June 11, 2026 – If He Can, You Can Patrick Engasser and Personal Brand Anne Candido & April Martini

Intro 1 0:02
Patrick broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award wins.

Jim Beach 0:10
We don’t have time for the introduction, the show is that busy and great. First up today we have Patrick Engasser. He is a sales super guru, but has a secret that will blow you away and make you really contrite, and feel like you need to work harder. It’s an amazing interview. And then we have Anne Candido and April Martini on personal branding. They also have an amazing story to share with us, and a real call to start building our personal brands as we have these difficult economic times. Anyway, very busy show. We’re gonna go ahead and get started right now. Very excited to introduce my first guest. This is an amazing story. Please welcome Patrick Engasser to the show. He is a best-selling author, business coach, and motivational speaker. He started his career in a Fortune 500 insurance company, and eventually, actually, within like two or three years, by his third year, actually was the top account closer, and became a district manager. He turned his team into a seven figure organization, and is helping other agents around the office as well. He’s a three-time recipient of the top award for management, excellent, recognized for outstanding leadership and coaching. He has delivered hundreds of presentations and trainings nationwide, and has worked as a coach with professional sales reps, executives, and entrepreneurs. His book. oh, I’m on the wrong one. Here it is. If I can do it, you can do it. Inspiration for eliminating excuses, overcoming challenges, and succeeding in business and life. And the title is, and all of the other achievements are really put into perspective when I tell you that Patrick was born blind. If I can do it, you can do it. Boy, does that hit home. And make your excuses make my excuses look awfully silly. Patrick, welcome to the show. How you doing?

atrick Engasser 2:11
Thank you, Jim. Appreciate you having me. I’m doing great.

Jim Beach 2:14
What do you hear or feel when you get these excuses? My car wouldn’t start this morning. I’m sorry, man.

Speaker 1 2:24
It’s funny when I was, when I used to, when I used to run a district as a district manager early on. When I started out, I got, I had a lot of people who would have those kinds of excuses, and you know, my favorite one was, well, there’s sure, there was a lot of traffic this morning, so I got to the point where I say, guys, meeting starts at 8o’clock I don’t mean to be mean, but I’m here at 730 In case you didn’t know this, I can’t see. I took the bus or a cab this morning, or an Uber, so just, just so you know, next Monday there will be traffic, because there is every Monday. So try and plan accordingly. And after that, the excuses kind of went away, but yeah, I mean, it’s – we all have them. Let’s be honest, we all have excuses at times, right, about different things that might not be in the business world, it might be in another area of our life, but it’s just the problem with excuses is they’re very expensive, and a lot of times the invoice doesn’t show up till later, so it’s easy to sometimes make those excuses because we don’t get to see the repercussions until later, and sometimes you know success is the same way, right? The positive results don’t show up right away. You got to front load the work and get the results on the back end, and so that’s why it’s hard to go to the gym and keep going to the gym. It’s why it’s hard to keep building a business until you’re successful, when things don’t always go perfectly. So that’s kind of the challenge with excuses and with building businesses to success.

Jim Beach 3:50
Why are you so good at sales?

Patrick Engasser 3:54
I think the biggest thing that I have that I bring to the table is I’m very good at building relationships. I think a lot of people look at sales as something that’s transactional rather than relational. I always looked at it the other way around. I didn’t have a lot of success in the first year because I had no, no background in sales, and I think I was trying too hard to sell something rather than building a relationship with the person across the table, and once I realized that they have a problem, I have a solution. I just have to find what pain point they have that they’re really looking to get rid of, that’s costing them a lot of time, energy, money, and stress, and that I can help them solve. And once I do that, the rest takes care of itself. They want to work with me once they know you like you and trust you, the same thing is true regardless of what your product is, as long as your product or your service will solve a problem for them. So the first step is build that relationship or build some rapport, at least actually care about the client and ask questions that will help you find the pain points that you. Help solve, and once you do that, you’re the hero, and the rest is pretty easy.

Jim Beach 5:04
You are selling insurance,

Patrick Engasser 5:07
yep, supplemental insurance, so is employee benefits.

Jim Beach 5:11
Okay, so you had a target audience that was fairly easy to find, right? They were benefit managers,

Patrick Engasser 5:20
yep, so business owners, CEOs, HR directors. Yeah, so I knew where they were. I knew how to find them, or if not, I would find them.

Jim Beach 5:27
Okay. And what changed between that first year and then the second, third year, when you started getting good? Did you change your tactics? Did you just develop the relationship at that point that were then able to close?

Patrick Engasser 5:41
The biggest thing that changed my, there’s a number of things, and I started figuring some of it out by trial and error. The problem with trial and error is it’s the most expensive way to learn, because it takes the longest, and you have to learn from all your own mistakes instead of someone else’s. So, what I started to do is find mentors within the industry, people who are more successful than me, which was not hard to find, because that was pretty much everybody at the time, so I had to, you know, I was asked, taking top producers out to lunch, dinner, you know, coffee, depending on how expensive their knowledge was, some of them wanted to steak dinner, some of them were fine with a cup of coffee, and then the big thing that was the real turning point for me, which really made a shift over a 12 to 14 month period of time. Was I hired to build a business and sales coach. I don’t even know that existed, but I read a book, Success Principles by Jack Canfield, that I picked up, and there are a lot of tips in there that were great, but the one that resonated with me was that top athletes, Olympians top musicians, they all have coaches, so why don’t you? And I’m like, that’s a good question. I probably should have one, because I don’t know what I’m doing. And so I went online and found a sales, a business, and sales coach. Took me a couple of weeks, but interviewed a handful of people, and that changing the mindset and then changing the strategy are the biggest things that happened that that really moved my career forward. I went from in the five hundreds out of about 615 agents in terms of business new business closed to the number one new account closer, as you mentioned, by the end of year three, so about 14 months later, so very quick turnaround. Everything changed from really struggling to a year, a little over a year later. My life being completely different, and a big piece of that was being willing to invest in my business and in my sales career.

