Latest / The Bigger Stage w/ Matt Stone / Intimacy at Scale: The Future of Personal Branding | Kait LeDonne
Transcript
- Edited_BBR Pre-Launch - Kait LeDonne === Kait LeDonne: [00:00:00] And so now I would say those offline quote-unquote relationships are not just correlation, but causation to how impactful your brand is online. And I see this all the time with executives where they post something and it goes gangbusters. And people say, well, why they don't have that big of a following? And I always say, no Kait LeDonne: their networks and their relationships are so tight. They're so tight that that really is the X factor of a personal brand. If you foster those kinds of relationships offline, it will become that accelerant online, and I've never not seen that be the case. Matt Stone: Welcome to the Building Business Relationship Show. I'm Matt Stone, and before we officially launch, we're exploring what matters most when it comes to relationships in business. These early episodes are about testing ideas, learning from great guests like we have today, and hearing what you think belongs in the conversation, so listen in, share your thoughts and help [00:01:00] shape what this show becomes. And joining me today, I'm so excited, is Kait LeDonne. Kait is a New York based personal branding strategist and LinkedIn coach who helps CEOs and teams turn expertise into visible authority and qualified deal flow. She's featured in CNBC Make its, sorry, CNBC Make It's how to build a standout personal brand. Bringing practical executive grade playbooks to a broad audience. Kait's LinkedIn audience and a build a brand newsletter community exceeds 50,000 professionals, if you can believe it. And I can believe it 'cause I've seen it. She has delivered training for organizations including the United States Air Force and Kia, and many more. Recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice and listed by Favicon among the top personal branding influencers in the United States. Kait is frequently cited in the media for clear results-driven systems executives can sustain. Kait, thank you so [00:02:00] much for taking some time with us today. Kait LeDonne: Thanks for having me. I was excited when you asked. Matt Stone: Oh my goodness. I'm always excited to talk to you and especially today. So we're gonna dive right in as I promised, uh, with the question I ask everybody and all of these pre-launch shows, is there a relationship that really stands out, uh, especially a business relationship that was transformational for you? Kait LeDonne: Yes, and it's a relative, but let me back into this because when you ask what a business relationship is, and I say, oh, my best one was a relative like, okay, Nepo baby. Like that's not actually what happened here. So I was hummin' along in Baltimore, Maryland, and I knew I wanted to go out on my own. I was in financial marketing and I met with a wealth advisor, just, you know schlamel and schmazelen and schmoozing about town as one does. And he said, you know what? You really remind me of a [00:03:00] client of mine. She is one of Forbes highest rated entrepreneurs. She's a serial entrepreneur, she's a venture capitalist. Her name is Gina Dubbe. And I said. I think I'm related to her. And it was one of those relationships where you probably saw this person a family funeral like 20 years ago. Kait LeDonne: So what it was is our grandfathers were brothers, but because we have a big Italian Catholic family and everybody's spread out, um, it, it wasn't like one of those, it was my cousin and I grew up down the street. It was, I saw her maybe when I was 10 then got reintroduced to her through a business person. Kait LeDonne: And when I met her, I told her this idea of leaving corporate, to which my school teacher mother and my police officer father said, you're crazy. And she looked at me in the eye and said, well, of course it's in [00:04:00] our DNA. And that was really the first time that I realized, oh, I'm not some crazy anti whatever my very, you know, secure family is. Kait LeDonne: I actually have family members who have done this and hello quite successfully, and so she really fanned that flame and made me feel that it was the most naturally perfect thing to do and not some crazy idea, which is pretty much how my immediate family was receiving it. Matt Stone: Yeah, I, it's one of the most powerful things about relationships in general, and I love that you immediately kind of broke down that wall between business and personal relationships. 'cause a little hint is that, you know, relationships are really at the core relationships. Kait LeDonne: Right, Matt Stone: So the content, you know, Matt Stone: and they cross over. Matt Stone: I mean, what's more personal than your business? Kait LeDonne: Yes, exactly. Matt Stone: But I love that it, it was also a woman in your family too. That must have been especially inspiring, 'cause when you can see [00:05:00] yourself in that person, it doesn't it help with saying, oh my goodness, I could really do this and I'm not crazy, you know, it is very validating. Kait LeDonne: It, it really, really was. I do not think it would've been the same experience if he said, meet Gene Dubay. I guess Gene is still kind of a unisex name. I should have picked up a better one. Matt Stone: Pat. Matt Stone: I remember Pat from SNL? Kait LeDonne: I could, I