Summary/Abstract
Ashley discusses her commitment to her job and how it is tied to her ability to brand build for Atlassian. She notes that as the company has grown, they have realized the need for a more formal process for brand evangelism and that she is a part of that process.
In the conversation, Ashley discusses how her hobbies and skills have helped her become a more valuable asset to her company. She talks about how her love of public speaking and acting has helped her become a face for the brand, and how her knowledge of agile topics has made her a valuable speaker on behalf of Atlassian. She also discusses how the company's value of be the change you seek has helped them build their brand in a more flexible way, allowing employees to be more involved in the company's public image.
She discusses the benefits of being a values-driven company, and how this benefits both the company and the individual employees. She also discusses how being empowered to build one's personal brand helps attract new talent to the company.
Ashley also makes recommendations on how to begin the process of creating a personal brand and getting started with the content creation process. This can help you to start thinking about how your work relates to your personal life and expertise.
Timestamps
00:02:00
The Benefits of Building Your Personal Brand Within Your Company
00:03:47
The Benefits of Being a Values-Driven Employee
00:06:00
How to Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn
00:08:47
How to Get Started With Writing Professional Content
00:10:56
The Benefits of an Active Social Media Presence for Businesses
00:12:38
How to Create Content That Drives Conversations
00:14:34
How to Create Content that Connects with Your Audience
00:16:53
How to Create Consistent Social Media Content When You Feel Stuck
00:18:11
The Importance of a Personal Brand
00:20:08
The Power of Personal Branding with Ashley Faus
00:21:52
The Benefits of Consistent Thought Leadership
00:25:28
The Importance of Branding and Positioning in Your Career
00:27:00
The Importance of Personal Branding in Career Success
00:28:45
The Power of a Prepared Mindset with Ashley Faus
Music Credit: Maarten Schellekens - Riviera
Follow us at:
www.cascadingleadership.com
linkedin.com/in/drjimk
linkedin.com/in/1lawrenceobrown
Summary/Abstract
Ashley discusses her commitment to her job and how it is tied to her ability to brand build for Atlassian. She notes that as the company has grown, they have realized the need for a more formal process for brand evangelism and that she is a part of that process.
In the conversation, Ashley discusses how her hobbies and skills have helped her become a more valuable asset to her company. She talks about how her love of public speaking and acting has helped her become a face for the brand, and how her knowledge of agile topics has made her a valuable speaker on behalf of Atlassian. She also discusses how the company's value of be the change you seek has helped them build their brand in a more flexible way, allowing employees to be more involved in the company's public image.
She discusses the benefits of being a values-driven company, and how this benefits both the company and the individual employees. She also discusses how being empowered to build one's personal brand helps attract new talent to the company.
Ashley also makes recommendations on how to begin the process of creating a personal brand and getting started with the content creation process. This can help you to start thinking about how your work relates to your personal life and expertise.
Timestamps
00:02:00
The Benefits of Building Your Personal Brand Within Your Company
00:03:47
The Benefits of Being a Values-Driven Employee
00:06:00
How to Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn
00:08:47
How to Get Started With Writing Professional Content
00:10:56
The Benefits of an Active Social Media Presence for Businesses
00:12:38
How to Create Content That Drives Conversations
00:14:34
How to Create Content that Connects with Your Audience
00:16:53
How to Create Consistent Social Media Content When You Feel Stuck
00:18:11
The Importance of a Personal Brand
00:20:08
The Power of Personal Branding with Ashley Faus
00:21:52
The Benefits of Consistent Thought Leadership
00:25:28
The Importance of Branding and Positioning in Your Career
00:27:00
The Importance of Personal Branding in Career Success
00:28:45
The Power of a Prepared Mindset with Ashley Faus
Music Credit: Maarten Schellekens - Riviera
Follow us at:
www.cascadingleadership.com
linkedin.com/in/drjimk
linkedin.com/in/1lawrenceobrown
Ashley Faus: The Road to Thought-Leadership - Conclusion
[00:00:00] Ethan: Previously on Cascading Leadership...
