June 30, 2025 • 31 mins
Hilary Hartling doesn’t believe in branding fluff—and after 15 years at Disney working on global campaigns for Pixar, Marvel, and DreamWorks, she’s earned the right to say so. In this episode, Kendall Berg sits down with Hilary to unpack what a personal brand really is (hint: it’s not your color palette). From corporate burnout to building an executive brand agency, Hilary’s story is a masterclass in career reinvention, thought leadership, and waking up excited.
She breaks down the actual steps to brand clarity—from strengths mapping to using human design—and offers sharp advice for executives, entrepreneurs, and high performers stuck in a career that no longer fits. Whether you’re building a business or simply want more visibility at work, Hilary’s strategy-driven, slightly rebellious take on branding is the wake-up call you didn’t know you needed.
🔍 In this episode, we discuss:
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What is a personal brand and how do I build one?
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How do I know when it’s time to leave my job?
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What are the first steps to start a business after burnout?
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How can executives build a thought leadership brand?
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Why do most entrepreneurs waste time on the wrong branding?
⭐️ Get our FREE Accomplishments Tracker: https://fabulous-butterfly-83716.myflodesk.com/n8yzvrtw9v
That Career Coach
Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?
Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_
Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/
Hilary Hartling is a Brand & Messaging Strategist who helps entrepreneurs turn their brilliance into captivating brands that connect and convert. Known for blending intuitive insight with strategic clarity, she’s also the Chief Brand Officer at Growth Mode, a thought leadership agency for executives and founders. Before launching her business, Hilary spent 15 years leading integrated marketing campaigns for global entertainment brands film releases at Disney, Pixar & Marvel.
Website: https://hilaryhartling.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kendall Berg (00:00):
I always think of that scene in the Notebook where Noah's like, what do you want?
She's like, it's not that simple.
And it's not.
Because when we get to our adulthood and we start in our job, there are career paths that seem more comfortable, more attainable, more aligned with what our context and our history is.
And we think, oh, well, I'll just follow those paths.
(00:21):
Whereas your passion, your vision, your mission for where you want your career to go may be vastly different from what you've always done.
Right.
It might require a different type of alignment.
And so, you know, Hilary, that's really where you focus in.
What advice would you have for listeners who are like, okay, I don't know what my brand is.
I don't know what my vision is for my career.
How can they tactically start to think about those things and kind of create that future for themselves?
Hilary Hartling (00:45):
Yeah.
I think one of the first things to do is really to write down all of your strengths, really?
Like, what are the things you're really just innately so good at?
And even what are the things that other people ask of you again and again, they come to you for those things.
That's a clue for you.
And when you figure those things out, it's like, where can that.
Then I apply these to where I'm really interested.
(01:08):
So it's the strengths.
It's this interest.
Kendall Berg (01:10):
Welcome back to this episode of Secrets of the Career Game.
So many people are trying to navigate a corporate world that is laden with secrets, cleverly hidden, and unspoken rules to a game that most employees don't even know that they're playing.
On this podcast, we try to give you a peek behind the curtains and some tips and tricks to ultimately make you successful in your career and help you progress a little bit faster.
(01:36):
Hello, my lovelies.
Welcome back to another fabulous episode.
Today I have Hillary hartling with us.
She is so accomplished, and it's so exciting to have her on the pod.
She's a brand and messaging strategist.
She's helped entrepreneurs turn their brilliance into captivating brands that really connect with their audience.
She's been known for blending her kind of intuitive insight with that more strategic clarity.
(01:58):
She previously was Chief Brand Officer at or.
She is currently Chief Brand Officer at Growth Mode, a thought leadership agency for executives and founders.
So we're really excited to have her on the show.
Thank you so much, Hilary, for being here.
Hilary Hartling (02:11):
It's so nice to be here.
Kendall.
I'm excited to chat and you've had.
Kendall Berg (02:15):
Such an Interesting career yourself, right?
So you used to work on, like, global entertainment brands.
You worked for Disney and Pixar and Marvel and all these huge brands.
And now chief brand officer, doing your own thing.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey?
Hilary Hartling (02:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's so funny because I've just been talking about what it takes to really transform your life from what it looks like right now to what you want it to be.
And I had gone from my first jobs out of college were at ad agencies, and I was trying to figure out where I fit, really.
And I was really just so bored.
And I decided, let's do something I love.
(02:51):
You can market or advertise anything.
What do I want to market?
And movies is the thing that came up.
So I ended up falling.
It's not a linear path, but it certainly was a curvy path.
But with that vision in mind, every action I took led to becoming a marketing executive at the Walt Disney Studios.
Working with Disney and Pixar and Marvel and Touchstone and DreamWorks films near the end, and it was these global brands and it was inspiring audiences and it was so much fun.
(03:22):
And then I was ready for that next transformation, and I ended up leaving and starting my own brand.
Building that, which is so much harder, by the way, than having, like, a brand like Disney behind you, where you could pick up the phone and just say, yeah, it's Hillary from Disney.
Because that already holds weight.
People know what that is.
But to build a brand from scratch is a whole nother mission.
(03:44):
And which is why I help other entrepreneurs do it, because they need help doing it too.
And it's also why full circle.
I also now help executives build their executive brand so they can create thought leadership that helps propel company growth.
So that's kind of like the whole shebang in a nutshell.
Kendall Berg (04:02):
And I love it because you left a.
What we call, like a golden ticket company, right?
You have Disney on your resume.
You can pretty much do anything you want.
And it led you on this, like, personal growth journey to creating your business, right?
You'd kind of hit that peak in your corporate career.
You knew there wasn't more growth for you there.
So what did that look like for you?
Like, for the personal growth?
(04:23):
You mentioned that starting your own business is much harder.
What was that like for you, Hillary, while you were building your company?
Hilary Hartling (04:29):
That's such a great question.
You know, I kind of had the hint the last couple years I was at Disney.
You know, up till a certain point, I had gotten up to a VP level.
And I realized in my current role, which I had sort of pieced together and created into my own dream job, that I wasn't going to advance further than that.
And I think as soon as you feel like you're not growing, you feel stuck.
(04:54):
And with all of the upheaval and lots of new people coming in and new executives and new values and I just got tired of marketing myself internally.
And then I thought, there's got to be something more.
And so what I realized is I had this dream for Disney for so long.
I forgot to dream about what was next.
You know how you do that.
You get really comfy in one spot and then you forget to say, like, it continues to evolve and what you wanted one, that one time isn't what you're always going to want.
(05:26):
So what is that next step?
So I started dreaming and visioning and thinking about it.
And it took me a while because I was so busy at my corporate job, but then when I left, well, this is what actually happened.
I got laid off in an organizational restructure.
But what was so funny is I remember this so clearly.
This was a decade ago, January 1, 2015.
(05:47):
I woke up on New Year's Day and I was like, it's time to go, whether I know what I'm doing next or not.
So.
So I started Googling things like mid career transformation or what does that look right?
And I went down this rabbit hole.
And what I ended up finding was this questionnaire.
And the very first question was, what would you do if you were 10 times bolder?
And I was like, I knew it instantly.
(06:08):
I said I would leave Disney without another job.
