How your personal brand shapes the way you show up as a leader

Adding that component to someone’s role with bringing in new business. Because I think for a lot of people or a lot of small businesses specifically, there is a lot of pressure on sales. There’s a lot of pressure on the founder to bring in the sales, and I agree with you. And that’s also an expectation that I have with my team, which is I incentivize them to bring in new business. I incentivize them through, you know, referral payouts and whatnot.

And it really is helpful and powerful, and I set the expectation that I’m not the only person that’s. Bringing in or responsible for bringing in new business to this machine. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback, to delegating and more. We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a new manager looking for some tips or a seasoned manager looking up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. I know you’re here because you want to be a better manager, but I also know it’s often easier said than done. That’s why I put together a scorecard of 20 things that you can do this month and every month to show up better for your team as a manager, from positive feedback to recognition, to honoring those working norms that we know we gotta do, but sometimes forget.

This scorecard serves as a checklist and accountability buddy to remind you of all those things you gotta do to be a great manager. Download your copy today at liagarvin.com/scorecard. Welcome back to the show today. I am so excited to have Hannah Nieves with me. Hannah is a personal brand and PR consultant and CEO of HN House and This Hudson studio. So Hannah is a multidisciplinary founder and CEO of a collection of brands that are centered around the idea of redefining the way we work and live.

She specializes in advising founders on their growth and visibility strategy, along with creating a business that aligns with their lifestyle design. She’s been featured in Forbes, NASDAQ InStyle, business Insider, and has spoken at Northeastern University Entrepreneurs Organization and the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center. So Hannah and I met a few years ago because I was a fan of her podcast and, and came on her show and we instantly hit it off and became friends and have been huge supporters of each other’s work ever since.

And as I was thinking about my podcast and talking with founders and entrepreneurs and team leaders, I was so excited to bring Hannah on to talk about really. How she thinks about building a great team and, and really supporting the business owner that she, she consults with and coaches on how to set up their teams up for success. So Hannah, thank you so much for coming on. So excited to have you here. Thank you so much for having me.

I feel like this is like a full circle moment because like about almost a year ago you were flying to New York to come speak at my retreat, so this is incredible. Yeah. Ah, well, and it was an incredible retreat you put on in the Hudson Valley, which is just gorgeous. And now that’s where you’re living, right. Yeah. Yeah, we just acquired 160 acre farm, so now people are gonna come to the farm. Oh, I love it.

Well, I would love to come back, so keep me posted. Yes. Awesome. So Hannah, you worked in the corporate world right before, before building your own business. I’d love to talk a little bit about that and you know, from moving from the corporate world to entrepreneur space and. What are some things that you applied or maybe like did not apply at all to, to building your own business? Oh, there’s so many things and so many lessons and I think, you know, especially in the entrepreneurial world, it’s easy to, you wanna look down on like corporate America, but I, I really took so many valuable lessons from corporate America that I apply my business today.

I think the biggest one in terms of like what I took is really just. The collaboration and connection that we have with the team. Cross collaboration is a big, big, big component of our team. So it’s not a top-down management approach. It’s more of, you know, what do you bring to the table? What are your thoughts, what are your perspectives? And it really just helps, you know, our projects thrive and flourish, which I really love and just increases engagement with the team.

As far as the things I did not take, I mean there definitely were several things I did not take. Which includes, you know, the top down approach. You know, my leadership style specifically is more of, I will roll up my sleeves alongside with you versus, you know, telling you what to do or, you know, talking down to you. And I think that’s, you know, a big component of the leadership style that I have, but also the leadership style that I try to instill within the team, you know, Yeah.

Yeah. I love that. And I think folks that are listening that are in the corporate world to, to bring that into the way that you’re managing a team, right, is like really having, I think the more bottoms up we can make things, the more open feedback, the more sort of, you know, not necessarily consensus based decision making, but hearing people out, getting perspectives involved before you make a big decision. These are things that small businesses can, can do because there’s fewer people, but that actually breed a really, really strong culture.

