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[00:00:00] Dave Polykoff: to another episode of personal brand blueprint. I am Dave Poliakoff, CEO and co founder of ZenPost. com, your personal brand blueprint for launching, growing, and monetizing your personal brand. If you are struggling with finding the right messaging and then converting that messaging into content that attracts, convinces, and converts your ideal client, then check out ZenPost.
[00:00:20] com to learn more about our monthly done for you, branding and content creation services, which Or we craft your brand message and then help you create that content on a monthly basis to, again, attract, convince, convert your ideal client online. On today's episode, we have Lauren Clement, CEO of the Audacious Agency.
[00:00:38] Lauren helps thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers who are the world's best kept secret to stand out with the credibility of awards so they become well known, well paid and wanted. Today, we're chatting with Lauren about how we can. Increase our industry's credibility through awards to grow and monetize our personal brand.
[00:00:56] So Lauren, welcome to the show.
[00:00:57] Lauren Clemett: Thank you so much, David. It's a pleasure to be here.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Dave Polykoff: Wonderful. And I love this topic too, because credibility is a huge part of personal branding. We were talking about in the beginning of the show here about how for coaches, consultants, you know, it's very, it's a growing industry. So how do you kind of stand out and show that you are, you have the chops and you are who you say you are.
[00:01:16] So I'm excited to get into that, but first let's just kick off with the, the big question, the overall question of how do you monetize? What do you do specifically?
[00:01:23] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, I love it, Dave. Thank you. And it aligns beautifully with what you were talking about with what you do, because you talked about, you know, attracting the right people, converting them, convincing them to work with you and so on. And there's so much of that that takes so much effort. Um, and what we try to do is make it simple.
[00:01:38] I don't do difficult. Um, we just make it really simple for people to, to level up their credibility as an award winner in their space. And the most interesting thing we find is that people don't realize. How many awards there are out there? Um, we at the Audacious Agency have a list of about 270 awards.
[00:01:57] Um, that's just on our list that we work with. [00:02:00] Um, and every week we're adding new ones to it when they come through. So there's author awards, there's book awards, there's speaker awards, there's There's thought laterwards, there's innovation, there's business, there's individual, there's industry, there's local, there's just so many of them.
[00:02:14] Um, and it's not until you start looking at it. It's a little bit like, when um, you have a favourite car and you want to, you want to own that car or I want an Audi or I want a BMW or whatever and all the sudden, they're everywhere aren't they. It's that reticular activation in your brain. Um, it's very similar with awards.
[00:02:29] When people start thinking about it, all of a sudden they notice there's all these awards out there that they could be going for. Um, and once you realize the leveraging power of that, I call it branding by association, Dave. You know when you've got partners like Intel Inside or, um, when Adidas and, um, Apple joined together or Nike and Apple joined together and there was that branding association that they had together, um, that lifted each other up.
[00:02:53] When you associate yourself with an awards, um, be that the Stevie Awards or the Globey Awards [00:03:00] or your local chamber awards or whatever it is, or your industry awards, all of a sudden that levels up your brand, which is really cool. So it's that branding by association. And I've got a really funny story.
[00:03:11] Actually, there's a guy in Australia, Matt Elderton, who He's got a, um, a networking community called BX. It's a little bit like BNI, just a little bit less rigid. Um, it's only Australia based at the moment. But he's got the BX Awards. Um, and we were talking about awards at a conference one day where we were both speaking.
[00:03:30] And he told me he previously had a Subway franchise. And he went to, um, the Subway Conference with his team and they had all the awards nights and everything else. And he got one of the team members to take a photograph of him just holding the centrepiece from the table. So it was like a candle and flowers and so he's just holding it.
[00:03:47] He's got a nice suit on and he posted it to social media and said, you know, congratulations to all the winners, it's really awesome to be here tonight and so on. And immediately he got people congratulating him on his [00:04:00] win. And all he was doing was holding the centerpiece from the table, right? He hadn't even won an award.
[00:04:04] So, so just being there, just associating himself with the awards for the industry was enough for people to think he was an award winner. So there's so much leverage that you can have. But yeah, that's what we do. We help people enter, win, and leverage business awards in order to grow their profile and get seen and noticed.
