October 1, 2024 • 8 mins
Ready to transform your academic research into a powerful brand? Join us as Dr. Sheena Howard, founder of Power Your Research, unveils the entrepreneurial steps to boost your visibility, authority, and income. Discover how to break free from academic paywalls and create a lasting legacy through strategic brand-building.
Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You gotta have a reason for why you want to leave
this legacy, why you want toget your work in front of people
outside of academe, so you canleave your legacy, so that you
can impact the people that youare actually researching and
writing about.
I don't want my work to bestuck behind an academic paywall
(00:30):
.
I want to leave a legacy, Iwant to reach my potential and I
want to change lives.
This podcast, power yourResearch, is my attempt to help
the smartest people in the worlddo that very thing.
My hope is that you use thelessons I share to make more
money than what your higher edjob can ever pay you.
I've done it, my clients havedone it, and so can you.
(00:53):
My hope is that you'll applywhat you learn here and one day
join the Power your Researchprogram, where you can work with
me one-on-one.
Work with me one-on-one.
(01:16):
I want to give you three thingsto incorporate into your
journey to building a big brand.
So, if you're new here, my nameis Dr Sheena Howard.
I'm the founder of Power yourResearch, an academic branding
company, and I help academicsincrease their visibility,
authority and income without theexpense of a publicist.
So I'm going to give you justthree things that you can take
action on right now to movingtowards building a big brand
(01:38):
right and really getting yourwork out there so it's not stuck
behind an academic paywall orbehind a paid journal article or
in the basement of a library.
So the first thing is you wantto understand that building a
brand is entrepreneurship.
So, as academics, we're used tothe roadmap.
(01:59):
We're used to taking theclasses and getting the degree
and following the instructionsand having the whole roadmap
laid out for us, but in terms ofbuilding your brand, there is
no specific roadmap.
You are the roadmap and so it'svery important that you have
coaches and it's very importantthat you follow the steps of
(02:20):
other people that have done thething that you are trying to do,
but their exact steps are notthe exact steps that you can
follow.
So I've taken tons of courses,I've spent thousands and
thousands of dollars on coachesand they've all been helpful for
different aspects of my journey, and so I can look back and
tell you my roadmap and mymethod.
(02:40):
And you have to go on that samejourney as well to build your
roadmap, and it's reallyimportant when you're hiring
coaches and taking classes, thatyou spend money on people that
actually have the result thatyou want.
Okay, so the first thing is youhave to be willing to go the
distance.
If you want to increase yourvisibility, increase your
(03:01):
authority, authority, get yourresearch in front of the world,
right, you have to be able to gothe distance and be willing to
do the work, because it isn'teasy.
People are promising you, youknow, 30 days to do this and
nine steps to do this.
One of the things that I honein on with my clients is that
you got to have a purpose.
(03:21):
You got to have a reason forwhy you want to leave this
legacy, why you want to get yourwork in front of people outside
of academe, so you can leaveyour legacy, so that you can
impact the people that you areactually researching and writing
about.
So the first thing is you justgot to be willing to go the
distance if you want to movefrom having a PhD to leveraging
that out here in the marketplaceand really building that big
(03:44):
brand that you deserve to have.
The second thing is outsourcing.
Now, this is a big one for myacademics, because in higher ed,
right, we're taught thatoutsourcing is cheating, right?
Nobody else can write yourpaper.
Right, you can't hire somebodyto do your work, but in building
a brand, you do have tooutsource.
It's too much work to do, youknow, and it is hyper
(04:05):
competitive in these socialmedia streets and in these
internet streets, and so youcan't do it all on your own.
And that's super importantbecause you are competing in a
marketplace of other people thatare building big brands.
But if you have a PhD, you'restill a small percentage of the
population.
I know in our PhD world itseems like everybody has a PhD,
(04:27):
but the fact of the matter isyou still have leverage on
people that don't.
You're still a small part ofthe world and you have something
that you can leverage.
Hey, everyone, real quick.
I don't run any ads on thispodcast, so I have to rely on
word of mouth.
If this podcast has helped youin any way, please share it with
a friend and follow me, drSheena Howard, on LinkedIn,
(04:50):
where I give more free contenton building your brand as an
academic.
If you tell me you came to myLinkedIn from the podcast, I'll
make sure I accept your request.
You're competing against a lotof people and so you need to
outsource.
It's not one of those thingswhere you can do it all alone,
which is why I share all of myoutsourcing resources and
(05:11):
editors and VAs with the peoplethat are inside my Power, your
Research program, so you canhave access to people that are
going to help you to get to thenext level at a very, very
affordable rates Right, but,more importantly, people that
know what they're doing to helpyou get there.