I would take an entire year off.
I would reconnect with what inspires me.
I would visit family, I would visit friends, I would feng shui my house.
I would do all these things right, just to get re inspired and re energized to decide what the path was next.
Because if you asked me at Disney, do you want to start your own business?
I would have said, absolutely not.
(06:29):
That sounds awfully hard.
And it is, by the way, but it's also exciting.
And what happened was I got that clear on what I wanted.
And two weeks later, I got my package from Disney that paid me for.
For a year.
Kendall Berg (06:48):
Perfect.
Hilary Hartling (06:49):
And that's exactly what I wanted.
So.
So the transition was sort of like really a personal growth opportunity where it was like not just thinking about what is growth here, right where.
Where I am in this job, but looking at the whole world again and saying, if the world was your oyster.
What would you choose next?
Kendall Berg (07:07):
Yeah, and it's.
It's so interesting, one, I have to say.
How dare you mention that 2015 was 10 years ago, that we don't talk about that.
I'm sorry.
1990 was ten years ago.
Hilary Hartling (07:21):
Okay, thank you.
Kendall Berg (07:22):
I agree very much.
I saw somebody the other day was, like, you know, 40 years ago, and I was like, in the 60s, and they were like, in 1985.
And I was like, huh, it's frightening.
Correct is not when that was.
So how dare you on my podcast, use actual dates?
Hilary Hartling (07:38):
No.
Kendall Berg (07:39):
But I do think it's so interesting when you take a step back to think about your passions, your interests, what leaves you feeling fulfilled.
How often would we pick our job?
Hilary Hartling (07:50):
Yeah.
And it's.
It's funny because for a long time, I would say yes to that, because I am also very intentional in the things I choose to do.
I'll even tell potential clients in my branding business right now, like, I usually only choose people who inspire me because I know that's when I do my best work.
I had to figure that out that, like, at the ad agency, I was so bored and it was so uninteresting, but I always was lit up when I went to the fourth floor, which is where all the creatives were, because they're creating things, Right.
(08:23):
And that's part of the job I loved at Disney is this idea that you could understand the positioning of a movie, understand the audience so well, be inspired by the story you're gonna tell, but then say, here's what I'm gonna create to help sell this movie and have the idea, but then take it all the way through with tons of people who needed to be involved, tons of money, tons of time and energy.
(08:46):
Right?
All these things coming together and you orchestrating it.
But to say at the end, like, I created this from this idea, Right?
And I think that's what's so attractive.
Not only about having a job where you can create, which most people do in a job, but also having your own brand and having your own business and creating whatever you want.
Kendall Berg (09:05):
And it's so true.
When I work with clients, we always start with the passions.
What do you like?
What do you enjoy, whether your current job does it or not?
What brings you that satisfaction?
What are the soft things, soft skills, things that you like to do?
Right?
I like to be creative.
I like to take an idea and follow it through to execution.
And then how do we align our careers and our jobs and our lives around those things rather than Feeling like we need a certain title.
Hilary Hartling (09:32):
Yeah.
Kendall Berg (09:32):
And I've told this story on my pod before, but I always wanted to be a cfo, and I took all the right steps and did all the right roles that I could be a CFO.
I got.
Got offered a CFO ship at about 28, which was way before I was ready.
And I looked at that and went, absolutely not.
And I was like, we're going to do something totally different.
And I pivoted towards tech and strategies.
So it's just fascinating how, if you understand yourself, you can make those intentional career alignments.
(09:56):
And so that leads us to building your personal brand.
How important is it?
We're touching on it now, but how important is it to know what your brand is and be able to execute and build it, whether you're trying to be successful in your career, you're trying to build your business?
Like, what does that mean to you, since that's something that you focus on so much?
Hilary Hartling (10:16):
Yeah.
It's funny because if you had asked me about my personal brand when I was back at Disney, I didn't focus on it at all.
Right.
Like, I created a certain reputation by the work that I did, for sure.
Because I always tell people, whether they're starting a business or they're in their corporate journey, that you've got a brand whether you're paying attention to it or not.
(10:37):
Right.
It's the impression you leave behind.
But I think, oh, gosh, when you can focus on it and you can get strategic about it doesn't.
Especially in your executive journey, it doesn't have to be this whole process that is cumbersome.
It's really just getting clear on what you want.
And what's funny is I was just having this conversation earlier with a good friend of mine where it's not often or it's not until maybe later in life that someone actually asks you the question, what do you want?
Kendall Berg (11:09):
Yes.
Hilary Hartling (11:09):
And so we're not used to answering that question.
We might be when it comes to something very specific, like in this circumstance, what do you want?
But in general, in life, in your career, you're not used to answering that question.
I think building your personal brand is about answering that question.
It's about having a vision for where you're headed, understanding what lights you up, and then deciding what energy you want to put forth every day to take those action steps that lead you closer and closer to that vision and understanding your personal values along the way so you know how to align best with whatever that mission is that you're working towards.
(11:49):
Right.
So I think a personal brand comes in so handy, whether you're an executive or whether you're building a business, because it's just getting clear so you can tell others and be clear with yourself exactly what it is you want.
Kendall Berg (12:03):
They ask us this when we're kids.
Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Yes.
Supermodel.
President of the United States.
Sounds like an awful job.
But nobody asked me.
Like, they.
You know, you're asked this as a toddler.
You grow up, and then people are like, and now you know what you want to be as a grown up.
And as a grown up, you're like, no, I don't.
Yeah.
Hilary Hartling (12:22):
Never freaking out.
Right.
Kendall Berg (12:25):
And then I always think of that scene in the Notebook where Noah's like, what do you want?
She's like, it's not that simple.
And it's not.
Because when we get to our adulthood and we start in our job, there are career paths that seem more comfortable, more attainable, more aligned with what our context and our history is.
And we think, oh, I'll just follow those paths.
(12:47):
Whereas your passion, your vision, your mission for where you want your career to go may be vastly different from what you've always done.
Right.
It might require a different type of alignment.
And so, you know, Hilary, that's really where you focus in.
What advice would you have for listeners who are like, okay, I don't know what my brand is.
I don't know what my vision is for my career.
How can they tactically start to think about those things and kind of create that future for themselves?
Hilary Hartling (13:11):
Yeah.
I think one of the first things to do is really to write down all of your strengths, really.
Like, what are the things you're really just innately so good at?
And even what are the things that other people ask of you again and again, they come to you for those things.
That's a clue for you.
Right.
And when you figure those things out, it's like, where can that.
(13:32):
Then I apply these to where I'm really interested.
So it's the strengths.
It's this interest.
And, gosh, I will say I am not like, dialed into exactly how it all works, but I have found human design to be insanely helpful on that journey to really understand you and how you operate yourself and what you need to take that action for it.
(13:55):
I've gotten so many clues from human design.
So if you haven't done that, I would say start there, but also then just realize, what are your strengths?
What are people Asking you for where are your interests and trying to come up with, like that diagram.
Where's.
Where does that cross over?
Where does that tend to cross over?
And is it where you currently are?
Or is there something else more exciting to you out there that might seem like a far fetch?
(14:19):
Right.
