Eric Yaverbaum has had countless successes, but he manages to keep a handle on what counts.
He also has a lot of wisdom that every marketer would be keen to keep in mind: If you want to be a leader, influence people in a positive direction; the worst day of your life is also the best day of your life because it changes everything; write down your goals; relationships do not exist without trust; every successful leader has had a different path to that success…
You might wonder, What does all this have to do with marketing? Plenty.
On the subject of avoiding marketing pitfalls, Eric says, “Don’t watch out for it. Race into it. You see the eye of the storm? Run to it. This could be a parenting tip…and you can say this about brand marketing, you can say this about your digital persona.”
“My children never did anything because I said to. They watched…. It’s painful for me to watch my kids touch a fire as it is for any parent, but if I don’t, then we’ll never learn.”
The art of authentic branding, then, is to explore being yourself and to share your mistakes along the way.
Watch the show for more words of wisdom:
Make sure you don’t miss any future episodes: Subscribe to the MarketingProfs Live Show on YouTube. And to catch up on all previous episodes, check out the YouTube playlist here.
Episode Details, Guest Information, and Referenced Links
Episode No. 3
Guest’s Social media profiles:
MarketingProfs resources referenced in the show:
“In B2B News” article referenced in the show:
Full Transcript | MarketingProfs Live Show Episode 3 | How to Authentically Brand Yourself in a Digital World
This rough transcript is machine-generated. It’s been only minimally edited by humans.
George B. Thomas: All right, we are live and we are gonna kick this bad boy off. Welcome to the Marketing Smarts Live show by Marketing Profs and Marketing Smarts podcast, where we dive into B2B news, resources, valuable guest content, and so much more. If you’re a B2B marketer looking for a place to learn, keep up to date and have some fun along the way, then grab a beverage and a notepad, and welcome to the.
Now hello to all you Marketing Smarts Live viewers today I’m super excited to bring you episode three of The Marketing Smarts Live Show. And I’m your boy George B. Thomas, speaker, trainer, catalyst, and host of this year Live Show Marketing Smarts Live. As well as the Marketing Smarts Podcast found on your favorite podcast app.
Now, today’s topic is about how to authentically brand yourself in a digital world and whatever tips, tricks, strategies, and best practices hit my brain along the journey today. Now, Our guest clips today are brought to you by Eric Yerba. Eric is a bestselling author who literally wrote the book on public relations, the industry standard bestseller Republic, uh, public Relations for Dummies, as well as six other titles, including Leadership Secrets of the World’s most successful CEOs.
Eric will also be recounting his lifelong ability. Toward the bright side in the upcoming book, the Audacity of Silver Linings in 2022. Woo. I’m super excited. Listen here, there is gonna be some fun stuff happening on this episode because, We are going to be pulling pieces out of the actual full episode of the Marketing Smarts podcast that we went through.
If you wanna listen to the full interview with Eric and me, make sure you tune into the Marketing Smarts podcast, and of course, the link will be located in the description below once the live episode ends. Now, when you think of how to authentically brand yourself in a digital, I have to ask what comes to mind?
Is it immediately a question? Like many times in this conversation I’ll hear things like, are we talking about the business or are we talking about the person? Because there’s the business brand and there’s the personal brand, and forever they shouldn’t meet, shall meet, will meet. I don’t know. But it gets confusing and I have to ask, are we like in this age now?
We’re a personal brand and business brand are not really as separate as we once thought. We’re gonna journey down that whole road of thoughts and ideas, but hey, before we get too deep into this, we’re gonna go ahead and listen to a small clip where Eric, uh, about what he had to say when it comes to authentic branding and this personal slash corporate branding tale that we may find ourselves in.
Eric Yaverbaum: First of all, just be yourself. You be you. I’ll be me. If we can start with that very, very basic premise, this is for a brand also. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Sony or you’re Bob sitting in your living room.
George B. Thomas: It doesn’t matter.
Eric Yaverbaum: You be you. I’ll be me. That’s authentic. I’m being transparent about who I am.
It’s hard to fake who I am anyway. Why would I wanna? The problem is, is everybody’s trying to be something that they’re not. On a regular basis, I would say that’s the very first thing that I do when I walk into a boardroom is say, say literally that there’s always a person. Just somebody like me who I, I don’t know about you.
I, I’d like to have lunch today. I wanna sleep in a bed tonight. I’m hoping that I can turn on the air conditioning or the heat. We all want the same things. We all get the same amount of seconds in a day, 86,400 seconds. It’s the great equalizer. We’re all going the same place. In the end, brands should have, and anybody that we’ve ever represented, this is in my entire career for four decades. Have a person, somebody that we can, and, and for me, my preference is to hire up the food chain, the better it should have a person that speaks the brand.
