January 27, 2025 • 38 mins
Today I’m chatting to Ruth Tsui, a group program design consultant who’s all about ditching the growth-at-all-costs mindset and building a business that actually aligns with your values.
She poses a very interesting question - are we working ourselves so hard so we’ll finally find joy when we retire??
We explore the messy reality of moving from in-person to online education, the highs and lows of running online memberships, and why understanding what truly motivates your clients can make or break your business.
Ruth gives us a sneak peek at her plans for 2025, including a gradual move away from Meta and more use of LinkedIn.
If you’re ready to create more joy in your business now, this is the episode for you!
NOTES
You can find out more about Ruth on her website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to The Bravery BehindThe Brand Podcast, the podcast
that dives deep into the heartof the stories behind the
brands we encounter on socialmedia every day. On the
surface they make it look soeasy but I guarantee there is
blood, sweat and tears behindall the reels, posts and
beautifully presentedproducts. I'm your host Amanda
Jane, a personal branding andmedia skills coach originally
(00:25):
from the north of Ireland andnow calling beautiful
Cheshire, England my home. Iwork with business owners
building their confidence andcrafting compelling brand
stories so they feelcomfortable stepping into the
spotlight and becoming thego-to guest that everyone
wants, speaking with authorityand selling with authenticity.
I experience first-hand thecourage that's required to
move beyond our comfort zoneand these are the
inspirational stories I wantto share. I'll also be doing
(00:48):
some solo episodes and sharinguseful tips that will
hopefully help you to getmotivated with your own
personal branding because it'smore than just a beautiful
website and glossy photos forInstagram. You do actually
have to talk to people. Solet's get started.
(01:08):
Hello, everyone, and welcometo the Bravery Behind The
Brand Podcast. And today Ihave with me Ruth Tsui, if I
pronounced that correctly.It's Tsui. Tsui, I'm so sorry,
Ruth. Tsui! I wasn't gettingsomeone's name wrong, is
there? Oh, don't worry. It'snot an easy surname. And
you're a group programmedesign consultant and I've not
(01:31):
met many of those, so I'mlooking forward to hearing a
whole lot more about that. Andbefore we get stuck in, we're
going to ask you my threegolden questions. So, do you
have a favourite motivationalsong? So my favourite
motivational song is called OnTop Of The World by Imagine
Dragons and it's basicallyabout how you go through lots
(01:53):
of different trials andtribulations but ultimately if
you kind of stick with it youhit your dreams, you hit your
aspirations. So yeah, thatone. I love that. That is
going on the Spotify list. Ifanybody wants to know where it
is, Bravery Behind The Brandon Spotify. And do you have a
motivational quote? Yes, sothis motivational quote is on
(02:14):
my vision board. It says, youcan't be the kid standing at
the top of the water slideoverthinking it. You have to
go down the chute. I don'tknow who said it. I don't know
where it's come from. But Ilove it because I am a chronic
overthinker. And it reallymakes it visual, you know,
like seeing that kid standingat top of the water slide, not
wanting to go down. It's like,well, actually, once you do
(02:36):
it, it's really fun. I wouldbe that kid. I'd be that kid
going, I've changed my mind.You know, it's so funny. This
podcast is a year oldtomorrow. And what I love is I
keep getting different songsand different quotes. And the
variety is huge. I love that.I've never heard that in my
life, but I love it. And nowI'm just being nosy. Do you
(02:56):
read? I do read not as much asI would like to. I have a
nine-year-old and afive-year-old, so reading is
restricted in our house. Youjust have to put it in when
you can, don't you?Absolutely, absolutely. Have
you got a favourite book? It'sa business book. I could have
(03:20):
gone for Lord of the Rings orsomething. It's called The
Company of One by Paul Jarvisand it's basically challenging
the notion that everybodywants to scale a business and
actually is scaling inherentlydesirable or actually is a
business that allows you thefreedom, To live the life that
(03:41):
you want to live within arevenue goal that you want to
hit enough for you like it'sessentially building a
lifestyle brand and not havingyou know the big team and the
big revenue goals and all ofthat stuff but actually
looking at sustainable successum you know ensuring that
you're delivering exceptionalclient value and you know kind
of keeping that impact at theheart of your business and it
(04:04):
really just being aboutbusiness that's for you so
yeah that's my favoritebusiness. I like that and I
like that it's not abouttaking over the world and
recruiting hundreds of peoplehere and there because I think
people get a bit obsessed withgrowth and you know where
you're going to be in fiveyears time, ten years time and
I mean I don't have anyaspirations to take over the
(04:24):
world I just want somethingthat I love that suits me that
isn't going to keep me awakeat night because I know the
struggles of worrying about ateam that can keep you awake
at night, but I quite likethat. Bill, something that's
sustainable for you, thatabsolutely suits you. And what
about, I read over theweekend, there's Alec Hermoso,
he was reading one of hisbooks and I was like, oh yes,
(04:45):
interesting, slammed onthings. He's got a very, very
easy way of breaking thingsdown. But what about fiction?
Do you like, you mentioned,was it Lord of the Rings? Is
that? Yeah, I like sci-fi andfantasy books, so. It's a
little bit more niche. Yeah.Oh, I'm the same. You just
have to eat. If you get intosomething like that, it just
takes you out of your normalworld, doesn't it? So you
(05:07):
haven't got any room to bedistracted. Oh, no, that's
fabulous. Thank you for those.So now on to you and your
business. So who, why, whatinspired you to start it? And
tell me a little bit moreabout your group programme
design. So group programmedesign is primarily around
ensuring that there is kind ofa client and delivery fit. So
(05:31):
making sure that we reallyknow intimately who our
clients are and then how todeliver our unique expertise
in a way that helps them toachieve results. So my
background is in education andtraining, delivering
workshops, group facilitation.So it's bringing those skills
into play. In the online worldwhere a lot of advice around
(05:53):
growing groups is audiencegrowth and lead generation and
marketing and it actuallydoesn't get as far as, and
this is how we deliver thething. Like this is how we. We
deliver on our promises and wemake sure that we're giving
what we say we're going togive, you know, that kind of
like over sexify yourmarketing, sell them what they
(06:14):
want, not sell them what theyneed, not what they want, you
know, all of that kind ofstuff. And really, for me,
it's about bringing it back tothe client and putting it back
at that kind of client centriclevel, where they actually get
what they paid for. For theperson that's delivering it,
because typically they're overgivers and people pleasers, my
clients, is to stop them fromgoing into over giving to make
(06:39):
up for either bad experiencesthey've had, bad experiences
their clients have had, thisself doubt and lack of belief
that they have in their ownability to deliver. So it's
kind of marrying those twosides of the coin together and
helping them to deliver asustainable business model for
them. So interesting becauseyou talk about experiences and
I think I'm just generalisingbecause we've all been on
(07:03):
these courses and we've beenon these memberships and we've
had good experiences and badexperiences and whatever those
experiences were we want tomake them bigger and better
and you're right maybe overdelivering people pleasers and
I had some good advice fromsomeone an amazing coach that
I've worked with and Whenshe's talking about courses
and things like that, shetalks about not overwhelming
(07:24):
your clients because they onlyneed 20% of what it is. And
that has stuck in my head, hasbeen the best advice I've ever
had. But one of the things Inoticed as well, people get
very, myself included, hung upon who our clients are and
that tends to stop people intheir tracks. Do you have any
advice on that, on sort ofrefining your client or And
(07:46):
sometimes people are verygeneral about their client or
they're not specific enough.So my focus on ideal client
work is quite different towhat other people would look
at. So I don't look atdemographics at all. It's much
more about their current skilllevel, their values, their
perspectives. What times dothey have? What other
(08:10):
commitments do they have goingon in their lives? Do they
have the technologicalresources to be able to do
what you're teaching them todo? Have they got the
financial resources in orderto produce, say, Facebook ads
to actually implement thethings that you're suggesting?