could talk about how funny I found that movie when I was younger, but I won't. But you raised such a good point there because number one, the thing about Gina was when I met her, she had just sold her business for over 20 million or so dollars. Business number three, by the way. Kait LeDonne: Um, like not her first one. But she, our family came over from Italy and worked in coal mines in West Virginia. It was very much like the Italian diaspora of what happened. And she told me that her family was always talking about how her brother would go to [00:06:00] college and she had to have another plan. Kait LeDonne: And so not only was it that it was a woman, it was a woman who came from very like West Virginia, upbringing, was an engineer, worked her way through it, and then, no kidding, I think at this point has over 10 companies under her belt. Um, that meant something. Proximity to a mentor, proximity to how you see yourself in a mentor is one of the most fundamental indicators of success. Kait LeDonne: And for me, I was very lucky to have that quite literally in my family, but k kind of undiscovered until I was in my mid twenties. Matt Stone: Yeah. Wow. It's such an inspiring story. I'm wondering now looking, you know, all these years later and, and you've, you've done some pivots, uh, leaving corporate was step one, I guess, in that storyline and then you tried some other things and then as you do when you're an entrepreneur, you land somewhere else. Matt Stone: And [00:07:00] you're doing so well with your business now. How is your view of your relationships, um, changed as you have developed your business and grown? Kait LeDonne: It's interesting because I would say I'm firmly in a creator model now where, and what that means because it's still newer to, to folks, is that my content is a product. Communities are a product, courses are a product. I am creating things and building community around them. And it's interesting because when you go down this route that you could also call influencership, a lot of times people think, well, relationships aren't as fundamental to that as it is when you're building a more traditional business and word of mouth and all that stuff. And to a degree that can be true if you remove yourself and treat your brand as somebody who's growing an audience. Kait LeDonne: But first and foremost, I've always looked at my brand as somebody who's building a community, [00:08:00] and when I talk to people about building an online following, I think the people that do it the best, or I know that do it the best, they really look at building intimacy at scale and treating every person in their online community as a very core relationship and growing those in really smart ways. Kait LeDonne: And so now I would say those offline quote-unquote relationships are not just correlation, but causation to how impactful your brand is online. And I see this all the time with executives where they post something and it goes gangbusters. And people say, well, why they don't have that big of a following? And I always say, no Kait LeDonne: their networks and their relationships are so tight. They're so tight that that really is the X factor of a personal brand. If you foster those kinds of relationships offline, it will become that accelerant. Online, and I've never [00:09:00] not seen that be the case. Matt Stone: You always put things so well. I think about the feedback loop that you have when you have a real relationship with your community or with anybody and when they can give you authentic feedback about what they're experiencing and what their needs are then it's easy to offer them, you know, they want a peanut butter sandwich. It's like you don't have to like, brainstorm for days about what to offer. It's like, it's clear they want a peanut butter sandwich. You just gotta give 'em a really good peanut butter sandwich and they will take Matt Stone: it. I mean, it's right. Matt Stone: I mean it's, it's, it becomes much simpler Matt Stone: in that sense. Kait LeDonne: It also becomes a mission thing for me and an ethical thing for me. We're at a point Matt Stone: Yeah. Kait LeDonne: of what I would say, fragmentation of society because of social media where nobody can even agree what's up, what's down, and, and social media festers upon this and fosters this inarguably. And, I believe that it's contingent upon those of us who are in this space to really think about the ethical implications of that. Kait LeDonne: And [00:10:00] so you can create really hollow relationships and echo chambers where people are just jumping into comments and conversations to fire off their one-upmanship. Or you can be the kind of person that is treating again, your following as a community and having real dialogue with them and using social media in its purest form, which is to deepen real relationships, Kait LeDonne: not siphon off what real relationship actually means. But that starts with us, those who are engaging in taking responsibility in doing that. Matt Stone: What do you tell your clients in terms of the helping them with their personal branding and getting their message out and their brand out in relation to relationships? What message do you try and help them understand? Kait LeDonne: Well, I think the first thing is the order of operations of how relationships start to show up for your personal