[00:04:22] Dave Polykoff: It's funny you mentioned, uh, speak about that because, I mean, even when you see a, a, a movie trailer and it says like Academy Award nominee. Or grammy nominee, uh, just the idea that you were nominated, you didn't win, but you were nominated is like still special enough, uh, to be, you know, highlighted for, for many people.
[00:04:45] So yeah.
[00:04:47] Lauren Clemett: When you see those movie posters with all the laurel leaves all over them, you know, um, Sundance Academy, Nominate, all this stuff. Um, I remember I once arrived in Guangzhou in China in the middle of the night, just walked off the train and out [00:05:00] into the street. And I didn't speak a word, I still don't speak a word of Chinese in real life, I can say hello I think is about all I can do, and thank you.
[00:05:06] But anyway, but above me, right in front of me was this massive big pink billboard with Chinese figures all over it and writing and so on. And it had um, what looked like the shape of a woman and I thought oh it's either a beauty salon or an injectables cosmetic surgery type place or whatever, you know.
[00:05:21] But, it had these little laurel leaves with these Chinese characters inside them along the bottom and I just went, there you go. If you're gonna Um, do anything from what you're listening to this podcast. If you've won awards, don't just stick an award on your website, put it inside the laurel leaves and if you haven't won, if you've just been nominated, put in the laurel leaves, nominated.
[00:05:40] People don't even read it. They just see the laurel leaves and they think, wow, you've won awards for what you've done. So there's that real, um, I call it neuro branding. It's an amazing science where you can actually tell people's brains What you want them to feel about your business and about your brand and it's a really cool way to do it.
[00:05:56] But yeah, a lot of those nominated movies for Oscars were better than the [00:06:00] ones that won. So, you know, use it. Leverage it.
[00:06:04] Dave Polykoff: So who would be, what is typically the problem people are facing when they're coming to someone like you? Why are they using your service?
[00:06:12] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's the age old, um, three part thing. Uh, number one is time. They just simply don't have the time. Um, if you're a thought leader or a coach or a leader in your industry, chances are you're incredibly busy. You're coaching people, you're building your business, you're looking after your clients.
[00:06:30] You don't actually have much time to go out there and promote yourself. And when you look at what has to happen for awards, a lot of them are very rigorous and we only use the ones, we don't do the ones where you pay two and a half grand and you've won. Um, you know, they're just, they don't have any integrity.
[00:06:44] Right. You actually have to apply, you have to nominate yourself, you have to write some words, there might be a video required, there might be interviews, or a support doc, and it just becomes two time, you know, it's just crazy, no constraints, and there's always these crazy deadlines. Um, and human beings will leave things to the last minute.
[00:06:59] [00:07:00] So time's a big factor, um, number two is they just don't know what to do, they don't know which awards to go for. They don't know which categories to go for, um, for example, the Asia Pacific Stevie Awards are open right now and we're helping people in Australia and New Zealand to attend to those. There's 150 categories.
[00:07:16] You know, so they just get really overwhelmed, so that's the, the second reason why people don't enter. So time and overwhelm. The third reason they don't enter, and this is the saddest reason, is they don't think they've done enough. They, they, they have that imposter syndrome, you know, they're not, they don't think about what they've achieved.
[00:07:33] They, they think, and this is a misnomer, people think that you have to have had massive financial results or huge profitability or you've scaled up by 150 percent in order to enter awards. Would it surprise you to know, Dave, that about 95 percent of awards out there don't ask for financial information.
[00:07:52] They don't need that information. So your accomplishments could be the fact that you survived COVID, could be that you've pivoted and adapted your business, [00:08:00] that you've created some new software, that your team has stayed with you for 20 years. Um, that you've innovated with a new program. It could be the results of your clients, which is a really cool way to win awards, because then you're able to share that with your clients and talk about the wins from their point of view.
[00:08:16] So it could be that you've increased your clients businesses or you've helped their lives. Um, don't get me wrong, every single award entry definitely needs to have accomplishments. You can't just say, oh, we've had a cracking year. You know, you've got to actually provide some dot point, this is what we've done, you know.
