you’ve gotta be in it to win it.
And if you’re not in it, meaning you’re not doing these things, you’re not doing them consistently, then you’re not gonna be found. It’s not enough to be a great lawyer. It’s not enough to be a great marketer, a great DEI consultant, a great personal branding consultant, a great accountant. There are a lot of people who do what we do.
What differentiates people like you and me, is that we have the guts to be visible about it. And not everyone’s gonna like us, and not everyone’s gonna gravitate toward us. Not everyone’s gonna hire us and that’s okay. But we are top of mind with the people who can refer business to us, do work with us hire us, all of those things, which is incredibly powerful and what I would say that you all need to think about, and by the way, Paula, everybody has a personal brand whether they like it or not, because I can Google you and I will when I hear your name in conversations of which we’re not even aware. Oh, Paula Edgar. She’s an amazing consultant. I’m gonna go Google you.
I’m gonna go look on your LinkedIn. I’m gonna go look at your website, all of the things that you’ve written, and there’s conversations going on behind the scenes. So why not take control yourself of that narrative, right? We all have personal brands.
Paula Edgar: Yes. Control the conversation about you. I love it. I love that.
Okay. All right. So, hmm. What mistakes have you seen people make when it comes to building their brands?
Stefanie Marrone: I mean, so many mistakes. Can we do a podcast just on that topic? So I think. There’s a few. Number one is doing things they don’t like to do. So you will do things better when you like what you do. If you hate public speaking, don’t public speak.
If you don’t like writing articles, don’t do it, or buddy up with somebody. If you hate social media, don’t post on social media. You need to be aware of all the things that are available. And like Paula, I always like use this analogy, you know, you go to a Greek diner and you can get like the pancakes or you can get like the chicken marsala and like, there’s everything under the sun.
The menu’s like a Yellow Pages for those of you who remember the Yellow Pages and you’re sort of like okay, I can do, I can do all these things. You, you shouldn’t. And like, I think that’s another thing. There are a lot of people who get overwhelmed by the options out there and they, they don’t do it all.
Like, by the way, I really want to launch a podcast, you know that I do. I don’t have the time right now, so I’m not gonna do it because if I’m not gonna do it well I don’t wanna do it. So you don’t have to do all of the things, all the tactics at once. And you can also abort mission if maybe something’s not for you or it’s not working out, do something different.
If you hate video, don’t do video. So do things you like. Don’t do too many things at once so it seems overwhelming. And make sure that you’re giving a hundred percent to everything you’re doing because that’s how you know that you will be successful at it. And I think the other mistake is that people don’t think they need to do personal branding.
And like we just said, there are conversations every day going on about you and me. And if I don’t see a lot of things about your brand, I’m confused. Right? If I don’t see a LinkedIn profile, I’m confused about you and I might work with somebody else who has a much more robust dossier.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, no, I, I think that it’s so true.
And, and you know, the reason why I wanted to have Stefanie on the blog is because we have this in common. We love LinkedIn. And it’s because it’s so powerful, right? And it is the most powerful free tool we have access to period. And, and yet people don’t use it, right, and people don’t use it and or they don’t use it well or effectively.
And, and I think, you know, when I think of mistakes people make to that, to that end, it’s like, you know, you’re not maximizing even the basics of your profile. Well, what are the basics of your profile? What are the minimum things I need to do if I just wanna show up on LinkedIn and be found. What should I do?
Stefanie Marrone: Okay, so if you want to be found on LinkedIn, and this is new to you, for example, or let’s say it’s not new to you, but you’re not sure where to begin. Number one is to have a strong profile. So I break up LinkedIn into three areas, three pillars. One of them is your profile and the things you need to think about on your profile are having a very strong headline.
So that’s the area right under your name. If you don’t optimize that, what LinkedIn does is pull your current job title and your company name, and that’s not optimization of or taking control of your personal brand. Like a lot of cases Paula, it would be lawyer at, and then the name of the firm, associate at partner at, and you can really get much more nuanced and more specific and aspirational.
So it should be intellectual property partner at X firm representing startups and representing you know, clients in copyright, trademark, and patent. And then I would add a little bit about other things you do. Maybe you’re a writer, a blogger. Maybe, you’re a podcast host. You add those things. So take a look at both Paula and my LinkedIn headlines for inspiration for those out there.