I had a client today and she'sbuilding her Instagram page and
(05:33):
she wants to outsource herInstagram content and I had to
tell her you got to take a stepback, because you can't
outsource something that youdon't know how to run yourself.
So you can't outsource yoursocial media content If you
don't know who your targetaudience is and what type of
content they like.
You can't do that because youdon't know yet, and that's why
it's really important tounderstand at the beginning with
(05:54):
social media content know whoyour audience is and how to
reach them and how to talk tothem, and then you can outsource
the content to someone else.
I know that we're all eager tohave somebody else do it because
we don't want to be bothered,but you know, social media can
be a really, really tricky thingand you need to know the ins
and outs of your audience beforeyou outsource that part.
(06:15):
Ok, so the third thing that Iwant to talk about in terms of
going from a PhD someone who'san academic, to building a big
brand, is content creation Right, so we touched on it a little
bit a moment ago, but just sometips on content creation.
You have to create content,right.
You have to be out herecreating videos, creating images
.
Now, you can do this in a waythat is real to you, right.
(06:38):
Your brand doesn't have to looklike someone else's.
You don't necessarily have togo live all the time and do it
the way that is real to you,right.
Your brand doesn't have to looklike someone else's.
You don't necessarily have togo live all the time and do it
the way that someone else isdoing it.
You're going to do it in theway that matches your
personality.
But in my experience, all theclients that I work with,
especially you know my PhDs youare going to have to get out of
your comfort zone to really diginto the content, because the
content is the thing that'sgoing to get you the visibility.
(07:01):
The content is the thing that'sgoing to draw more of the media
attention, the income, theplatform, right, and so you know
.
One big takeaway that I canshare with you is to be yourself
.
Create content for your targetaudience, but be yourself
Because typically, the thingthat you're trying to sell or
(07:23):
the thing that you want toenroll people in, you've learned
something and you've been theperson that you're trying to
help, and so think about theperson that you were before and
create content for that person.
What did that person need backthen, before you are who you are
today?
So be yourself and createcontent.
(07:44):
You have to compete out here,and those are the three tips
that I can share with you todayon moving from a PhD to having a
big brand.
I hope that this was helpful.
If you're not ready to jumpinto the Power, your Research
program and invest in coachingwith me, grab the academic
branding book.
It's a nine-step system, right,it's the power, your research
program in a book.
You can read it, you can followalong, you can get results.
(08:06):
You can get to six figures justwith the stuff that's in the
book and just based off of theexpertise that you currently
have you.
You gotta have a reason for why you want to leave
this legacy, why you want toget your work in front of people
outside of academe, so you canleave your legacy, so that you
can impact the people that youare actually researching and
writing about.
I don't want my work to bestuck behind an academic paywall
(00:30):
.
I want to leave a legacy, Iwant to reach my potential and I
want to change lives.
This podcast, power yourResearch, is my attempt to help
the smartest people in the worlddo that very thing.
My hope is that you use thelessons I share to make more
money than what your higher edjob can ever pay you.
I've done it, my clients havedone it, and so can you.
(00:53):
My hope is that you'll applywhat you learn here and one day
join the Power your Researchprogram, where you can work with
me one-on-one.
Work with me one-on-one.
(01:16):
I want to give you three thingsto incorporate into your
journey to building a big brand.
So, if you're new here, my nameis Dr Sheena Howard.
I'm the founder of Power yourResearch, an academic branding
company, and I help academicsincrease their visibility,
authority and income without theexpense of a publicist.
So I'm going to give you justthree things that you can take
action on right now to movingtowards building a big brand
(01:38):
right and really getting yourwork out there so it's not stuck
behind an academic paywall orbehind a paid journal article or
in the basement of a library.
So the first thing is you wantto understand that building a
brand is entrepreneurship.
So, as academics, we're used tothe roadmap.
(01:59):
We're used to taking theclasses and getting the degree
and following the instructionsand having the whole roadmap
laid out for us, but in terms ofbuilding your brand, there is
no specific roadmap.
You are the roadmap and so it'svery important that you have
coaches and it's very importantthat you follow the steps of
(02:20):
other people that have done thething that you are trying to do,
but their exact steps are notthe exact steps that you can
follow.
So I've taken tons of courses,I've spent thousands and
thousands of dollars on coachesand they've all been helpful for
different aspects of my journey, and so I can look back and
tell you my roadmap and mymethod.
(02:40):
And you have to go on that samejourney as well to build your
roadmap, and it's reallyimportant when you're hiring
coaches and taking classes, thatyou spend money on people that
actually have the result thatyou want.
Okay, so the first thing is youhave to be willing to go the
distance.