If I was sitting in my ad agency cubicle right out of college, and then I all of a sudden discovered, actually, I want to be a movie marketing executive at Disney.
Well, that's a really far gap.
Right.
But it's possible.
You just have to figure it out.
I think it's being honest with yourself and knowing also that if it's not clear to you right now, that just putting the intention every day.
(14:45):
I just want more clarity around my path and what I want that matches up with what would best for me.
Right.
It's just starting there to get some clarity.
Clarity is key, but I also think excitement is vital.
You know, the book proposal I just wrote is Wake Up Excited.
It's the rebel's guide to reclaiming joy, trusting your gut, and living a life that lights you up.
(15:12):
And I do think that work is such a huge part of what you do.
You need to identify those things that light you up in order to figure out how to move forward.
That's part of your personal brand.
That's where you start.
So I think if you start with what's exciting to you, where your strengths are, what other people ask of you, and then finding clarity first, more opportunities will start coming to you as you get the clarity.
Kendall Berg (15:36):
So you go through this exercise, you create this clarity of self, this vision for.
And you go to the executive team at Disney.
Gosh, sayonara.
I'm going to spend the next year finding myself and feng shui ing my house, and I'm going to do something different.
You hone in on what that something different is.
You start your business, then what?
(15:58):
Like, what did starting your business, what was that like for you?
How did you align yourself to that?
What did you learn along the way?
Because that's a jump.
I spend a lot of time talking with people.
How to maximize your career, how to get promoted, how to advocate for yourself, how to get to that next level.
There are plenty of people who come to me who are like, I don't want to get to the next level.
I want to be a pastry chef.
(16:18):
Awesome.
Hilary Hartling (16:19):
Yes.
Kendall Berg (16:19):
What did that look like for you?
You made the jump.
You traded in your.
You executive suit for your Mountaineers.
That too, through these executive suit to.
To work at home and create this business.
What was that like?
Hilary Hartling (16:33):
Yeah, I didn't have clarity right away.
That's why I spent.
I feel like sometimes when you're caught in that frenetic energy of the corporate world, you need a moment to decompress and just get back to who you are.
And I felt like in that sense, even though it was my dream job, in that sense, it was like a bad breakup.
And I needed a month for every year I'd been at the company, and I'd been there for 15 years, so I took some time.
(16:57):
But what I did in the meantime, because I was just going wherever my heart led me, and it led me at one point to go start going to Brendon Burchard's motivational conferences.
And I ended up becoming a certified high performance coach trained by him.
And I thought, this is it.
This is what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to offer this.
I'm going to completely go off path.
(17:17):
It's like your pastry chef example for from marketing executive to now high performance coach.
And I started doing that with the other coaches that I was.
That I had been trained with, and we would practice on each other.
I got my first couple clients and I thought, this is cool.
I like this.
And then I spoke with some of the people who knew me from my Disney days, said, awesome.
(17:39):
Don't you want to leverage everything you know about branding and marketing and advertising?
I was like, yeah, I really do like that stuff, too.
So what started happening was all of the coaches that I was certified with were starting businesses, and they didn't know how to brand their business.
So I started branding all these coaches, and I just started paying attention to what people were.
(18:00):
I didn't call it branding at first.
I'm like, oh, let me just help you position and, like, create some messaging.
And then it wasn't until someone asked me to speak about what I was doing to a college class, and he was like, hillary, I need you to come and talk about how to build your personal brand.
And I was like, oh, that's what I'm doing.
(18:21):
I didn't name it that yet.
It's so funny.
It's just.
It's.
You have to ride the waves till you get to the clarity your need.
And then as soon as I put a name to it and figured out exactly what it was, that became exciting to me because I saw how many business owners, especially women business owners, who if they just had the clarity, they could move forward with more confidence and really start building and growing their business.
(18:42):
And so that's how it ended up with for me.
But I gotta say, the first out of the gate, you would think I'd be all buttoned up with my brand.
I was not.
I offered too many things.
I didn't have the clarity in my messaging.
And as I was launching my first website, I was like, I'm gonna have to change this in two months.
I already have clarity around exactly what I need to do.
But I can't wait any longer.
So let's just put it out there and we'll change it as we go.
(19:05):
Because that's the thing that I learned very quickly about being an entrepreneur.
You can't wait.
You just have to get the messy out there and just.
You can't perfect anything unless you get feedback from your audience.
You have to start.
And so I started and it's just grown from there.
And it started more as personal branding, coaching.
And it's really become kind of a done for you, building your entire brand strategy from scratch.
(19:31):
So.
But it was not easy to go from corporate to entrepreneur.
It was hard work.
I had not worked that hard in years.
You have to learn all new things and you have to wear every hat and that can be intimidating sometimes.
And you have to have the energy to do it.
Kendall Berg (19:48):
It's so great to hear you saying these things because when I started my business.
So this is not my first business, this is my third.
Right.
I always tell people that.
So if you are afraid of starting a business, you're afraid you're going to fail, you will, yeah, you will be a high performance coach that ends up not liking high performance coaching.
You will start a business that doesn't work out and then you will pivot because that's what entrepreneurs do.
And when I first started that career coach, my very first video, not very first, but I think it was like my first six.
(20:13):
I made a video talking about how nobody cares how good you are at your job.
They just care about how you communicate and talk about yourself.
And I thought this was super obvious.
And 4 million people argued in the comments.
Hilary Hartling (20:25):
Four weeks.
Kendall Berg (20:25):
And my branding of how to play the game was born instantly from that video that I was like, you guys aren't playing the right game.
If you're in my comments saying that's not how it works, you're wrong.
I wish it didn't work that way, but you're definitely wrong.
Hilary Hartling (20:40):
It is a game and here's how.
Kendall Berg (20:42):
You play that game.
Hilary Hartling (20:43):
And.
Kendall Berg (20:44):
But my branding was very accidental.
And then we just leaned in hard because I was like, people like this, they get it?
I can be myself and very.
No bs, and it's received well, and it was a good meeting of my strengths and the things I like and what the audience wanted and.
But now branding is such a huge part of what I coach on, because at work, you're creating a brand and you think you don't have control over it, but you do.
(21:05):
You do, but only if you are intentional.
Right.
Otherwise, it's just gonna sweep on by you.
Hilary Hartling (21:11):
Yes.
Kendall Berg (21:11):
And this will be the first time that I mentioned this on my podcast.
But I'm in the process of writing my second book, which will be titled Messy Action, which is very similar to.
You think you're gonna do it right the first time?
You're probably not right, but you're going to take some messy action.
You're going to figure it out, then you're going to pivot.
And that pivot is where you're going to start to find growth.
It's where you're going to start to make traction.
It's where things are going to start to look up for you, et cetera.
(21:34):
And so everything you're touching on, I think, is so true of the entrepreneurial spirit, because nobody knows what they're doing.
Hilary Hartling (21:42):
Nobody knows what they're doing.
I got to say, too, if you read, you know, job Descriptions posted on LinkedIn too, they sound.
These roles sound so important.
And so you get in there, you don't really know what you're doing, but you're going to start moving.