[00:08:32] It's not about telling judges, it's showing them what you've done. But you don't always need to have had massive financial gains. Um, with business awards especially, the judges, they know. It's not all rainbows and unicorns in business. It's like this, it's up and down constantly. But they want to see the challenges you've had and how you've overcome them.
[00:08:52] So, um, so yeah, so those are the three reasons. Not enough time, I don't know what to do, and I certainly can't write very well, and, um, and I don't think I've done [00:09:00] enough. More often than not, those are the reasons why people come to us because they need our help.
[00:09:04] Dave Polykoff: So what's like the, if you were to summarize, what's kind of like the, the main value of winning awards, because I know we've kind of talked about the idea of like, you can win award, not really promote it or whatever, but like, where, where does the value in having that award show its head and its ROI?
[00:09:24] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, nice. I love that because it's a lot of effort and there's entry fees and there's time and there's cost and what sort of stuff to enter awards. So good question. Um, one of the main things of winning awards, A, is the confidence that it gives you as a business leader and a business owner. And I can't understate that enough because, oh my goodness, the personal development that we've seen with our clients, when they stand on an international stage and they raise that award.
[00:09:52] and talk about what they've achieved is phenomenal. Um, well, one of our clients purposely showed up [00:10:00] late to an awards event one year because she worried that if she won, she'd have to get up in front of a room full of people and give an acceptance speech. And she just couldn't deal with that. Right. So she came late, she won and I had to go up on stage and get a trophy for her and gave her a nice speech and so on and all about her and so on.
[00:10:17] And I messaged her, where are you? You know, your award is here. So she turns up. She's sort of dressed up but not really, you know, she just really wanted to go home and sit on the couch, but she had this award. To her credit, a couple of months later, she then came with us to the Stevie Awards in New York.
[00:10:34] And she stood on stage and she accepted her gold Stevie Award. She was still shaking, she was still palm sweaty, didn't like the idea of being there, but she did it, and you could see her personal growth and development. And now, to her credit, she's all over Instagram, she's all over Facebook, she's doing videos, she's, you know, she's out there pushing a business.
[00:10:52] So, so that can't be underestimated, the power of your own self confidence, when you look at an award and go, [00:11:00] hey, An independent panel of experts has judged me worthy of an award, and it happened to me. I, I first entered awards for my own business back in 2016. Um, and at the time I thought awards were just a big ego trip.
[00:11:14] I thought, you know, I'd, I'd worked for advertising agencies where they had walls of certificates, you know, and bins full of trophies and all sorts of things. And I just thought they're a big ego trip. They're just, I don't need that sort of validation. But when I entered and I got the judges feedback.
[00:11:29] Which was telling me how good my business was and the solution that I was providing and encouraging me to keep going and giving Me some real positive feedback That made me go. Oh, maybe there is something in this Maybe I am doing a good job and it's really weird that I call it I don't know if I can swear on the show, but I call it the itty bitty shitty committee You know those little voices inside our heads that tell us we're not ready.
[00:11:52] We're not good enough Someone's gonna you know, have a crack at us. We've got all these haters The minute that starts to happen, it ekes away at our own business [00:12:00] performance, because we don't have that confidence to get out there and do amazing things. And the minute you get an award, you look at them on the shelf and go, I did that, I won those trophies, you know, there is a reason why I'm here.
[00:12:10] So number one, um, for the business owner, thought leader, whoever you are, author, That's a huge part of self development as a business entrepreneur and a leader. Secondly, Dave, it reflects on your business, on your team, on your brand, and it just levels you up. And if you are trying to get selected, so if you're going for tenders or grants, if you're having to submit proposals, um, if you're a speaker and you're having to put forward your, you know, your CV or your brochure, Or if you're working even in a business and you want to get that promotion to be able to have on there, here's all the awards that I've won for what I do.
[00:12:46] And if you've got a committee that's got to decide who they appoint, they're going to go with the people who are credible because they don't, you know, they want that risk factor to disappear. And the minute you say, you know, I've written a bestselling book or I've got an award for what I do. There's [00:13:00] that level of, you know what, I can trust that I've got someone who's an expert in front of me.
[00:13:03] So there's a huge amount that comes from it, but the, the leveraging and the ROI, um, is incredibly valuable. And the nicest thing is as well, it lasts a long time. I don't know if you've got a favorite Olympian, but we all, you know, Usain Bolt and all those guys been around for years. There's a guy here in Australia, his name is Stephen Bradbury, and he won an Olympic gold medal for speed ice skating.