[00:00:02] Dr. Jim: The one thing that I'm, really wondering is how much of your organizational commitment or job commitment is tied to the level of brand building that you do in your role? And the reason why I'm asking that question is Atlassian is a known organization, and typically when I'm looking at some of the larger organizations like Apple and Microsoft, and while all of those sort of companies for the size that they are, they're relatively quiet in terms of people that are evangelizing for the brand.
[00:00:33] Dr. Jim: And, granted, like Microsoft doesn't need evangelists, but you get where I'm going. How much of your organizational commitment is tied to the fact that you're al you're allowed to brand build. As an individual while you grow your career internally? Is there a relationship there that that's important to call out?
[00:00:51] Ethan: And now, the conclusion of our conversation with Ashley Faus
[00:00:55] Ashley Faus: Yes and no. So my official day job is not to be on [00:01:00] LinkedIn or to go speak at conferences or to do podcasts. I do a lot of this work outside of business hours. Obviously I, there is a symbiotic relationship with the brand. There is benefit to Atlassian from me being out there. I would say just in the last year or so that has accelerated, right?
[00:01:19] Ashley Faus: So as we continue to grow, we have started to realize that The more organic approach that we've had to something like brand evangelism. We're getting to the point where we need to have a more formal process for that. We need to think about, okay, who are the right folks to be out there speaking about this topic or that topic?
[00:01:36] Ashley Faus: What are the conferences? What are the media outlets that they should be in? Those kinds of things, right? So in the past we've had a smaller bench of people that have had a lot of support to do that. I'm a little bit of an oddball, like I would almost say I go rogue but not in a bad way. No one's going to slap my hand, right?
[00:01:54] Ashley Faus: Because I have internalized the message. I I do show up well on [00:02:00] behalf of the brand. And I have started to get to go and do speaking on behalf of Atlassian, which is really cool. I got to speak on behalf of Atlassian at Slack Frontiers, for example. I've started to get to speak on some agile topics and ways of working on behalf of Atlassian.
[00:02:14] Ashley Faus: So some of that is really about that symbiotic relationship, and I think that's something that is becoming a more relevant conversation for people as they think about growing their careers. I love public speaking, again, that singer actor portion. I love public speaking. I love being on stage. I like doing video.
[00:02:32] Ashley Faus: I like being the face. And so because I have that as a hobby I'm, generally pretty good at it, right? I'm, I know what I'm talking about. I have good energy, I can stand up, I don't get stage bright. Those kinds of things that has potential to be highly valuable to the company that I'm working for.
[00:02:49] Ashley Faus: Whether or not. The topics that I'm most passionate about talking about are the most relevant for their brand message and bla brand platform at the moment. That's where some of the [00:03:00] negotiation comes in, right? So again, that's an ongoing conversation. I think that we have traditionally had one of our values is be the change you seek.
[00:03:09] Ashley Faus: And I think we've taken a very be the change you seek approach to a lot of that brand building in contrast to what from some companies that have maybe been around longer that have a more rigid set of guidelines that only these people are allowed to speak on behalf of the company. Or please don't post anything on social media about the company.
[00:03:29] Ashley Faus: And it's like, okay, if we want our people to live by our values, one of which is be the change you seek. We also have another value called Open Company no bs. Okay. , that means that we want you to be empowered to build your personal brand. And where that intersects with Atlassian, again, this is a perfect conversation about career things, right?
[00:03:47] Ashley Faus: This is great from a hiring perspective, right? When I share this and people are like, man, I wanna work for a values driven company. Yes, you do come work for Atlassian, right? They benefit from me having this conversation and they're okay with me having [00:04:00] it at four 30 my time on a weekday because we both benefit from this.
[00:04:05] Ashley Faus: So I would say that it's not an official part of my job, but it benefits me from a career standpoint. Obviously it benefits Atlassian from an awareness and an authenticity standpoint. And so when you hire people who are values driven and who are aligned with the mission of the company, you don't have to police what they're saying because they are already aligned.