And yes, you are smart and you're hired for a reason because you've done something similar in the past.
But it's a lot of.
Just like a resume, a job description is a lot of fluff.
(22:04):
Right.
It's a lot of words that sound very important.
When you get in there, you figure it out.
And you don't figure it out unless you take messy action.
That is the key.
And recovering perfectionist over here, I have to be reminded of that all the time because I will sit on something, a great idea, something can be so helpful for somebody in my audience because I didn't think the idea was perfected enough to put out there.
(22:27):
And if you just took messy action, get it out there quick, that's when you receive all the feedback that you need.
Because like you said, I mean, you said it was an accidental brand.
I think that is the most intentional way of branding because you're taking the exact feedback you got from 4 million people in order to create something.
So, you know, it resonates.
(22:49):
You know, this is something People need.
The best brand you can build is based on who is your audience and what are they telling you that they need or they don't know how to do for themselves.
Kendall Berg (22:59):
You've had a lot of growth in this space.
You've built a lot of brands for businesses, for individuals.
I want to take the flip side here.
Where do you see people go awry?
Like, where do people come to you and they're like, I have a brand and it's this.
And you're like, oh, no, it's not like, where do you see some of gaps, whether it's business or individual branding, where they've kind of gone sideways and you have to come in and be like, nope, we're going to just swoop and save you over here.
Hilary Hartling (23:25):
Yeah, well, one thing I see a lot is people, business owners imagining that what's wrong is their like brand colors and their logo and they spend so much time on their website and tweaking these things that of course it's part of your branding, but really they just needed to get clarity on their positioning and how to talk about what they do for, who it's for.
(23:51):
And so I think that's one of the things is people don't entirely.
I've spent so much time educating people on what is a brand strategy because automatically people go to colors and fonts and photos and think that's the thing that's going to get them noticed and getting them clients.
And really it's digging in to understand your customers so well that you have not only the mission for your brand resonates with them, but all the offers align so that you're helping them solve the problems or achieve their things.
(24:24):
And so I think the things that people do wrong is they don't understand where they need clarity.
But clarity is always the thing that people are coming to me for and they're just not understanding exactly where they need it.
And so that's how I help.
Kendall Berg (24:39):
So how does social media play into this?
Great.
Because we're in a social media world.
I always joke with my friends or my clients who are like, I'm going to start a business.
I'm like, great.
How do you feel about being a social media content creator?
Because that's your new full time job.
So I'd love to hear from your perspective as a branding specialist if we don't necessarily care as much about the colors and the fonts because I agree with you.
I bet you a single person cannot tell you what my color palette is for my brand.
(25:01):
But I bet you can tell me about what my business does.
Where does social media fit into this?
Because I do think that's been, you know, you talked about 10 years ago, that's been a big shift in the last 10 years and how business own and operate and get to their ideal clients.
Hilary Hartling (25:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's part of why so many business owners get burned out so much is because all those algorithms change all the time and what you need to do to help promote your business is always changing.
But it's part of your brand marketing.
Right.
You can establish a brand and what it means and what it stands for, but unless you're talking about it, unless you're becoming visible so that people can know, recognize and understand and love your brand, they're not going to come and knock on your door and ask for help or buy the thing that you're selling.
(25:47):
So I think social media is a necessity in that this is how people find you.
You need to have a website, some kind of landing page, because I had a lot of people find me through Google.
But a lot of times people are using social media as their search and they're searching on Instagram, for instance, for a brand strategist to see who pops up.
(26:07):
And so I think I've seen different business owners very intentionally do it different ways where if they don't want to be that content creator on social, they have landing pages on social where they have like their top nine grid on Instagram that is going to tell them all about their business and they're going to continue doing stories so that people know that their doors are open and they're not just to have a post there from three years ago, but it guides them to whatever it is they do want them to see, whether it's a podcast or whether it's getting on their email list with a great freebie offer.
(26:38):
I think social media is a lot of people do sell in the DMS now, but I would say social media in my book is more about creating the awareness and interest in your brand and it's guiding them somewhere else to have those conversations or to go deeper into your world.
Right.
So getting them on your email list would probably be the top priority, I would imagine, for social media for your brand.
Kendall Berg (27:04):
So much great advice for the entrepreneurs listening and who are thinking about starting a side hustle or have started it and are trying to grow it.
If we pivot slightly towards the more executive leadership, thought leadership side of things.
How does having a brand really play in at Work.
We kind of touched on it earlier.
But I'd be curious, Hilary, what your take is of, like how that shows up in the workplace.
Hilary Hartling (27:24):
Yeah.
I mean, right now what we're seeing is over at my Growth Mode hat, right?
I'm Chief Brand Officer over at Growth Mode, which is that PR and thought leadership agency.
And we're really about how do you leverage your leaders and their insane knowledge and wisdom and expertise and everything they know, defining a thought leadership strategy, their voice, and then creating content for them that not only elevates them as someone to know, but then makes more visibility for the company because the whole point is to propel company growth in that case.
(28:03):
So what the interesting thing about creating an executive brand is you gotta know what the company's brand is first because you're fitting into that, you're aligning with that, even though you're building your personal executive brand to say, here's now what you're an expert at that company, right?
You want that executive brand to open doors to new opportunities.
(28:28):
And you know, the very interesting thing that we're looking at right now is that people are no longer being found in regular searches from just plain old SEO, right?
It's the earned media that's populating when people are searching on ChatGPT, right?
So AI is now the new search, right?
(28:50):
People are getting more information from AI on a daily basis where I know, I don't even know someone who doesn't have like their AI browser up and if they have a question there to blah, blah, right?
So if you want to be found, if you want your company to be found, it's creating those earned media opportunities which comes from your leaders, and it comes from creating an executive brand strategy.
(29:13):
And it comes from creating this content and this PR and just the visibility around your executive wisdom.
So I think that it's completely different.
Like if I had answered this question back when I was at Disney about a personal brand, it'd be completely different now because AI is part of the puzzle piece.
And I think thought leadership is often the reason why people are even calling on certain companies because now they're attracted to who it is.
(29:43):
I've always said whether it's business brand or an executive brand, people want to know the face behind the brand.
And so by leveraging leaders voices and creating these executive brand strategies, you're not only retaining great talent and allowing them to invest, feel like you're invested in them by helping them create their executive brand strategy and pushing them out there to be more visible at the company.
(30:07):
You're creating opportunities for growth for the whole company.
So it's a very different kind of lens.
But it all comes down to the same thing.
It starts with that clarity and what you want to be known for and choosing those pillars that really represent you and what you can talk about and what you can offer people in terms of value.
Kendall Berg (30:24):
So, Hillary, all of this is so helpful.
I think we've given listeners a lot to chew on.
So if we're going to give them one piece of advice for tomorrow, like, hey, you're listening to this.
You want to work on your brand's brand or your personal brand, what do we want them to go do?
What's that like one tactical step in the right direction?
Hilary Hartling (30:42):
I think one piece that I've even done for myself that I found so much clarity in is thinking about what's your personal brand tagline.
Right.
So if you look around and you see I mentioned Brendon Burchard, his is live love matter.
And it's that for a very specific reason.