[00:13:29] From Australia, where it, we never get ice, right? So that tells you how far out of his normal comfort zone he was. He was running dead last for the entire race, getting further and further behind. On the last lap, all four athletes in front of him tripped and fell, and ended up in the barriers, and he sailed across the finish line.
[00:13:51] to win his gold medal, right? Stephen Bradbury. It's called the Bradbury Effect here in Australia. Ideally, just be resilient. Keep going and eventually you'll win, right? [00:14:00] He won that back in 20, I think it was 2002 or something like that. It was really early on, about 20 years ago. He still talks about it. He gets booked to speak on stages.
[00:14:08] He's got a business called Last Man Standing. He's got a beer brand, um, called, a lager called Last Man Standing, a book, and he still talks about it 20 something years later. So you can leverage your awards for a very long time as well. They've got such longevity, it's amazing.
[00:14:25] Dave Polykoff: I mean, talk about personal branding, having that last man standing
[00:14:29] Lauren Clemett: Isn't that clever? He's awesome. I love Stephen, he's just the best.
[00:14:33] Dave Polykoff: So sounds like you have a lot of kind of history and passion around how to kind of grow your online or just general personal brand profile, specifically through awards, kind of give us the story behind how did you get into this area of personal branding?
[00:14:50] Cause it's very niche and yeah. What was kind of the origin story of how you were able to start this, this company and really get into awards?
[00:14:59] Lauren Clemett: yeah, [00:15:00] absolutely. Well, as I say, I've been in branding for a long time, since before the internet, which shows how old I am. Um, I worked with world leading advertising agencies. So I remember working at Saatchi and Saatchi in Wellington, where they were one of the top ten creative agencies in the world back then.
[00:15:15] Um, Kevin Roberts ran the show, and it was just an extraordinary time to be there. Um, they had a little room called the Creative Lounge. And it was, um, like a place where creatives could just go to chill out. We used to use it a lot for briefing. So we would get the, the brief from the, um, from the, the manager who'd gone out to the suit, who'd gone out to see the client come back and meet the creative in the lounge and brief them on what was needed so he could come up with some ideas for the next crazy campaign.
[00:15:41] Um, more often than not, it was just used by, by me to go in there and have a quiet space. 'cause most of the creators ride down in the bar or in the coffee shop or whatever. But anyway, regardless, so in this little room, and it's a tiny room with a couple of nice leather seats. Um, lounge sort of seats, and this beautiful, um, coffee table.
[00:15:58] It's like a kidney shaped [00:16:00] coffee table, 1970s style, inlaid with PowerShell. It's just a beautiful table, and on the walls are all these certificates. Like the ones on my wall here, but there's so many certificates, they're right up against each other, and there's no more room left on the walls to put any more certificates.
[00:16:14] There's no more space. So they installed these spikes that were poking out from the wall, and they were basically impaling the wall. on to these spikes, because they just had too many certificates put in frames on the wall. And they had big bins, like Oscar the Grouch, you know, garbage bins. Those big, you know, overflowing with Cans Lions and AD& ED pencils and all these trophies.
[00:16:37] And I used to go in there and just think, this is just over the top. This is, it's a big ego trip. I really don't know if I'm comfortable in here. Um, and I really didn't feel comfortable with awards. I thought it was all about just talking about yourself too much, and I'd never been brought up in that sort of household.
[00:16:52] Um, you know, I was always told pride comes before a fall, you know, all stuff. Um, but then, one of the awards we [00:17:00] did win while I was there was an effectiveness award. And I was working a lot with the direct selling part of the agency, so direct marketing, all the stuff that goes in envelopes and in people's letterboxes and so on.
[00:17:11] But they had a really cool campaign that Um, that ran in multiple languages for the telecommunications, uh, brand there in New Zealand. And we won this award for its effectiveness on the number of sales that it actually created. And that, to me, said, now there's something in this. Because this is telling me, this agency is actually getting effective results for its clients.