[00:04:27] Ashley Faus: And then when you. Choose a company that does give you that freedom and that trust. You have the ability to infuse your own passions and, lean in as much as you want to. That kind of personal brand building or audience brand building for yourself.
[00:04:41] Dr. Jim: The, one thing that I'll say to everything that you just said is that you're throwing out some of the words that like really resonate with me in terms of being values driven, in terms of empowerment, in terms of inspiration.
[00:04:54] Dr. Jim: You and I both know Steve Watt, that's what Yeah. He talks about all the time. So we're like three [00:05:00] pods or three Ps in a pod when it comes to the language that we speak across multiple functions in terms of the enterprise. But what I think is pretty interesting. That ties all that together is when you look at buyer behavior, and this is more relevant for you because you're in, you're the voice of the customer as a marketer, when you look at buyer behavior, people are buying from other people.
[00:05:22] Dr. Jim: People aren't buying from companies. So the value in empowering your evangelists in your organization to go forth and evangelize is because you're actually telling, giving them permission, to be a giant megaphone. And the more authentically that person can be a giant megaphone, the better the attraction model is for people that are out there looking.
[00:05:44] Dr. Jim: And this is, it. It, It's, phenomenal. It, blows my mind even now and, this is a Gen Xer saying this I, often joke about I must be a Generation Z person trapped in a Gen X body because I'm like everywhere. But the it, blows my [00:06:00] mind how much resistance. There is in general, in the world of work and, given the demographics of the of the of the employee landscape, most your biggest cohort are millennials and generation Z.
[00:06:13] Dr. Jim: And yet you have this overarching like, no, don't put yourself out there, which is really strange to me. You, should be, you're working someplace, you should be like passionate about what they do. At least that's, me projecting, that's how I think about it. So you have built a pretty solid brand around yourself and I'm undercutting like what you've actually done for yourself.
[00:06:35] Dr. Jim: So you've built a solid brand, not a pretty solid brand. My question is this, if I'm somebody that wants to dip my toe in the water and start doing this stuff, where do I start? Because it's extremely uncomfortable for the average person to even Put a status on LinkedIn. Most of the time they're just lurking.
[00:06:54] Dr. Jim: So how do you build towards that brand that you want to establish?
[00:06:59] Ashley Faus: [00:07:00] There's three things that I'll say two of which are prompts to just get you started thinking. There's two prompts that I love. If you're not sure what you wanna talk about, you don't know what kind of content you wanna create.
[00:07:12] Ashley Faus: You don't know where your expertise really lies. Start with these two prompts. The first is talk about a question that you asked today, and the second is talk about a question that you answered today. And this could be your kid asked you what you had for what we're having for dinner. This could be that your best friend asked you if this dress looks cute.
[00:07:32] Ashley Faus: This could be that your your boss asked you if you're gonna attend the meeting at four 30 today. Then you start to jump off and say, okay, how does that relate to. My job or my expertise or something like that as an example. And I've, I riff on these examples when I give these prompts because I think that you can tie all of these things to anything, right?
[00:07:53] Ashley Faus: If your kid asks you, what are you having for, what are we having for dinner tonight? You could riff on what it means to be a working parent. You could riff on why [00:08:00] working from home is the best thing for you to get dinner on the table. You could riff on why you actually prefer working in an office so that you don't have to get those questions from your kids, right?
[00:08:08] Ashley Faus: Those are all things that are tied to work. You could also talk about oh, here's how I planned dinners. And actually it falls in with agile methodology where I originally thought I was gonna cook dinner and do a big batch of book cooking for the week, but in fact, my kid has soccer practice and then the bathroom was flooded.
[00:08:28] Ashley Faus: And so now I had to change my plans and here's how I did that. Oh. Life is agile, right? So you can start making those connections. The other piece of this is a question that you've asked. So this could be a challenge that you're facing, again, personal or professional asking your colleague, Hey, when is this piece of work going to be delivered?