Jim Beach 7:35
Very well said. Do you want to give a shout out to your coach, I

Patrick Engasser 7:44
I’m sorry.

Jim Beach 7:45
Do you want to give a shout out to your coach? Give him some, yeah,

Patrick Engasser 7:48
yep. So the person I hired originally, his name was Steve, Steve Borak. We’re not working together anymore, but my current coach is James Malincheck. Some of you may know him from the ABC, the hit ABT ABC hit show Secret Millionaire, so James is fantastic at sales, business development, and marketing, as well as, as well as really how to, how to become a speaker, which is why I hired him. So, as I moved into my speaking and coaching business of coaching entrepreneurs, I hired another coach, James. I’ve been with him for the last five years. It’s been a fantastic experience. He’s become a great mentor and a friend, but it really just hopefully drives home the point that I’ve not only – I didn’t just hire one coach, I actually believe in that as a good rule to just continue to find people who have the knowledge you want and tap into that, so you can succeed faster with less effort.

Jim Beach 8:45
What is your thought on goals and goal setting? Are you a goal setting type person? Write them down, accountability, any of that kind of stuff.

Patrick Engasser 8:54
Absolutely, I mean, it’s if you, you want to achieve your goals, you got to keep them in front of you on a daily basis, right? So, write them down, you know, at the at the beginning of the quarter or the year. And I’m a big fan of what I call elephant goals. It’s one of the tips I have in my book, set elephant goals, and what I mean by that is, we’ve all heard the cliche, the question, How do you eat an elephant? The answer, of course, is one bite at a time, although hopefully no one’s actually eating elephants out there, but the idea that the big goal is the one that should inspire you, right. Hey, three years from now, one year from now, five years from now, this is where I want to be. But your brain can internalize that we’re going to do this step by step over a five year period of time, unless you actually break the elephant down into bite-sized pieces, so it’s breaking the three year goal into monthly, yearly goal, then monthly goals, then down to the weekly, and down to the daily, and if you don’t do the daily step, the elephant goal never happens, so the key is keeping that big vision in front of yourself, whether it be with a pitcher in front of you, not good for me, but for other people, in my case. It’s something written out or something I listen to that motivates me and reminds me of that goal every day, my ringtone, my passwords, everything reminds me of that big elephant goal. And then having the daily goal in front of you every day, so yeah, write down, hey, this is what I’m going to do for the day, biggest win for the day that I want in the morning, and then biggest win that happens in the day at the end of the day, so yeah, goals, you want to get to the next level. Goals are essential.

Jim Beach 10:25
I think you just mentioned one of my tricks. I use my password as one of my goal motivators.

Patrick Engasser 10:32
Amen, brother.

Jim Beach 10:33
So every time I have to type it in or go into a website, I think, oh, the password for here is, you know, for a while it was about an insurance company that I hated, and then changed to revenge for a while, and then falling in love, you know, love, whatever, you know, is always my password, always reflects what I’m thinking about, so

Patrick Engasser 10:58
it’s good because it keeps you thinking about it, and then the fun part is when you go back and you haven’t, haven’t changed one, you haven’t used it in a while, and you go back and you find one from two or three years ago, and you realize you’re like, oh, that’s right, I had this because this was my goal, and I accomplished that goal. So that’s really always a cool rear view mirror moment.

Jim Beach 11:15
I had one of those, and it was a thing I hadn’t done in years, obviously, and I ended up talking to a person and saying, I just don’t remember, you know, what my password is, and they were like, well, it’s someone you think of very, very highly. I was like, my grandfather, like, no, it was a historical figure, I was like, that I think Ronald Reagan, and they were like, yes, but that’s password went back, it all went back all the way to Reagan’s times.

Patrick Engasser 11:47
Hey, man, great president,

Jim Beach 11:49
I think so too. Yes, he restored a lot to America in terms of optimism and things like that. How do you, nine most

Patrick Engasser 11:59
frightening words in the English language? Right, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. My favorite Ronald Reagan club,

Jim Beach 12:03
I agree with that as well. How do you mean optimistic, Patrick, when you stub your toe in the middle of the night because the door is in the wrong place, or whatever? You know, life is challenging for you. How do you stay optimistic and happy.