If you want to increase yourvisibility, increase your
(03:01):
authority, authority, get yourresearch in front of the world,
right, you have to be able to gothe distance and be willing to
do the work, because it isn'teasy.
People are promising you, youknow, 30 days to do this and
nine steps to do this.
One of the things that I honein on with my clients is that
you got to have a purpose.
(03:21):
You got to have a reason forwhy you want to leave this
legacy, why you want to get yourwork in front of people outside
of academe, so you can leaveyour legacy, so that you can
impact the people that you areactually researching and writing
about.
So the first thing is you justgot to be willing to go the
distance if you want to movefrom having a PhD to leveraging
that out here in the marketplaceand really building that big
(03:44):
brand that you deserve to have.
The second thing is outsourcing.
Now, this is a big one for myacademics, because in higher ed,
right, we're taught thatoutsourcing is cheating, right?
Nobody else can write yourpaper.
Right, you can't hire somebodyto do your work, but in building
a brand, you do have tooutsource.
It's too much work to do, youknow, and it is hyper
(04:05):
competitive in these socialmedia streets and in these
internet streets, and so youcan't do it all on your own.
And that's super importantbecause you are competing in a
marketplace of other people thatare building big brands.
But if you have a PhD, you'restill a small percentage of the
population.
I know in our PhD world itseems like everybody has a PhD,
(04:27):
but the fact of the matter isyou still have leverage on
people that don't.
You're still a small part ofthe world and you have something
that you can leverage.
Hey, everyone, real quick.
I don't run any ads on thispodcast, so I have to rely on
word of mouth.
If this podcast has helped youin any way, please share it with
a friend and follow me, drSheena Howard, on LinkedIn,
(04:50):
where I give more free contenton building your brand as an
academic.
If you tell me you came to myLinkedIn from the podcast, I'll
make sure I accept your request.
You're competing against a lotof people and so you need to
outsource.
It's not one of those thingswhere you can do it all alone,
which is why I share all of myoutsourcing resources and
(05:11):
editors and VAs with the peoplethat are inside my Power, your
Research program, so you canhave access to people that are
going to help you to get to thenext level at a very, very
affordable rates Right, but,more importantly, people that
know what they're doing to helpyou get there.
I had a client today and she'sbuilding her Instagram page and
(05:33):
she wants to outsource herInstagram content and I had to
tell her you got to take a stepback, because you can't
outsource something that youdon't know how to run yourself.
So you can't outsource yoursocial media content If you
don't know who your targetaudience is and what type of
content they like.
You can't do that because youdon't know yet, and that's why
it's really important tounderstand at the beginning with
(05:54):
social media content know whoyour audience is and how to
reach them and how to talk tothem, and then you can outsource
the content to someone else.
I know that we're all eager tohave somebody else do it because
we don't want to be bothered,but you know, social media can
be a really, really tricky thingand you need to know the ins
and outs of your audience beforeyou outsource that part.
(06:15):
Ok, so the third thing that Iwant to talk about in terms of
going from a PhD someone who'san academic, to building a big
brand, is content creation Right, so we touched on it a little
bit a moment ago, but just sometips on content creation.
You have to create content,right.
You have to be out herecreating videos, creating images
.
Now, you can do this in a waythat is real to you, right.
(06:38):
Your brand doesn't have to looklike someone else's.
You don't necessarily have togo live all the time and do it
the way that is real to you,right.
Your brand doesn't have to looklike someone else's.
You don't necessarily have togo live all the time and do it
the way that someone else isdoing it.
You're going to do it in theway that matches your
personality.
But in my experience, all theclients that I work with,
especially you know my PhDs youare going to have to get out of
your comfort zone to really diginto the content, because the
content is the thing that'sgoing to get you the visibility.
(07:01):
The content is the thing that'sgoing to draw more of the media
attention, the income, theplatform, right, and so you know
.
One big takeaway that I canshare with you is to be yourself
.
Create content for your targetaudience, but be yourself
Because typically, the thingthat you're trying to sell or
(07:23):
the thing that you want toenroll people in, you've learned
something and you've been theperson that you're trying to
help, and so think about theperson that you were before and
create content for that person.
What did that person need backthen, before you are who you are
today?
So be yourself and createcontent.
(07:44):
You have to compete out here,and those are the three tips
that I can share with you todayon moving from a PhD to having a
big brand.
I hope that this was helpful.
If you're not ready to jumpinto the Power, your Research
program and invest in coachingwith me, grab the academic
branding book.
It's a nine-step system, right,it's the power, your research
program in a book.
You can read it, you can followalong, you can get results.
(08:06):
You can get to six figures justwith the stuff that's in the
book and just based off of theexpertise that you currently
have you.
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