[00:08:47] Ashley Faus: Hey, do you have any feedback from me on this article that I just sent over? Okay, great. Let's talk about what is the subject of that article? How do you think about content and distribution? How do you ask for good feedback? What kind of feedback would be most [00:09:00] helpful for you? That starts to give you something some neat to hold onto.
[00:09:04] Ashley Faus: And then the other way that you can get started is with commenting. So obviously I'm highly biased towards LinkedIn. I'm saying you should get on LinkedIn. If you're in b2b. LinkedIn is a great place for you to be if you are in say, consumer or b2c Twitter. Instagram, even TikTok might be better places for you, right?
[00:09:23] Ashley Faus: So pick whatever that channel is. But from my perspective, it's been really easy to start by commenting on someone else's post. So go through, if you've got folks, whether it's your, colleagues, whether it's people you've worked with in the past that are sharing on LinkedIn, it's my me, come comment on my content.
[00:09:41] Ashley Faus: I'll comment back to you. We'll have a whole conversation and start commenting and comment thoughtfully, not just agree. Yes. Love this. Yeah. Okay. I, literally can't do anything with that. What am I, ? I can't write. I don't know what to do with that. I actually am riffing on a whole series of [00:10:00] posts that are literally just comments that I've left from other people.
[00:10:03] Ashley Faus: My post this morning was a comment that I left on somebody else's post yesterday, and I pulled it out. There's another comment where I'm like, man, that was actually, I. I shared a lot of good value in that comment, I should turn that into a post, right? So going in and leaving thoughtful comments is another great way to get started because then you don't feel like you have to be so front and center, but you can start to engage in those conversations and start to put yourself out there.
[00:10:28] Ashley Faus: And then once you start to find your flow, you can then copy and paste those con comments into original content. You can then tag the person who you originally commented on so that they'll start to engage. And so now you've built that relationship. And so that's a way to start getting things going so that you're not feeling so exposed that I have to come up with the most amazing thing ever, and I have to have a framework at all of these things.
[00:10:51] Ashley Faus: Now start with a comment. Start with a question you asked and a question you answered.
[00:10:56] Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you describe it that way. It's a similar version of the internal [00:11:00] conversations that I have within my organization and the team that I lead.
[00:11:03] Dr. Jim: The broader organization isn't really active on social. Just like most other places I get looked at I got nine heads and people are like I don't have anything really like thought leadership-y to, write about. And I say I don't either.
[00:11:17] Dr. Jim: I just run my mouth about random stuff that happens. Oh there wasn't enough cheese on my pasta today and here's a business lesson. Stuff like that. It's you, almost have to like Seinfeld and, a, and this might be a Gen X thing. I'm might, I'm not sure if if Seinfeld was something that you, but like Seinfeld had what, 10 seasons of shows about nothing.
[00:11:38] Dr. Jim: You could build your brand and your credibility and your expertise, essentially writing about stuff that happened that seems so random, but you just hook it at the end to a business lesson, which is yeah. Like really all it is. One of the interesting things, that happened recently was I'm starting to have people dip their toes in the water.
[00:11:57] Dr. Jim: And one of one of my colleagues [00:12:00] who's on the sales side he's actually a team lead for me. He he messaged in our teams chat about, oh I was following so-and-so on LinkedIn. I connected with 'em after that and they posted something on their company page, and I commented, and through that comment, I advanced the conversation and got a referral to another person in the company and a different person outside of the company that ends up being a warm handoff.
[00:12:24] Dr. Jim: And that's really the thing. If you're advancing the conversation you don't have to come up with the, new version of the standard model on LinkedIn. You just write about your observations and you ask a question and then conversations happen.
[00:12:38] Dr. Jim: I think the other part that's important people always get intimidated about this idea of content creation and there was something that you just mentioned that hey, sometimes I'll make a comment and that could be its own piece and lesson from there. So what are some ideas that you can apply as you're building your brand to create a [00:13:00] content flywheel that doesn't require you to like reinvent the wheel ?