Patrick Engasser 12:23
Yeah, so the biggest thing is gratitude for me, and it’s obviously always a work in progress. It’s not like I naturally am just always 100% grateful, but when I find myself in those moments that are challenging, and I think about the things I don’t have, or I just, as you said, stuff like toe, or whatever, that, that daily it is for that day is just think of the things I do have. Thanks, think of how grateful I am that I have the wife I have, I have the three year old son that I have, you know, I have the guide dog I have, I have the family that I have, all the things I’ve have accomplished in my life, which starts to get your brain, if it’s something you’re working on, that, hey, this isn’t going the way I want. When you start thinking about the things that have already happened, that God’s already blessed you with, then you start to believe that the future blessings are possible. That I was born in this country could have been born in any other, and for me, that’s, you know, there are other great places in the world, but this certainly isn’t anywhere close to the bottom of the list, so feel grateful for that. If you wake up the morning, in the morning, and think of 10 things you’re grateful for to start the day, it’ll take you less than a minute, maybe two at most. It’s such an easy thing, and yet so many people I share that with are like, “Oh, I forgot to do that, I haven’t done that, or “I did it for a few days and I stopped, but it can pay such huge dividends, because it’s very difficult to start your day in a bad mood when you start your day by thinking of all the things you’re grateful for, and then from that point on, I’m not saying your day can’t go, you know, and turn into chaos at some point, some event could shatter that, but it’s a whole lot easier to keep momentum once you have it, rather than starting the day watching the news, and going, man, you know, life really stinks. And then trying to turn that around later. Good luck with that.

Jim Beach 14:07
That’s an amazingly impressive attitude, Patrick. I’ve had some health issues, and had things removed, and that kind of stuff, and had long, long stays in the hospital, and things like that, and I get mad at God every once in a while. I’ve burst at God for some of the things that have happened. And how do you have you ever been mad at God?

Patrick Engasser 14:36
Absolutely, yeah. Especially when I was younger, but I won’t say that it, that I don’t sometimes still get very frustrated, and say, why are you letting this happen, or happen, or why is this happening to me. I’d like to think I’m a lot more mature in my faith, and I was when I was a lot younger, but when I was in my teenage years, going to high school, being, you know, now as an entrepreneur, it’s, it’s, I don’t say it’s cool to be different. And but for me at this point I think that a lot of people realize that my unique ability or my what makes me different also makes me strong and is really my superpower, people want to talk to me about how I’ve overcome challenges being blind in the business world, so it’s kind of become my superpower, and some of that is because that’s how I frame the story on purpose, because I see it that way as an asset, not a liability. But there was a time, Jim, not that long ago, well, you know, maybe 1012, years ago, certainly going back to high school and college, where I didn’t see it that way, and you know, it wasn’t popular to be different, you know, not to make a joke out of it, but you know, girls weren’t coming up to me when I was 16, going, ‘Hey, you know what I want to do? I want to date the blind dude, that’s what I want to do. So it just wasn’t at the time, it was not popular, and you kind of were like, ‘Why do I have to be different? Why am I like this? You know, God, why did you give me this this burden? And then later I realized when I was speaking at an event, and I got off the event, the stage at the event, and I had a lady come up to me and say, “You know, can I give you a hug? and she was emotional, and I said, “Of course, and we talked, and she said that the reason that she was so emotional is because she’s had a business that she’s wanted to start, but she’s everyone tells her she should do this. She’s talented, she should do it, but she keeps telling herself all these reasons why she can’t. She says, but after hearing your story on stage, if you can do what you’ve been able to do, given your challenges, then I can do this, and now I know that. And that was kind of how the title of the book, If I Can Do It You Can Do It, was born, as well as my talks that I do when I’m, when I’m doing motivational talks for corporations or organizations, and, and when I go in and do sales trainings and leadership trainings, most of those things revolve around starting with my, my origin story of the challenges I’ve been through, and hey, if I can overcome this, so can you, but that had to, I had to go through what you just said earlier, being mad at God and being frustrated with my life, and not realizing at the time that down the road I would eventually realize that all these challenges would be turned into an opportunity for me to make an impact on other people, and if I hadn’t gone through what I went through, I wouldn’t be able to take other people by the hand and why lead them through their challenges.

Jim Beach 17:23
Do you have a service dog?

Patrick Engasser 17:25
I do. Yeah,

Jim Beach 17:26
what kind, and what’s his.. I have her name. I

Patrick Engasser 17:29
have a.. I have a black Labrador. His name is Indy. He’s three years old, and I.. when I got him, I was in Buffalo, New York, because that’s where I was born and raised. So, six months out of the year it snows there, that is real, actually does happen, but a lot of, lot of great people in Buffalo, good place. But my wife and I moved down to Destin, Florida, with our son last June, so little, basically a year ago, and so that was a bit of a transition for him, being a black dog, moving into a place where the sun’s always out and it’s always hot. He didn’t love that, but he’s getting used to it. But he’s a, he’s a good dog.

Jim Beach 18:08
And is the relationship between the two of you what movies made of?

Patrick Engasser 18:14
Yes, it is. And it’s funny that people always say that they’re like, oh yeah, it seems like such a magical relationship, and it can be, but like any other relationship, sounds probably funny talking about a human being and a dog relationship being something you have to work at, but you do. I mean, maybe if it’s a pet, not as much, because I’ve had those two, but when it’s a service dog and you work together all the time, and the dog’s job is to keep you from getting run over by a truck, you know, you learn to trust each other, and that comes with time, and you also learn each other’s tendencies, and you frustrate each other. There’s times I’m sure that I drive him nuts with things I’m asking him to do, and he’s like, “Yeah, let’s just do it my way. And the same is true, you know, there’s times where I get frustrated with the way he, he, he does things, so, but once you get to be a season, what they call a season team, that’s after, usually, you know, six months to a year, a lot of that starts to iron itself out, and it becomes more of that magical relationship that you’re talking about, where you, you kind of almost read each other’s minds, especially with my first dog, I’ve had three dogs, my first dog, people say all the time, they’re like, “I swear, you guys read each other’s minds. I’m like, “Not quite, but pretty much so. As we always knew what the other was going to do, because we worked together so much, and he was just an incredible dog. But all three of my dogs have been special in their own way – three labs, two yellow labs, and then this one’s a black lab.