[00:17:33] And that's why we're getting more clients. And they were getting more clients because they were winning awards. So, to me, that was a bit of a brain change. And then when I won my own award, back in 2016, a Silver Stevie Award, for my own approach to personal branding, something I'd created, that Um, didn't exist before.
[00:17:51] I'd created it totally out of my expertise for personal branding based on my knowledge of how you build a brand. And my program won a silver Stevie award up [00:18:00] against some rather large agencies. And the judges were saying to me in that feedback how important this was. That changed my mind completely. And all of a sudden I thought, there's something in this.
[00:18:12] Um, so a friend of mine and I ran a, um, a lunch in Brisbane. And we said, anyone wants to know anything about entering awards, come along, have a lunch and we'll tell you a bit about it. And we've got a couple of award winners who'll talk about, you know, the effects of what they've done and so on. 150 people showed up.
[00:18:29] And we went, oh, there's something in this. So we started the Audacious Agency. So it's a pretty awesome, um, niche as you say to begin. It's a very positive niche. But it's also one of the best things about it, I think Dave, in terms of leverage, is when you sit somebody down and you make them reflect on what they've achieved over the last 18 months, and you take them back through their diary and you talk about what happened.
[00:18:56] The reflection on what they've actually accomplished and the [00:19:00] realisation that they're doing amazing things is pretty extraordinary. Even just doing that for yourself is amazing. Um, and then seeing them obviously get nominated and become a finalist and win awards and um, and just level up is amazing.
[00:19:14] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. I love how kind of therapeutic sometimes it can be. And, you know, you talked about getting that confidence from winning, but sometimes just going through the process of remembering can be, you know, a confidence booster,
[00:19:25] Lauren Clemett: Absolutely. Because we, we're so much, we work on today and tomorrow, don't we? We don't think about what we've achieved in the past.
[00:19:31] Dave Polykoff: Right. So we know now kind of the importance of having an award for our personal brands, standing out credibility, confidence. Let's talk about how we actually. Get those or find and get and earn those rewards. First step is how do we know what types of awards are right for us in our business?
[00:19:54] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, great question, because there are so many of them. Um, the first question we always ask is, [00:20:00] why? Why do you want to enter awards? What's the purpose? What are you trying to achieve? Um, what is it that you want to be recognised for? Um, now there are certain timelines, there are certain windows, so if you're an author, for example, most, uh, book awards are looking for books that have been written in the last two years.
[00:20:15] So if you've just launched a book, it's an ideal window for you to get into a lot of those book awards. Um, many of them also do have legacy awards, so if you've only just heard about awards and gone, I wrote a book 14 years ago, um, you can still enter that, but it'll be a legacy award. So it's just a different category.
[00:20:30] Um, but there is a window for start ups. If you're still in start up phase in the last, um, 18 months, 2 years. Often start up categories are free as well, which is really cool. Um, so you can enter a start up category, um, or if you've launched a new product or a new business. We've had a number of people win awards for products and services that don't exist.
[00:20:49] So, they've, they've won awards for concepts, um, for patented products. So by the time the, the product comes out, they can put on the packaging that it's an award winning product, which is really [00:21:00] cool. Um, the lovely Kim Lee Sumner in New Zealand, um, Um, created an entire program for helping women in corporate, um, shrink that gender pay gap.
[00:21:10] It was called She Prosperity. It's a whole process that she developed, and she won a gold Stevie Award, um, a few years ago now, before she'd even launched her business. So, um, it just levels you up, it levels your program up, and it gives you a really awesome way to launch things. Um, think about categories that suit your audience as well.
[00:21:29] So it's not just about what you're trying to be known as, but what makes the most sense to your audience. So Dave, the last thing I'd be suggesting to you is to enter an AusMumpreneur award. A, you're not a mum, B, you're not Australian, do you know what I mean? So think about the eligibility criteria. But also what makes sense.
[00:21:44] So do you want your, your audience to know you're a maverick or is that a little bit too, you know, out there and outrageous for your audience? Would they rather you were a thought leader or a manager of the year? Um, is it an innovation in some way that you've created something where you've got results in [00:22:00] some way that no one else has achieved in the past?
[00:22:02] You might look at, you know, awards to do with the impact that you're having. There's lots of social impact awards out there. The easiest thing to do is Google it. Just Google what sort of award you want into Google, um, and you can either put your location in there, um, although just a little bit of insight here, I actually find that people say, Oh, I'll dip my toe in the water.