Exactly, and I think that’s like the biggest piece because when you, you know, go from say a team of 20 to now a team of three, right? The dynamics are very different. It’s a very small team and you still need to engage them the same way. You would still engage a team of 20 people or more. Yeah, absolutely. And I think a big piece of that is having such a strong vision and mission and values, and I know that’s so central to the work that you do and help other entrepreneurs think about is like, if we don’t really know what our work mounts like amounts to or, or how it really helps people or, or what it’s really about.

We’re just gonna look at it as punching a clock. We’re just, you know, collecting our paycheck. And I think for teams of any size, in any environment, the more we really connect the dots of, Hey, here’s your individual role and here’s how it matters, and is gonna advance the agenda of the company or the team. Now, everybody’s bought in is really kind of bringing that collective ownership mindset to the table. I love that. I love that.

And that’s a big component to our success as well. I mean, even with the business that we have, you know, most of our team members, and we have a pretty small team, but most of them have been here for over two and a half years at this point, which is great. You know, so they’ve been with me for a longer period of time where you’re so, you know, used to seeing people job hop every, every single year.

Yeah. And that saves money and time having to look for folks and hire and retrain and yeah, I mean I think the more we can, we can help people feel supported. Like you said, the longer they stay, the more you get that kind of institutional buy-in and knowledge and they’re helping to build the business because they really get what it’s about. I love that. Yeah, I love that. So you work a lot on, on helping folks build their personal brand, and I’m curious for folks managing a team or or leading folks, How does the personal brand play into how you show up as a leader?

There’s so many connection points to the personal brand and showing up as a leader within your team, because when you think about your personal brand, your personal brand is a representation of you, right? It’s an embodiment of all of the values, the mission, the vision and everything as a whole that you, you know, aspire to be. And I think that directly translates to how you, you know, operate as a leader because it’s who you are and as a personal brand, right.

You know, I, I always say, however you’re showing up on social media should be the same way that you’re showing up, you know, behind the scenes as well. And that’s a direct correlation. So for us, I look at the personal brand as being like the top of the pyramid, and then all of our brands are underneath. That, but even though we have these separate entities, right, that might not have my face tied to them, they still all embody the same, you know, code of ethics, the same values that the personal brand really creates.

I love that. When it comes to personal brand, what do you see folks get wrong as they’re thinking about it? Well, when it comes to their personal brand, I think a lot of people too, you know, if you operate a business under another entity, which I, I do, I have several businesses that are, you know, it’s not Hannah Nieves as being the name, and I think a lot of people think that your personal brand needs to be this completely separate thing.

You are an extension of your personal brand. So when it comes to mistakes that I see, You know, I think for a lot of specifically women, you know, coming from corporate America, I know I struggle with this, but there was definitely this sense of masking things on the personal brand to have a polished and perceived appearance. Right? Because we had to, you know, especially coming from corporate America, if there were things that were wrong, you had to leave it at the door as soon as he came in and.

For me, it was really hard to distinguish the, oh yes, I’m actually so much more than just a pants suit wearing, you know, business owner. And it took a lot of the unmasking and unlearning that I took from corporate America. But I think that’s another thing. I think a lot of people think that you need to have this super polished and professional brand, but your brand needs to represent you at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And as a leader, I mean, I. If we, especially I think if we knew folks before and then moved into a leadership role, and then they see us acting totally different, it’s like, well, like who are you? Like, and so I think really, I, I always encourage managers and leaders. I. To think about how do they wanna show up? How do they wanna be a manager? What is the ways they want to communicate feedback? How do they wanna show compassion and empathy?

How do they wanna express these values? Because if we haven’t thought about that, we probably are gonna lean on some sort of like behaviors that a manager in our past life did. And like it may not be something we ever would want to come across as. And I love that you call out, like it’s gotta be authentic to you, and people can see right through it if it looks like. You’re like playing a character of boss and, and they’re not gonna like that and they’re not gonna stick around.