So for me, ideal client workis very, very different to the
(08:31):
conventional business. I likethat. I like a different
approach. It's much morenitty-gritty and psychological
in terms of understanding whatmakes them tick, what keeps
them engaged, what'smotivating them to invest in
you. What are they lookingfor? We talk about pain points
(08:52):
and desires, of course, interms of marketing, but this
is actually What is going onin their heads that's really
driving this desire? Becausein group programs in
particular, when we haveclients who are choosing to
invest, they're choosing toinvest from intrinsic
motivation. When you'redelivering learning and
development to teams, often itcomes because it ticks the box
(09:15):
on their performancemanagement and that is an
extrinsic motivator. Thatsays, right, you've got this
many CPD points that you needto have acquired by the end of
the year. You know, this is agap in your professional
development. You need to go onthis training course to tick
that box and they have toparticipate because that's
kind of their salary is tiedto participating. So when we
(09:38):
get into the realm of actuallyleveraging that intrinsic
motivation, we have to knowwhy. We have to understand
their why so that we candeliver In the best way
possible for them to make surethat we keep them motivated
and we can use extrinsicmotivators as a booster but
really it's aboutunderstanding their goals and
(09:58):
then helping to keep them ontrack and accountable to
achieving those goals. Wowit's just so interesting and
what drove you to do this? SoI was in teaching and well,
prior to teaching, I was abusiness analyst. I worked on
a CRM customer relationshipmanagement system. And
basically I was the personthat went as the go-between
(10:21):
between the client who wasusing the system and the tech
team who was building thesystem. So my whole job was
around finding out what theusers wanted, telling the tech
team to build the thing, andthen writing all the training
materials to help the peopleuse the tech tool. I got bored
after three years of being inan office, retrained to be a
(10:42):
teacher, had a mentalbreakdown in 2017 and bought
into a franchise business,which was just an utter
disaster. I had no autonomy. Icould see all these gaps and
things that I would dodifferently and I couldn't do
it. The income that I waspromised didn't really align
with what was actuallyhappening. And I negotiated an
(11:03):
early release in the end frommy contract. And then set up
independently as an educationconsultant. So going into
schools and nursery settings,training staff teams to
deliver STEM education, whichis science, tech, engineering
and maths to kind of two yearolds up to 12 year olds. The
pandemic hit. So I couldn'tkeep going into schools and
(11:27):
nursery settings becauseeverything closed down. And
that's when I was introducedto this like online world. And
one of the questions that yousent me before had was like
what was the biggest challengethat you've had to overcome in
business and it was definitelygoing from Delivering in
(11:48):
person and delivering in asetting where I just felt
really comfortable and athome. You know, I knew the
language, I knew the way tokind of woo the administrator
on the front desk, you know,get that meeting with a head
teacher booked in. And youknow, I had all the lingo and
just that way to connect. Youknow, everything I did was a
cold outreach, which when youcome into the online world,
(12:10):
you're like, that's the worstthing you can ever do. You
never send a cold DM. Youknow, it felt like landing on
an alien planet, really. Itwas, you know, lead magnets
and breadcrumbing and Facebookgroups. And I was just like,
what on earth? Yeah. You'reabsolutely right. If you've
(12:34):
worked in that kind of publicsector environment, the
vocabulary is like anotherlanguage and completely
identify with what you'resaying. You know, you talked
about having a foot in twocamps there. So you learn how
to bridge that gap. And youknow working in that school
environment there's veryspecific ways of doing things
(12:55):
and you knew how to get past agatekeeper. Then all of a
sudden you find yourself inthis online world which many
people did and you'reabsolutely right because I can
remember it took me ages and Imean ages to get my head
around what was a funnel. Icouldn't work it out and I
couldn't It was explained afew times but it took one
(13:17):
very, very clever lady to justtell me what it was or tell a
lot of people what it was invery simple terms and I was
like, is that all it is?Because I imagined this very
technical thing on a websitethat did this and it did that.
But the language from publicsector to private sector is
completely different. And ourapproach to, because our work
(13:38):
comes to us in the publicsector whereas the private
sector you've got to go outand you know you talked about
the outreach. They're a bitmore receptive in the public
sector because they expect itbut online and the DMs and
some people say you should doit some people say you
shouldn't do it and there'skind of like this someone
needs to develop a handbook onetiquette Because it's just so
(13:59):
different. But also navigatingthat as well. And you know, I
do personal brand and itdepends on who that person is.
If they can get away with it,if the personality shines
through and that takes a bitof time to kind of master. Oh,
they can get away with it, butthey couldn't. But it is
completely alien. It is justanother world and lead
(14:22):
magnets, you know, to get tomy stage in life and, you
know, having Signed up forlead magnet all of my life and
not knowing what they werethat was wow that yeah it's
just what it what what it wasmeant to say was all of those
um challenges that youdescribed they kind of fall
(14:45):
into place to bring you to theaha moment when you've when
you're sat thinking I've gotthis situation I need to do
something else to bring all myskills together to make it
work Absolutely. And it'sfunny because I went down the
trap that I think a lot of usdo. We download all the
freebies, we go up to all thewebinars, we sign up for the
(15:06):
courses and the groupprogrammes, we invest a lot of
money. And I had a whole rangeof experiences within that,
you know, some great and a lotnot so great. And I set up an
online membership site, I got100 people in there. And it
burnt me out because I wasdoing the thing of like over
(15:26):
giving and producing hours andhours of content every month.
After 18 months, we had afamily health scare, a very
close family member had ahealth diagnosis. And I, it
was, I was doing that kind offive o'clock club thing, you
(15:50):
know, waking up every morningand I was busy like producing
resources, my daughter was twoat the time and you know like
it was a busy time in life butit was also like I can't keep
doing this like I've actuallyhit the point where I just
have to close this down and Iwent back to training in
schools because I was likethat's familiar that feels
(16:11):
safe but I tasted the sense offreedom of not having to pack
up a car full of kit, of nothaving to sit in traffic jams,
of not being stuck in emptyschool staff rooms. And when
people came in, they werereally grumpy and miserable.
And I was like, I can't dothis anymore. I'm done. I've
(16:32):
been in school settings. I hadbeen in school settings for 14
years by that point. And I waslike, I'm done with this
season of my life. I need todo something else. And like
you said, the journey at thetime felt somewhat like, you
know, kind of wiggly and allover the place. Like, I've
gone from doing this businessanalysis role into teaching
(16:55):
and then bought the franchiseand then did the consultancy,
then went online, then wentback offline, like, you know,
it feels very sort of, youknow, up and down and wiggly.
But actually, when you look atit, as a journey of a whole,
you can actually see where Thejourney makes sense and where
those stepping stones makesense. And really my mission
(17:17):
is to raise the bar and raisethe standard because I think
we learn from seeing whatothers do and there aren't
enough good role models ofwhat excellence looks like in
terms of online learning,online education. So really I
(17:39):
want to be Ruth, what do youthink?