[00:13:04] Ashley Faus: It's unfortunate to me that people have put content in such a narrow box. People say, oh, I never create content. Oh, I don't create content. Oh, content is hard. You create a ton of content in Slack, in internal blogs, in emails, on whiteboards, in conversations. And so I think that this mindset, that content is this separate thing that has to be created and curated, has to be the smartest thing ever.
[00:13:30] Ashley Faus: Oh, I have to be a thought leader. Okay. If you're aiming, if you're aiming to declare yourself a thought leader, you've already lost. That's not what you're trying to do. What you're trying to do is have conversations and exchange value. And so if you shift that mindset from, oh, I need to create content, and you say, oh, slack messages or whiteboarding or emails that's, just exchanging information.
[00:13:52] Ashley Faus: That's just helping my teammates out. That's what creating content is supposed to be. It's supposed to be that human connection. It's [00:14:00] not supposed to be going viral or turning yourself into a thought leader or driving impressions or driving likes. If you do it for the numbers, you are going to struggle because the algorithm is a fickle mistress, right?
[00:14:12] Ashley Faus: Where that's not what we're doing. We're creating for the humans behind the screen. So what I would do, again, shifting that mindset into, okay, again, let's say I'm an engineer and I do code reviews all day. I clearly can't share all the code, like that's proprietary information. Okay? What is the pattern that you frequently see when you are reviewing code.
[00:14:34] Ashley Faus: Is it a syntax thing? Is it a style thing? Is it a structure thing? Is there a difference in the feedback that you find yourself giving between a senior dev and a junior dev? How do you give good code reviews? How do you do code reviews, asynchronously versus synchronously? How do you do pair programming versus a code review that's further down in the process?
[00:14:56] Ashley Faus: All of that is stuff that you think about and you [00:15:00] may even verbalize. As you are talking to your team or as you're doing these code reviews, all of that, process that thinking that, how do I do this better? That can be shared externally. And so it's just getting in the habit of kind of writing that down or doing voice memos or whatever makes the most sense for you, it can be the same thing.
[00:15:18] Ashley Faus: Again, from an HR perspective, right? You're doing recruiting. Okay. What are the biggest pitfalls of using an applicant tracking system today? I was so frustrated that my at t s did this thing. Great. You can go on a whole series rants about applicant tracking systems. Turn that into a series, right?
[00:15:35] Ashley Faus: Every Monday you go on a rant about the applicant tracking system and it's stuff that maybe you are sharing with your IT teams or you're sharing with the wider recruiting teams in terms of the filters or looking at a migration or whatever. It's right. It's, just changing your lens a little bit to look at the patterns that you can then share with other people.
[00:15:56] Ashley Faus: And so that's, I think the biggest mindset shift is thinking about [00:16:00] how do I take the stuff that I'm already doing and share that in an external way. You don't have to keep switching your mindset. There's a lot of things that I don't talk about publicly, because that would be a big lift for me to talk about.
[00:16:14] Ashley Faus: It's man, I don't know how this connects. And oh, I'm gonna sit down and now I have to like, try to figure out how to write 2000 words on this. No, just don't talk about that. If it's hard for me to figure out what the connection is or it's, boring for me, fine. I just don't talk about that publicly.
[00:16:30] Ashley Faus: I I picked the things that I can talk about for a long time publicly. So I think that's one thing. I think the other big thing is, Following the right people and curating people in your feed so that you are able to have those comments. Obviously if I go follow somebody that has nothing to do with what I normally talk about, I'm not gonna have as much to say about that.
[00:16:53] Ashley Faus: And so if I'm, again, if I'm sitting there and I'm like, I just can't come up with a comment, okay, then clearly, you're not meant to [00:17:00] comment on this let it go, yeah. So I think just giving yourself permission to take a broader lens to what counts as content and to pick the things that already energize you, that you get very excited about.