And that it’s gotta carry through across, you know, if you, if you’re really not living your values as how you’re showing up as a leader of a team or, or know how you’re running a business, it feels inauthentic and, and people can see that right away. And they don’t wanna be a part of that. Exactly. And that’s the biggest piece is that people can sniff out BS. Very quickly and you know, if you are operating in a different way than your personal brand.

And I knew this happened to me because I consider myself a very funny person. You know, I have good humor and I wasn’t showing that through my content. And so when it would come through, you know, when I would see people in person or offline, you know, they would tell me, oh my goodness, you’re so much funnier than I, I. You would even expected, you know, and that was a kind of like a tipping point for me where I had to go through a lot of the, the healing and unlearning, which helped me become a better leader myself because now I am, you know, a walking embodiment of who I am online, what you see in person.

And it’s kinda like, take it for what it is. Yeah. And a huge piece of that is vulnerability. Like you said, it can be hard to, you know, show up and feel like, well, I don’t want people to judge it. Or maybe you just got used to communicating in a certain way. But like you said, people are gonna connect to you the best when you’re you. And it doesn’t have to be for everyone, but that’s how you find the best people to work with, right?

That really resonate with that. And so I think especially when you’re hiring folks or interviewing or, or connecting with clients, like it’s so important to, to bring that authenticity so that folks don’t think they got one thing and then, you know, it’s actually this other thing. And usually, you know, nine times outta 10, the more authentic and more vulnerable you are, the more people are gonna like you anyway. So it’s not really mm-hmm. You know, it, it can feel like a lot’s at stake or you can be nervous about it, but I think in general the authenticity always breeds more connection, so you really can’t go wrong.

Yeah. So in your consulting work, you know, you support entrepreneurs and business owners in building visibility for their brand. Mm-hmm. And I’m curious, you know, drawing a parallel back to, to leaders or managers, how do you, how can they help their own team members build visibility for their own work and their own genius and their own skills when it comes to your team? Your team is a walking billboard for your brand. And this is one thing that you know, I even took for my corporate days as well, is really creating just like a.

Standard of ethics. You know, when it comes to who we are and our customer service basics, and that is a big component to our brand, no matter what company or entity that you are interacting with. It’s really, really important that we are delivering best in class customer experience. So I take it very, very seriously. And part of that as well is, you know, as a team, we came up with, you know, what are the communication style and methods?

You know, how are we showing up on Zoom calls? You know, how are we interacting with clients? And so we created this through line of our customer service basics that now the team embodies. And that’s a big component, you know, for. Our brand as a whole. And so when they show up on social media, and that’s actually a, a conversation that we had, which was, you know, if you’re gonna use your social media as a tool, you know, that’s, you’re allowing clients to follow you and things like that, that you are, you know, holding yourself to a standard that is of the values of our brand.

And that’s totally fine if you want. To create a private environment for yourself online. But if you are choosing to be public in your social media platforms, that you are a walking embodiment of what the brand is because at the end of the day, if we have clients following you, you’re representation of our brand. So if you know, if you’re going and doing like KEG stands on the weekend, it’s probably not a good look for the brands as a whole.

So that’s a big component for us as well. We encourage our team to get out there, to share, to re-share, showcase the work that they’re doing as well, because it’s also part of their portfolio with us and their work, and we want to highlight that as well. Yeah, I love that. I mean, this is, this is really what the ops playbook is all about, that I support small businesses in building out is, you know, connecting the dots across values and then how that results in what priorities you set and how you build expectations off priorities, and how you assess performance and reward based on those expectations.