When you know you want to dothat and you're looking around
(18:01):
for coaches and you're lookingfor people to teach you,
because I knew how to plug mygaps. I knew to look for the
coaches. I've kind of donethat all my life. If there was
a skill that I was missing, Iplugged that gap and I paid
people to teach me. Andunfortunately, you won't know
until after you've done itthat it wasn't up to par or it
wasn't this or it wasn't that.But I agree with you, we need
(18:21):
more excellent role models outthere. And it's kind of
something that I've beenpassionate about having raised
to young girls that luckilyenough, I spent their lives
pointing out to them thatsocial media isn't real. This
presented to you this moment.Is it real? Someone says oh I
earned six million in twodays. That is not real. You
(18:41):
know always looking behind theveneer and with the personal
brand interest that I've hadIt was easy for me to spot
that actions didn't matchwords, but that isn't easy for
other people. And if you'revery literal or, you know,
depending on how you see theworld, some people are very
literal. So it was, I alwayshad that eye on What did
(19:06):
excellence look like? Whorepresented excellence for me?
And I've always been inpursuit of it, I think all my
life, just to see, you know,there's very few people I
would point the finger, I go,yeah, that, that is
excellence. That is exactlywhat we're looking for. But
for my girls, I was alwayslooking for good role models
and I would gently drop itinto conversation, oh, into
that, that's it. I'm MichelleObama, you know, let's worship
(19:28):
her for a while. I love her.And, you know, that family,
you know, that never didanything, never put a toe out
of line. But, you know, that'san extreme example. But how
amazing would it be if therewere people sort of a few
steps ahead? And there are,and I won't embarrass them by
mentioning them, but there area few in my world. And I love
that. And you're right, howfantastic would it be if there
(19:49):
were more And we couldsignpost our young people to
these, you know,representatives of excellence.
There's a good name for amembership. So if you could
give yourself a piece ofadvice before you started on
that online journey, whatwould it be? I think it's
(20:09):
belief in the skill set thatyou have. I didn't need to
invest in a franchisebusiness. It was an education
franchise business. I couldhave easily done it myself and
it was just that Thank you forjoining us today.
(20:43):
So really, I would say it'slike, believe that you have
the skill set there,understand the nuance of your
skill set as well. know, oneof the things that I do with
clients is understanding theirunique framework and actually
getting to the grips of likethe real nitty gritty detail
of actually what that meansand finding that golden
thread. And then, you know,Doing the reps, taking the
(21:07):
action, getting it donebecause you can learn all you
want to learn, but until youactually do stuff with it,
it's not going to go anywhere.And they say it's 10,000 hours
to mastery. If it's 10,000hours to mastery for social
media, you've got a lot ofcontent to put out there.
10,000 hours for emailnewsletters. 10,000 hours for
(21:28):
lead magnets. You have to putin the reps. And the rate at
which people consume contentis absolutely breathtaking.
And just to go back to whatyou said about the self-doubt,
my philosophy is I think weall have to go through that
barrier of something. Thetests are belief in ourselves
(21:50):
and it may be, you're talkingabout a franchise or it may be
some, for me it wasperfectionism. I was, I didn't
realize that that's what itwas at the time but I was
tying myself up in knots.Everything had to be perfect
and I was spending so muchtime doing that. But I believe
I had to go through a processof Doing that before I had the
realization because I wasnever going to draw that
conclusion on my own or youknow I could have had the best
(22:14):
guru in front of me sayingAmanda this is your problem. I
had to go through the pain andcome out the other side and go
why did I do that to myselfyou know same as you you know
you had to sit you had to gothrough that and think I could
have done that myself and thatproof was the only thing that
was going to convince you thatyou had the skills the
knowledge and the know-how Todo it and even if you'd had
(22:36):
the best coach in the worldsat in front of you, you
wouldn't have believed ituntil you'd gone through that
process. Just my take on itanyway and I think sometimes,
you know, you can say tosomeone, you can say it
clearly but you know that theycan't and it's like letting
people make their own mistakesalmost, isn't it? That is a
true mother statement, isn'tit? People make their own
(22:58):
mistakes I mean definitely youlearn more from the mistakes
than you do from the successesfor sure. You do and I
honestly don't believe thatanything is wasted you know I
kind of try to have aphilosophical approach on
everything and every singlething has something to teach
you. And, you know, you canberate yourself for thinking,
oh, is there time on that? ButI don't believe that to be the
(23:19):
case. I kind of think, well,what did it teach me? What did
I learn? And there is alwaysdefinitely something. But big
things like you've justdescribed, I mean, that's life
changing. I don't know if youfelt that afterwards. To have
that realisation of I couldhave done that myself that
probably bolstered yourconfidence so much you know
that probably shaved years offyour journey to set up your
(23:42):
business. I mean it's reallyfunny because when after I had
that realisation once I kindof bought myself out of the
franchise contract I got fullybooked in my own consultancy
in six weeks Yeah. And I'vebeen like months of like
plugging away at this, thisthing that just wasn't
working. And as soon as it waslike, actually, I can own it
and it can be mine. Then ittook six weeks to get fully
(24:05):
booked. But then I, we had thewhole pandemic of the online
thing. And I think you neveryou never reach the point
where it's always going to goperfectly smoothly. There's
always going to be like thenext journey and the next
challenge that you have toovercome and go actually, I
have all the skills that Ineed. To get over this hurdle
and to be able to do thisthing and take the next step.
(24:28):
And be creative for the nextchallenge. But I think that's
incredible. That is suchsocial proof of your abilities
and your skills to come out ofthat challenge and then have
that evidence right in frontof you. I can do it myself,
you know, here's the socialproof right in front of me. So
next question is audience. Howcomfortable are you showing up
(24:50):
online? Do you dance on socialmedia? Are you comfortable
with your audience? What'syour approach to social media?
So I'm kind of very two-sidedin this. So from the
professional delivery, It's apresentation style of things
(25:11):
that is so ingrained in how Ifunction. It's been 18 years
of delivering training for me.Like my first post-grad job
three weeks in, I delivered atraining in a lecture theatre
to 100 people. This is like atthe ripe old age of 21, you
know. Wow, that's a tall ordernow. Yeah, but it's like it's
(25:32):
just kind of that wholedelivery piece has Has been
consistent throughout the last18 years. And then on the flip
side of that, like socialmedia, I absolutely hate it.
hate social media. I am quitea private person. I don't
really want to share my lifewith people. You know, I find
(25:54):
it a really odd interface tobuild deep connection. And you
talked already about howsocial media is kind of full
of gloss and exaggeration,smoke and mirrors, deception.
And I just, I find it reallyjarring, social media. I just,
I can't be myself until I canhave a deeper, meaningful
(26:19):
conversation with somebody.And it's, yeah. So it's like,
I'm either presenting, Or I'mhaving deep and meaningful
conversation and then I findthis kind of bit in the middle
of, you know, acting on socialmedia quite a challenge. No, I
agree with you and I'm tryingto kind of sort of flip the
(26:40):
script a little bit on thatbecause for me it was, well,
it always has been a necessaryevil, but in terms of personal
branding, I get to choose whatI share and I've realized, you
know, got this podcast here Iam on a screen. I'm quite a
private person but I don'thave to, you know, show
(27:03):
everything but there's facetsto my personality that I know
can help people, that peoplecan connect with me and
Running a business, there'ssome elements of my
personality that people aregoing to click with. But also,
knowing that I can look onlineand see things where the
(27:23):
values don't, the words don'twatch the actions and things
like that, I can immediatelytell when that doesn't
resonate. And I can use thatto my advantage and I can
think, well, I won't do that,I'll do it this way. So for
example, you know, turning upon social media without having
Perfect her or perfect script.So one of the things I'll do,
I will never do a video from ascript. I can't do it because
(27:44):
it always looks like I'mreading the news because
that's what I do in my daytime. And I've been media
trained early on in my career.It's so funny because with the
thing that we were taught notto do, I was taught to sort of
sit like this and stare at thecamera and be very real. But
that's like reading the news.So one of the things was, you
(28:06):
know, Don't do your hairAmanda, don't do this, don't
do that. But on social mediathat doesn't work, you have to
be a little bit more animatedbecause people get bored. So
I've had to sort of cherrypick a little. So being a bit
more myself I find a littlebit harder. But I think that
the capacity, theopportunities and also the
(28:28):
kind of getting over the fearof being judged and the thing
that I say well you know whatyou don't pay my bills you
don't pay for the roof over myhouse or my children so I
totally got over that side butthe connections and the
conversations and theopportunities have far
outweighed that so I've had tosort of go from corporate to
(28:48):
This is just me and like it alittle bit move along keep
scrolling but the conflictabsolutely I like you I went
went through that but it'syou've just got to do with
what you're comfortable withbecause if you're not
comfortable that absolutelyshows and and you can't see it
sometimes but if I'm workingwith a client I can I can
(29:10):
usually spot Where thefriction points are and then I
can kind of help them leaninto where the strengths are.