George B. Thomas: Man, you be you and I’ll be me. Why would you want to fake who you are? Mm. I just want like write that on something. Design it, tweet it, Facebook it, mark hashtag mpb2b.
Whatever you gotta do. Honestly, I love how Eric breaks it down, uh, to that we’re all humans, right? We want to eat lunch. We put our pants on one leg at a time, like, And it should be a human at the helm of speaking the brand to the world in many B2B companies that can be several humans, maybe not just one.
And who are those folks? When you immediately think of this in your company, who is that person or those people that speaks your brand to the world. Now, I know me personally, before starting my own business, I helped two companies with their brand simply by growing my own along the way. You see, in my opinion, company brands, at least where we’re at today, are largely fueled by the humans that sit in the seats inside of those companies.
Now, we’ll get back to Eric and his thoughts on authentic branding in a few minutes, but I have to ask. Are you part of the marketing profs community? I hope the answer to that is yes, but if not, become part of the marketing profs community by heading over to improvs.com/mp today. That’s right, improvs.com/mp today.
Listen, it’s free. Now’s the time. Go do it. Become part of the community, and you’ll get all sorts of valuable resources. But now it’s time for the section that we lovingly call. In the B2B news because you know, B2B news is always exciting. Maybe, maybe not, but this is where we talk about breaking B2B news, really important tips that we find on the Google News tab related to you.
And your B2B marketing and B2B business. Now, today’s in the new section, the Future, oh man, the future of B2B marketing. Get ready for 2025. That’s some like space age stuff isn’t 20, 25. Anyway, I love this article. In this article. Uh, it’s brought you by Forbes, by the way, in this article. Uh, this. In the article really grabbed my attention upfront, which kept me reading, which then also meant, by the way, a little pro tip there for content meant that it actually made it in the show.
Uh, and it says this, even many companies who already used automation for high ticket B2B marketing businesses struggle to adapt. Few were truly ready for the magnitude of the. To digital from a few significant events or trade shows a year for lead acquisition companies had to move their marketing online with dozens of digital events yearly and an ever increasing number of digital channels.
Now, I have to ask, as somebody who has been digital for the last 10, 15 years, is this you? Are you listening to or watching this Marketing Smarts Live and you’re like, That has been my last two years. We have had to transform and sometimes transformation can be painful. Well, you will dig this article in this article, read things like new roles for marketing and B2B organizations.
Again, because of who I am, one of these new roles that really stuck out to me. Uh, that was the chief customer, hang on, chief Customer education officer. I love me some education, by the way, in the article, there’s a little tag coaching, uh, next to that one and, and here’s what they said. In a market that is fighting for customer attention, education officers will become part of marketing teams.
In addition to account managers, a new focus on customer education, helping more and selling less will be the way to build long-lasting customer relationships. You know what’s funny? Is marketing Profs has been doing this for years, educating people, and you know what? I need to meet the chief Customer Education Officer at Marketing profs.
If you’re watching or listening, email me. Maybe we’ll have to do some type of interview on what you’re thinking about for 2025, but can I honestly get a hashtag preach on this level of education and value that needs to be. They also talk about, by the way, in the article, uh, they also talk about the new marketing KPIs.
And how to prepare your B2B marketing for 2025. Now, to read the full article, check out the link in the description below, after, of course, the broadcast because you should stay tuned in and enjoying everything that you’re watching right now. But remember, we actually were having a conversation with Eric, so let’s get back to Eric and his Marketing Smarts podcast episode.
I wanted during the, uh, interview to dig into this word, which. Fundamentally be a buzzword, uh, authentic. But I wanted to dig into the word authentic to see what Eric had to say about it. And here’s what he had to say about being authentic, or in his words, and I love this, being real.
Eric Yaverbaum: The question is, is am I real?
George B. Thomas: And here’s the thing about real, which is what authentic is.
Eric Yaverbaum: Whether people, uh, uh, fall for something momentarily or briefly in time, that’s all it is to me. Life, professionally and personally is about the long game. It’s not about, you know, it’s not a short game. It’s not about, you know, will I get phone calls from this interview?
I doesn’t matter. If I help and or inspire anybody to have a better day, Hey, that’s all I wanna do now, Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers. And you know, I don’t know if your viewers, uh, what the demographics of your viewers are, if we’ll even know Mr. Rogers, but Mr. Rogers, who’s no longer with us, sadly, Um, testified before Congress in 1969 before there was a pbs, it didn’t exist.
Um, you know, PBS was kind of shot in your basement sort of show. And one of the things that he said in congressional testimony, cuz nobody in the senate, nobody in Congress had any idea who he was. Uh, and he was there to try to get funding for P B s, which worked that day was in, in, in times of despair and ti and, and, and by the way, I’m gonna butcher you.