Jim Beach 19:37
I’m not a dog person, but I was forced to get a dog woman, and that’s

Patrick Engasser 19:44
usually how it happens.

Jim Beach 19:45
It is, it’s 100% Yes, and there was nothing more special than that. I loved that dog more than anyone else, anything else. And I do think they understand your mind and read your mind. Like,

Patrick Engasser 20:00
yep,

Jim Beach 20:01
things like that.

Patrick Engasser 20:02
So it’s amazing how that always works, right? Like, I don’t want a dog, I don’t want a dog, I want a dog. And then you get a dog, and it’s just.. it’s something about it that just the fact that they give unconditional love, they don’t. Yeah, you can have the worst day in the world, you walk in and it doesn’t matter so much. It’s kind of like children before they grow up, when they’re really young, they.. you come in, they give you a hug when they’re 234, years old, and it’s like, yep, you know what, my problems aren’t that bad. So dogs have that, have a special way of doing that.

Jim Beach 20:30
And three is my favorite age, I think that three is just the perfect age for a little boy. So

Patrick Engasser 20:38
he is an absolute blast. I mean, I wouldn’t tell you, he’s perfect, you know, because obviously you have your days where you know things just don’t go well, and he wants M&Ms for lunch, and there’s not a reasonable response when the answer is no, not not for lunch, maybe later for dessert, but 99% of the time it’s, it’s being a dad is the best thing in the world, so you’re right. I’m hoping that the years ago, other years ago, as well as three, but I’m loving this age right now.

Jim Beach 21:08
Well, I have kids in three different decades, I think, is we figured out, and they’re awesome until they go through puberty. I guess

Patrick Engasser 21:22
that’s what I hear. I can wait for that.

Jim Beach 21:25
Yeah, and I always joke that I wasn’t – I never gave my parents anything to worry about until in my 30s, and then I piled it on massive with bankruptcies and things like that, and my eldest son was amazing until he turned 29 and went to hell, you know. So, anyway,

Patrick Engasser 21:45
making up for lost time, right? Exactly,

Jim Beach 21:47
you know, his funny thing in college, he used to call, loved to call Saturday night at 1130 and said, ‘Dad, I’m getting pulled over, I’m getting pulled over. Call back 10 minutes later, and he said, ‘Yeah, he’s a big fan of the wrestling club. He let me off, you know, you’re such a jerk. Call me Saturday night at 1130 Anyway, back to the book, it talks about networking with purpose. How do you network with purpose?

Patrick Engasser 22:16
Well, I think that that’s a great question. I’ll get asked that one a lot, but I think the biggest, the biggest thing is, with like with anything else, having a goal going in with the end in mind, which is I want to build a relationship with the right kind of person who could potentially either refer me to a client or be a good client. I’m always, I’m always looking to build relationships wherever I can, wherever they, you know, good relationships with good people, whether they lead to business or not. So, I’m not looking for, hey, what can I extract from this person. I think a lot of times when people go to networking events or decide I’m going to start building a network, like when we got here to Florida last year, we arrived, my goal was I’m going to start building a network in this area, because it’s, you know, I’m hitting the ground running. I have a number of clients still in Western New York. I have them all over the country, because I, you know, I’m mobile in terms of my business. I can work from anywhere, I can work with anyone anywhere, but I wanted to also build a community here locally and tap into the network here and build that. But I think a lot of people go into networking with the idea of I’m going to go into this as a hunter, and I’m going to extract something from it, and it’s look, we all, you know, we’re human, and we all, it’s fine that we work in self-interested cooperation, and that we want to get business out of relationships when we find the right relationship to do that, but I think when you start with the relationship, and then you intentionally move that relationship along, and don’t expect the other person to do the work right. When you meet the right person, you have a good conversation, rather than just hitting them with a business card saying, “Hey, you know, give me a call if you ever want to do business, and nobody wants that. It might work on occasion, but the better way is to really genuinely take an interest in the other person, and say, “Hey, you know what? This has been a great conversation. I’m glad we talked about, you know, your trip to Europe. I want to go to Europe soon. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m just making this up, but whatever it is you guys connected over, then say, ‘Hey, can we, you know, in VRA, we would be okay if we grabbed a cup of coffee or glass of wine, or whatever it is that you like to do, and meet back up, and yeah, oh yeah, great. So you send them a text or an email, you know, don’t be too creepy, and do it five minutes later, but within a day or two, and you follow up, and you move the relationship along, or you guys meet again, and it’s at some point some of them end in dead ends, because they just run out of conversation, you find out you’re different, and you’re not going to do business together, because you do business in business in different ways, but and that’s fine. But if you do that enough, you’re going to come across somebody, a handful of people you have really good relationships with, and they’re going to want to give you business, and if you can give them business first, all the better. So ask them, How can I help you first before they. Ask, that’s always my role, and I try to help them, then, and if I can do that, reciprocation usually just happens if they’re a good person, and we’re building an actual relationship. So, most of my clients, not all, because some of them are newer, and some of them prefer not to, but I’d say 90% of my clients I have great relationships with, and they would consider me a friend because we’ve been together for a while, or just we built a relationship right away, and that’s what it is. So, that’s just the way I choose to do business. Not everybody does it that way, but it works well for me. So, I’m gonna keep doing it.

Jim Beach 25:32
Well said, well said, Patrick. How do we find out more about you? Follow you online, get you to help us with some coaching, and help us grow our businesses, and get a copy of your book, all that stuff, please.

