This time it's personal.

Personal branding.

That is whether you realize it or not, you already have a personal brand.

Uh, we'll be exploring how your personal brand can adapt as your

business inevitably changes over time.

On this episode of architecture business club.

The weekly podcast for solo and small firm architecture

practice owners, just like you.

He wants to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

If your small practice leader or sole practitioner in architecture,

struggling to find clarity or reach your goals, consider working with me.

I have a personalized one-to-one support through coaching consulting and mentoring.

And this tailored approach helps you navigate your unique path to success.

Whether it's growing your practice work, if your hours or building

your team, I've got you covered.

Just click the link in the show notes to book a call with me to discuss

your options or email Jon that's J O n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

For more information.

Now let's discuss personal branding.

Laura Pearman is an internationally recognized personal brand consultant

with over a decade of experience helping leaders create impactful

and authentic personal brands.

Based in the UK, Laura specializes in bespoke strategies combining creative

vision, We've sharp business acumen.

She's known for a quirky vintage style, straight talking, Northern

charm, and ability to bridge the gap between business owners and creatives.

Laura's work has empowered countless leaders to elevate

their authority, embrace their uniqueness and drive results.

To grab a free copy of Laura's personal branding checklist,

head over to laurapearman.

com.

Welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Thank you so much for having me.

I have to say I have been, I've been binging some of this content, John.

And I'm not even an architect.

I've been loving the show and, um, I'm so happy to be here today.

Oh, it's a pleasure to have you here.

Thanks.

Thanks for tuning in.

You know, I appreciate the support.

Um, Laura, before we dig into our topic, um, I know that

we're both huge music fans.

I know we have a shared love of music, you've rekindled something that you did

back in your school days, haven't you?

You've, you've started playing the saxophone again.

Yes.

So I was a very lucky child in that my parents decided it was a

good idea for me and my sister to learn an instrument alongside John.

Dancing and school.

And, um, they bought me a saxophone when I was nine and it was like bigger than me.

I had to look at on the bus every twice a week, usually to go to

lessons and then also to be involved in school orchestra and school band.

So I've got this brilliant saxophone and I've just moved it

from house to house over the years.

And, um, About this time last year, I was like, I should get back into that.

Like, I really wanted to find more fun in my life.

And I was like, damn it.

Like, I, I really love playing the saxophone.

Um, so I'm slowly getting back into it.

I want my new goal with it, John, is to find, I want to find a bunch of other,

like, Badass women who want to set up a northern soul slash ska band with me.

So if there's any females out there who are into that vibe, get

in touch because I'm ready to jam.

I'm not, I'm not really good, but I'm ready to jam.

You're willing, you, you, you know, you're willing to, to

give it a go and see where it leads.

It's very much, um, like muscle memory.

And honestly, the saxophone is similar to like the bass, you know, you're just

kind of doing like, dum, dum, dum, like real easy beats, but you, you style

it out, like, that's all about it.

That's the way I am.

So it's not like you have to do, um, you know, Baker street or

I was just going to say, I was going to say, yeah, if we, we doing

Baker street yet, or is that going to be

Yeah.

Give me, give me a couple of years.

Oh, cool.

Well, I mean, as you know, I'm a, play the guitar.

When I was younger though, like the, the first instrument I learned when I

was a kid, my, my parents, they paid for some, um, keyboard lessons for me.

We had like an

that's a good instrument to learn.

Well, it would be, but at the time, like the, the teacher, I think

he's I think he mainly used to play in like the local working men's clubs.

And, um, like the kind of repertoire of songs that he taught me.

I, I didn't know any of them.

I think there was a couple of ABBA tunes, which was the most, I mean,

I can't stand ABBA, I'm sorry if there's any ABBA fans here.

Um, but there was stuff like free coins in a fountain and things like that.

And I'm like, oh, this, this isn't for me really.

But you know, who knows if I'd have stuck with it, then maybe I might be half

decent at that, but you know, neverminds,

My, um, my saxophone teacher was like, The white

version of, um, you know, Bleeding Gums Murphy on the Simpsons.

He had like a normal hairstyle in the front and then like a little

jazz wrapped tail in the back.

And he had the worst breath ever, John.

And he would like, he would, he had a pencil and you'd be like, Dumb,

dumb, don't like to be the metronome.

And then it was like, you constantly would give your

feedback and you'd like step back.