And weirdly a lot of peopledon't like how they talk, they
don't like their accent orthey feel they have to have
perfect hair or perfect makeupbefore they go on. I'm just
like no, just ditch all thatbecause We're competing with
AI, we're competing with somuch perfect content that if
(29:34):
you stand out just by beingyourself and that's what
people want to connect with.We want to connect with the
quirks, with the imperfect,with the mistakes, with the
ooms and the ahs and theregional accents and all of
that and hopefully gettingthat message across that being
individual is actually thebiggest strength that you
have. And you can be asprivate or you can share as
(29:54):
much as you want. But to getpeople to connect with you and
your brand, that's the HolyGrail, really. And we've never
had the, you know, it's free,it's there. And to get people
to connect with you, I justthink it's such a privilege,
really, if someone sort ofsays, oh, listen to your
podcast, or oh, sorry, orwhatever. It still takes my
(30:15):
breath away, to be honest. Butyou don't have to share, you
know, whatever. Some peopleovershare. Yeah, not ready to
do that yet. But yeah, I seeyou on Facebook and things
like that. And it's just niceto know the person behind, you
(30:36):
know, what is actually there.So what is next for your
brand? Have you got any plansfor 2025? Yeah, so really my
plans for 2025 are to launchmy own group thing. I have
been working one to one withclients. And now I want to get
back into the doing what Iteach, because, you know,
(30:59):
there's nothing more alignedthan actually role modelling
what you what you teach toclients. So really, that is my
primary goal for 2025. I wouldalso love to write book. Kind
of like client experiencehandbook. For online business
and I would like to run avirtual summit as well so
(31:22):
there's a couple of big ideasin the works given that it's
the 13th of January nothinghas been acted on yet but it
will. Do you know what I mean12 months ago I started my
podcast I didn't have a cluewhat I was doing And I leave
the original episodes up soyou can chart my journey. I
(31:43):
just thought, I'll do the nextbit and then I'll do the next
bit. And it's by no meansperfect, but that's what you
got to do. You just got to befearless and do the next bit
and do the next bit. And Ilove that. Those aims are
huge, but absolutelyachievable. A summit, amazing.
A book, absolutely within yourreach. And, you know, the
membership, I think there'snothing more creative than a
(32:05):
hive of people with a sharedinterest. And working towards
a common goal and I thrive offthat. I love it when you can,
you know, you've got an issueand you put it to the group
and everyone's like, oh, haveyou tried this? Have you tried
that? It's just such for me,it's such a healthy way to
That's a really toughquestion.
(32:52):
I mean, I think really from abusiness perspective, it is
around raising the bar andraising the standard because I
think the work that I do isn'tjust about impacting my
clients, it's actually theimpact that it then has on
their clients and that kind ofripple effect for both
immediate clients in terms ofhitting their income goals,
(33:14):
their time freedom goals, youknow, going on adventures and
travelling the world and Youknow, going to the yoga class
on a Friday, whatever thatmight look like for them. But
also it's actually, it'shelping them to build
something sustainable andtheir clients see lasting
results as well. So reallythat's, that's my business
legacy. My life legacy Ihaven't really thought about,
(33:37):
to be honest. I think I justwant to have fun. Have an
adventure and enjoy life whilewe're here. You know, they say
you only live once and I thinkwe need to make the most of
it. I was talking to my mum,she's just turned 70, and
she's of that generation whereeveryone waited to do the fun
(33:58):
stuff until they retired. Youwait till you retire, you save
up so that you can gotravelling when you retire,
you go and move to that housein the country when you
retire. It's like, well,actually, I don't really
believe that we should beholding on to those dreams And
just waiting for them until weretire. Like, I think we have
(34:20):
to enjoy life now. So yeah, mylegacy is to have fun. Yeah,
actually that was such aninteresting view because you,
oh, I've said this before inthis podcast, John Lennon
said, life is what happenswhen you're busy making other
plans. And that's it. Youthink, oh, I'll do this one.
I've got more time. I'll dothis one. I've got more money.
(34:40):
I'll do that. I'll be happywhen this happens. And yeah, I
just, we, you know, I tried todo so much when my girls were
growing up and they formedpart of that story. And, you
know, we did this, rememberwhen we did this and we tried
our hardest to kind of createthose memories as we were
growing up. You know, itdidn't have to be, you know,
going off on expensiveholidays. They still remember
(35:02):
the really simple things thatwe did. And, you know, It
didn't have to cost a load ofmoney or whatever. It's very,
very simple, very creative.But yeah, having fun. That's
all kids remember and all theywant is you and your time. But
yeah, I don't plan to leave alot till I've retired. I just
want to, I'm very simple withmy, with my, my taste and my
(35:22):
desires. I do like, I do likea lie in every now and again.
That keeps me happy. Yeah,that lion and coffee and a bit
of chocolate and that Aldodoing okay. Well, where can we
find out more about youonline? So my website is
RuthTui.com, there's not verymuch on there but it's a work
(35:43):
in progress for 2025 and Ihave just made the decision to
ditch meta platforms so I havebeen on Facebook and I have
been on Instagram but I'mmoving over to LinkedIn so you
can find me there. Linkedin,wonderful. So you completely
ditched on Instagram andFacebook. It won't be a
complete like cut off, it willbe a gradual transition off.
(36:08):
So Instagram I put up a 12grid with kind of 12 static
posts with what I dounderneath. Facebook I will
gradually just sort ofdisappear from. Have you
investigated Blue Sky? Ihaven't actually and a lot of
people have talked about BlueSky. Are you on it? I went on
just to claim my name becauseI'm so famous and I thought
(36:35):
I'd check it out but I didlike the fact that there was
an alternative to the othersand to be honest it's a nice
group of people on there. Soyeah, go over and get your
identity on there but it doesseem to be quite a pleasant
place.It's nice to have a choice,
(37:01):
isn't it? It's nice to have analternative. But I just
thought, yeah, I'll try it andsee. But no, do you know what?
Thank you so much for comingon my podcast. It's been an
absolute pleasure. I've lovedhearing your plans, what
motivated you and I've reallyenjoyed it. And thank you so
much for joining me. Thank youvery much for having me. It's
been a joy. Thank you forlistening today and special
(37:25):
thanks to my fantastic guestRuth Tsui for sharing her
incredible story with us. Ifyou want to increase your
visibility as well as yoursales with your personal brand
strategy, don't miss out on myfree resources or you can join
the Personal Branding Academymembership. You'll find all
the relevant links in thepodcast notes As well as the
links that Ruth mentioned inthe podcast. And if you liked
the episode please leave areview and share it with your
(37:46):
friends. Join me on the nextepisode for more incredible
bravery behind the brandstories. You can follow me on
Instagram at coachamandajaneor visit my website
amandajane.co.uk. Bye for now.