The other thing is your cover image. You need to have a strong cover image. It needs to reflect what you do for whom you do it, and you can do that visually, and it’s so easy, and you can use Canva to create a template for that very easily. The other thing is make sure you have all of the sections of your profile filled out so that you show up in search results. And you will be found if you have all those areas. So when you get All-Star status, Paula on LinkedIn, it’s not like a badge, right? It it’s really because the profiles with All-Star status have preference over others. Usually the thing that’s holding people back from getting All-Star status is that they didn’t put their summary in, which is the bio.
So if you have a bio on a law firm website, you need to take that bio and make it more conversational and put it in the first person. And if you don’t have a bio at all, you need a bio. This is your bio. I want everybody to think about LinkedIn as essentially a website – their personal website – and everything there is hinging from it, essentially telling people all about you: the content you write, the events at which you’ve spoken, and your connections. And so that’s another foundational aspect of this would be to think of LinkedIn as a blog. It’s a content hub. It’s a website, and your profile is your homepage.
And so if you think about it that way and you look at your entire professional history and make sure that your profile really reflects that, you’ll be in good shape. The other thing that you need to do is build your connections. Don’t just wait for connections to come to you. Again, you gotta be in it to win it.
So actively engage and add people. And then the third thing is your participation on the network on LinkedIn. And that is the trickiest one. That’s where people struggle the most, I find that’s where they’re nervous about posting something. What will people think of it? Will it get any likes? What if they don’t like it?
What will my employer think? And that is a tricky one, by the way. That’s the issue that I am navigating again, building my personal brand while working full-time and making sure that I am being a good employee, but also staying true to who I am as a professional in this industry, and I think a lot of people struggle with that and also finding the time to, to post, but LinkedIn can work for you if you allow it to.
The other thing is authenticity on LinkedIn is so important. The posts that stand out and the people who stand out are the ones who tell stories, are the ones that share experiences from their path. That’s what makes us, us, that’s our personal brand. The dry boring business content that people post doesn’t do well.
And if it does well, it’s because people feel bad that they feel like they should like it. But this is why I tell people, you know, don’t post that. You know, for the 19th consecutive year I’ve been named Super Lawyer. You know, no one really cares, guys. You know, and it’s a waste of a post. Every single thing you put out in the public sphere is a touchpoint, is an opportunity to connect with people or not. It’s essentially your elevator pitch. It’s essentially, you know, showing up at a networking event and either talking to people strategically or not talking to anybody. So we have a choice every day what we post. And I think a lot of people, Paula, they don’t think about their audience when they post anything.
Just think about themselves, and that is number one rule with anything you post, what’s in it for my audience? Why am I posting this? And, you can build your brand, by the way, by providing value to other people. That has been the hallmark of everything I’ve ever done, is giving away free information, helping other people with no expectation of anything in return.
It’s not me ever posting awards that I win. And by the way, I do win awards, but I don’t post them. I want to show versus tell when it comes to my personal brand.
Paula Edgar: Well, I’m definitely, when I get an award, again, I’m showing it cause that’s…I’m gonna be like, I’m so humbled…
Stefanie Marrone: Ok. But here’s the thing, it’s the way you tell that story, right? You can be the best lawyer in your respective area, but a humble brand would be a better approach. Like I never expected in a million years that when I blank, I would blank. So I never, I was a magazine editor for years and then I became a legal marketer. Well, that’s an interesting story, right? I could talk about that.
I could talk about the fact that I was going to go to law school, but I didn’t. And then I decided to, I’m, this is not me, this is fake Stefanie, but you catch my drift. Tell a story. Be self-deprecating, and connect with people in an authentic, vulnerable, honest way. And that is what separates you. By the way people are scared to do that. You don’t have to tell everybody about the skeletons in your closet or talk about, you know, childhood trauma. You can talk about something in your formative years, a mentor, someone who helped you, how you got in your field, why you love what you do. There’s just so many ways to bring people in with that story hook and that is personal branding in 2023 and beyond, in my opinion, and where it’s going.
Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that because I’m literally in the middle of writing an article, which of course I’ll share with all of y’all and you, Stefanie, about where I think personal branding is going this year, and that authenticity piece is in there because I see it.