It's something he understands, has learned and he could teach it.
Well, Mel Robbins.
Right.
Whether it's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and go or the let them theory now or Marie Forleo is everything is figureoutable or Gabby Bernstein is become the happiest person you know and everything she does and offers aligns with that vision.
(31:16):
It's coming up with what is that thing that for you?
Because that leans into what you're great at too, but what you have the most experience with.
And when I finally figured out mine, it was wake up excited.
And that's why the book I'm writing.
Kendall Berg (31:30):
Is that's awesome.
Such great takeaways for everybody listening.
So if you listen to this episode and you loved it, go ahead and leave us.
Five stars.
If you have any questions for Hillary or myself, be sure to leave them in the comments below.
Otherwise, Hillary, thank you so much for coming on today's episode.
It was a great chat.
Hilary Hartling (31:46):
Thank you so much.
It was so fun.
I always think of that scene in the Notebook where Noah's like, what do you want?
She's like, it's not that simple.
And it's not.
Because when we get to our adulthood and we start in our job, there are career paths that seem more comfortable, more attainable, more aligned with what our context and our history is.
And we think, oh, well, I'll just follow those paths.
(00:21):
Whereas your passion, your vision, your mission for where you want your career to go may be vastly different from what you've always done.
Right.
It might require a different type of alignment.
And so, you know, Hilary, that's really where you focus in.
What advice would you have for listeners who are like, okay, I don't know what my brand is.
I don't know what my vision is for my career.
How can they tactically start to think about those things and kind of create that future for themselves?
Hilary Hartling (00:45):
Yeah.
I think one of the first things to do is really to write down all of your strengths, really?
Like, what are the things you're really just innately so good at?
And even what are the things that other people ask of you again and again, they come to you for those things.
That's a clue for you.
And when you figure those things out, it's like, where can that.
Then I apply these to where I'm really interested.
(01:08):
So it's the strengths.
It's this interest.
Kendall Berg (01:10):
Welcome back to this episode of Secrets of the Career Game.
So many people are trying to navigate a corporate world that is laden with secrets, cleverly hidden, and unspoken rules to a game that most employees don't even know that they're playing.
On this podcast, we try to give you a peek behind the curtains and some tips and tricks to ultimately make you successful in your career and help you progress a little bit faster.
(01:36):
Hello, my lovelies.
Welcome back to another fabulous episode.
Today I have Hillary hartling with us.
She is so accomplished, and it's so exciting to have her on the pod.
She's a brand and messaging strategist.
She's helped entrepreneurs turn their brilliance into captivating brands that really connect with their audience.
She's been known for blending her kind of intuitive insight with that more strategic clarity.
(01:58):
She previously was Chief Brand Officer at or.
She is currently Chief Brand Officer at Growth Mode, a thought leadership agency for executives and founders.
So we're really excited to have her on the show.
Thank you so much, Hilary, for being here.
Hilary Hartling (02:11):
It's so nice to be here.
Kendall.
I'm excited to chat and you've had.
Kendall Berg (02:15):
Such an Interesting career yourself, right?
So you used to work on, like, global entertainment brands.
You worked for Disney and Pixar and Marvel and all these huge brands.
And now chief brand officer, doing your own thing.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey?
Hilary Hartling (02:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's so funny because I've just been talking about what it takes to really transform your life from what it looks like right now to what you want it to be.
And I had gone from my first jobs out of college were at ad agencies, and I was trying to figure out where I fit, really.
And I was really just so bored.
And I decided, let's do something I love.
(02:51):
You can market or advertise anything.
What do I want to market?
And movies is the thing that came up.
So I ended up falling.
It's not a linear path, but it certainly was a curvy path.
But with that vision in mind, every action I took led to becoming a marketing executive at the Walt Disney Studios.
Working with Disney and Pixar and Marvel and Touchstone and DreamWorks films near the end, and it was these global brands and it was inspiring audiences and it was so much fun.
(03:22):
And then I was ready for that next transformation, and I ended up leaving and starting my own brand.
Building that, which is so much harder, by the way, than having, like, a brand like Disney behind you, where you could pick up the phone and just say, yeah, it's Hillary from Disney.
Because that already holds weight.
People know what that is.
But to build a brand from scratch is a whole nother mission.
(03:44):
And which is why I help other entrepreneurs do it, because they need help doing it too.
And it's also why full circle.
I also now help executives build their executive brand so they can create thought leadership that helps propel company growth.
So that's kind of like the whole shebang in a nutshell.
Kendall Berg (04:02):
And I love it because you left a.
What we call, like a golden ticket company, right?
You have Disney on your resume.
You can pretty much do anything you want.
And it led you on this, like, personal growth journey to creating your business, right?
You'd kind of hit that peak in your corporate career.
You knew there wasn't more growth for you there.
So what did that look like for you?
Like, for the personal growth?
(04:23):
You mentioned that starting your own business is much harder.
What was that like for you, Hillary, while you were building your company?
Hilary Hartling (04:29):
That's such a great question.
You know, I kind of had the hint the last couple years I was at Disney.
You know, up till a certain point, I had gotten up to a VP level.
And I realized in my current role, which I had sort of pieced together and created into my own dream job, that I wasn't going to advance further than that.
And I think as soon as you feel like you're not growing, you feel stuck.
(04:54):
And with all of the upheaval and lots of new people coming in and new executives and new values and I just got tired of marketing myself internally.
And then I thought, there's got to be something more.
And so what I realized is I had this dream for Disney for so long.
I forgot to dream about what was next.
You know how you do that.
You get really comfy in one spot and then you forget to say, like, it continues to evolve and what you wanted one, that one time isn't what you're always going to want.
(05:26):
So what is that next step?
So I started dreaming and visioning and thinking about it.
And it took me a while because I was so busy at my corporate job, but then when I left, well, this is what actually happened.
I got laid off in an organizational restructure.
But what was so funny is I remember this so clearly.
This was a decade ago, January 1, 2015.
(05:47):
I woke up on New Year's Day and I was like, it's time to go, whether I know what I'm doing next or not.
So.
So I started Googling things like mid career transformation or what does that look right?
And I went down this rabbit hole.
And what I ended up finding was this questionnaire.
And the very first question was, what would you do if you were 10 times bolder?
And I was like, I knew it instantly.
(06:08):
I said I would leave Disney without another job.
I would take an entire year off.
I would reconnect with what inspires me.
I would visit family, I would visit friends, I would feng shui my house.
I would do all these things right, just to get re inspired and re energized to decide what the path was next.
Because if you asked me at Disney, do you want to start your own business?
I would have said, absolutely not.
(06:29):
That sounds awfully hard.
And it is, by the way, but it's also exciting.
And what happened was I got that clear on what I wanted.
And two weeks later, I got my package from Disney that paid me for.
For a year.
Kendall Berg (06:48):
Perfect.
Hilary Hartling (06:49):
And that's exactly what I wanted.
So.
So the transition was sort of like really a personal growth opportunity where it was like not just thinking about what is growth here, right where.
Where I am in this job, but looking at the whole world again and saying, if the world was your oyster.
What would you choose next?
Kendall Berg (07:07):
Yeah, and it's.