Patrick Engasser 25:43
Sure, so you can find me on YouTube, Patrick and Gasser. If I can do it, you can do it. My YouTube channel, LinkedIn, you can find me there as well. Just my name. But in terms of if anybody’s looking to bring me in as a motivational speaker, sales trainer, leadership trainer, anything like that, I do ongoing workshops and trainings. You can find me at Patrick engasser.com that’s E N G A S S, like Sam E r.com Patrick engasser.com And if somebody’s looking to set up a strategy session, if you just let me know in the notes that you found me through Jim’s program, talk with patrick.com I’ll waive the fee for that strategy session. Talk with patrick.com you can go right on there, book on my calendar, and my executive assistant, John, will reach out to you, and we’ll set up a time to get together. Just got to come with a goal, that’s my one requirement. Come with a goal, and you’ll leave with a written action plan, and maybe we’ll work together, maybe we won’t, if we’re the right fit, though. It could be a long, long-term relationship where I can help you start your business, or hopefully get to the next level. So, I appreciate you having me on, Jim. It’s been, it’s been an honor. It’s been a great conversation. Thanks so much.

Jim Beach 26:53
Thank you for having or taking the time. Let me ask you a stupid question, Patrick. I’m sorry to ask this, but I just curious, do you have desires to travel? Do you want to go to Europe? You know, if you go there, I hate to be so, so stupid, but would just to smell it, experience, would you experience it? Does what are your thoughts on travel?

Patrick Engasser 27:15
You mean travel for business or just for fun?

Jim Beach 27:17
Just for fun. I mean, do you want to go? I love to travel when you can’t see it.

Patrick Engasser 27:21
Oh, yeah. Love to travel. Yeah, I mean, because sometimes it’s, you know, listening to something playing at the cathedral, you know, orchestra, whatever it is. But yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve been to Hawaii, I’ve been to the Caribbean six or seven times. My wife wants to go back to France. She studied abroad for a year in France, and she wants to go back to Paris, so we’ll definitely be doing that once the little guy’s a little older, and either can travel or we can be away for a little bit longer than a couple of days, but absolutely love to travel. We came here to Destin as a vacation in 2022 I never wanted to leave, had to, but that’s where the kind of the brainstorming began on how do we come back here and live where other people vacation, and so we go to the beach as often as we can. So that would be my one piece of advice: is find out what your dream is, find out what your version of vacation is, and do your best to build your business around that lifestyle and build that life the way you want it, because it’s, man, it’s pretty awesome.

Jim Beach 28:17
Thank you, Patrick, you were great. Let’s start up with our next interview. You know, in today’s world, we’re getting increasingly competitive. We all have to be thought leaders. We all have to have a brand, a corporate brand, a personal brand. Do we need two brands? It’s confusing, and we need some help. I’m excited to welcome two people who that will be able to help us figure this out. Please welcome Ann Candido and April Martini, they are co-founders of a company called Forthright People and author of a new book called The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. Ladies, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Anne Candido 28:59
We are so excited to be here. This is Anne, and I’ll let April say hi too. Yep, and this is April. Appreciate the opportunity.

Jim Beach 29:08
I think you should have a law firm, Candido and Martini. Great firm names, we’ll keep that in mind. Plan B, well, that would be your personal brand. I don’t know what it is. It sounds fun, though. Candido and Martini, I just think that we’ll try it off the tongue. Sounds like a law firm that’s been here for 100 years. Why do I do your personal brand?

Anne Candido 29:40
Well, I’ll get it going. This is Ann again. Yeah, I mean, first brand is really your competitive advantage, and this is what we talk about all the time, that their personal brands spread from the inside out, and most people will try to dwell their personal brand from the outside in, which what we call a persona, and that rarely works, so. And you can actually figure out who you are at your core and really leverage that, that’s you drive your value, that’s where you drive your differentiation, that’s where people are like that is who I want to work with or I want to work for, and that’s what we’re really about, that’s what the personal brand is all about, and that’s why it’s so important. Yeah, and this is April, I’ll just build on that. We did an audit of 23 books when we decided to write this book, and we’d already had the framework in action for several years, but what we found is that either people were trying to build a persona, so that’s that outside in that Anne talked about, you know, look up someone you want to be like on Instagram, and then just mimic them and become like them, and do it that way, right? Or the other side was building a person like it was a product, and Anne and I have heavy backgrounds in CPG, her at Procter and Gamble, and me on the agency side, and we were like, that makes absolutely no sense, you can’t use that process to build a person, because we already exist as people, so you can’t just decide, oh, hey, okay, tomorrow I’m going to become like this, and again change yourself. So, therefore, our belief and our passion for the way that we focus on personal branding,

Jim Beach 31:11
but this is only important for thought leaders or entrepreneurs or authors, right? If I’m a middle manager, I don’t need a personal brand. It would be weird if a middle manager had a personal brand. That’s very presumptuous. They’re not the CEO yet. As a matter of fact, lady, this is just a story popped into my head. I think that my entire life dream evaporated with this one answer. My goal in life was to be the CEO of Coca Cola, and I worked there in high school, I worked there in college, and I worked there in graduate school, and during graduate school I saved the company a billion dollars with a B over 10 years in the Japanese market, and I came back to Atlanta to interview for jobs, and they had me auditioning for the audit internal audit department, and the guy said, “You know, what’s your goal here? And my goal said, “Well, I want to be the CEO one day, crash, burn, die, you know, I lost the job right then. My entire dream of becoming the CEO of Coca Cola evaporated right then. It’s too presumptuous to have a personal brand. I’m not a star, not at all, not

