Thought Talk

I often get called by CEOs who are interested in the added value of having a CEO brand that is separate from – but connected to – their businesses. In today’s Thought Talk podcast,, I’ll be discussing the three biggest mistakes I see when it comes to CEO branding as well as the three thought leadership categories CEOs sort into when it comes to their personal brands.   Tips for better CEO branding    CEO branding can’t be done as a  transactional relationship. You can’t delegate the crafting of it to a marketing director. It requires your direct participation and engagement.    CEO branding isn’t just PR — It requires not only reputation management, but also thought leadership, content marketing strategy, and last but not at all least, executive presence.   It takes work and effort, but not necessarily a great deal of time. Don’t  underestimate its value, and don’t let your CEO brand be decided by default. About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a bran

My guest today is Eddie Hull, the Associate Strategy Director of FutureBrand and he is here to help us understand the biggest takeaways from this year’s FutureBrand Index for entrepreneurs and small businesses.   To gain insight on how strong brand reputations are perceived and managed, listen for the six dimensions that are used for the study, as well as how the pandemic has changed how brands are seen. Tips For A Brand With Staying Power   Thought leadership — Move your thought leadership outside closed doors; companies highly placed in the index highlight their leaders.   Authenticity — Connect with your customers and build trust. People are starting to challenge the legitimacy of institutions and brands are no exception.   Trust — Building trust requires consistency and a clear purpose.   Adopt and integrate tech — You will need it to walk into the fourth industrial revolution. About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and

With COVID-19, more and more eyeballs are on us online, and our business and personal brands need to be sharp and effective. In today’s solo episode I will be busting the seven most common myths surrounding personal brands.    About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.   She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build, and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.   Karen has spoken for

Video marketing has the capacity to create a connection and tell a multifaceted story that just words or audio can’t always accomplish.    I’m joined today by Nina Froriep from Clock Wise Productions to discuss what it takes to drive a successful video marketing campaign for a small business, why you need to be creating video and the biggest mistakes to avoid.    Tips For Successful Video Marketing Online   Shorter is better — 90 seconds is ideal for a marketing video.   Choosing a platform — First, find out where your potential audience goes for their information, then show up there.   Biggest video marketing mistakes — Inconsistency, investing in too much equipment, and being too high-concept.   People like real people — be authentic, talk about what you know, be consistent, and give potential customers a feel for what it might be like to work with you.  About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implement

Most people who choose independent work in the gig economy do so because they are pursuing career fulfillment, independence, and flexibility. But the trade-off is that you need to fend for yourself: withholding and remitting taxes, putting money aside for health insurance, retirement or paid sick leave, etc.   This can be overwhelming, but today I welcome Matthew Spoke, CEO of Moves Financial, to the show. Moves is a startup dedicated to helping independent workers achieve their financial goals.   We discuss what the gig economy is exactly, how it was expected to grow, and how COVID-19 impacted the timeline. We also touch on the increased demand for interim C-level executives and what the biggest pitfalls are for gig workers and the people who hire them.   Get to know the gig economy   Growing labor force trends: Economic and industry instability — More people will choose independent work as a primary choice or to diversify income in the coming decades. Increasing selection — More skills are being brought

My guest today is Plamen Russev, Founder of Webit, author of Power to the People — the New Marketing and the man who successfully rebranded a whole city — not a small feat in any capacity.   I’ve had the privilege to be both a panelist and a moderator at Webit’s events and I am always quite impressed by the quality and level of the people that agree to participate.   I’m very excited to finally have a chance to talk to Dr. Russev about how he came to be so well connected, what it took to shift a 20K attendee event to virtual in a matter of days, what it really takes to run successful events as well as the need to be more responsible to ensure a sustainable future for humanity. Tips   Having a strong team can make or break a launch — keep the right people around you and rely on their expertise.   Community, team, and platform are the three most important aspects of a successful virtual event.   Growing a network is hard work — Giving back, forgetting your ego, and trying to make a difference play a larg

Today Karen talks about tweeting your way to the top — how you can use Twitter to build your business, your book, or your brand online.   When you consider that 44% of Twitter users are between 18 and 34, that 69% are moms, and that 72% who follow a brand are likely to buy, it’s an opportunity you might not want to pass over. But like all social media, effectiveness boils down to a few factors that Karen breaks down in a comprehensive way for this short, informative episode.   Tips for Tweets   Relationships — Connect, expand, and maintain.   Generate leads and get attention — Twitter can give you access to people in your field, otherwise impossible to reach.   Branding and image building — Use Twitter to gain perspective on your own image.   Buzz and promo — It’s a great place to build some excitement over a new product.   Consistency is key — Posting should be done 2 to 4 times a day, 5 days a week.   Using Twitter strategically can be a real boon for marketing a book, business, product, or brand.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Caroline Boudreaux, a social entrepreneur and the Founder of the Miracle Foundation. The Foundation is committed to a family for every child in our lifetime.   Caroline and I take some time to talk about philanthropy and charity in trying times, the three Ts of philanthropy as well as the challenges nonprofits face compared to for profit businesses.  Tips    In 1989, the U.N. ratified the Rights of the Child — 12 measurable things kids need to reach their full potential and the life skills training the Miracle Foundation provides for children to activate their rights.   The three “Ts” of philanthropy — Caroline details the ways you can help even in times of financial instability.   The little girl on the wooden bed — Sheebani is the child that began it all 20 years ago, she is now in nursing school.   The double standards faced by nonprofits — paying for marketing and talent is called overhead. About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder

Joanna Burish joins the show today to share her expertise as a licensed holistic financial planner with Northwestern Mutual. Her family office focuses on three ways for her clients to have more power and control over their finances.   We discuss the importance of listening to your financial advisor, the difference between good debt and bad debt, the three things you absolutely need to have a handle on during this COVID pandemic, and how having a financial quarterback can really help keep you on track. Tips    Holistic VS siloed planning — The difference between having a quarterback or not for your team.   Finding the right holistic financial planner — Joanna explains what the right feeling should be between too safe and not safe enough to identify your holistic financial planner.   Short- and long-term plans — in times of COVID, make sure your fight-or-flight response is mitigated and you keep making decisions that align with your long term plan.   The three things you need to have a handle on right

Surprising Solutions to The Magical Thinking Messing up Our Productivity   Today’s episode is a little different. Instead of interviewing a guest, I’m going to share about something I’ve recently encountered with clients and that I’m dealing with myself.    After a call with a CEO client, I realized that many overachievers suffer from the same productivity issue: magical thinking.   Like many of us, my high-performing CEO client expected herself to be at her maximum amount of productivity all the time, no matter the circumstances.   I invite you to take a moment to consider how to overcome this common issue during a short episode that gets to the source of the problem and that also provides concrete actions you can start taking, as of today, to inject a dose of reality into your daily to-do list.  Tips    Be aware of the impact of circumstances on focus and productivity — top of mind are upcoming elections, COVID-19, unemployment, economic uncertainty, working from home, and social unrest.   Keep in mind

Evan Horowitz is CEO and Co-Founder of the creative studio Movers+Shakers in Brooklyn New York and I am happy to have him on the podcast to help wrap my head around TikTok, a platform that is about more than just dog videos.   Tune in for an engaging chat about what brands the platform is best suited for, what not to do on TikTok, and how to best leverage user participation. Tips    TikTok is primarily a top-of-funnel campaign platform and is best suited for consumer products — multiply on-brand customer touchpoints in order to get the sale.   Leverage user participation in creative ways — Evan shares the story of his ELF Cosmetics viral campaign.   Be native to the platform, don’t copy-paste — show up in a way that makes sense with the conversations people are already having.   Music and casual esthetics are key to TikTok — don’t forget the tone either, this platform is a decidedly optimistic place. About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a brandi

Jeff Wald is the co-Founder and President of WorkMarket, an ADP company, as well as the author of the book The End of Jobs: The Rise of on Demand Workers and Agile Corporations.   He comes on the show today to discuss the way COVID-19 has precipitated some of the changes forecasted for the future of work, as well as what you as a business owner or leader need to do to prepare for the future of the American workforce.   We touch on subjects ranging from the absence of retraining and its link to populism and nationalism, the advent of cobots and AI to democracy and technology being the way forward through the future of the American workforce. Tips and Thoughts for Making the Best of the 4th Industrial Revolution   A job that has more than 50% repetitive high-volume-component tasks is historically automated away. This should account for 10 to 15% of jobs in the U.S., over the next 10 years.   Have a retraining plan — revolutions are never smooth affairs; at the onset of a 4th industrial revolution (or the f

Today I welcome Bob Roth to the podcast. He has been teaching transcendental meditation for the past 45 years, and currently serves as the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation. Bob is also the author of the 2018 New York Times Bestseller Strength in Stillness.   I used to be so-so about meditation and had actually tried several different types – but none of them seemed to stick.  When I found TM I loved how easy it was and how calm I felt when done mediatating.    Tune in for a science-packed episode on why and how TM works, what the genius lounge is, and new, compelling reasons to get 20 minutes of meditation in, every day.     Tips, and why TM makes a difference   There are three different kinds of meditation and they yield different results — Bob Roth explains focused attention (Gamma brain waves), open monitoring (Theta brain waves), and self-transcending (Alpha 1 brain waves).   Dropping the disorder from Post-Traumatic Stress. PTS leads to insomnia, hyperarousal, anxiety, and chronic depression. And it

I am happy to welcome my friend and colleague Susan Harrow on the show; she is a top media coach and author of the best-selling book Selling yourself Without Selling Your Soul.    Susan has written the guide to getting into O, The Oprah Magazine. Tune in for a quick-paced episode where you will learn what it takes to get your product, book or article  into O Magazine.    Tips On Getting Into O Magazine    Oprah is not a magic pill — Everything has to be in alignment for your offer to work, whether it’s for O, The Oprah Magazine or anything. It’s not just your website, your packaging, or your videos; your brand is YOU.   Find where you fit in — 500 to 700 books are submitted each week and they choose only 15–20 each month. Competition is steep.   Oprah always has the final word — Pitch, packaging, preparation, and perseverance. You really have to know your stuff and understand what they’re looking for.     About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a brandin