It's so interesting, one, I have to say.
How dare you mention that 2015 was 10 years ago, that we don't talk about that.
I'm sorry.
1990 was ten years ago.
Hilary Hartling (07:21):
Okay, thank you.
Kendall Berg (07:22):
I agree very much.
I saw somebody the other day was, like, you know, 40 years ago, and I was like, in the 60s, and they were like, in 1985.
And I was like, huh, it's frightening.
Correct is not when that was.
So how dare you on my podcast, use actual dates?
Hilary Hartling (07:38):
No.
Kendall Berg (07:39):
But I do think it's so interesting when you take a step back to think about your passions, your interests, what leaves you feeling fulfilled.
How often would we pick our job?
Hilary Hartling (07:50):
Yeah.
And it's.
It's funny because for a long time, I would say yes to that, because I am also very intentional in the things I choose to do.
I'll even tell potential clients in my branding business right now, like, I usually only choose people who inspire me because I know that's when I do my best work.
I had to figure that out that, like, at the ad agency, I was so bored and it was so uninteresting, but I always was lit up when I went to the fourth floor, which is where all the creatives were, because they're creating things, Right.
(08:23):
And that's part of the job I loved at Disney is this idea that you could understand the positioning of a movie, understand the audience so well, be inspired by the story you're gonna tell, but then say, here's what I'm gonna create to help sell this movie and have the idea, but then take it all the way through with tons of people who needed to be involved, tons of money, tons of time and energy.
(08:46):
Right?
All these things coming together and you orchestrating it.
But to say at the end, like, I created this from this idea, Right?
And I think that's what's so attractive.
Not only about having a job where you can create, which most people do in a job, but also having your own brand and having your own business and creating whatever you want.
Kendall Berg (09:05):
And it's so true.
When I work with clients, we always start with the passions.
What do you like?
What do you enjoy, whether your current job does it or not?
What brings you that satisfaction?
What are the soft things, soft skills, things that you like to do?
Right?
I like to be creative.
I like to take an idea and follow it through to execution.
And then how do we align our careers and our jobs and our lives around those things rather than Feeling like we need a certain title.
Hilary Hartling (09:32):
Yeah.
Kendall Berg (09:32):
And I've told this story on my pod before, but I always wanted to be a cfo, and I took all the right steps and did all the right roles that I could be a CFO.
I got.
Got offered a CFO ship at about 28, which was way before I was ready.
And I looked at that and went, absolutely not.
And I was like, we're going to do something totally different.
And I pivoted towards tech and strategies.
So it's just fascinating how, if you understand yourself, you can make those intentional career alignments.
(09:56):
And so that leads us to building your personal brand.
How important is it?
We're touching on it now, but how important is it to know what your brand is and be able to execute and build it, whether you're trying to be successful in your career, you're trying to build your business?
Like, what does that mean to you, since that's something that you focus on so much?
Hilary Hartling (10:16):
Yeah.
It's funny because if you had asked me about my personal brand when I was back at Disney, I didn't focus on it at all.
Right.
Like, I created a certain reputation by the work that I did, for sure.
Because I always tell people, whether they're starting a business or they're in their corporate journey, that you've got a brand whether you're paying attention to it or not.
(10:37):
Right.
It's the impression you leave behind.
But I think, oh, gosh, when you can focus on it and you can get strategic about it doesn't.
Especially in your executive journey, it doesn't have to be this whole process that is cumbersome.
It's really just getting clear on what you want.
And what's funny is I was just having this conversation earlier with a good friend of mine where it's not often or it's not until maybe later in life that someone actually asks you the question, what do you want?
Kendall Berg (11:09):
Yes.
Hilary Hartling (11:09):
And so we're not used to answering that question.
We might be when it comes to something very specific, like in this circumstance, what do you want?
But in general, in life, in your career, you're not used to answering that question.
I think building your personal brand is about answering that question.
It's about having a vision for where you're headed, understanding what lights you up, and then deciding what energy you want to put forth every day to take those action steps that lead you closer and closer to that vision and understanding your personal values along the way so you know how to align best with whatever that mission is that you're working towards.
(11:49):
Right.
So I think a personal brand comes in so handy, whether you're an executive or whether you're building a business, because it's just getting clear so you can tell others and be clear with yourself exactly what it is you want.
Kendall Berg (12:03):
They ask us this when we're kids.
Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Yes.
Supermodel.
President of the United States.
Sounds like an awful job.
But nobody asked me.
Like, they.
You know, you're asked this as a toddler.
You grow up, and then people are like, and now you know what you want to be as a grown up.
And as a grown up, you're like, no, I don't.
Yeah.
Hilary Hartling (12:22):
Never freaking out.
Right.
Kendall Berg (12:25):
And then I always think of that scene in the Notebook where Noah's like, what do you want?
She's like, it's not that simple.
And it's not.
Because when we get to our adulthood and we start in our job, there are career paths that seem more comfortable, more attainable, more aligned with what our context and our history is.
And we think, oh, I'll just follow those paths.
(12:47):
Whereas your passion, your vision, your mission for where you want your career to go may be vastly different from what you've always done.
Right.
It might require a different type of alignment.
And so, you know, Hilary, that's really where you focus in.
What advice would you have for listeners who are like, okay, I don't know what my brand is.
I don't know what my vision is for my career.
How can they tactically start to think about those things and kind of create that future for themselves?
Hilary Hartling (13:11):
Yeah.
I think one of the first things to do is really to write down all of your strengths, really.
Like, what are the things you're really just innately so good at?
And even what are the things that other people ask of you again and again, they come to you for those things.
That's a clue for you.
Right.
And when you figure those things out, it's like, where can that.
(13:32):
Then I apply these to where I'm really interested.
So it's the strengths.
It's this interest.
And, gosh, I will say I am not like, dialed into exactly how it all works, but I have found human design to be insanely helpful on that journey to really understand you and how you operate yourself and what you need to take that action for it.
(13:55):
I've gotten so many clues from human design.
So if you haven't done that, I would say start there, but also then just realize, what are your strengths?
What are people Asking you for where are your interests and trying to come up with, like that diagram.
Where's.
Where does that cross over?
Where does that tend to cross over?
And is it where you currently are?
Or is there something else more exciting to you out there that might seem like a far fetch?
(14:19):
Right.
If I was sitting in my ad agency cubicle right out of college, and then I all of a sudden discovered, actually, I want to be a movie marketing executive at Disney.
Well, that's a really far gap.
Right.
But it's possible.
You just have to figure it out.
I think it's being honest with yourself and knowing also that if it's not clear to you right now, that just putting the intention every day.
(14:45):
I just want more clarity around my path and what I want that matches up with what would best for me.
Right.
It's just starting there to get some clarity.
Clarity is key, but I also think excitement is vital.
You know, the book proposal I just wrote is Wake Up Excited.
It's the rebel's guide to reclaiming joy, trusting your gut, and living a life that lights you up.
(15:12):
And I do think that work is such a huge part of what you do.
You need to identify those things that light you up in order to figure out how to move forward.
That's part of your personal brand.
That's where you start.