There's something intrinsically connected between my playing the

saxophone and his bad breath.

geez.

Yeah.

Thankfully, uh, none of my music teachers had that issue.

So I

Oh, well then there you go.

in that respect.

I was lucky.

We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about personal branding.

And we're going to look at how.

How you can adapt your personal brands as your business

inevitably changes over time.

Now, some of the regular listeners might recall that we, we did a great interview

some time ago now with Bob Gentle.

I think it was episode number six.

And Bob, he is, he's a friend, a mutual friend of ours.

He's a fellow personal branding expert, and he really, you

know, introduce the concept of personal branding in that episode.

So what I was wondering is building on that, what do you think are,

is the biggest misconception about personal branding and how do you

redefine it for your clients?

Yeah, that's a good way to build on all the

amazing things Bob talked about.

Um, I have three areas.

So I think the first one is that so many people, and I don't know if

this is a British thing or what, a lot of people will think, Oh, that's

far too audacious for little old me.

I don't need to worry about that sort of thing.

Um, and then the flip, like the, the next stage of that is because But I,

I don't want to be like a Kardashian.

I don't want to be oversharing my life.

The, the whole idea of being in this reality show that I've

created myself gives me the aches.

And then the other side of it is that I think a lot of people out there mistaken.

Personal branding and personal branding strategy for creative

fluff and a little bit of nonsense.

So those are usually the three pushbacks that I get when I'm chatting

with people about it at, you know, a networking event or something like that.

It's, it's one of those things, and Bob talked about this too, you have a

personal brand, whether you are willing to recognize it and accept it or not.

And your personal brand is very intrinsic to, uh, like intrinsically connected with

your reputation, but it's more than that.

It's something that you can, if you craft it and take ownership for, for it,

you can use it to propel your career or your business faster to higher extremes.

So it's very much about.

The empowering part of accepting it that I think people have, um, misgivings about.

I love that.

That, um, it's the thing about personal branding that as you see,

you mentioned that word creative fluff was that phrase that you use there

that it's, I think it's sometimes.

People feel like they have to show up in a certain way that's perhaps

different to who they actually are, when in actual fact, the, the best

personal brands and, they're authentic.

That's the thing, isn't it?

That if you can accept, like, if you can have that self acceptance of who

you are and be comfortable in your own shoes to show up as who you are.

Then I think, I think that's one of the best things about it, but

Yeah, I always, I always say, John, it's about avoiding this

idea of creating a schtick, you know, I remember in my early days of business, you

would see these people who had a schtick, a networking, you know, you get up to

do your 30 seconds or 60 seconds, you, your intro bit, and there would be these

people in the room that had these cringy schticks, and I think people can, um, you

know, think, oh, well, they're, they're doing that personal branding thing.

And it's like this silly memorable thing.

It's absolutely not that you're right.

It's about being authentic and being self aware to think, right, how can I use

my actual personality to propel myself?

yeah.

I love that.

You've, you've summed that up really nicely.

So what unique challenges do you think that architects and architectural

designers in particular face when it comes to scaling their personal brand

and how can adapting their personal brand help them to, to stay competitive?

Okay, good.

I think really like most markets, it, you, you've got to.

Bank on the fact that it will change, you know, if, if you're under the, um,

the misconception, that thing you're in your wheelhouse and that's it.

And you're set now to retirement, frankly, you're kidding yourself.

I think adaptation and evolution are integral to success.

You've got to be willing to be aware of what's going on and then

think strategically about how you're going to use that to, to.

Help you on your journey towards your idea of success.

Um, I think a great way to put this in an architectural context though, is to use

the good old, um, PESL model in marketing.

Do you know that one?

So political, economical, social, technological, and environmental.

So.

For me, and I'm not in the industry, I think, um, the environmental factor jumps

out and you would, if you were doing a robust job on your personal branding,

you'd want to use all of those external factors when you're thinking about how

you're going to construct a personal brand, that's going to serve you well.

But for me, looking from the outside in, environmental seems to be like glaringly

obvious for all architects right now.

We're seeing more natural disasters now.

And when you think of that on a social level, it's going to, it's got to impact

the way that we build because we're now not building, um, we have to build

with this idea of defense in mind.

So from a, um, a construction point of view, that's going to be more

and more important as we progress down this, um, trend that we're

seeing in natural disasters, you can't deny that that's happening.