And like you said, the more clear you make it, The more everybody’s bought in. And I think one, one nuance here is like, I think it can feel like, oh, I don’t wanna have process, or everyone’s just, you know, we, I, you know, I just want it to be more casual. I don’t wanna be corporate, but what you just described, that’s not corporate at all. It’s just about clarity and simplicity and transparency so that people can be accountable.

And I think what’s so important about that is when we have that framework in place now, as you’ve said, people can, they can be creative in that space. Right. Creativity thrives and constraints. So now you’ve everyone bought in on, oh, okay, now I understand how we make decisions in this business so I can make the right kind of decision for whatever my job has. Or, you know, I think one, one thing a lot of business owners struggle with, I think is feeling like, They’re the only one that’s actively growing the business and they have these team members that they’re paying really well, but they’re not really taking that role.

But when you’ve done what you just described and, and what, again, like we, we map out an ops playbook is, you know, saying, Hey, here’s how you can work to build a business, which then results in your better career performance and pay. Like people see exactly what that looks like. Then they can do it. So that might look like, you know, promoting things on social media or, or connecting with folks for referrals or getting testimonials. And when people have those clear expectations, I.

Now they’re out there and, and you have folks on the ground, like you said, the billboard for your business. You have brand ambassadors at scale, really operating to help you succeed. I love that. And I love the point that you just mentioned about, you know, adding that component to someone’s role with bringing in new business. Because I think for a lot of people or a lot of small businesses specifically, there is a lot of pressure. So, On sales.

There’s a lot of pressure on the founder to bring in the sales, and I agree with you. And that’s also an expectation that I have with my team, which is I incentivize them to bring in new business. I incentivize them through, you know, referral payouts and whatnot. And it really is helpful and powerful, and I set the expectation that. I’m not the only person that’s bringing in or responsible for bringing in new business to this machine.

You are as well. And it’s something that, you know, as a business owner, it’s, it’s a mindset shift for sure, because I think for a lot of us, we think that we are the gatekeeper to everything. We are the end all, be all. And at the end of the day, that’s gonna be the quickest way to land yourself in burnout. Yeah, exactly. So if you think about, you know, a really highly operational business, they need to be able to operate without you, and that includes sales and operations as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and I think, you know, parallel to a team in the corporate world, like if you are, what often happens is you become a micromanager. You know, you’re like, if you have to be answering every question, making every decision, sort of like helping move the ball forward. People aren’t gonna be bought in, they’re not gonna work when you’re not monitoring them then, right? Because they think like, oh, okay, I’ll just wait for someone to come back and tell me to do this.

And so it is so important to set that expectation like, Hey, we are all accountable to this thing and here’s how I’m gonna help you be successful. And I think, I love to reframe accountability into ownership for folks, because I think a lot of times we think accountability means I’m in trouble, or I’m like blamed for something or it’s, or it’s bad. And actually, It’s that everybody understands what is their personal responsibility to like building this thing and making this thing better or to whatever we’re talking about.

And as you called out, when you’ve set those expectations. Yeah. Now everyone’s like, oh, okay. Like I see this is part of my job. It’s not just like a nice to have thing. It’s not just something that I’ll do if I have time. No, it’s actually part of the baseline expectations. It’s not even about, it’s not even going above and the beyond. I think that’s like the ideal, right? Is that you say like, Hey, Part of your job is to be doing, like, you’ve, you just called out, like growing the business, bringing in customers, talking to people, like retaining clients, whatever that looks like, so that people don’t look at it as an afterthought.

And later you’re like, well, hey, wait a second. Like, I can’t do this myself. Yeah, I love that. Love that. So what’s something, as you’ve now been managing a team and, and gone through hiring and, you know, motivating folks, like what is something that you wish you learned sooner in the, in the whole process? I wish, especially in the process of growing a team that, especially as a, you know, perfectionist or recovering perfectionist and type a individual, and I’m also an Enneagram one, so I’ve went through so much healing myself as an Enneagram one, and if you’re familiar with the Enneagram as a whole, obviously there’s so many different personality assessments.