[00:17:12] Ashley Faus: And the last thing I'll say on this is, Try out different asset types. What's the easiest way to create for you? For some people, it's super easy to sit down and bang out 500 words. For other people, it's super easy to hit the Go live button and just be like, Hey, I'm here. I'm gonna start talking. Right? And to share via videos.
[00:17:30] Ashley Faus: Other people, they love to sketch in notebooks or they like to whiteboard, they like to do diagrams you could build. And, there are people who have built an entire brand around sketching or whiteboarding and diagramming, right? There are people who have built an entire brand of thoughts with Ashley and every every Tuesday and Thursday I just randomly pop on and start talking for 10 minutes, right?
[00:17:55] Ashley Faus: So don't feel beholden to this very specific, polished brand that you think you're [00:18:00] supposed to have. Figure out how you can create and get in that habit. And then you'll start to see, okay, now I can repurpose this via a transcript or with thumbnails or something like that. ,
[00:18:11] Dr. Jim: One of the things that's important to communicate in all of it is when you're going through that sampling phase in terms of just creating content, you gotta my perspective is you have all these different channels that you could create content on. It could be long form written, short form written.
[00:18:28] Dr. Jim: It could be clips and analysis off of articles. It could be videos, it could be any number of things. But the key thing is, that as you're dipping your toe in and getting further and further involved in it, you have to look at, okay, what can I crank out that's meaningful in a light lift?
[00:18:46] Dr. Jim: You shouldn't be spending eight hours a day trying to come up with things to say. And, this is one of the other mindset things that that I'm trying to shift is I don't want to create content cuz it takes too long. I don't want to like do all this LinkedIn stuff cuz it takes too [00:19:00] long.
[00:19:00] Dr. Jim: Usually takes. , 30 minutes, maybe an hour that you block off and then you're done. And then once you shut down, you just reply to comments or whatever at the end of the day. So this isn't like a part-time job or extra work, it's something that's integrated into what you're supposed to be doing or what you could do.
[00:19:18] Dr. Jim: So now we've built sort of the fundamentals or the framework that you need to do to establish a brand.
[00:19:24] Dr. Jim: Let's say you want to accelerate your brand and really take the next level and whatever that next level could be hey, you want to be more widely recognized within your own industry. You might wanna parlay this into some sort of regular speaking engagement, any number of things, whatever that looks like.
[00:19:43] Dr. Jim: What are the things that you should be thinking about and being intentional about to position yourself for those higher credibility opportunities?
[00:19:53] Ashley Faus: The first thing is consistency. So a lot of people, I see this all the time, they're like, I've decided to do a personal [00:20:00] brand campaign. So for. One quarter I'm going to post on LinkedIn, and you're like, okay, that's not, the brand has to keep going.
[00:20:08] Ashley Faus: Similar to a company, it's companies don't exist for one quarter. Hopefully they exist for a hundred years. Obviously humans will currently most of us don't exist for a hundred years. But, thinking about it in the long run to say what are my, goals? You have to show up consistently.
[00:20:23] Ashley Faus: So that's the first step is you have to be present. The second step is that you have to actually be open to those opportunities. I, so the way I did this is I went through basically a year of yes. Where literally anything that I could say yes to, podcast, webinars, speaking engagements, contributing a quote, writing an article.
[00:20:44] Ashley Faus: I said yes to all of it, and I did all of it, and it was exhausting. But what that let me do, Show that I was everywhere. I was prolific. And so someone knew that if they asked me to come speak or they asked me to provide a quote, I actually would do [00:21:00] that. Because it's oh wow, look, she's done all of these things.
[00:21:03] Ashley Faus: She said yes. And so you start to build that credibility that, okay, I see what you're writing about. I see how you show up consistently on stage or on podcasts or on webinars. I see that you do what you say you're going to do, so I'm willing to ask you or sign you up. So you build that both from a credibility of expertise and then a credibility of being a dependable person.
[00:21:25] Ashley Faus: So at this point now, I've spoken at a couple of different places multiple times, and so they know I'm a dependable speaker. Even internally when I, when people need something, they know that they can come ask me and. I have processes in place and that I will show up in a way that makes sense. And so it's actually a lighter lift on both of us because they already trust that I will show up prepared on message with decent slides, all of those things.