Anne Candido 32:36
at all. Yeah, I mean, so this is this is the thing where a lot of people get stuck because they think a personal brand is all about the external validation, but the personal brand is about building that foundation of how you’re going to show up in the world, so we have the characteristics which defines who you are, and those can manifest into your appearance, which is your visual and verbal presence, and then your behaviors and actions, which is how you show up, how you show up is so critically important, because that is what defines the relationships you have people, and we need other human beings, we need those relationships in order to achieve our big things. Your big things could have been, you know, the CEO, like you said, I mean, I wanted to be a CEO of P and D, right, but there is one CEO, and so when I kind of peeled the onion back and said, well, why do I want to be CEO? It’s like I want to kind of be myself, I want to lead my own vision, I want to develop my own strategy. Well, guess what, I’m now well, April might argue with me, but I’m like, at least the co-CEO of my own business, right? So I’m just the CEO of PNG, but I am the co-CEO of my own business, and so when I kind of figured out why I wanted that big thing, I was able then to leverage my personal brand, and then move me down the path of my big thing, that was actually wanting my own business, wanting that flexibility, wanting to be the person who envisions their own game. So that’s why it’s important for everybody, everybody has big thing, well, and I mean, quite frankly, a big reason we wrote this book is because when we were in the middle manager seat, there was not a perk for personal brand, and I think it goes back to your point of, you know, well, that’s awfully presumptuous, I haven’t made it, quote unquote, there yet, and so as we back on our journeys, we’re like, yeah, you know, we got to where we are, and, like, Ann said, we both landed in the place we wanted to be to build a company, and you know, we built this company together as co-CEOs, but I think what ultimately happened as we were coming up is we looked back on the journeys, it was like, well, shoot, when I transitioned from doer to manager, where was this, or when I transitioned from manager to upper manager, or when I became, you know, part of that suite for me on the agency side of the world was all of this, and so we felt really compelled to build our framework first, and then take that on the road, and ultimately that’s what led us to this book, so that we can get this into the hands of as many. People, as we can, that are kind of in that middle management, and also beyond it continues to work throughout your career, but really starting there, so that you learn what a personal brand truly is, how to identify yours, and then how to show up authentically through it, through your appearance and behaviors and actions.

Jim Beach 35:19
All right, what does it mean to have a personal brand? What does that include? Is that a website? Do I trademark my name, merchandise, a brand manager? Do I have someone follow me around and help pick out my clothing? What do I.. what does this entail at different points in the career?

Anne Candido 35:41
Yeah, I love that you said that, because this is like where I get on what I call my tie box with my branded soap box, where I say celebrities have done a really good job of defining personal brand in that context, right? It’s the outside in, it’s like what do people want me to be, and so then therefore let me be that, and that’s what we call that persona, but that always breaks down because it is way too hard to keep and maintain a persona, because it’s just not coming from the course, and thus being you start to feel like you have imposter syndrome, it’s just it deteriorates. So, when you’re developing your personal brand, you’re really doing that introspection inside, you’re kind of trying to figure out what makes me tick? When we talk about characteristics, specifically, we’re talking about your traits, your values, your beliefs, your points of view. Things will create like a very unique recipe that is you. Nobody else has it. That’s why April says, like, you can’t just develop a brand from scratch, an outside-in approach, because you’re already you. You already exist, and you are the best competitive managing cup. Why would you want to go be someone else, or try to demonstrate where you factor that could actually achieve your big thing? So we really work on people really honing in and really becoming aware and truly understanding who they are at their core, then how they can leverage that in order to be able to achieve their goals and dreams in life, yeah, and we say, you know, this work is not easy, and it’s not for the faint of heart. I mean, our company is named Force Right People, so we definitely give it to you straight. But what we find is when people take the time to do the work to really figure out what their characteristics are, and then use that to show up the way they want to in their appearance and behaviors and actions. That’s really where the magic starts to happen, because that’s where they get to being authentic with a capital A, as we like to say. And we have a lot of exercises in the book, and we have an accompanying workbook that helps you get there, but we work this from the behaviors and actions backwards into characteristics, folks, and so we find that it’s a lot easier to do this work, which isn’t, you know, what’s my logo, what’s my name, all of those shiny things that people go to, but really the strategic foundation that you start from, and so we’ll do exercises just to give you an example, like, okay, so you’re going to show up in meetings this week, pick three or four, and jot down in a journal where you showed up well, where you showed up not so well, and just do that for a couple of weeks, then start to look for patterns, right? Then that ladders up to your appearance, am I coming in late and harried, and now people aren’t sure what they’re going to get from me? How do I correct, and then how do I from there figure out what is it that’s making me show up that way, and that what is it answer is what leads you to your characteristics. So those are things for me, like directness and stubbornness and outgoing and being really empathetic, right? Those are the things we’re trying to get to, but you can work it backward and really use what you have at your disposal, which is how you’re showing up each day to get to the crux of what your characteristics are.