Enneagrams at their highest are very organized, very structured at their lowest. Can be really judgmental if people are not at their standards. Mm-hmm. And that is something that I see a lot of founders make when they bring on teams is that they think that they’re. Team is supposed to be a mini them. And that was a big mistake that I made because I used to make hires based off of that, where they had to have the same qualities as me, when in fact, I don’t necessarily need you to have the same exact qualities of me.

I need you to be smarter than me. I need you to know more than me. And that’s something that I’ve really taken into account is that. I will hire people who are the experts in their field because I want, I want you to lead me in that sense. Yeah. You know, with your expertise. So that’s a big one as well. Not hiring people who are specifically like you, hiring complimentary skillsets. I also love to go through personality assessments before I make any type of hire, so that way I can understand the communication styles on the team.

Yeah, and this is the big one. No matter if you have one person or five people, Everyone’s going to communicate very differently. We have a team where there’s open communication and if you are really shy or a little bit reserved, it might not be a good fit because we are just very like go, go, go. But also very honest with our feedback and you know, kind of don’t hold back in that way, in a good way.

But we are very open and transparent because we wanna get to this. To the end goal. Yeah, so there’s so many lessons that I took along the way, you know, in the beginning of the journey of hiring full-time team members, this was about two years ago, I had to hire four full-time team members in a matter of like three months. And it was the most stressful point in the business, cuz mind you, we were in year one.

Yeah. So that, that type of growth was really stressful at the time. I made some bad hires. I learned the hard way, and you know, since then now I’ve taken this approach of making hires very strategically. I do not move quickly when I need. Need new people. I look at, you know, what are the systems in place? Do we have tech and systems and automations in place? First, do we have things documented so when that person comes in, they are sent up to thrive?

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, and that’s a huge time saver. I think, you know, I always love to remind people things like mapping out some of the processes really lightweight. What are the systems, what are the two, three steps that we wanna follow? This is a huge time saver cuz like you said, if you, if you made a higher or that you’re feel like, well, this wasn’t quite the fit, or that takes them weeks and weeks to ramp up, that person’s getting paid.

Just to kind of like, be like struggling to figure things out. Like, wow, if you, if you had thought about. Your plan for what does the first 30 days look like before that person starts? Now you have that person functioning like at, you know, at least, you know, 50 to 80% that first week, maybe a hundred percent by week too. Like this is a huge, huge savings that you know you can reinvest into your business of not having someone be unclear.

And a lot of people make a decision, like if they have a long-term future in a company within the first few days. If it’s disorganized or unclear or you feel like, oh, like what’s even going on here that, you know, nothing’s, I don’t know how to get things done. I don’t know how to be successful. That employee’s gonna have a really bad taste in their mouth as they start. So really having that clear from, from the get go.

And I love your point on really being honest with yourself as a, as a business owner or a manager. Like, do I have the support in place to hire this person? Am I gonna be able to give them what they need to be able to be successful right away? I mean, I think if a lot of us asked that question, we’d have such a different answer than maybe like, oh wait, I have this huge need. I need it right now.

But like, is that need gonna exist in six months? You know, if I have to have someone pivot into a different kind of role, is that the right person? And so I think that’s also what I love about your point of really assessing, you know, is this person gonna be, you know, really adding to the business? Is it adding another kind of personality? Is it adding another kind of, you know, is it really complimentary with the communication style that we know is really critical or a success?

Because a lot of times in a small team, people have to flex into different areas and then that can also be a part that gets, that gets tough if someone was like, great in one role, but there’s not a need for that anymore. And then how do you adjust? And I think as small business owners, it’s very easy to, you know, create like a Frankenstein role, right? Or just like kinda piecing things together. They’re doing a lot of things.