[00:21:52] Ashley Faus: And then I would say the third thing is having all of your materials [00:22:00] together to be able to pitch. So I do get a lot of inbound opportunities, but I also pitch for a lot of opportunities. And so I spend time at the very beginning of the year, I have a whole spreadsheet where I've looked at opportunities and places where I wanna pitch, particularly conferences.
[00:22:16] Ashley Faus: So conferences usually look for speakers anywhere from three to 12 months in advance. So for example, inbound is coming up and I've had people reach out to me. So is outbound. So is outbound, yeah. . I've had people reach out to me and be like, man How, did you get to speak at Inbound? And I'm like I started that conversation in December of 2021.
[00:22:38] Ashley Faus: And so if you think you're gonna have that conversation starting in August of 2022, when the event is in September, they've been locked. My slides are already due. They're, not looking for new speakers, my slides are due, my final deck is due. So understanding what that cadence is for the speaking engagements that you really want, understanding what the [00:23:00] editorial process is when you pitch.
[00:23:01] Ashley Faus: So I have a number of articles that I've published on the Muse, which is a career site, their editorial process. Same thing for marketing profs. I've, written for them a number of times. They may have a six to 12 week lead time on publishing. And so if you've got something that's only relevant in the next two weeks, Probably not gonna get published in those two outlets because they have such a long lead time for their editorial calendars.
[00:23:26] Ashley Faus: So even starting to think about where do I wanna show up? However green is this content, what is the publishing process or the pitch process or the selection process for each of these things, right? You and I went back and forth to schedule this podcast in fairly tight timeline. That is not the case for something like inbound or for getting something published on B2B marketing on marketing profs, for example, right?
[00:23:50] Ashley Faus: So that preparation that if I do get an app on opportunity, I already have the slide deck, I already have the abstract. I already know what the outline [00:24:00] is. If somebody comes to me and says, Hey, we happen to have a slot for a quote or a contributed article on thought leadership, great. Here's the three things I can talk about with thought leadership.
[00:24:09] Ashley Faus: Which one do you want? It's already written. I can maybe provide a different example or, riff on it if they want, so that it's slightly different. But I'm not creating this content from scratch anymore. I already created it. I riff on it. And I think that preparation, that's what's hard. I have tried to refer a number of people for speaking engagements that I can't take, and in a lot of cases, even with three months notice, they're like I, just don't have time to prepare for it.
[00:24:36] Ashley Faus: If you want to do this, you need to start preparing before you get asked or before you start to pitch, right? So that balance of the preparation. That is key. So you have to be showing up consistently so that when you do get selected, or when you do pitch, people go back and they look at your body of work, they see that you're smart, they see that you're engaged, they see that you're dependable.
[00:24:58] Ashley Faus: And then on the flip side, you've [00:25:00] now used all of that body of work to prepare you so that it's not such a heavy lift when you do get asked to do something that's more high profile.
[00:25:08] Dr. Jim: In, a lot of ways what you're describing it, synthesizes two concepts. One begin with the end in mind. So if your mindset is, Hey, I want to speak at these events you need to plan out and identify what those events are and use your weighted decision matrix to identify where they are, how you plan it, and all of that sort of stuff.
[00:25:28] Dr. Jim: And at the same time, , you should be building towards that goal by showing up. So if you wanna speak at event X, that's on topic Y well, part of your brand should be focused on talking about topic Y on a regular basis, and that, that, builds the muscle memory that that, you need to do this. And it's interesting that you mention it.
[00:25:49] Dr. Jim: It's the whole concept of speaking engagements, it's something that's been on my radar. It's just a matter of finding the time to plan and [00:26:00] build that. So I'm taking a different approach where I've gotten approach from stuff that I've done on my podcast. And then I launched the LinkedIn live show too.