His exact words, but there’s, I I, I’m positive that his testimony still exists on YouTube in Times of trouble, um, in times of despair. Look for the helpers. If you see helpers, you’ll know there’s hope. That’s all we need.
George B. Thomas: Just hope, uh, did you hear that? Did you hear that viewers, in Times of Trouble or despair look for the helpers and Marketing Smarts Live viewers. Are you the help? Like, that’s the question that immediately came to my mind as I was doing the interview, uh, for the podcast listeners, for the viewers, uh, that I knew would be here in the future. Are you the helpers? Are you the humans who are creating hope in your company?
Creating hope in your community, creating hope in the world. Are you those B2B marketers? I have to ask too, what are your thoughts on being authentic, on being you on being real? Make sure you keep the conversation going by using the hashtag hashtag MP b2b and let me know your thoughts on this word, authentic or being, uh, you know, authenticity or being you or being real.
Now we’ll get back to Eric in a few minutes where we’ll dive into what is the formula. Everybody asks it, Hey gee, what’s the formula we can use to be more authentic? More authentic brand? Like, how can we systematize and process the heck out of this in a digital world?
Hmm hmm. We’ll talk about the formula, but. It’s time for some dope B2B learnings from the vault of marketing profs articles. It’s time to dig into the treasure troves of valuable information and pull out two pieces of gold to help you be a better B2B marketer. Now, since we’re talking about authentic branding, I wanna help enable you to be more human and more authentic in your B2B marketing efforts.
So two articles. Uh uh, first one this week. Be effective by being authentic by Jillian Valey. Hopefully I said that last name right? If I didn’t, then when you see me in person, just smack me in the back of the head and tell me how to say it right. But in this article, being effective by being authentic, you’ll read about honesty is the best policy.
You’ll read about thinking in terms of the. The heart of a business, the heart of the humans, and, uh, highlighting the unique. Now, as soon as I read this article and I saw that highlighting the unique viewers, I need to tell you that there are two episodes coming in the future, the podcast future, and the live show future where I talk about and talk with, sorry, Sally Hogshead about different is better than.
You can wait for it to come here to YouTube for the live show or just pay attention to the podcast because that highlighting the. Figuring out what your difference is and how that is super powerful. Anyway, you’ll learn so much more in that article as well. Article number two this week is four Tips for Gutsy Branding, how to Make Your Business Stand Out, and this is by Laura Wallace.
Pretty sure I got that one right. Thank you for easy names. I love being named George B. Thomas, by the way. That’s super easy. Always been easy. Uh, but in this. You’ll dive into topics like tone, uh, visuals drive vulnerability, and so much more in this article. And to be honest with you, marketing sports, live viewers, I love, love, love this small portion right here.
I’m gonna go ahead and share it with you somewhere along the way. Hmm. A fictitious person created a fictitious book on how businesses need to be perfect. I could stop right there, but it created this idea that to be in business, you must have it all together and never make mistakes. And if you do, well never speak of them.
Hashtag wrong man. Embrace the suck. Embrace the messy middle. That’s the only way that you’ll ever get to the mecca of serving your customers in a way that eventually delights the crap out of them is going through those things that you gotta go through now to learn more after this live broadcast, you know.
What I’m gonna say, read both articles and head down into the description. After the show’s over, they’ll be located there where you can click on ’em, read and start to get 1% better each and every letter or word that you read now. We have to get back to Eric. And remember we wanted to a little bit ago, talk about that formula.
Um, there has to be a way to fast forward one’s brand success. Uh, a formula to make it easy-ish. All right, well, here’s what Eric had to actually say about that whole kind of formula, mindset.
Eric Yaverbaum: There is no one formula. There isn’t one. Uh uh, I, I have a lifelong fascination with leadership. I was a longtime chairman of the Young President’s Organization in New York.
I sat on the international board. Uh, my biggest book was Leadership Secrets of the World’s Most Successful CEOs. Not a plug. You don’t have to buy it. I was so curious about leadership and. What may, what was the formula that made for success or, or the people that were successful? What was that formula? In that particular book, I interviewed a hundred pretty well known, powerful, rich, and famous, uh, leaders, and asked them the same four questions.
There’s a hundred chapters in that particular book. I was my biggest selling book, so on a million copies. Just so I could get the formula, I just wanted to know what it was, and I knew by asking the four questions I would figure it out. And you know what? I found out Everybody’s got a different way. There was not a single solitary of, we interviewed 140, we included a hundred in the book.