Welcome to The Bravery BehindThe Brand Podcast, the podcast
that dives deep into the heartof the stories behind the
brands we encounter on socialmedia every day. On the
surface they make it look soeasy but I guarantee there is
blood, sweat and tears behindall the reels, posts and
beautifully presentedproducts. I'm your host Amanda
Jane, a personal branding andmedia skills coach originally
(00:25):
from the north of Ireland andnow calling beautiful
Cheshire, England my home. Iwork with business owners
building their confidence andcrafting compelling brand
stories so they feelcomfortable stepping into the
spotlight and becoming thego-to guest that everyone
wants, speaking with authorityand selling with authenticity.
I experience first-hand thecourage that's required to
move beyond our comfort zoneand these are the
inspirational stories I wantto share. I'll also be doing
(00:48):
some solo episodes and sharinguseful tips that will
hopefully help you to getmotivated with your own
personal branding because it'smore than just a beautiful
website and glossy photos forInstagram. You do actually
have to talk to people. Solet's get started.
(01:08):
Hello, everyone, and welcometo the Bravery Behind The
Brand Podcast. And today Ihave with me Ruth Tsui, if I
pronounced that correctly.It's Tsui. Tsui, I'm so sorry,
Ruth. Tsui! I wasn't gettingsomeone's name wrong, is
there? Oh, don't worry. It'snot an easy surname. And
you're a group programmedesign consultant and I've not
(01:31):
met many of those, so I'mlooking forward to hearing a
whole lot more about that. Andbefore we get stuck in, we're
going to ask you my threegolden questions. So, do you
have a favourite motivationalsong? So my favourite
motivational song is called OnTop Of The World by Imagine
Dragons and it's basicallyabout how you go through lots
(01:53):
of different trials andtribulations but ultimately if
you kind of stick with it youhit your dreams, you hit your
aspirations. So yeah, thatone. I love that. That is
going on the Spotify list. Ifanybody wants to know where it
is, Bravery Behind The Brandon Spotify. And do you have a
motivational quote? Yes, sothis motivational quote is on
(02:14):
my vision board. It says, youcan't be the kid standing at
the top of the water slideoverthinking it. You have to
go down the chute. I don'tknow who said it. I don't know
where it's come from. But Ilove it because I am a chronic
overthinker. And it reallymakes it visual, you know,
like seeing that kid standingat top of the water slide, not
wanting to go down. It's like,well, actually, once you do
(02:36):
it, it's really fun. I wouldbe that kid. I'd be that kid
going, I've changed my mind.You know, it's so funny. This
podcast is a year oldtomorrow. And what I love is I
keep getting different songsand different quotes. And the
variety is huge. I love that.I've never heard that in my
life, but I love it. And nowI'm just being nosy. Do you
(02:56):
read? I do read not as much asI would like to. I have a
nine-year-old and afive-year-old, so reading is
restricted in our house. Youjust have to put it in when
you can, don't you?Absolutely, absolutely. Have
you got a favourite book? It'sa business book. I could have
(03:20):
gone for Lord of the Rings orsomething. It's called The
Company of One by Paul Jarvisand it's basically challenging
the notion that everybodywants to scale a business and
actually is scaling inherentlydesirable or actually is a
business that allows you thefreedom, To live the life that
(03:41):
you want to live within arevenue goal that you want to
hit enough for you like it'sessentially building a
lifestyle brand and not havingyou know the big team and the
big revenue goals and all ofthat stuff but actually
looking at sustainable successum you know ensuring that
you're delivering exceptionalclient value and you know kind
of keeping that impact at theheart of your business and it
(04:04):
really just being aboutbusiness that's for you so
yeah that's my favoritebusiness. I like that and I
like that it's not abouttaking over the world and
recruiting hundreds of peoplehere and there because I think
people get a bit obsessed withgrowth and you know where
you're going to be in fiveyears time, ten years time and
I mean I don't have anyaspirations to take over the
(04:24):
world I just want somethingthat I love that suits me that
isn't going to keep me awakeat night because I know the
struggles of worrying about ateam that can keep you awake
at night, but I quite likethat. Bill, something that's
sustainable for you, thatabsolutely suits you. And what
about, I read over theweekend, there's Alec Hermoso,
he was reading one of hisbooks and I was like, oh yes,
(04:45):
interesting, slammed onthings. He's got a very, very
easy way of breaking thingsdown. But what about fiction?
Do you like, you mentioned,was it Lord of the Rings? Is
that? Yeah, I like sci-fi andfantasy books, so. It's a
little bit more niche. Yeah.Oh, I'm the same. You just
have to eat. If you get intosomething like that, it just
takes you out of your normalworld, doesn't it? So you
(05:07):
haven't got any room to bedistracted. Oh, no, that's
fabulous. Thank you for those.So now on to you and your
business. So who, why, whatinspired you to start it? And
tell me a little bit moreabout your group programme
design. So group programmedesign is primarily around
ensuring that there is kind ofa client and delivery fit. So
(05:31):
making sure that we reallyknow intimately who our
clients are and then how todeliver our unique expertise
in a way that helps them toachieve results. So my
background is in education andtraining, delivering
workshops, group facilitation.So it's bringing those skills
into play. In the online worldwhere a lot of advice around
(05:53):
growing groups is audiencegrowth and lead generation and
marketing and it actuallydoesn't get as far as, and
this is how we deliver thething. Like this is how we. We
deliver on our promises and wemake sure that we're giving
what we say we're going togive, you know, that kind of
like over sexify yourmarketing, sell them what they
(06:14):
want, not sell them what theyneed, not what they want, you
know, all of that kind ofstuff. And really, for me,
it's about bringing it back tothe client and putting it back
at that kind of client centriclevel, where they actually get
what they paid for. For theperson that's delivering it,
because typically they're overgivers and people pleasers, my
clients, is to stop them fromgoing into over giving to make
(06:39):
up for either bad experiencesthey've had, bad experiences
their clients have had, thisself doubt and lack of belief
that they have in their ownability to deliver. So it's
kind of marrying those twosides of the coin together and
helping them to deliver asustainable business model for
them. So interesting becauseyou talk about experiences and
I think I'm just generalisingbecause we've all been on
(07:03):
these courses and we've beenon these memberships and we've
had good experiences and badexperiences and whatever those
experiences were we want tomake them bigger and better
and you're right maybe overdelivering people pleasers and
I had some good advice fromsomeone an amazing coach that
I've worked with and Whenshe's talking about courses
and things like that, shetalks about not overwhelming
(07:24):
your clients because they onlyneed 20% of what it is. And
that has stuck in my head, hasbeen the best advice I've ever
had. But one of the things Inoticed as well, people get
very, myself included, hung upon who our clients are and
that tends to stop people intheir tracks. Do you have any
advice on that, on sort ofrefining your client or And
(07:46):
sometimes people are verygeneral about their client or
they're not specific enough.So my focus on ideal client
work is quite different towhat other people would look
at. So I don't look atdemographics at all. It's much
more about their current skilllevel, their values, their
perspectives. What times dothey have? What other
(08:10):
commitments do they have goingon in their lives? Do they
have the technologicalresources to be able to do
what you're teaching them todo? Have they got the
financial resources in orderto produce, say, Facebook ads
to actually implement thethings that you're suggesting?