[00:22:23] I'll just enter the local awards to see how I go, or the industry awards. So I'll enter the real estate awards or whatever. Um, I actually find it's harder to win a local or an industry award than it is to win an international award. And the reason for that, I believe, is unconscious bias on behalf of the judges.
[00:22:43] Because they know you. They know the local town. They know the people. Um, and you know, I've, I've, I'm a bodybuilder. I've done bodybuilding before. And I know it's all a big game. You've got to absolutely get to know the judges. You've got to, you know, you've got to play that game for them to even notice you on stage.
[00:22:59] So, um, [00:23:00] So there is a little bit of that unconscious bias that goes on with local awards, I believe. Um, because they're not as removed as an international award, where you're being judged by judges who've never met you, probably don't even know where you live. Um, so yeah, so don't be afraid to enter those bigger awards, um, and to go a bit further afield as well, if you want to get results.
[00:23:20] But certainly entering the local ones is a great way to just experience what it's like, go through the process, attend the gala event, even if you don't win. It's one of our biggest tips that we give people, because like that story I told you about Matt, just being there on the red carpet and associating yourself with the awards is a great way to grow your profile.
[00:23:39] Dave Polykoff: I love that tip. Yeah. If that's a, you're in, you're in the right room. That's like half the battle, right?
[00:23:44] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, absolutely. And what a cool way to spend your marketing budget. I'm going to get dressed up and have a glass of champagne on a red carpet one night. I mean, how awesome is that? Lots of photos. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:23:55] Dave Polykoff: So we found the ones that we want. What's important [00:24:00] when applying how do we best put our best foot forward to give ourselves the best chance to actually win the thing?
[00:24:09] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, it's what it comes down to, doesn't it Dave? It's like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to win it. I'm not going to mess about. I mean, I know it's nice to be nominated, but I want to win. Number one, give yourself plenty of time. Um, as a judge of awards, you can tell when someone's rushed it. Um, so if you've got a deadline, so say for example it closes tonight at whatever, don't bother, it's too late, it's too much stress, don't even try.
[00:24:30] Um, what I would suggest is check out the awards, find the deadlines of when it's going to be in by, and work backwards from that, because you're going to have to gather a lot of information and data. Um, you're going to have to figure out what the questions are, get them all written, and Then you have to edit it all down, make sure you've got all the dot points in there to do with, you know, substantiating what it is that you've done.
[00:24:49] Um, you've got to create a support document. And then you've got to upload it and get it in there. Um, so yes, it takes a bit of time, longer than most people think. Um, and as I say, human beings leave things to the [00:25:00] last minute. So give yourself plenty of time. Um, answer the questions. It's such a silly thing to say.
[00:25:05] But, um, um, When you get the questions, and every awards will give you, here's what the questions are, they'll either be available online or you can email them or whatever, um, or log in and get all the questions, print them off and put them in front of you and just get a highlighter and highlight the key words and phrases that they're asking you for, because they give you tips inside the questions as to what they're looking for, it's so important to do that, and if they say they want Results or they want the impact that you've made or they want the optimization or the innovation Don't talk on about how long you've been in business And and who you work with and so on if they're asking you for optimization And how did you improve things and all you talk about is is your life?
[00:25:47] You're really not going to win an award you need to answer the question and get really clear with it Don't be afraid to use dot points in your entry Just really well written introduction that's compelling enough for the judge to go, wow, these people are really interesting. I want to know [00:26:00] more about them.
[00:26:00] And then dot point, dot point, dot point. Here's what we've achieved. I can say it's not about telling the judges what you've done. It's showing them what you've done. And if they ever say, um, if you don't want to, it's okay. You know, it's not, it's not compulsory. You don't have to put a support document up.
[00:26:16] It is absolutely ideal to put a support document up because awards often only give you like six or 700 words. to put an entry in. And if you've got amazing case studies and you've got graphs and data and videos and you've been in the media or you've been on podcasts and all that sort of stuff, put that in your support document and refer to it in your entry.