brand. There is this [00:11:00] episode of Sex in the City. I say it all the time, and for those of you who did not watch the original, I'm not talking about the terrible remake series. I'm talking about the OG Samantha was still in it series. She is helping her no name, aspiring actor boyfriend become something and she gets him an ad, uh, for, for Absolut Vodka. Roll with me, Matt. I promise I'm gonna land this plane, and Matt Stone: Oh, I know you will. Matt Stone: I know. Kait LeDonne: Um, he is in Times Square pretty much nude, in this giant poster that says Absolute Hunk. Kait LeDonne: And these gay men are in Times Square and they overhear them talking to each other and like, oh, the absolute hunk. Like, he's so hot and her boyfriend turns to her and says, I'm sorry. How is this helping me with my goal of becoming a prestigious actor? I mean, I really want to go for this. And she said, Kait LeDonne: let me tell you how this goes down. First the gays, then the girls, then Hollywood, and then of course later on in the episode, younger girls [00:12:00] flock to him and then Hollywood calls and he gets all these movies because he really enters with cultural force. Bringing that back to my CEO clients, some of whom have probably never seen that episode, they ask me, you know, like, when will I become a thing and how does this work with personal branding? Kait LeDonne: And I say first, the relationships in peers. Then the referrals then comes the media and the cold business. And the stronger and more robust that first part of it is the faster all those other dominoes fall. And so you need to realize, if you see, oh, this is great, and my family members and friends are coming up to me and saying, I'm seeing you online, that's my equivalent of the gays saying the absolute hunk. Kait LeDonne: It's like good. Because if those signals weren't signaling. We have another situation on our hand. These are indicators not the ultimate destination. And so that truly is what I tell them about relationships. That's one of the best things you can do [00:13:00] in building your brand is start to cultivate and fan the flames of that and encourage them to encourage that activity that you're generating with your personal brand, knowing that it is the first crucial domino to fall in a wave of influence. Matt Stone: I love that metaphor of the dominoes. I think of it like when you're building a big building, they're the pillars in the ground and they need to be buried deep in the ground and really solid and connected. And then the rest of it goes remarkably fast. That takes a while and you don't see any progress. Matt Stone: Right? And then it's the other stuff just kind of accelerates. Kait LeDonne: Well and to continue on that metaphor, if you don't have those pillars, you're building really a Matt Stone: Yeah. Kait LeDonne: house of cards on sand. We've all seen influencers who quickly shot up to, you know, a million followers and couldn't even sell them a t-shirt. I mean, there's documented cases over and over again. Some brands get really frustrated with them. Kait LeDonne: Well, that's because they didn't start with actual relationships and the trust that [00:14:00] actual relationships lend to your brand as you build it. Matt Stone: Okay. Just a couple more quick questions and then we'll wrap it up for today. Um, what do we need to be talking about that maybe we're not talking about or not talking about enough? Kait LeDonne: You know, you said we're not talking about enough. So immediately my thoughts around AI just went out the window. 'cause I think like I could, my ears could bleed from how much we're talking about that. And yet I still don't know if it's enough. I mean, people really need to realize that the whole way we think about work and what constitutes work is about to change and what is Kait LeDonne: your purpose if it's not so inherently tied to your work, which is about to be very disrupted, very disrupted in such a social way. I don't think that we are talking enough in a business context. I think big brains are, I think you see it, you know, politically and probably from a consumer [00:15:00] perspective, but still not enough maybe in key business thought leadership about how Kait LeDonne: fragmented society is. I really don't know if I see that enough in business conversations and when your audience or consumers can't even agree on what the color red is, I'm sorry, the best marketing strategy probably is gonna fall through because the whole premise, the agreement upon a shared reality is getting disrupted. Kait LeDonne: And so not to go into like these doomsday things, I think they actually lend us an opportunity to have another renaissance, if you will. We haven't had one an an an age of enlightenment in a really long time. I think that it's coming forth and in the year 2025, the age of enlightenment will constitute entrepreneurs and business people where, you know, back in it was artists and philosophers. Kait LeDonne: Entrepreneurs and business people have to be paramount to that conversation. So I [00:16:00] think those are two things we talk about a lot. And simultaneously, still not enough in everyday business circles. Sure. Maybe again, big brains behind closed doors are talking about them. I don't know if we're talking about it enough. Kait LeDonne: On the Everyday Business Podcast and how quickly