Um, I suppose the other side could be maybe more around the political

implications of that environmental factor.

You know, we're seeing predictions now that with natural disasters,

we're going to see mass exodus of humans from different parts of the

world to other parts of the world.

Now, from an architectural point of view, that means we're going to need even

quicker ways to build because we're going to have people moving in and out of areas.

So I think those That's just using one example to show you how you can apply

what's going on in the outside world.

And okay, hang on a minute.

What's my role in this?

Like, you know, it would be unrealistic to think I'm going to solve that.

But as an architect of our time, what are you going to do with your personal

brand and your business to affect some positive change in those realms?

I understand.

So, so what you're saying is those, um, can you remind me

of the acronym again that you

Yes, it's pestle like pestle and mortar.

Yeah.

So Yeah.

in, in building

so political, economical.

social, technological, and environmental.

Like, obviously you probably know way more than me, um, the technological

advancements and how that's, um, affecting the architectural space.

We've touched a lot on the environmental side and a little bit on the social

factor, but I suppose another social factor off the top of my head would be

People aren't moving out of homes anymore.

We know you're, we're getting this change now where things are probably returning

to pre war times, maybe, where older generations are choosing to stay at home.

And that's usually got something, it's heavily involved with them helping with

childcare for the third generation.

So you've got these multi generational houses.

Let's talk about that in residential architecture, like things are changing.

our personal brand and adapting our personal brand as, as

our business changes there, there's a number of factors there that you

mentioned that if we can share our thoughts on those, and we can talk

about those things from our point of view, Start conversations on that.

Then, I mean, that's, um, people will sometimes use that terminology

of being a thought leader.

Yeah.

I

sure if all the listeners are

don't even, yeah, you don't even have to be like an authority

or a thought leader on these topics.

You might decide that actually this is something that you're very curious about.

And your personal brand is going to be asking questions and facilitating

conversations about this, because you're sharing with the world that you're

actually on a quest to figure this out.

And actually over time, the cumulative impact of that is you're now the hub.

Because you're the one who's generating these conversations

and you're the conduit.

So now indirectly, you've become an authority.

That's a great way to go about it.

If maybe you're a little bit more introverted and you do want to be, or

you do want to take the leap or the risk of being the authority on the

political landscape in architecture, like that's a hell of a quest.

You might just be like a curious, bumble along with me while I figure this out.

That could be your main.

Narrative and people will absolutely love that because

they're going to relate to it.

I think that's the thing is that in terms of being relatable,

that it's far more relatable for you to show up online, asking curious

questions that other people might have in their mind, but might not be brave

enough to ask where you're just saying, look, I'm not saying I'm the expert

here, I'm just saying that I'm, I'm curious about this thing and I want to

open the conversation and be curious.

And our, our mutual friend Bob, Bob Gentle, he, he talked about

something similar and he talked about this idea of being the student.

And I love that because if you're somebody that is more introverted,

like, like myself, then it really helps get over, Some of those barriers to

showing up like the imposter syndrome that people often feel that stops them

from showing up Because it's like look you you don't need to be the expert.

You don't have to be the expert You can just show up and ask the

questions that other people are thinking and start some conversations

Yeah.

really

It's like, we were just talking about being in the pub, weren't

we, I think, before we hit recording.

It's that idea of being in a little gang in the pub and going,

have you ever thought about this?

It's just that, but on a, on a, um, a more public, uh, landscape.

We do that all the time, don't we?

Yeah, I love that analogy.

It's such a such a great way to frame it.

So Laura, what what are three of the most impactful?

Actions that architects could take today to align their personal

brand with their evolving practice.

If their business has been changing, what are three things that they could do?

Ooh, okay.

So maybe let's apply this previous example to build on that further.

Um, if you're an architect who wants to use their professional impact to

affect some positive change, um, in that realm that we've talked about, I think

the three steps that I would advise.

Doing together.

Or you could do on your own as a listener.

Um, is to really swat up, like become the student, like we've said.

So really swat up on what is currently happening?

Who are the movers and shakers that are investing money and time?

And maybe patents, inter, um, building materials and building ideas

based around environmental defense, what new inventions are going on?

and I'll see you You can easily become a very good student by setting

up a free Google Alert so that you get an email every week with all

of the latest news from around the world specifically on that topic.