[00:26:36] Um, and make sure you've got one support document. Don't overload the judges with lots of different documents. One support document, just one PDF, everything in it. Use Canva, put links in the document, but make it really easy for the judges to choose you and to put you through into the next realm. So we have, um, a 97 percent success rate at getting people through to finalist stage in awards.
[00:26:59] Um, and it's [00:27:00] basically down to the fact that we follow the rules.
[00:27:02] Dave Polykoff: Love it. So let's say we follow these tips. We've won the award. What are some common mistakes people are making after they've won the award that aren't help benefiting their personal brand?
[00:27:15] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, I love it. I'm going to go back even further. A lot of, the major mistake that people make is they wait to see if they win before they leverage it. We help our clients leverage from the minute you nominate. So the minute your submission is in, You should be going out there and saying, I'm in. I'm in to win.
[00:27:32] I've put myself in. Tell the story. Talk about how fearful you are or concerned you are about, oh my goodness, I'm not sure if I've done a very good job, or exposing your business to judging. Talk about it. Get real. Um, thank the team. Thank the clients. Thank people who've even got you to the point that you've got enough to nominate yourself for an award.
[00:27:49] And, and it's amazing. Even just saying, let's, that same thing we had before, an Oscar nominated movie. People still go and watch them, right? So, So get it out there, the minute you submit it, don't wait [00:28:00] until they're announced. Because it could be months before that happens, right? And you want to have at least 2 goes at leveraging this award while it's happening.
[00:28:08] So, when you're nominated, go out there on social media, thank your clients, send an email. Um, a lot of them, um, with awards you have judging, so you have not just the judging from the judges, but also like people's choice voting. So you do want people to know about it if you're going to ask them to go and vote for you.
[00:28:24] So, um, yeah, so, so get out there as soon as you're nominated, as soon as your submission is in. And then again, when the finalists are announced, if you're a finalist, how awesome is it that we're a finalist, couldn't have got this without you guys, all the rest of it. Talk about your team, talk about your entry, repurpose your entry.
[00:28:41] So some of those really cool gems that you've discovered that you've achieved over the last Take the little snippets out and turn them into blogs, turn them into social media, you know, talk about them in your newsletters and so on. Um, put them up as case studies on your website. So, talk about what it's like to be a finalist and then definitely go to the event.
[00:28:59] [00:29:00] Um, build it into your budget. That you've got entry fees, that you want to travel, um, I mean we always go every year to the, um, Stevie Awards for Women in Business in New York. Um, that's a, you know, 10, 000 trip for a lot of people. So, you know, build that into your budget and leverage it like mad. So while you're there, do videos, have an acceptance speech!
[00:29:21] A lot of people go, oh I don't think I'll win, I won't bother writing anything down, I'll just wing it. You can tell when someone's winging it on stage. Now I'm a keynote speaker, I've got lots of confidence for speaking and even I have to practice. My acceptance speeches, because acceptance speeches, man, there's a lot of adrenaline flowing, you know, you've just won an award, you're in front of a whole room of people who don't really even know who you are.
[00:29:44] They haven't showed up to listen to you, because you're not a keynote speaker, but you are needing to tell a bit about your story, and it's all about you. So practice your speech. If you don't win, Still record your acceptance speech. Go live on Facebook and go, Here I am, I'm all dressed up. [00:30:00] Um, I didn't win tonight but I'm a finalist.
[00:30:02] I'm so proud of our team. You know, give an acceptance speech. Thank people for everything they've done for you. And leverage the heck out of it. Um, get that red carpet awareness. And um, and that branding by association, and then afterwards, keep leveraging it, keep doing Stephen Bradbury. Don't just stick it on the shelf and let it gather dust.
[00:30:21] Keep talking about it, repurpose your entry, talk about your journey. What was it like to enter awards? What has it done for you? How do you feel about that now, you know, two weeks later, three, three months later? Um, what's your, your, of all the awards you entered, what's your, the one you're most proud of? So really keep talking about your award winning journey as you go.
[00:30:39] Put it on your LinkedIn profile, put it on your email footer, put it on your website, put it on all your collateral, on your brochureware, on your, if you've got a product, on the packaging. Um, just make sure you've got it everywhere.