that's gonna be felt. Matt Stone: Well put. Yeah, I think of the LinkedIn feed too. It's like there's certain things you can talk about on LinkedIn about business, but there's all this stuff that we don't have to go hyper political, necessarily, but addressing the fractured society that we're in, I think is critical if you're a business that wants to operate and, uh, the only, the only common church we have left is the NFL in America. Matt Stone: Right. And even that they wanna fight over bad bunny and stuff, but ultimately it's the only thing everybody watches now. Matt Stone: So, so in a business sense, you know? Yeah. How do you build. Your business, um, in a, in a garden that has [00:17:00] sections that are walled off from one Matt Stone: another? Matt Stone: Um, yeah. Kait LeDonne: That's right, and again, you can have the luxury of disillusion around that. What is that famous quote? I think Matt Stone: Oh Kait LeDonne: Ayn Rand who said Matt Stone: yeah. Kait LeDonne: I'm mispronouncing that, but was like, you can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. Matt Stone: Yeah. Kait LeDonne: And so we can ignore this or we can think, well, that's somebody with a higher pay grade in a much bigger brain's problem, but it will arrive to your business's doorstep way faster than you are prepared for it in ways you're probably not even expecting. Kait LeDonne: And so if you're not thinking about it and talking about it. It's maybe already too late. Matt Stone: I can guarantee you we are gonna prioritize this topic multiple times on this Matt Stone: show. I love that you brought it up and the way that you brought it up is so smart. No surprise there. I think that's the topic du jour. And even though we're talking about AI a lot, I don't know that we're talking about aspects of it and what our role as human beings and business owners and [00:18:00] and workers is going to be. Matt Stone: And it's not only about to change. I mean, things are changing now. Just look at the layoffs going on. Matt Stone: I mean, it's just, this is just one of the many, many first waves, Kait LeDonne: Yes. Matt Stone: So, okay. Great. Last Matt Stone: question. Kait LeDonne: I'm so glad we're ending on a positive note. Matt Stone: Yes. Matt Stone: And with that. Kait LeDonne: that 30,000 from Amazon. Nothing. Alright, let's wrap it up. A Matt Stone: Yes. The first wave on a tsunami, you know when the water kind of goes Matt Stone: out and you're like, what's coming? Yeah, I know, I know. It is a bit doomsday, but you know, it's an opportunity for us to make Matt Stone: a new world. And I think you, you talked about that a little bit. Alright. I've told you a little bit off camera about what's coming with the show that we're not revealing, um, based on what you know about the show and when we launch it. What's exciting to you about the launch of the Building Business Relationships Show? Kait LeDonne: The format. I, don't know how much I'm allowed to say about that, which is why I inhaled Well,[00:19:00] Matt Stone: There's no NDA here, so go ahead. Whatever comes to mind. Kait, I trust you completely. Kait LeDonne: I think that we are at a point where there is just such exhaustion with the typical podcast format. It's either a solo head pontificating or interview and, and it's all the same people that get interviewed, um, all, all the time. It's just like this big circuit of people. I think everybody knows what I'm saying, but when it comes to particularly business podcasts, the thing that they're missing is that people just wanna be entertained. Kait LeDonne: And if you nail that, you're gonna separate yourself. And so knowing how you're structuring this and not to flatter you 'cause you don't need that, but knowing your personality, I'm most excited for that because I so often find myself getting ready in the morning. This is when I listen to podcasts. We all have our time commuting to [00:20:00] work, and I get pulled between the pop culture podcasts that I know are gonna make me laugh before a really long day and keep things light and and fun and funny, or the deeper thinking ones. Kait LeDonne: And I don't see that there is that middle part of the Venn diagram for me to go to and say, I'm gonna really get something substantive here, but I'm also gonna be really entertained in a business format. Some podcasts like Smartless or something like it's entertaining. You do learn something. But I would still put that in like the squarely pop culture versus a business part of that. Kait LeDonne: So I'm just excited Matt Stone: Yeah. Kait LeDonne: for entertaining business. Matt Stone: You, I, I'm glad you brought up Smartless because it's one of my great inspirations, but again, that's Insider Hollywood, you know, that's an insider Hollywood show, so it's Hollywood elites talking to other Hollywood elites typically. And it's nice to get a window into that. But, um, let's make one for the rest of us, Matt Stone: so, Kait LeDonne: I don't want to have to choose between do I wanna feel [00:21:00] good and laugh, or do I wanna learn something Matt Stone: right, right. Kait LeDonne: that I can tactically use in my business? And so the new space for that is what I'm most excited about with this Matt Stone: Awesome, Kait, an absolute joy and a privilege to get to connect with you today. Matt Stone: Thank you. Kait LeDonne: Same.