So every week you have some time set in your diary where you just

consume and read and understand.

And I think the next step from that would be Taking that, that jump

to put your head above the parapet and just talk about it online.

So again, you can just be posing questions.

You don't have to be saying like, this is the way it is.

And I think that, and I'm going out on a limb and making this divisive declaration.

You could just be like, learn about this.

What, what do you guys think?

And then you might want to build on that and start facilitating conversation

so you could contact the person who's involved invented this incredible

brick or new type of cement or something that's flood proof and say,

hey, like, I'm going to be the host.

I don't know a lot about this, but you talk about this and you talk about that

and I'll facilitate this conversation.

We'll document it and put it out there.

Um, the next step from that, and I think Bob might've touched on

this, is to take all of that work.

And then position yourself in even more authority.

So you've been this conduit host now to build onto that and become like

a studious authority, gather all of that data up and create a white paper.

You might even want to commit to doing this big annual report every

year, that's completely free.

That gives the architectural community on an international landscape, all

of the latest, On this one specific environmental building for defense topic.

And I guarantee within three years, you're going to be like a world

thought leader because you're the one who's actually doing the work.

Um, Taking away that example, I think the first way to go about adapting

is to simply schedule in some regular non negotiable time with yourself to

really understand and go back into that student mode and understand

what's going on in your market.

It might be the market that you've chosen to niche into, um, thinking

about the great conversations you've had with, um, Janine and Fifi.

Um, it might be that you're in a market and from a business planning point of

view, you want to pivot and move to a different market for whatever reason.

That non negotiable, non negotiable time should be you learning about

what's going on in that market.

So things like who are the major players and what are they doing?

Do you agree with it or do you find them irritating and why?

Um, are there some developments going on and you know, how are the

consumers in that area behaving and how has that changed maybe in the

last 10 years and what are people forecasting on how their demands and

needs are going to change in the future.

And all of that information over maybe even a couple of months is going to

give you a lot of market intelligence to think, right, so what's my role in

this like soap opera, or what's my role in this theatrical production that I'm

saying I'm going to get involved in.

I love that you've, you've laid that out in a really

simple step by step way for us.

That's really great.

I like the idea of the, the Google alerts as well.

So that essentially the Google alerts, you can pick a search term and you can

set that in Google alerts and Google will notify you when that happens.

Search term is mentioned.

Have you ever tried this with your own name, Laura?

Remember.

Don't forget to download the architecture business, blueprint the

step by step formula to freedom for architects, architecture, technologists,

and architecture designers.

You can grab the blueprint without any charge@architecturebusinessclub.com

forward slash blueprint.

And if you enjoy this episode, then please leave a five star review or

rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

Now, back to the show.

Oh my goodness.

I don't, I think I'd need to hire a VA to do that.

I don't want to, yeah, that could be, you know what?

That would probably be a good idea to get updates on what, you

know, you could compare that data with your marketing or publicity

plan and say, right, did it work?

Like, did we get into Google alerts?

I used to do it around, um, my five personal brand themes.

So this is something I've spoken about before, and this is a little bit away

from the question we're currently looking at, but I used to have, um, five fixed

themes and that would be inspiration for me to create content about.

So it was yes, to do with my.

My profession, but also some of my personal, like I I'm obsessed with my cat.

So I would get like crazy news about, you know, trends in Japan

with cats and that sort of thing.

And that would be, I'd be like, Oh yeah, I could maybe talk about that.

Or maybe that's a quick Instagram story or something.

That's just showing the personal part of me to round out all of that.

The sales messages and, you know, calls to action, watch my latest

episode, all of that stuff.

So I think there's a few ways you can use Google alerts.

And the beauty of course, is that it's absolutely free and you can update

and change it whenever you like.

Yeah, I was just gonna say one of the amusing byproducts of Setting

your name as a Google Alert is you can find out about what all the other Laura

Pierman's in the world have been up to.

It's hilarious.

I get updates from you know, oh You know, you know, criminal John Clayton

has just been arrested for a third count of bank robbery in Wisconsin

or John Clayton has just won the welly throwing contest in wherever.

Honestly, some of the stuff is completely bizarre but it

always gives me a little chuckle

Yeah, that's hysterical.

I'm going to do it now.

You've inspired me.

Yeah, yeah, we'll do it after we finish recording, but, um,

yeah, it will, it'll give you a chuckle.