So for me, ideal client workis very, very different to the
(08:31):
conventional business. I likethat. I like a different
approach. It's much morenitty-gritty and psychological
in terms of understanding whatmakes them tick, what keeps
them engaged, what'smotivating them to invest in
you. What are they lookingfor? We talk about pain points
(08:52):
and desires, of course, interms of marketing, but this
is actually What is going onin their heads that's really
driving this desire? Becausein group programs in
particular, when we haveclients who are choosing to
invest, they're choosing toinvest from intrinsic
motivation. When you'redelivering learning and
development to teams, often itcomes because it ticks the box
(09:15):
on their performancemanagement and that is an
extrinsic motivator. Thatsays, right, you've got this
many CPD points that you needto have acquired by the end of
the year. You know, this is agap in your professional
development. You need to go onthis training course to tick
that box and they have toparticipate because that's
kind of their salary is tiedto participating. So when we
(09:38):
get into the realm of actuallyleveraging that intrinsic
motivation, we have to knowwhy. We have to understand
their why so that we candeliver In the best way
possible for them to make surethat we keep them motivated
and we can use extrinsicmotivators as a booster but
really it's aboutunderstanding their goals and
(09:58):
then helping to keep them ontrack and accountable to
achieving those goals. Wowit's just so interesting and
what drove you to do this? SoI was in teaching and well,
prior to teaching, I was abusiness analyst. I worked on
a CRM customer relationshipmanagement system. And
basically I was the personthat went as the go-between
(10:21):
between the client who wasusing the system and the tech
team who was building thesystem. So my whole job was
around finding out what theusers wanted, telling the tech
team to build the thing, andthen writing all the training
materials to help the peopleuse the tech tool. I got bored
after three years of being inan office, retrained to be a
(10:42):
teacher, had a mentalbreakdown in 2017 and bought
into a franchise business,which was just an utter
disaster. I had no autonomy. Icould see all these gaps and
things that I would dodifferently and I couldn't do
it. The income that I waspromised didn't really align
with what was actuallyhappening. And I negotiated an
(11:03):
early release in the end frommy contract. And then set up
independently as an educationconsultant. So going into
schools and nursery settings,training staff teams to
deliver STEM education, whichis science, tech, engineering
and maths to kind of two yearolds up to 12 year olds. The
pandemic hit. So I couldn'tkeep going into schools and
(11:27):
nursery settings becauseeverything closed down. And
that's when I was introducedto this like online world. And
one of the questions that yousent me before had was like
what was the biggest challengethat you've had to overcome in
business and it was definitelygoing from Delivering in
(11:48):
person and delivering in asetting where I just felt
really comfortable and athome. You know, I knew the
language, I knew the way tokind of woo the administrator
on the front desk, you know,get that meeting with a head
teacher booked in. And youknow, I had all the lingo and
just that way to connect. Youknow, everything I did was a
cold outreach, which when youcome into the online world,
(12:10):
you're like, that's the worstthing you can ever do. You
never send a cold DM. Youknow, it felt like landing on
an alien planet, really. Itwas, you know, lead magnets
and breadcrumbing and Facebookgroups. And I was just like,
what on earth? Yeah. You'reabsolutely right. If you've
(12:34):
worked in that kind of publicsector environment, the
vocabulary is like anotherlanguage and completely
identify with what you'resaying. You know, you talked
about having a foot in twocamps there. So you learn how
to bridge that gap. And youknow working in that school
environment there's veryspecific ways of doing things
(12:55):
and you knew how to get past agatekeeper. Then all of a
sudden you find yourself inthis online world which many
people did and you'reabsolutely right because I can
remember it took me ages and Imean ages to get my head
around what was a funnel. Icouldn't work it out and I
couldn't It was explained afew times but it took one
(13:17):
very, very clever lady to justtell me what it was or tell a
lot of people what it was invery simple terms and I was
like, is that all it is?Because I imagined this very
technical thing on a websitethat did this and it did that.
But the language from publicsector to private sector is
completely different. And ourapproach to, because our work
(13:38):
comes to us in the publicsector whereas the private
sector you've got to go outand you know you talked about
the outreach. They're a bitmore receptive in the public
sector because they expect itbut online and the DMs and
some people say you should doit some people say you
shouldn't do it and there'skind of like this someone
needs to develop a handbook onetiquette Because it's just so
(13:59):
different. But also navigatingthat as well. And you know, I
do personal brand and itdepends on who that person is.
If they can get away with it,if the personality shines
through and that takes a bitof time to kind of master. Oh,
they can get away with it, butthey couldn't. But it is
completely alien. It is justanother world and lead
(14:22):
magnets, you know, to get tomy stage in life and, you
know, having Signed up forlead magnet all of my life and
not knowing what they werethat was wow that yeah it's
just what it what what it wasmeant to say was all of those
um challenges that youdescribed they kind of fall
(14:45):
into place to bring you to theaha moment when you've when
you're sat thinking I've gotthis situation I need to do
something else to bring all myskills together to make it
work Absolutely. And it'sfunny because I went down the
trap that I think a lot of usdo. We download all the
freebies, we go up to all thewebinars, we sign up for the
(15:06):
courses and the groupprogrammes, we invest a lot of
money. And I had a whole rangeof experiences within that,
you know, some great and a lotnot so great. And I set up an
online membership site, I got100 people in there. And it
burnt me out because I wasdoing the thing of like over
(15:26):
giving and producing hours andhours of content every month.
After 18 months, we had afamily health scare, a very
close family member had ahealth diagnosis. And I, it
was, I was doing that kind offive o'clock club thing, you
(15:50):
know, waking up every morningand I was busy like producing
resources, my daughter was twoat the time and you know like
it was a busy time in life butit was also like I can't keep
doing this like I've actuallyhit the point where I just
have to close this down and Iwent back to training in
schools because I was likethat's familiar that feels
(16:11):
safe but I tasted the sense offreedom of not having to pack
up a car full of kit, of nothaving to sit in traffic jams,
of not being stuck in emptyschool staff rooms. And when
people came in, they werereally grumpy and miserable.
And I was like, I can't dothis anymore. I'm done. I've
(16:32):
been in school settings. I hadbeen in school settings for 14
years by that point. And I waslike, I'm done with this
season of my life. I need todo something else. And like
you said, the journey at thetime felt somewhat like, you
know, kind of wiggly and allover the place. Like, I've
gone from doing this businessanalysis role into teaching
(16:55):
and then bought the franchiseand then did the consultancy,
then went online, then wentback offline, like, you know,
it feels very sort of, youknow, up and down and wiggly.
But actually, when you look atit, as a journey of a whole,
you can actually see where Thejourney makes sense and where
those stepping stones makesense. And really my mission
(17:17):
is to raise the bar and raisethe standard because I think
we learn from seeing whatothers do and there aren't
enough good role models ofwhat excellence looks like in
terms of online learning,online education. So really I
(17:39):
want to be Ruth, what do youthink?
When you know you want to dothat and you're looking around
(18:01):
for coaches and you're lookingfor people to teach you,
because I knew how to plug mygaps. I knew to look for the
coaches. I've kind of donethat all my life. If there was
a skill that I was missing, Iplugged that gap and I paid
people to teach me. Andunfortunately, you won't know
until after you've done itthat it wasn't up to par or it
wasn't this or it wasn't that.But I agree with you, we need
(18:21):
more excellent role models outthere. And it's kind of
something that I've beenpassionate about having raised
to young girls that luckilyenough, I spent their lives
pointing out to them thatsocial media isn't real. This
presented to you this moment.Is it real? Someone says oh I
earned six million in twodays. That is not real. You
(18:41):
know always looking behind theveneer and with the personal
brand interest that I've hadIt was easy for me to spot
that actions didn't matchwords, but that isn't easy for
other people. And if you'revery literal or, you know,
depending on how you see theworld, some people are very
literal. So it was, I alwayshad that eye on What did
(19:06):
excellence look like? Whorepresented excellence for me?