Jim Beach 38:51
How important is it that you design your personal brand? So, for example, I used to be the small business guy at the Atlanta Chamber, and I really never thought about it. I wore the same jacket almost all the time, a black leather jacket, a formal black leather jacket. It’s from a company that I used to own, and so I’m proud of the jacket, and I always wore it, or actually I have several that are identical, so I would wear part of the ensemble there, and then always blue jeans, and they’ve always, they would introduce me and say that I was the guy who would call the baby ugly, right in front of mom, because you know that’s what they hired me to do, was to say, “Your business is not working, and here’s why, let’s fix it, you know, so, but I didn’t plan on any of that, it just sort of happened. What are your thoughts? Was that a mistake to just let it happen? Should I now push back against it? What are your thoughts? Let’s go with you.

Anne Candido 39:56
No, wait, address that. Yep, I can go first on this. So, again, when I go back to the reason we wrote this book, the fact that none of this really existed, at least we believe until this point in the framework that we have developed means that some of that stuff did happen naturally. Now, we do not suggest that you go and you throw all of that out, because what that’s revealing is talent that is inherently within you. I think the challenge now just becomes to do the work in the book to really get very clear on collectively what are all of your characteristics, but you leverage all the experiences and successes in your situation, and things that you’ve done state, as far as what you wear goes, really specifically. Absolutely, that’s part of your personal brand. When we talk about your appearance, it’s visual and it’s verbal, and it is a bit controversial sometimes to say to people, you know what that means, what you’re wearing, you know, whether you show up polished or you show up a step below what everybody else is wearing, or you, in your case, have your own unique style that kind of leads people to understand that in a leather jacket you might be a bit of a renegade in the room, right? All of those types of things, and so we say absolutely, you have to manage that. The only thing can manage is how you show up, you can’t manage other people’s reactions, so I would say those are those talents that you just inherently had. It’s just making sure that you’re again managing those, and you know, dialing up and down which characteristics work in any given situation to show up authentically and consistently for people, and just, just to build on that, you know, you just described what happens to many, many, many people, and when you said design, like I kind of say intentional and intentionality, and I think that’s a really important part, because if you don’t define your personal brand, somebody else is going to do it for you, so if you’re not intentional in creating what you, who the presence that you want to have, people are going to get their own perceptions, and guess what, their perception is their reality. So you can walk through the world, and you know, kind of just go with the flow, and just kind of be who you want to be at the moment, and that could work for you, but in the short term, but it doesn’t generally work in the long term, because how we show up in one moment with a certain person or certain context or certain environment may not work in other moments, and so that’s that’s just the challenge a lot of people have. It’s like, wait a second, this was working for me, and now it’s no longer working for me. What has all of a sudden changed? Or this works for me in this environment, and it’s not working for me in this environment. What has now changed the fact that introspection and that awareness and that intense reality that helps us into as a personal brand that truly represents who we are, so that people see, hey, we have something to offer, we have that value, and that they’re going to give us the keys, and they’re going to help us unlock our big thing,

Jim Beach 43:00
viewpoint of a middle manager, as in the subtitle of the book. How do I do this without my boss feeling threatened?

Anne Candido 43:10
Yeah, this is a question we get to. Yeah, really good question, because what people will say is, you know, that’s great, April and Anne, you own your own company, but I’m in this company, and, like, you just said, I have a boss, or I’m part of the team, or in the middle, and I’m not in control. But what we again say is this is what puts you in the driver’s seat, and if you are working truly to show up as yourself, and you’re doing the hard work within the framework that we have, it actually helps you do better, because it helps you do things like manage up to that leader, manage across, manage down, really learn to work with people. If you’re actively managing how you show up through those characteristics, you get stronger and stronger and better and better, and if you have one of those bosses, like you said, who you’re like a little worried, I’m going to start showing up differently, and I’m not, I’m not sure how that’s going to be received. You bring people in on that journey, because, as Anne said before, we need other people in order to achieve the things we want to achieve. So, you have the dialog, you know, you’re going to see me showing up differently. I’m actively working on cultivating my personal brand. As part of that, I would love your piece, and sometimes ultimately this leads to people leaving their companies or bosses, right? So we have a coaching practice that we, you know, have a book of opportunity for me as I really felt start to cultivate my personal brand, and I’m showing up the way that I can best show up if the people around me aren’t receiving it. Obviously, we said you’re in charge of that, but there can be situations where, if you’re, you know, what I just keep running up against the same thing, maybe this isn’t the right place for me to be, and that can lead you to your next big thing, or your next big opportunity. Yeah, this reinforces this choice, I mean, we. Don’t think we have choice, and we don’t think we have that ability to change our environment, but we always have the ability to change our environment. It just might not be what we want at the time, or it might be hard, but the most common thing that happens is we’re developing our personal brain is that we let others start to, again, like I said, the funding minimize it or start to make in certain ways and to show concern ways in order to accommodate them, and that is part of the problem.

Jim Beach 45:34
In the book, you talk about the big thing, locking in on your big thing. How important is it that everyone associate me with one big thing? You know, I’m the middle manager of this walnut company, and I’m obsessed with having all of our packaging being 100% biodegradable and sustainable, and everyone knows I’m obsessed with that. Is that a good example of my big thing? And is that a good goal to have to develop big things that everyone knows about me?

Anne Candido 46:13
So we would say that a big thing should be even bigger than that, right? So it is. I’m

Jim Beach 46:20
saving the world, and it’s not big enough.