So, um, Laura, could you, could you perhaps share a client story?

I'm wondering if you've got a client story where someone has adapted their personal

brands and maybe that's helped them to grow their business, but maybe opened

up some unexpected opportunities too.

Do you have a

Yeah, yeah, I do actually.

Yeah, I, I'm currently working with a client that I think would

be a great example for architects or architects in practices.

So it's a, it's not an architectural business, but

it's a practice based business.

So I think there are some similarities.

Um, so this chap, has worked his socks off for the last five years

with a personal brand and he has built this really successful, um,

consultancy practice based business.

Um, and he's got himself in this champagne problem, right?

He's got more work coming in than he can physically do himself.

So he's just had to hire an associate.

And he came to me and he was like, the whole system's messed, Laura.

I've built this personal brand.

Now it's more than me.

What the hell do I do?

Like, he felt so irritated that the last five years of hard work, he

felt like it had come to an end.

Um, and so, It hasn't, but we're in this brilliant, um, phase.

We're not fully finished the work.

We're just getting into the meaty, nitty gritty part of it, but it's like

a wonderful Rubik's cube puzzle that I'm solving from a branding point of view.

So this is the other way, like we've talked so much in the show

about peace, people, people.

Recognizing and then adopting or adapting their personal brand.

This guy did all that.

And now he's like, shucks, what do I do?

So the upshot of this is the way that his business numbers are trending.

He could be very well in a position where he needs to hire a third or fourth

associate within the next three years.

And he's not sure now, does he want to sell it on or not?

What, how does that affect the branding?

So we're, we're going into like core brand strategy work and we're looking at

how we, um, capitalize on his personal brand to then emulate some core value.

So he does business in the way that he does business and that's

why it has been so successful.

And obviously the new associate that he's hired shares a lot of those core values.

So we're in a place where we're extracting and.

Condensing down, um, things that can be applied to an associate, um, like umbrella

practice brand, but the key jewels in that crown are going to be the personal brands

plural that exist within that structure.

So we're now going to develop this new associate as like internal training

and their professional development to carve out their personal brand.

And almost play in a, um, a charming and maybe a little humorous way, how

they differ from each other, but the ultimate point is to portray that they

are part of the same organization.

And the idea is when we get to the point that he's ready to hire the

third or the fourth associate, we will have all of that training collateral

figured out so that we can add them as a jewel to the crown, as opposed

to thinking, right, we've got Three or four different, very big personalities.

How the hell does this fit together?

So I guess the, the, um, moral of this is that you have a personal brand, whether

you, no matter how you slice it, like even if you're currently in a, in an associate

shaped business or a consultancy, what you bring to the table is your personal

brand and the businesses that are savvy to that and use that to their advantage

are the ones that are going to succeed.

Yeah, I really like that.

And the idea that.

It got to this point where this business had grown like bigger than him, that there

was going to be other people involved, but by identifying those core values and

getting, uh, finding alignment between those other members of the team so that

they, even though they have got their own individual personalities, that there

was that synergy there, that it all still kind of worked and, and fits together.

I think that's a really smart.

To use a terrible music example, it's the Spice Girls, isn't it?

Together they are the Spice Girls, but each one of them has their own identity.

It's the same.

It's the structure that we've had for, you know, superheroes.

If you want to use superheroes, it's the same thing.

They all are part of the same quest.

And I think there's something.

Charming and current with the zeitgeist of our obsession of going behind the

scenes and you know, this whole thing with the reality show side of things.

You could use that to your advantage and be, talk about the vulnerabilities

and differences, and maybe some of the flaws in that relationship, and people

will fall in love with that because they feel like they're on the inside.

Gone are the days that you can be just another drone in this faceless Associate

brand and, Oh, I'm one of the associates.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Those, those years are gone.

So I think it's specifically in architecture.

It'd be interesting to observe how certain practices capitalize on this.

Absolutely.

I I don't want to open up a bigger conversation.

It's probably a conversation for another day, but particularly the age of AI

that we're finding ourselves in and AI, particularly AI generated content online.

There's a sea.

Of content that's being creative, uh, created.

And a lot of it at the moment is not great.

And there's a real opportunity here for businesses to be able to stand

out by leveraging the personal brands, their own and of their team.