So I think if you start with what's exciting to you, where your strengths are, what other people ask of you, and then finding clarity first, more opportunities will start coming to you as you get the clarity.
Kendall Berg (15:36):
So you go through this exercise, you create this clarity of self, this vision for.
And you go to the executive team at Disney.
Gosh, sayonara.
I'm going to spend the next year finding myself and feng shui ing my house, and I'm going to do something different.
You hone in on what that something different is.
You start your business, then what?
(15:58):
Like, what did starting your business, what was that like for you?
How did you align yourself to that?
What did you learn along the way?
Because that's a jump.
I spend a lot of time talking with people.
How to maximize your career, how to get promoted, how to advocate for yourself, how to get to that next level.
There are plenty of people who come to me who are like, I don't want to get to the next level.
I want to be a pastry chef.
(16:18):
Awesome.
Hilary Hartling (16:19):
Yes.
Kendall Berg (16:19):
What did that look like for you?
You made the jump.
You traded in your.
You executive suit for your Mountaineers.
That too, through these executive suit to.
To work at home and create this business.
What was that like?
Hilary Hartling (16:33):
Yeah, I didn't have clarity right away.
That's why I spent.
I feel like sometimes when you're caught in that frenetic energy of the corporate world, you need a moment to decompress and just get back to who you are.
And I felt like in that sense, even though it was my dream job, in that sense, it was like a bad breakup.
And I needed a month for every year I'd been at the company, and I'd been there for 15 years, so I took some time.
(16:57):
But what I did in the meantime, because I was just going wherever my heart led me, and it led me at one point to go start going to Brendon Burchard's motivational conferences.
And I ended up becoming a certified high performance coach trained by him.
And I thought, this is it.
This is what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to offer this.
I'm going to completely go off path.
(17:17):
It's like your pastry chef example for from marketing executive to now high performance coach.
And I started doing that with the other coaches that I was.
That I had been trained with, and we would practice on each other.
I got my first couple clients and I thought, this is cool.
I like this.
And then I spoke with some of the people who knew me from my Disney days, said, awesome.
(17:39):
Don't you want to leverage everything you know about branding and marketing and advertising?
I was like, yeah, I really do like that stuff, too.
So what started happening was all of the coaches that I was certified with were starting businesses, and they didn't know how to brand their business.
So I started branding all these coaches, and I just started paying attention to what people were.
(18:00):
I didn't call it branding at first.
I'm like, oh, let me just help you position and, like, create some messaging.
And then it wasn't until someone asked me to speak about what I was doing to a college class, and he was like, hillary, I need you to come and talk about how to build your personal brand.
And I was like, oh, that's what I'm doing.
(18:21):
I didn't name it that yet.
It's so funny.
It's just.
It's.
You have to ride the waves till you get to the clarity your need.
And then as soon as I put a name to it and figured out exactly what it was, that became exciting to me because I saw how many business owners, especially women business owners, who if they just had the clarity, they could move forward with more confidence and really start building and growing their business.
(18:42):
And so that's how it ended up with for me.
But I gotta say, the first out of the gate, you would think I'd be all buttoned up with my brand.
I was not.
I offered too many things.
I didn't have the clarity in my messaging.
And as I was launching my first website, I was like, I'm gonna have to change this in two months.
I already have clarity around exactly what I need to do.
But I can't wait any longer.
So let's just put it out there and we'll change it as we go.
(19:05):
Because that's the thing that I learned very quickly about being an entrepreneur.
You can't wait.
You just have to get the messy out there and just.
You can't perfect anything unless you get feedback from your audience.
You have to start.
And so I started and it's just grown from there.
And it started more as personal branding, coaching.
And it's really become kind of a done for you, building your entire brand strategy from scratch.
(19:31):
So.
But it was not easy to go from corporate to entrepreneur.
It was hard work.
I had not worked that hard in years.
You have to learn all new things and you have to wear every hat and that can be intimidating sometimes.
And you have to have the energy to do it.
Kendall Berg (19:48):
It's so great to hear you saying these things because when I started my business.
So this is not my first business, this is my third.
Right.
I always tell people that.
So if you are afraid of starting a business, you're afraid you're going to fail, you will, yeah, you will be a high performance coach that ends up not liking high performance coaching.
You will start a business that doesn't work out and then you will pivot because that's what entrepreneurs do.
And when I first started that career coach, my very first video, not very first, but I think it was like my first six.
(20:13):
I made a video talking about how nobody cares how good you are at your job.
They just care about how you communicate and talk about yourself.
And I thought this was super obvious.
And 4 million people argued in the comments.
Hilary Hartling (20:25):
Four weeks.
Kendall Berg (20:25):
And my branding of how to play the game was born instantly from that video that I was like, you guys aren't playing the right game.
If you're in my comments saying that's not how it works, you're wrong.
I wish it didn't work that way, but you're definitely wrong.
Hilary Hartling (20:40):
It is a game and here's how.
Kendall Berg (20:42):
You play that game.
Hilary Hartling (20:43):
And.
Kendall Berg (20:44):
But my branding was very accidental.
And then we just leaned in hard because I was like, people like this, they get it?
I can be myself and very.
No bs, and it's received well, and it was a good meeting of my strengths and the things I like and what the audience wanted and.
But now branding is such a huge part of what I coach on, because at work, you're creating a brand and you think you don't have control over it, but you do.
(21:05):
You do, but only if you are intentional.
Right.
Otherwise, it's just gonna sweep on by you.
Hilary Hartling (21:11):
Yes.
Kendall Berg (21:11):
And this will be the first time that I mentioned this on my podcast.
But I'm in the process of writing my second book, which will be titled Messy Action, which is very similar to.
You think you're gonna do it right the first time?
You're probably not right, but you're going to take some messy action.
You're going to figure it out, then you're going to pivot.
And that pivot is where you're going to start to find growth.
It's where you're going to start to make traction.
It's where things are going to start to look up for you, et cetera.
(21:34):
And so everything you're touching on, I think, is so true of the entrepreneurial spirit, because nobody knows what they're doing.
Hilary Hartling (21:42):
Nobody knows what they're doing.
I got to say, too, if you read, you know, job Descriptions posted on LinkedIn too, they sound.
These roles sound so important.
And so you get in there, you don't really know what you're doing, but you're going to start moving.
And yes, you are smart and you're hired for a reason because you've done something similar in the past.
But it's a lot of.
Just like a resume, a job description is a lot of fluff.
(22:04):
Right.
It's a lot of words that sound very important.
When you get in there, you figure it out.
And you don't figure it out unless you take messy action.
That is the key.
And recovering perfectionist over here, I have to be reminded of that all the time because I will sit on something, a great idea, something can be so helpful for somebody in my audience because I didn't think the idea was perfected enough to put out there.
(22:27):
And if you just took messy action, get it out there quick, that's when you receive all the feedback that you need.
Because like you said, I mean, you said it was an accidental brand.
I think that is the most intentional way of branding because you're taking the exact feedback you got from 4 million people in order to create something.
So, you know, it resonates.
(22:49):
You know, this is something People need.
The best brand you can build is based on who is your audience and what are they telling you that they need or they don't know how to do for themselves.