And one of the things that I, that I said to my team when, in that hiring process was you, for you to succeed in this role, we are an ever-changing company, right? Like we’re a startup, you know, we’ve been in business for almost four years at this point, and, you know, small businesses. The failure rates of small businesses are extremely high within the first five to 10 years, and it’s, it’s a real thing. So one of the, I guess like questions or statements that I used to say during the interview process was like, you know, what’s your comfort level with change?

Because what I’m hiring for you right now, Is and will evolve in the next six months. You are not gonna be doing the same exact thing that you’re doing now in the next year. And you have to be comfortable with that. And that’s something that I was very straightforward about. If this is a role where you wanna clock in and do the same thing every day and clock out, it’s not the role for you. And I’ve been very upfront with those expectations because in the beginning I didn’t, and that’s where I made the wrong hires because of small businesses, right?

Like. You’re wearing a lot of hats. Yeah. Your team is wearing a lot of hats, but it’s almost like you need to create that structure, but also that flexibility to have these team members grow and evolve as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in, in any kind of business right now, we’re having to do more with less. We’re having to. You know, if, if you lost some team members and you can’t rehire, maybe folks are having to flex in different kinds of roles, so, mm-hmm.

I am seeing this a lot, even, you know, in corporate or in bigger companies where, you know, the need to really think about how can I support people for the long haul? Is that having a professional development plan? Is it getting a mentor or a coach? Is it having them, you know, get more training, whatever it is, so that people can evolve with the, with the business and the company, because we’re needing to, I think, Be more, a little bit more general is a little bit more T shape than we used to have to be before, which absolutely, which can be tough.

But with the right support, I think people can definitely do it. Exactly. You know, the economic changes have impacted so many different types of business owners, and I think there’s a drastic shift in small businesses even now. And with the rise of AI and Chat GPT and a lot of technology, you know, there’s a lot of competition with employees when it comes to being able to leverage these tools right now. Mm-hmm. I think, you know, one of my employees said to me, Hannah, is, is AI gonna take over my job?

And I said, no. But someone that can understand this and use this to enhance a role will. Mm-hmm. And not to say in a way where you’re gonna get replaced, but more so in a way where like you are gonna be triple threat here by being able to leverage this. And we’ve been helping small businesses leverage AI and ChatGPT, we have a weeklong bootcamp next month. And people, these small business owners are now able to compete with larger organizations that have more spending power, have more teams because they are able to.

Like efficiently use their team to market their businesses. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing for small businesses right now. I love that. So say more about some of these programs that you’re working on. I’d love to hear you know, what you’re working on that you’re excited to share with our listeners. What you got coming up. Oh my goodness. So many things. So, you know, depending on where your business is at, we have. Several different ways in consulting.

I do it for you, I’ll advise you one-to-one. In house is where we have our high level masterminds, typically for those business owners who are clearing the six figure mark all the way up to seven figures. What I’m really excited about is in July we are gonna be hosting a Chat GPT AI, what’s called Camp AI Week Intensive. So we’ve been testing this with clients and we’re basically taking you through the ins and outs of the tech stack.

What to do, how to streamline your processes so you can start to compete with maybe those larger organizations that have more marketing spend than you do, and you can still have the same, if not more output. So that’s something we’re really excited about for next month. Oh, okay. Well I will absolutely include that in the show notes. That is so awesome. Yes. Any, how do folks get in touch with you? Follow me on Instagram. You can follow me personally.

It’s @HannahNieves. You’ll find all of our companies there. There’s too many to name at this point and I’m always on Instagram, so feel free to shoot me a DM and I’ll voice memo you back. Awesome. Anything you wanna leave our listeners with before we wrap up? Ooh, so many things. I will say, especially as a business owner, just trust your gut, trust your intuition, number one. I love that. That’s where it all starts and I think I love it.

I mean, because I know for myself as a habitual overthinker, that’s where everything starts to go sideways, so I love, love that point. Yeah. And trust your gut and all else follows. So good. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you so much. This is so awesome. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple Podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.