And what better way to stand out in, the marketplace then through, developing

your personal brands, like that's going to be the thing that's going

to cut through all the other fluff.

connection factor is only gonna get more

popular as a result of this.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

What question about personal branding do you wish that people asked more often?

And how would you answer it?

Ooh, I wish that people asked me more to prove it and what

I mean by that is I am Probably a bit of a rare bird in the branding

world in that I love the data.

I love nothing more than, um, chomping away on a lot of interesting data.

We talked a little bit about market external research data, but there's

other ways of, um, looking into data.

And I love the creative challenge of building an idea based on the data.

So I find it what like creative whimsy.

In the branding space and professionally irritates me because

I'm like, well, what's that based on?

Like prove it.

How, how, how can we break that?

And if we do it a different way, will it work better?

Um, Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm obsessed with that idea of things.

And I, when people say prove it, I'll be like, okay, let me show you the

spreadsheets of data that have drawn me to these conclusions, which have

then resulted in this creative idea.

And that's why I'm recommending that we go in that direction.

Um, you might say, I suppose it's similar to like doing a survey on

a piece of land before you build something in an architectural way,

I'm all about the detail nitty gritty of exploring that survey, and then.

The challenge of doing something creative based on that is what compels me the most.

I love that.

So it's still It's data driven.

It's not just all on a, on a whim, this, the guidance that you're,

you're helping your clients with and the way that you're helping

them develop their personal brands.

yeah, I love that.

And that's something that, as you say, um, many of the listeners

working in architecture will, will appreciate that approach because

they are, very much data driven.

Laura, we're going to start wrapping things up.

What would be the main thing that you'd like everyone to

take away from our conversation?

think that there's um, Maybe what they thought about personal

branding, maybe I've challenged that.

I think if anything, asking some questions about, Oh, hang on a minute.

Maybe this is for me.

Like if someone is driving their car or doing their dishes or whatever, while

they're listening to this and I've changed their idea that like we have

won the day as far as I'm concerned.

So challenging your initial idea or challenging your misgivings

about what is personal branding and actually Should I be paying more

attention to this for my own career?

That's great.

Is there anything else you wanted to add that we, we haven't covered already?

Um, I think we had a little bit of a chat and this is

probably in one of our phone call catch ups where you were challenging me to,

um, talk about the way that I do it.

So like the whole, the whole idea of how the sausage is made and you, we

talked about, um, you, you challenged me and I said, if I wasn't sure,

but I think I'm, I'm going to do it.

You said, could we do it?

Give the listeners a sneak peek into a part of your process

that maybe they are not into.

And that really stuck with me, John.

I haven't even told you this.

So that's been a seed in my head and I'm like, oh crumbs, like that's scary.

But hang on a minute, if that's scary, should I run towards it?

So I've been working away behind the scenes and I actually have an episode

coming out on my YouTube channel in a few weeks where I am telling the

world what my proprietary process is.

And I'm sharing all the work that I've done to prove it and

break it and build it back again.

Um, but we could maybe talk a little bit more about that.

What do you think?

I'd love to hear a bit more about

Yeah, so I think let's, I'll, I'll talk about one of the stages.

Cause I don't want to, um, you know, go on a drone on for hours.

Like you, if you're interested, I guess, go check out the episode, but I think,

um, one of the areas that I think people overlook and this is my approach as well.

So it is personal to me is I have this stage called the harmony stage.

So.

This is where I do some of that systematic research that we've just talked about.

And I take, I extract like personal branding inspiration from key people

within that same field and people who we have identified together are successful.

But then to build on that further, I will go and find like harmonious

counterparts in totally other industries.

It could be like a celebrity, or it could be someone who's like, I

don't know, in the beauty industry or something, and I will extract

a little bit from them as well.

And we get to this point where we have this delicious

mutant of inspiration, right?

And it's one of my favorite stages, and I don't think we talk about

it enough as personal branders.

So I thought it would be interesting to share that that is the lengths

that I go to when it comes to researching other people to formulate

a unique and, um, interesting.

Personal brand with somebody that I, when I work with them, um, it's a

little bit like you take all of these ideas and then you muddle it down and

then you shake it up and it's, that's the cocktail of personal branding.

That's a, probably the better way to describe it, but that's a

little bit of an insight into one stage of my proprietary process.

Oh, that's so cool.

Looking forward to the video.