There wasn’t one single solitary leader that answered the questions the same exact way. I can tell you this, that, uh, o optimism is contagious. Hope is contagious.
George B. Thomas: There isn’t one. There isn’t a formula. Or actually, here’s the thing. My brain works in a really strange way. Or is there, because while Eric said there isn’t one, here’s what I heard.
Your way is the way, your way is the formula. And talk about stopping to figure out your. A k a strategy for your B2B marketing and the importance of that to be the actual, um, formula that you’re gonna use moving forward. I also love that, um, w you now have as marketing smarts live viewers, you now have two bulls eyes that you can shoot, uh, at for your B2B company, and that’s.
And hope. And how can you inject both of those into your B2B brand strategy that you use to amp up your authentic brand in a digital world? Think about that. Optimism and hope. How can they be core features of being authentic online for your brand, personal, corporate. Doesn’t matter, right? Doesn’t matter.
Now, we’re gonna get some words of wisdom from Eric here in a few minutes, but right. It’s time to turn the spotlight on you. That’s right. The marketing profs community where we, uh, section that I love from the hashtag MPB2B community where we search far and wide in the hashtag MPB2B universe. This could be Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.
I’m looking, I’m trying to look everywhere to find amazing information and conversation to bring to the masses. So first, You viewers, make sure you’re using the hashtag and second, make sure you’re having fun and adding value to the community, a k a, the digital social world. And then, and only then we’ll spotlight you or your crew on the show.
Now, today’s spotlight, and it brings me great joy to talk about this. Valentina Escobar Gonzalez, or at Equine Valenti. Uh, made my day, made my heart shine. The tweet was how to generate high quality traffic that turns into leads and sales with Brian Dean and Valentina said at George B. Thomas, if I was in a blogging rut.
This episode, fix that exclamation mark at marketing props. Hashtag mp b2. Valentina, thank you, uh, for the shout out, and I am so glad. I am so glad that this helped get you out of potentially that blogging slump. Remember, community, use the hashtag mpB2B hashtag on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and get the light shined on your awesomeness.
In the next episode, or maybe not the next one, but a future episode of The Marketing Smarts Live Show, use that hashtag. Now we do have some words of wisdom that we need to get into because again, this whole premise, this whole show is based off of golden nugget clips. That we pull out of the Marketing Smarts podcast to bring them to you so you can see the video versions of these and start to rock and roll and impact your business.
So words of Wisdom, I ask it at the end of every interview. And so a again, with Eric and this conversation of authentic brands in a digital world, what words of wisdom. Do you think that he gave us? Well, here they are.
Eric Yaverbaum: Look, here’s the thing is everybody’s looking for a quick fix in life. It’s a process.
Success is not a light switch. It just isn’t. I worked with a lot of young wiz kids who are billionaires, and when I was young, you know, I, I, I got a little bit lucky. There was a little bit of luck involved in my younger part of my career a little bit. What I would say about luck is, you know, it, it’s where hard work meets opportunity that you tend to get lucky.
Put the odds most in your favor, and you can do that. And that’s all about, you know, choices. What I care about is everything I cannot buy. You can’t buy happiness, you cannot buy love. You can’t buy the things that are important, be happy. But happiness is an inside job. I don’t know what more you could possibly.
George B. Thomas: Oh, I feel like I shouldn’t, I feel like I should let that marinate for a hot second. I mean, success is not a light switch. Luck is where hard work meets opportunities. So put the odds in your favor. I mean, is that being authentic a an authentic brand? Uh, words of wisdom, or is that just. Life in general, words of wisdom.
Success is not a light switch. Luck is where hard work meets opportunities. So put the odds in your favor. And then I honestly think that Eric and I may be brothers from another mother because happiness is an inside job. Home marketing smarts, community. I hope. You are focused on your happiness. I hope that you’re focused on the happiness of your team and the happiness of your prospects, your leads, your customers.
Because if you are, your world is going to be a okay and being authentic in a digital world when you’re focused on being happy and making those around you happy or. It’s gonna be a joy versus a drag Man. I can’t believe we’ve been hanging out for already over 22 minutes. So here’s the thing, head to the description below.
Click on the link to the Full Marketing Smarts podcast with Eric and keep on learning. If you got value out of today’s show, hit that like, and better yet, share with a friend or subscribe to the channel even to keep learning. Hit the subscribe. Watch additional videos or go tune into the original Marketing Smarts podcast episode on your favorite podcast app.
And don’t forget to become part of the Marketing Profs community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday. And of course, we’re gonna end it in the way that I’ll probably always end every episode of The Marketing Smarts Live. Remember to be a happy, helpful, humble B2B marketing human, and we’ll see you on the next episode of The Marketing Smarts Live Show next week. Have a great week.