[00:26:08] Dr. Jim: Basically after I saw you do that a few weeks ago, I was like, oh, I could launch this. So let me clear, up another another vehicle to to run my mouth. So this, is great stuff. What I want to do next is take all of the stuff that we talked about and all of this great conversation and synthesize it into the two or three most important things that you feel the average listener, viewer on this needs to take home so that they can make better decisions, start building their brand, positioning themselves for sort of an evergreen career trajectory.
[00:26:43] Dr. Jim: What would those be?
[00:26:44] Ashley Faus: First, you have to know what you value and what value you bring, and so things like the weighted decision matrix can help you really hone in on the, things that you, knowing. The value that you bring can also help [00:27:00] shape your personal brand. And so when you marry those two things up, what you value and then the value you bring, that's where you really start getting into That accelerated career trajectory or that accelerated brand mindset.
[00:27:14] Ashley Faus: The second thing is just start, and I know there's been some, discussions online of just start that you're not gonna get better if you don't actually practice intentionally. And I'm like, yes, but if you never practice at all, you're also there's so many people who read a ton of books and listen to a ton of podcasts and they're like, man, if only you know I've, really been preparing by listening and watching.
[00:27:38] Ashley Faus: At some point, part of the preparation is doing, you have to show up, you have to try. So just start trying, start to build that habit so that you can then start to see where your areas of improvement are so you can practice with intentionality. So that's the second thing is to start, be consistent.
[00:27:57] Ashley Faus: Third thing, and this is the last thing that I'll [00:28:00] say, is be prepared. Look at where you want to go, understand what that journey is, and then break that into those milestones that can also feed into and be laid out in your way to decision matrix. That okay, if being the face. Is something that is very important to you from a career standpoint or a personality standpoint, great.
[00:28:22] Ashley Faus: You need to do these things to build the personal brand and put yourself out there so that you can speak at this conference or get featured in this publication or get promoted into a more visible leadership position. Whatever that thing is, that has to be included in your values, that has to be included in the way that you are showing up when you're starting and when you're showing up consistently.
[00:28:45] Ashley Faus: So that be prepared mindset of know what the journey is, break it down into those milestones, and be as a couple of steps ahead before that milestone hits so that you're really ready to take full advantage of the opportunity.
[00:28:59] Dr. Jim: [00:29:00] Great stuff. Ashley. Before we sign off, where can people find.
[00:29:03] Ashley Faus: So you'll be shocked that I will say LinkedIn.
[00:29:07] Ashley Faus: But yes, definitely follow me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking to people on LinkedIn. I'm also on Twitter at Ashley Foss. I don't show up there as frequently as LinkedIn, but yeah, LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to find
[00:29:20] Dr. Jim: me. So one thing that I will say thanks, obviously, thanks for joining us.
[00:29:24] Dr. Jim: The only area of disappointment that I have in this conversation is that early in the conversation I said that we would have 50 takeaways. I only counted like 47.25, so we fell a little bit short of expectations. But other than that, I think I think you, I think it was phenomenal having, you on and Jan and chatting with you for a bit.
[00:29:42] Dr. Jim: Yeah, so
[00:29:44] Ashley Faus: Ashley, I was gonna say, I think the biggest dis, I think the biggest disappointment is that we didn't have this over. Like the fact that you're only on Zoom with me, it's just it would be better if there was cake. That's my disappointment.
[00:29:55] Dr. Jim: That's, why I run every morning because I, do love some cake.
[00:29:59] Dr. Jim: So [00:30:00] Ashley, awesome conversation. Thanks for joining us. For those of you who are listening and who will be watching us on all of our various platforms, you can find us on the Cascading leadership handle everywhere. So we're on LinkedIn primarily. We are on Facebook, we're on TikTok, we're on YouTube.
[00:30:17] Dr. Jim: We're not on Instagram because that's only for food picks. So thanks again for joining us. If you like this this episode, make sure you leave us a review. Subscribe, tell your friends, do all the things that the crazy kids want you to do these days. Thanks again for joining us.