[00:30:50] Dave Polykoff: so I love that part too, about repurposing the content because obviously, Okay. In content creation, we're a big advocate for repurposing content. So this [00:31:00] is, it feels like a really good practice to like find the information about your business that makes great content elsewhere. So it's a good practice to go through.
[00:31:08] It sounds like anyway. Um, but the, the, that process. I think you at the top of the episode, you were talking about how it can be pretty daunting and you can feel overwhelmed. So walk us through again, like what specifically then do you do to help streamline that process, make it way easier for your clients
[00:31:29] Lauren Clemett: Um, well the major thing is we do it all for them, which is really cool. So we've got a very strategic approach, much as you do Dave. You know, as you say, it's, we find it really sad that people, you know, they've written amazing content for their awards, and they've seen it, and the judges see it, and no one else gets to see it.
[00:31:45] So repurposing it and doing, and using your services to do that, um, is an extraordinary idea. Um, The thing that we do for people is we have a very strategic approach. So, yes, we will do a one [00:32:00] off award if you really want us to, but it's not, we never suggest you put all your eggs in one basket. Just going for one award and then not winning it and going, oh, that didn't work.
[00:32:08] It's really not a very strategic approach to awards. Um, what we do instead is we start with a 12 month plan. So we map out what are all the awards that would be ideal for you over the next 12 months, what are the specific categories that you should go for, and then how you're going to create a way of leveraging that with content development, obviously working with the likes of you guys to do that, but also getting yourself on podcasts.
[00:32:35] So it's a whole strategic plan around that. And then once our clients have approved of that, um, we, we, that first part of it, it's very much, we talk about finding your up, your UPP, your unique profile position. So, you know, how are we going to uniquely position you? And which awards are going to be perfect for that.
[00:32:52] Once they've approved that, we then implement it for them. So every month we're entering an award for them. Um, they get leverage from [00:33:00] that. They get all the content from that. And then they get, hey, you know, we'll also write you articles and things like that for certain media. Um, if you want us to do that.
[00:33:07] But most of the time, it's about that consistency. It's a snowball effect. That people are starting to go, oh my goodness Dave, you've just been nominated for an award and now you're winning another one. And oh, next month, oh you're in another one. And it's like you just surround your audience. Um, with this level of credibility.
[00:33:25] Dave Polykoff: of that. So if people are interested then and taking next steps and figuring out one, am I even qualified? You know, we get a lot of, um, imposter syndrome. So I know people are kind of hesitant to even think that they. Deserve awards and such, but what are some next steps that you can kind of direct people to, to one, figure out if they're qualified, but to then work with you to help them earn these awards and grow their personal brands.
[00:33:51] Lauren Clemett: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we actually have a quiz on our website that checks how award ready you are. So it's free to do it, um, takes a [00:34:00] couple of minutes and you fill out all the information and it'll come up with either bronze, silver or gold. Um, and it'll give you what's missing or what you need. So if you've never done awards before and you want to know about it, or if you've entered awards and you're not really getting results, all you need Or if you've got some wins, but you're not leveraging them, it'll come up with a different answer for you.
[00:34:16] And at the end, there's a guidebook that you can download and it goes through everything that you can do. Um, and obviously on our website, there's all the information about our services and everything else. But I would encourage someone who's thinking about raising their credibility and their profile by aligning themselves with us.
[00:34:31] with business awards or with awards of some type. Just take the time to figure out what you really want to be known for, what your recognition factor is, and then go looking and do a bit of research yourself. Um, and you know, there's so many out there. It's just a case of figuring out what you want to be known for and how you want to position your brand and then finding the right awards to go for.
[00:34:53] Dave Polykoff: Wonderful. That's all for today's episode of personal brand blueprint. A big thank you to Lauren for being on today's show [00:35:00] and walking us through the power of growing our credibility through industry awards to learn more about how to launch, grow, and monetize your personal brand. Subscribe to the personal brand blueprint podcast.
[00:35:11] Uh, check out me, Dave Poliakoff on LinkedIn, as well as Lauren and check out Zen post. com for details on how we can work together directly. Links to all three of that, three of those and all links of Lauren's offers and social accounts will be in the show notes below. Thanks and see you on the next episode of personal brand blueprint.
[00:35:30] Lauren Clemett: Thanks, Dave. It's been awesome.