And I've always been inpursuit of it, I think all my
life, just to see, you know,there's very few people I
would point the finger, I go,yeah, that, that is
excellence. That is exactlywhat we're looking for. But
for my girls, I was alwayslooking for good role models
and I would gently drop itinto conversation, oh, into
that, that's it. I'm MichelleObama, you know, let's worship
(19:28):
her for a while. I love her.And, you know, that family,
you know, that never didanything, never put a toe out
of line. But, you know, that'san extreme example. But how
amazing would it be if therewere people sort of a few
steps ahead? And there are,and I won't embarrass them by
mentioning them, but there area few in my world. And I love
that. And you're right, howfantastic would it be if there
(19:49):
were more And we couldsignpost our young people to
these, you know,representatives of excellence.
There's a good name for amembership. So if you could
give yourself a piece ofadvice before you started on
that online journey, whatwould it be? I think it's
(20:09):
belief in the skill set thatyou have. I didn't need to
invest in a franchisebusiness. It was an education
franchise business. I couldhave easily done it myself and
it was just that Thank you forjoining us today.
(20:43):
So really, I would say it'slike, believe that you have
the skill set there,understand the nuance of your
skill set as well. know, oneof the things that I do with
clients is understanding theirunique framework and actually
getting to the grips of likethe real nitty gritty detail
of actually what that meansand finding that golden
thread. And then, you know,Doing the reps, taking the
(21:07):
action, getting it donebecause you can learn all you
want to learn, but until youactually do stuff with it,
it's not going to go anywhere.And they say it's 10,000 hours
to mastery. If it's 10,000hours to mastery for social
media, you've got a lot ofcontent to put out there.
10,000 hours for emailnewsletters. 10,000 hours for
(21:28):
lead magnets. You have to putin the reps. And the rate at
which people consume contentis absolutely breathtaking.
And just to go back to whatyou said about the self-doubt,
my philosophy is I think weall have to go through that
barrier of something. Thetests are belief in ourselves
(21:50):
and it may be, you're talkingabout a franchise or it may be
some, for me it wasperfectionism. I was, I didn't
realize that that's what itwas at the time but I was
tying myself up in knots.Everything had to be perfect
and I was spending so muchtime doing that. But I believe
I had to go through a processof Doing that before I had the
realization because I wasnever going to draw that
conclusion on my own or youknow I could have had the best
(22:14):
guru in front of me sayingAmanda this is your problem. I
had to go through the pain andcome out the other side and go
why did I do that to myselfyou know same as you you know
you had to sit you had to gothrough that and think I could
have done that myself and thatproof was the only thing that
was going to convince you thatyou had the skills the
knowledge and the know-how Todo it and even if you'd had
(22:36):
the best coach in the worldsat in front of you, you
wouldn't have believed ituntil you'd gone through that
process. Just my take on itanyway and I think sometimes,
you know, you can say tosomeone, you can say it
clearly but you know that theycan't and it's like letting
people make their own mistakesalmost, isn't it? That is a
true mother statement, isn'tit? People make their own
(22:58):
mistakes I mean definitely youlearn more from the mistakes
than you do from the successesfor sure. You do and I
honestly don't believe thatanything is wasted you know I
kind of try to have aphilosophical approach on
everything and every singlething has something to teach
you. And, you know, you canberate yourself for thinking,
oh, is there time on that? ButI don't believe that to be the
(23:19):
case. I kind of think, well,what did it teach me? What did
I learn? And there is alwaysdefinitely something. But big
things like you've justdescribed, I mean, that's life
changing. I don't know if youfelt that afterwards. To have
that realisation of I couldhave done that myself that
probably bolstered yourconfidence so much you know
that probably shaved years offyour journey to set up your
(23:42):
business. I mean it's reallyfunny because when after I had
that realisation once I kindof bought myself out of the
franchise contract I got fullybooked in my own consultancy
in six weeks Yeah. And I'vebeen like months of like
plugging away at this, thisthing that just wasn't
working. And as soon as it waslike, actually, I can own it
and it can be mine. Then ittook six weeks to get fully
(24:05):
booked. But then I, we had thewhole pandemic of the online
thing. And I think you neveryou never reach the point
where it's always going to goperfectly smoothly. There's
always going to be like thenext journey and the next
challenge that you have toovercome and go actually, I
have all the skills that Ineed. To get over this hurdle
and to be able to do thisthing and take the next step.
(24:28):
And be creative for the nextchallenge. But I think that's
incredible. That is suchsocial proof of your abilities
and your skills to come out ofthat challenge and then have
that evidence right in frontof you. I can do it myself,
you know, here's the socialproof right in front of me. So
next question is audience. Howcomfortable are you showing up
(24:50):
online? Do you dance on socialmedia? Are you comfortable
with your audience? What'syour approach to social media?
So I'm kind of very two-sidedin this. So from the
professional delivery, It's apresentation style of things
(25:11):
that is so ingrained in how Ifunction. It's been 18 years
of delivering training for me.Like my first post-grad job
three weeks in, I delivered atraining in a lecture theatre
to 100 people. This is like atthe ripe old age of 21, you
know. Wow, that's a tall ordernow. Yeah, but it's like it's
(25:32):
just kind of that wholedelivery piece has Has been
consistent throughout the last18 years. And then on the flip
side of that, like socialmedia, I absolutely hate it.
hate social media. I am quitea private person. I don't
really want to share my lifewith people. You know, I find
(25:54):
it a really odd interface tobuild deep connection. And you
talked already about howsocial media is kind of full
of gloss and exaggeration,smoke and mirrors, deception.
And I just, I find it reallyjarring, social media. I just,
I can't be myself until I canhave a deeper, meaningful
(26:19):
conversation with somebody.And it's, yeah. So it's like,
I'm either presenting, Or I'mhaving deep and meaningful
conversation and then I findthis kind of bit in the middle
of, you know, acting on socialmedia quite a challenge. No, I
agree with you and I'm tryingto kind of sort of flip the
(26:40):
script a little bit on thatbecause for me it was, well,
it always has been a necessaryevil, but in terms of personal
branding, I get to choose whatI share and I've realized, you
know, got this podcast here Iam on a screen. I'm quite a
private person but I don'thave to, you know, show
(27:03):
everything but there's facetsto my personality that I know
can help people, that peoplecan connect with me and
Running a business, there'ssome elements of my
personality that people aregoing to click with. But also,
knowing that I can look onlineand see things where the
(27:23):
values don't, the words don'twatch the actions and things
like that, I can immediatelytell when that doesn't
resonate. And I can use thatto my advantage and I can
think, well, I won't do that,I'll do it this way. So for
example, you know, turning upon social media without having
Perfect her or perfect script.So one of the things I'll do,
I will never do a video from ascript. I can't do it because
(27:44):
it always looks like I'mreading the news because
that's what I do in my daytime. And I've been media
trained early on in my career.It's so funny because with the
thing that we were taught notto do, I was taught to sort of
sit like this and stare at thecamera and be very real. But
that's like reading the news.So one of the things was, you
(28:06):
know, Don't do your hairAmanda, don't do this, don't
do that. But on social mediathat doesn't work, you have to
be a little bit more animatedbecause people get bored. So
I've had to sort of cherrypick a little. So being a bit
more myself I find a littlebit harder. But I think that
the capacity, theopportunities and also the
(28:28):
kind of getting over the fearof being judged and the thing
that I say well you know whatyou don't pay my bills you
don't pay for the roof over myhouse or my children so I
totally got over that side butthe connections and the
conversations and theopportunities have far
outweighed that so I've had tosort of go from corporate to
(28:48):
This is just me and like it alittle bit move along keep
scrolling but the conflictabsolutely I like you I went
went through that but it'syou've just got to do with
what you're comfortable withbecause if you're not
comfortable that absolutelyshows and and you can't see it
sometimes but if I'm workingwith a client I can I can
(29:10):
usually spot Where thefriction points are and then I
can kind of help them leaninto where the strengths are.