My guest, Rachael Robertson, led a team of 18 people through a 12-month research expedition in Antarctica. She was chosen to lead this expedition after a boot camp interview process measured her ability to lead with empathy.   I’m excited to talk to her about what it means to lead in extreme conditions, what we can learn from her experience as we progressively open up post-pandemic, and how we can all better our leadership practices in the face of a new world.   From the challenges of confinement in months of full darkness and full daylight, we talk about the importance of routine in keeping people’s mental health optimal, the necessity for facts over emotions, and how to build a team from strangers with diverse backgrounds in one of the toughest environments on the planet. Tune in for an in-depth discussion on what it means to lead in extreme environments. Tips For Leading in Tough Environments   Leading through a crisis — Rachael’s team’s plane crashed during her time in Antarctica — Be poised and calm,

Guy Kawasaki is the Chief Evangelist of Canva and the creator of The  Remarkable People podcast.   In this episode of Thought Talk Guy shares his thoughts on how bad times make good companies and discussed ideas from his recently published Youtube video “The Art of Perseverance: Surviving the Pandemic.” In this episode, we talk about everything from taking the time to organize your inbox (and toolbox) to actionable ways to keep your business afloat while battling the feelings of failure that may arise from the current economic circumstances. Strap in, and get ready for a good laugh on top of a hearty dose of sound advice. Tips For Persevering Through This Pandemic   Run the right race —Entrepreneurship today isn’t a sprint or even a marathon, it’s more like a decathlon.   Focus on cash — right now, your marketing isn’t about being cool, it’s about staying afloat; there will be no white knights and silver bullets, you are the only one who can make or break your business; don’t count on help. (If you get i

Instagram used to be all about the pretty pictures, but Gayneté Jones, CEO of G.A.M.E. Changing Industries says Millennials have altered the social media landscape.      In this episode we discuss the way Millennials approach Instagram, how the way they purchase is shaping the new world of business online and why digital products are the future.  Gaynete also shares her actionable tips for building a stronger Instagram audience.   Join us for an engaging and enjoyable conversation about how you can increase your social reach on Instagram.  Tips For Building an Instagram Audience The four audience-building must-haves — micro-posts; shareability, triggers and humor.   Who is your ideal customer? — Find who they are following, pick complementary businesses, and reach out to collaborate on content.    Ads are not enough — be of use to your audience: What do they want? Find a way to solve their problem.   Don’t fear the learning curve — there is no one-size-fits-all: you will have to iterate and fail befo

Today’s episode is densely packed with information, tips, and incredible insights on the current COVID19 crisis.    My guest today, Dr. David L. Katz, is a preventative medicine specialist and a globally recognized authority on lifestyle medicine. He is a regular guest expert on CNN, Fox News, and Bill Maher and he has just co-authored How to Eat with New York Times columnist Mark Bittman.   Strap in for a deep dive on how to imagine the future even in this state of crisis, what you can do right now to balance your immune system, the COVID-19 risk factors you can influence, and how to find your bearings when information and opinions are so profoundly polarized. Tips For Better Health, Balance and Clarity   Manage your risk — Dr. Katz says that aside from age, many of the risk factors for a severe COVID-19 illness can be potentially mitigated right now, including: weight, hypertension, coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, and inflammation.   Find your balance — Good immune systems are balanced, adjus

How can we keep giving during the COVID-19 crisis, when many of us have seen our livelihoods negatively impacted? In order to address this question and shed light on how giving can change our lives, I welcome Jennifer Rose Santi to the show! Jenny founded the philanthropy services firm Saint Partners and has been a charity advisor to some of the wealthiest people on earth for the past 13 years. She is the author of the acclaimed book The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories & Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving. She joins me in a discussion that ranges from keeping your gifts from becoming a burden, what wealthy and normal donors can learn from each other to the effects of giving on the brain! Tips For Giving Your Way To Happiness Charity isn’t only about money — you can give time (reaching out to a neighbor in times of crisis is a good example). The five ways giving will change you — find your purpose, find your calling, recover from trauma, build relationships, and feel significant. Align yo

Welcome to the first Thought Talk chat Tuesday, a weekly informal discussion with some of my close friends and colleagues. I am so very happy to welcome my guest Michelle Young — a great, great friend, enough so that we have had to promise not to swear! Tune in for a fun chat about why I said Michelle couldn’t call herself a life coach, how this COVID-19 quarantine is an introvert’s heaven, and what Michelle and I plan to do with this time that has been given to us.   Chat Tuesday Tidbits! My quarantine time well spent: Avoid COVID-19. Improve your business. Broaden your horizons through art or culture.   Michelle’s quarantine time well spent: Put your back-burner projects back in front. Honor who you are and what you want; it matters.   “I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE RIGHT OR LEFT, GOVERNOR CUOMO IS A SHINING LIGHT OF LEADERSHIP RIGHT NOW.” Karen Tiber Leland, Sterling Marketing Group About Karen Tiber Leland   Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color str