Anne Candido 46:24
Saving the world might be the big thing, but what I just want to caution here is that, well, first of all, you can have multiple big things, so this would be what I would think is a step to that, right? And so, getting all the sustainable packaging, that’s great, that’s great for the business, all of that, but your big thing should be bigger than that, like you just said, saving the world, right? And we said it a little jokey and tongue in cheek, but more, what brings you personal fulfillment when you eliminate all the expectations of everybody around you, and so we’ll often give the example of, you know, of course, I want to be the best mom or the best daughter or the best friend, or all of those types of things, but that isn’t something that I’m going after in my life to fill me and give me my purpose of being a human being here on earth, and so when we help people identify their big things, we’re thinking beyond what all those expectations of others are, and even bigger than that. So, if you dug into that packaging, and it wasn’t about, well, this is the company initiative, and all of those kinds of things, maybe it is saving the world through sustainability, and then you’re on your path to the big thing, but we want you to do the work to truly honor who you are at your core through those characteristics, so that it is something that is really pouring into who you are, but speaks to you at the end of the day. Yeah, we talk a lot of times, we manage big things, and exactly what you just said, what the world has said is the way to get to our big thing, and so it’s really important, like we were having a conversation about CEO and being a CEO, is to kind of peel back that onion and be like, why does that matter to me, why do I want to go pursue that, and it’s usually something that’s very intrinsically tied to who you are at your core, you’re trying to help people, you’re trying to serve people, you’re trying to make an impact, there’s always something about that that’s underlying our big thing. We just have now visualized or articulated our big thing into something that feels tangible, but sometimes a lot of times that basically can assess in multiple different ways, and we get so stuck on that that has to be it. If I’m not a CEO, if I’m not that leader, if I don’t get that promotion, then all of a sudden my big thing is like not being realized, but it’s really like if we think about it in a different context, that there’s multiple paths to the big things that lead to our own personal fulfillment.

Jim Beach 48:56
I want to be a thought leader. How do I know what my thought leadership is about, or if I don’t know already what my thought leadership is about, am I a fake thought leader? If you have to sit down and plan what your thought leadership category is, is it real?

Anne Candido 49:16
And I’ll let you take this one, because I feel like you get on your tide box really well on this one, yeah, I love this. Is such a fabulous question, and I love this question, and we just did a really, really in-depth podcast episode on thought leadership. Thought leadership, again, is reading your characteristics. It’s that belief and those points of view that you have really accumulated through your life experience has become a sub expertise that you’re going to want to become a thought leader on, and so that is like it’s that a combination of like all that recipe, that characteristics recipe that gives you a talent that you know you become aware of, because well, that’s how they don’t recognize it in ourselves that we do better than other people, and it’s usually that thing that we’re like we think is so. Easy, that we think you know, it just comes to us naturally, and it doesn’t. Everybody do this, doesn’t everybody know this? And as soon as you think that, or as soon as you believe that, you have hit on a talent, and you have likely other people don’t get it. Other times, a lot of people don’t know how to do that. It’s not that easy for other people, and every successful leader who has developed into and achieved their big thing has used those talents and develop those talents and put that leadership and then have been able to leverage that thought leadership into their personal brand and then then the way that they show up and consistently reinforce that, so people start attributing that to them, like I’m a strategic action planner, I do it for businesses that really need to grow, and they really need to pivot. I want people to attribute that for me. That is what I talk about. That is what I consistently develop content on, and that’s what I want to attribute it to me. So leadership is all about getting really clear with what you want to stand for. What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to say I want Anne or I want April for that, and that is what they’re really, really good at. Yeah, and on my side it’s organizational development and teams, and I will say to push on Anne’s point, or to give an example, when you get those things that you realize, oh, everyone isn’t good at early on in my career, often as the youngest one in the room, I would look around, ooh, that person’s not happy, or this proposal is not going to go through, and we would leave the meetings, and people a lot more senior than me would have a totally different perspective, and as a younger person on those teams, I was like, maybe this is a me thing. Well, fast forward to now, and I realized what that was was my talent showing itself, and that’s what really fuels my ability to get into companies and to complement and strategic action planning. Figure out, okay, we have this plan, do we have the right people and the right structure in place to deliver on that plan or not.

Jim Beach 51:55
All right, final question, we’re about out of time, so give me a shortish answer here. What do we do if our personal brand is, we let it turn into something bad in our stupidity, and now we have a personal brand that we just don’t like. What can we change it?

Anne Candido 52:16
So we would say that in that instance, you know, don’t don’t get too down on yourself or too discouraged. Reach out to us, there’s a plug for that, or buy the book. But what is probably happened here is that you have fallen into some sort of persona that is something that develops because you were trying to taste what you’re given advice about, or someone said you got to fit into this mold to be there, we’re really careful to say when we get to the true characteristics, they’re neither good nor bad, and that’s really important to get yourself into an objective mind mind space, but know that all is not lost, this is your way back, and it’s actually more common for people to end up in that situation versus executing and really diving deep and getting their personal brand right from the beginning, if they haven’t started with the book.

Jim Beach 53:08
How do I get just to get

Anne Candido 53:09
a coach,

Jim Beach 53:10
get a coach, get in touch with you, find out more, get a copy of the book.

Anne Candido 53:16
You can find the book on Amazon, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers, they want to do big things. Also, get illiterate through our website and the company workbook. And then you can hear more about us and personal brand on our podcast, Strategic Council by Fourth Right Business. And our website is forthright people.com Thanks, David.

Jim Beach 53:38
Thank you so much for being with us. And great conversation, lot to think about, and we’d love to have you back. Thank you so much, ladies.

Anne Candido 53:46
I do.

Jim Beach 53:47
We are out of time. We made it through a very busy show. Thank you so much for being with us. We are back tomorrow. Be safe, take care, make a million dollars. Bye,