It’s like the wave that that’s coming. And even people who I thought were boring, stodgy lawyers are starting to incorporate some things and I just, I see the momentum. I see the movement of what’s happening when you know, people give a little, they get a lot back. A lot back.
Stefanie Marrone: I love that. I love that. Let’s just, brand that we give a little. So we, we’ve got, you give a little, you get, what did you say? Say it again.
Paula Edgar: A lot back. A lot back.
Stefanie Marrone: Okay, and you gotta be in it to win it. Those are, those are our little phrases…
Paula Edgar: And a dollar and a dream.
Okay. So Stefanie in, I mean, first of all, you know that you’ll be back on my, on my podcast because you just have so much to share.
Stefanie Marrone: I know.
Paula Edgar: And I love having you on. So you know, you’ll be back on. So there’s that.
Stefanie Marrone: We have a lot of other topics we could cover. You know?
Paula Edgar: So much, so much. So you know that you’ll be a standing guest on Branding Room Only.
Stefanie Marrone: Anytime.
Paula Edgar: But on Branding Room Only, I ask all of my guests two questions and I can’t wait to hear what your answer is to these. So this is a Stand By Your Brand moment. What is the authentic aspect of your personal brand that you will never compromise?
Stefanie Marrone: Hmm. That’s an interesting, that’s okay. It’s going to be, being me, it’s going to be the fact that I am never going to be that person who wears the gray and black suits all buttoned up and is not wearing something a little quirky or is not telling jokes and being relatable. It’s the energy I bring. I’m like, I just, I can’t change myself and I know that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. And that is something I learned and I really had to sort of deal with the fact that I won’t be for everybody. I’m not gonna belong certain places, but I know I’m gonna go where I’m supposed to be and the people who, who, the people who like my content, the people who like me, are the right people for me. So I’ll never compromise being myself, and I’m also not going to compromise showing up. It’s scary. And I you know, oftentimes get nervous about what I post and just being visible and having people who maybe who are criticizing me.
Cause when you put yourself in the public eye, you open yourself up to that. But my passion for wanting to help and teach others outweighs that uncomfortable feeling. So I’m never going to compromise, shrinking myself to fit in places I don’t really belong. I’m gonna be me. And that was a hard lesson by the way to learn.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I love that. And, and that there’s so much that we could take from that. We could talk about that for our whole time too. But the next one is, what is your Branding Room Only? What’s your magic? Tell me about the special skill, gift, experience that you have that people would stand in a room to see you show, tell, be, in a room. What’s your Standing Room Only Branding Room Only moment?
Stefanie Marrone: Okay. So I think it’s the passion and energy that I have for what I do and the way I talk about it. So I can go into a room and I can speak to people. I could do it on a webinar, which is so hard because you don’t like know if like your jokes are actually hitting people or if they like your content.
I’m always like, could somebody like write something in the chat to let me know that you like this. Today I did a program and I said, if you wanna throw a virtual tomato at me, like, feel free or tell me something nice. Right? So I think it’s the energy that I bring to a presentation, to something.
It’s the passion for what I do and the love for what I do that I know comes through. When you love what you do I don’t think it’s that hard to build your personal brand, and I also don’t think that you need to be an extrovert to do it. There’s plenty of introverts who are doing great jobs, doing different things.
I thrive being on a stage. I thrive talking to people. That’s how I am. That’s how I’ve always been, and I think what I do for a living now really, it really makes sense. It was like a culmination of like so many years of like being like, oh, I don’t know, maybe I’m supposed to be behind the scenes kind of thing.
I know my talent is helping teach others and getting people excited about marketing, about LinkedIn, about personal branding, and I won’t ever stop being me to do that. So I think that’s what it is.
Paula Edgar: What a perfect way to end this podcast. Stefanie, I wanna thank you for spending some time with me and talking about all of our favorite things and for everybody, listen, make sure that you follow Stefanie on every single place that she is and she’s everywhere, and you go to socialmediabutterflyblog.com to get all of her fantastic content.
And if this is the first time listening to Branding Room Only, make sure you follow, like, and continue to check out my content and I’ll see you on the interwebs. Bye everyone.