I'll make sure that we share a link to your

Oh, great idea.

put that in the show notes so that if anybody's listening to this

episode and wants to go and check that out, they can go and head over there.

And it's Laura P creative.

On YouTube, but we'll put the link in the show notes.

Laura, there's a final question that I'd like to ask you.

Nothing to do with personal branding.

I love to ask this question to all the guests.

I love to travel and discover new places.

So, I was wondering if you could just tell me one of your favorite

places and what you love about it.

Uh,

So I'm like you, I did, I did the backpacker thing.

Um, and I've been on different adventures and I'm the same.

I get so much inspiration from going to other places.

Let me say, I think one country that I'd love to go back to.

Would be Vietnam.

I backpacked there, um, in like the early noughties.

So I'm sure it's very different, like nearly 20 years later.

Um, but what I loved about Vietnam.

So I kind of went around Southeast Asia.

I think you've done a similar route.

Um, and when I got to Vietnam, it was so different to the other countries

that I'd been to in Southeast Asia.

And that was Like really, um, inspirational.

Like I love the fashion.

I love the culture, the religions are different.

Um, the food is incredible.

So I would love to go back there again.

Um, maybe do it in a little bit more of a bougie way this time and stay

somewhere with like a nice bed and not in a hostel with a bunch of randoms.

But I would love to go back there for sure.

I'd love to go to Vietnam.

I did spend a good bit of time traveling in Southeast Asia, but the countries

I visited, uh, spent some time in Thailand and I visited Cambodia and then

I ended up, um, I flew out of Thailand to Hong Kong on my way to Australia.

So it was a really cool trip.

Um, but I didn't make it to Vietnam and I've not been

back to Southeast Asia since.

So.

I mean, if anybody's listening, and, um, I don't know, maybe they, um,

they're based out in Southeast Asia and they need some support with either

their personal brands or with their

Yeah.

or maybe they need a, a speaker at their,

um, retreat or something,

Or a saxophone player and a guitarist, John.

We'll go for that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

If they're going to pay for me to go over there, I will happily go and play.

They, they might not like what they hear, but you know, um, God loves a trier.

Absolutely.

So Laura, I've really enjoyed this conversation.

It's been so lovely to have some time to catch up with you and for you to

share your expertise about personal branding with the listeners of the show.

So it's been an absolute pleasure.

So thank you so much for coming along.

Can you please remind everybody where is the best place for

them to connect with you online?

Oh, I, well, I'm a bit of a social butterfly.

I think if you want to see the real Like, um, quirky side of me go to Instagram, but

if you're interested in what we've spoken about today, I think that link to the

YouTube channel is a great place to get a bit, a bit, a bit more of an understanding

of what I'm about, how I show up.

Um, yeah, YouTube or Instagram.

Fantastic.

And can you just remind everybody about your personal branding checklist?

Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

So that's currently at the very top of my homepage, laurapairman.

com and I wanted to gift people.

Um, Some quick insight like I'm very aware of how busy we all are and if

you've just listened to what we've talked about and you're like Yeah, hmm, maybe

I should do something about this But you have no idea where to start the whole

way that I've built the personal branding checklist Is that it's a condensed down?

snapshot Of where your personal brand actually is based on fact.

So you, you download it, you fill it in.

It's like a, a long tick sheet.

And then I give you some interesting follow up emails to help you

get an understanding of right.

What do all of these ticks and crosses actually mean for me?

So you're getting some practical insight, but the beauty of it is that it's rapid.

So, um, yeah, highly recommend that to anyone.

And it is completely free.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Brilliant.

Thanks again.

Thank you so much, Laura.

Thanks, John.

It's been a pleasure.

Next time on joined by Derek Tim's to discuss

common outsourcing mistakes.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of architecture business club.

If you liked this episode, think other people might enjoy it.

Or just want to show your support for the show.

Then please leave a glowing five-star review or rating wherever you listen

to podcasts, it would mean so much to me and makes it easier for new

listeners to discover the show.

And if you haven't already done, so don't forget to hit the subscribe button.

So you never miss another episode.

If you want to connect with me, you can do that on most social media

platforms, just search for at Mr.

John Clayton.

The best place to connect with me online, though is on LinkedIn.

You can find a link to my profile in the show notes.

Remember.

Running your architecture business.

Doesn't have to be hard and you don't need to do it alone.

This is architecture business club.