Kendall Berg (22:59):
You've had a lot of growth in this space.
You've built a lot of brands for businesses, for individuals.
I want to take the flip side here.
Where do you see people go awry?
Like, where do people come to you and they're like, I have a brand and it's this.
And you're like, oh, no, it's not like, where do you see some of gaps, whether it's business or individual branding, where they've kind of gone sideways and you have to come in and be like, nope, we're going to just swoop and save you over here.
Hilary Hartling (23:25):
Yeah, well, one thing I see a lot is people, business owners imagining that what's wrong is their like brand colors and their logo and they spend so much time on their website and tweaking these things that of course it's part of your branding, but really they just needed to get clarity on their positioning and how to talk about what they do for, who it's for.
(23:51):
And so I think that's one of the things is people don't entirely.
I've spent so much time educating people on what is a brand strategy because automatically people go to colors and fonts and photos and think that's the thing that's going to get them noticed and getting them clients.
And really it's digging in to understand your customers so well that you have not only the mission for your brand resonates with them, but all the offers align so that you're helping them solve the problems or achieve their things.
(24:24):
And so I think the things that people do wrong is they don't understand where they need clarity.
But clarity is always the thing that people are coming to me for and they're just not understanding exactly where they need it.
And so that's how I help.
Kendall Berg (24:39):
So how does social media play into this?
Great.
Because we're in a social media world.
I always joke with my friends or my clients who are like, I'm going to start a business.
I'm like, great.
How do you feel about being a social media content creator?
Because that's your new full time job.
So I'd love to hear from your perspective as a branding specialist if we don't necessarily care as much about the colors and the fonts because I agree with you.
I bet you a single person cannot tell you what my color palette is for my brand.
(25:01):
But I bet you can tell me about what my business does.
Where does social media fit into this?
Because I do think that's been, you know, you talked about 10 years ago, that's been a big shift in the last 10 years and how business own and operate and get to their ideal clients.
Hilary Hartling (25:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's part of why so many business owners get burned out so much is because all those algorithms change all the time and what you need to do to help promote your business is always changing.
But it's part of your brand marketing.
Right.
You can establish a brand and what it means and what it stands for, but unless you're talking about it, unless you're becoming visible so that people can know, recognize and understand and love your brand, they're not going to come and knock on your door and ask for help or buy the thing that you're selling.
(25:47):
So I think social media is a necessity in that this is how people find you.
You need to have a website, some kind of landing page, because I had a lot of people find me through Google.
But a lot of times people are using social media as their search and they're searching on Instagram, for instance, for a brand strategist to see who pops up.
(26:07):
And so I think I've seen different business owners very intentionally do it different ways where if they don't want to be that content creator on social, they have landing pages on social where they have like their top nine grid on Instagram that is going to tell them all about their business and they're going to continue doing stories so that people know that their doors are open and they're not just to have a post there from three years ago, but it guides them to whatever it is they do want them to see, whether it's a podcast or whether it's getting on their email list with a great freebie offer.
(26:38):
I think social media is a lot of people do sell in the DMS now, but I would say social media in my book is more about creating the awareness and interest in your brand and it's guiding them somewhere else to have those conversations or to go deeper into your world.
Right.
So getting them on your email list would probably be the top priority, I would imagine, for social media for your brand.
Kendall Berg (27:04):
So much great advice for the entrepreneurs listening and who are thinking about starting a side hustle or have started it and are trying to grow it.
If we pivot slightly towards the more executive leadership, thought leadership side of things.
How does having a brand really play in at Work.
We kind of touched on it earlier.
But I'd be curious, Hilary, what your take is of, like how that shows up in the workplace.
Hilary Hartling (27:24):
Yeah.
I mean, right now what we're seeing is over at my Growth Mode hat, right?
I'm Chief Brand Officer over at Growth Mode, which is that PR and thought leadership agency.
And we're really about how do you leverage your leaders and their insane knowledge and wisdom and expertise and everything they know, defining a thought leadership strategy, their voice, and then creating content for them that not only elevates them as someone to know, but then makes more visibility for the company because the whole point is to propel company growth in that case.
(28:03):
So what the interesting thing about creating an executive brand is you gotta know what the company's brand is first because you're fitting into that, you're aligning with that, even though you're building your personal executive brand to say, here's now what you're an expert at that company, right?
You want that executive brand to open doors to new opportunities.
(28:28):
And you know, the very interesting thing that we're looking at right now is that people are no longer being found in regular searches from just plain old SEO, right?
It's the earned media that's populating when people are searching on ChatGPT, right?
So AI is now the new search, right?
(28:50):
People are getting more information from AI on a daily basis where I know, I don't even know someone who doesn't have like their AI browser up and if they have a question there to blah, blah, right?
So if you want to be found, if you want your company to be found, it's creating those earned media opportunities which comes from your leaders, and it comes from creating an executive brand strategy.
(29:13):
And it comes from creating this content and this PR and just the visibility around your executive wisdom.
So I think that it's completely different.
Like if I had answered this question back when I was at Disney about a personal brand, it'd be completely different now because AI is part of the puzzle piece.
And I think thought leadership is often the reason why people are even calling on certain companies because now they're attracted to who it is.
(29:43):
I've always said whether it's business brand or an executive brand, people want to know the face behind the brand.
And so by leveraging leaders voices and creating these executive brand strategies, you're not only retaining great talent and allowing them to invest, feel like you're invested in them by helping them create their executive brand strategy and pushing them out there to be more visible at the company.
(30:07):
You're creating opportunities for growth for the whole company.
So it's a very different kind of lens.
But it all comes down to the same thing.
It starts with that clarity and what you want to be known for and choosing those pillars that really represent you and what you can talk about and what you can offer people in terms of value.
Kendall Berg (30:24):
So, Hillary, all of this is so helpful.
I think we've given listeners a lot to chew on.
So if we're going to give them one piece of advice for tomorrow, like, hey, you're listening to this.
You want to work on your brand's brand or your personal brand, what do we want them to go do?
What's that like one tactical step in the right direction?
Hilary Hartling (30:42):
I think one piece that I've even done for myself that I found so much clarity in is thinking about what's your personal brand tagline.
Right.
So if you look around and you see I mentioned Brendon Burchard, his is live love matter.
And it's that for a very specific reason.
It's something he understands, has learned and he could teach it.
Well, Mel Robbins.
Right.
Whether it's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and go or the let them theory now or Marie Forleo is everything is figureoutable or Gabby Bernstein is become the happiest person you know and everything she does and offers aligns with that vision.
(31:16):
It's coming up with what is that thing that for you?
Because that leans into what you're great at too, but what you have the most experience with.
And when I finally figured out mine, it was wake up excited.
And that's why the book I'm writing.
Kendall Berg (31:30):
Is that's awesome.
Such great takeaways for everybody listening.
So if you listen to this episode and you loved it, go ahead and leave us.
Five stars.
If you have any questions for Hillary or myself, be sure to leave them in the comments below.
Otherwise, Hillary, thank you so much for coming on today's episode.
It was a great chat.
Hilary Hartling (31:46):
Thank you so much.
It was so fun.
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