And weirdly a lot of peopledon't like how they talk, they
don't like their accent orthey feel they have to have
perfect hair or perfect makeupbefore they go on. I'm just
like no, just ditch all thatbecause We're competing with
AI, we're competing with somuch perfect content that if
(29:34):
you stand out just by beingyourself and that's what
people want to connect with.We want to connect with the
quirks, with the imperfect,with the mistakes, with the
ooms and the ahs and theregional accents and all of
that and hopefully gettingthat message across that being
individual is actually thebiggest strength that you
have. And you can be asprivate or you can share as
(29:54):
much as you want. But to getpeople to connect with you and
your brand, that's the HolyGrail, really. And we've never
had the, you know, it's free,it's there. And to get people
to connect with you, I justthink it's such a privilege,
really, if someone sort ofsays, oh, listen to your
podcast, or oh, sorry, orwhatever. It still takes my
(30:15):
breath away, to be honest. Butyou don't have to share, you
know, whatever. Some peopleovershare. Yeah, not ready to
do that yet. But yeah, I seeyou on Facebook and things
like that. And it's just niceto know the person behind, you
(30:36):
know, what is actually there.So what is next for your
brand? Have you got any plansfor 2025? Yeah, so really my
plans for 2025 are to launchmy own group thing. I have
been working one to one withclients. And now I want to get
back into the doing what Iteach, because, you know,
(30:59):
there's nothing more alignedthan actually role modelling
what you what you teach toclients. So really, that is my
primary goal for 2025. I wouldalso love to write book. Kind
of like client experiencehandbook. For online business
and I would like to run avirtual summit as well so
(31:22):
there's a couple of big ideasin the works given that it's
the 13th of January nothinghas been acted on yet but it
will. Do you know what I mean12 months ago I started my
podcast I didn't have a cluewhat I was doing And I leave
the original episodes up soyou can chart my journey. I
(31:43):
just thought, I'll do the nextbit and then I'll do the next
bit. And it's by no meansperfect, but that's what you
got to do. You just got to befearless and do the next bit
and do the next bit. And Ilove that. Those aims are
huge, but absolutelyachievable. A summit, amazing.
A book, absolutely within yourreach. And, you know, the
membership, I think there'snothing more creative than a
(32:05):
hive of people with a sharedinterest. And working towards
a common goal and I thrive offthat. I love it when you can,
you know, you've got an issueand you put it to the group
and everyone's like, oh, haveyou tried this? Have you tried
that? It's just such for me,it's such a healthy way to
That's a really toughquestion.
(32:52):
I mean, I think really from abusiness perspective, it is
around raising the bar andraising the standard because I
think the work that I do isn'tjust about impacting my
clients, it's actually theimpact that it then has on
their clients and that kind ofripple effect for both
immediate clients in terms ofhitting their income goals,
(33:14):
their time freedom goals, youknow, going on adventures and
travelling the world and Youknow, going to the yoga class
on a Friday, whatever thatmight look like for them. But
also it's actually, it'shelping them to build
something sustainable andtheir clients see lasting
results as well. So reallythat's, that's my business
legacy. My life legacy Ihaven't really thought about,
(33:37):
to be honest. I think I justwant to have fun. Have an
adventure and enjoy life whilewe're here. You know, they say
you only live once and I thinkwe need to make the most of
it. I was talking to my mum,she's just turned 70, and
she's of that generation whereeveryone waited to do the fun
(33:58):
stuff until they retired. Youwait till you retire, you save
up so that you can gotravelling when you retire,
you go and move to that housein the country when you
retire. It's like, well,actually, I don't really
believe that we should beholding on to those dreams And
just waiting for them until weretire. Like, I think we have
(34:20):
to enjoy life now. So yeah, mylegacy is to have fun. Yeah,
actually that was such aninteresting view because you,
oh, I've said this before inthis podcast, John Lennon
said, life is what happenswhen you're busy making other
plans. And that's it. Youthink, oh, I'll do this one.
I've got more time. I'll dothis one. I've got more money.
(34:40):
I'll do that. I'll be happywhen this happens. And yeah, I
just, we, you know, I tried todo so much when my girls were
growing up and they formedpart of that story. And, you
know, we did this, rememberwhen we did this and we tried
our hardest to kind of createthose memories as we were
growing up. You know, itdidn't have to be, you know,
going off on expensiveholidays. They still remember
(35:02):
the really simple things thatwe did. And, you know, It
didn't have to cost a load ofmoney or whatever. It's very,
very simple, very creative.But yeah, having fun. That's
all kids remember and all theywant is you and your time. But
yeah, I don't plan to leave alot till I've retired. I just
want to, I'm very simple withmy, with my, my taste and my
(35:22):
desires. I do like, I do likea lie in every now and again.
That keeps me happy. Yeah,that lion and coffee and a bit
of chocolate and that Aldodoing okay. Well, where can we
find out more about youonline? So my website is
RuthTui.com, there's not verymuch on there but it's a work
(35:43):
in progress for 2025 and Ihave just made the decision to
ditch meta platforms so I havebeen on Facebook and I have
been on Instagram but I'mmoving over to LinkedIn so you
can find me there. Linkedin,wonderful. So you completely
ditched on Instagram andFacebook. It won't be a
complete like cut off, it willbe a gradual transition off.
(36:08):
So Instagram I put up a 12grid with kind of 12 static
posts with what I dounderneath. Facebook I will
gradually just sort ofdisappear from. Have you
investigated Blue Sky? Ihaven't actually and a lot of
people have talked about BlueSky. Are you on it? I went on
just to claim my name becauseI'm so famous and I thought
(36:35):
I'd check it out but I didlike the fact that there was
an alternative to the othersand to be honest it's a nice
group of people on there. Soyeah, go over and get your
identity on there but it doesseem to be quite a pleasant
place.It's nice to have a choice,
(37:01):
isn't it? It's nice to have analternative. But I just
thought, yeah, I'll try it andsee. But no, do you know what?
Thank you so much for comingon my podcast. It's been an
absolute pleasure. I've lovedhearing your plans, what
motivated you and I've reallyenjoyed it. And thank you so
much for joining me. Thank youvery much for having me. It's
been a joy. Thank you forlistening today and special
(37:25):
thanks to my fantastic guestRuth Tsui for sharing her
incredible story with us. Ifyou want to increase your
visibility as well as yoursales with your personal brand
strategy, don't miss out on myfree resources or you can join
the Personal Branding Academymembership. You'll find all
the relevant links in thepodcast notes As well as the
links that Ruth mentioned inthe podcast. And if you liked
the episode please leave areview and share it with your
(37:46):
friends. Join me on the nextepisode for more incredible
bravery behind the brandstories. You can follow me on
Instagram at coachamandajaneor visit my website
amandajane.co.uk. Bye for now.
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