Personal branding has become essential for career success in today’s competitive job market. However, many professionals find it challenging to build and maintain a strong personal brand. Are you effectively showcasing your unique skills and strengths?
In this episode, you will learn the key elements of personal branding. Our host and CEO, Porschia, alongside our guest, Orlando Haynes, will share their insights on why personal branding is vital for your career.
They will discuss practical strategies for creating a compelling online presence, engaging meaningfully on platforms like LinkedIn, and demonstrating your expertise. The conversation also includes advice on how professionals can distinguish themselves and advance in their careers through effective personal branding.
Orlando Haynes is a seasoned talent acquisition professional with 20 years of experience in shaping careers and fostering talent. As a 3-time published author, he offers insightful perspectives, actionable strategies, and motivational advice for job seekers and professionals. Through his writing, speaking engagements, podcasts, and leadership roles, Orlando is dedicated to empowering individuals to navigate their careers with confidence and purpose.
What you’ll learn:
- What personal branding is and why it’s crucial for career success
- The impact of personal branding on career growth and opportunities
- Practical steps to build and enhance your personal brand
- Strategies for creating a compelling online presence, particularly on LinkedIn
- The importance of consistency in your personal brand across professional and personal settings
- Tips for standing out in a competitive job market through effective personal branding
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Resources:
- Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about personal branding tips with Orlando Haynes. Orlando Haynes is a seasoned talent acquisition professional with an impressive 20 year track record of shaping careers and fostering talent. With a wealth of experience and expertise in the field, Orlando has consistently demonstrated his dedication to empowering individuals on their journey towards professional success.
As a three time published [00:01:00] author, his written works provide readers with insightful perspectives, actionable strategies, and motivational insights that resonate with job seekers and professionals at various stages of their careers. Orlando’s passion for education and empowerment is unmistakable. His mission to equip job seekers with relevant and actionable advice is at the heart of his endeavors.
Through his writing, speaking engagements, podcasts, and leadership roles, he continues to make meaningful impact, helping individuals navigate the ever evolving landscape of careers and life with confidence and purpose. Hi, Orlando. How are you today?
Orlando: I’m doing amazing, Portia. How are you?
Porschia: I am doing well, and we are excited to have you with us to discuss personal branding tips.
But first, we want to know a little more about you. So tell me about seven year old Orlando. [00:02:00]
Orlando: Wow. Yeah, great question. So seven year old, I was very active playing soccer. I was on the traveling team back then. And what that is, it’s basically you travel from city to city, state to state. So that was a very fun time where I was very competitive back then with my soccer career, and that’s really that’s all I was passionate about at that time, but that just developed and instilled in me, teamwork, dedication, hard work, resilience.
So I always draw back to those times.
Porschia: Yeah, and I don’t know if you’ve heard this I would guess that you probably have but I’ve heard that a lot of. Companies and organizations like hiring people who have the sports background and it doesn’t have to be necessarily collegiate or, professional level sports, just because of that dedication, the teamwork that you mentioned also, the persistence and motivation to keep going [00:03:00] even when it looks like things might not be working out.
Orlando: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s actually the model and framework. At least it used to be when I first started my career in recruiting with an agency. Their typical framework was, the young, energetic college grad that were, former athletes. So that helped them. They figured out that regardless of the ups and downs and wolves, they had the dedication to pursue their dreams.
Persist, push through more or less, they were self motivated versus needing external things to keep them going. So that is actually a framework for at least in that space. And obviously for sales, a lot of companies that have sales organizations look for those types of individuals.
Porschia: Yeah. So what was your first job, Orlando?
Orlando: So my first job was actually a lifeguard back in New York city. This was back in early high school days, probably a junior. I think it was coming up on a senior year, had to take a rigorous lifeguard [00:04:00] test, didn’t know how to swim at first, but you had to take several swim tests and survival tests in that space there.
And then actually I was a lifeguard for local pools in Manhattan. And so back then that paid pretty well, it was north of 27 an hour. So back in, the early mid late nineties, that was that was some pretty good money for high school kids. So definitely absolutely love that love the water.
I love going to the pool, things like that with the family but haven’t swam in a while, but that’s definitely the first career that I can draw from that was that got me certified in CPR, et cetera. So it was a fun time for sure.
Porschia: Wow. And I can tell a lot about you just from you mentioning that you didn’t know how to swim when you started that.
So that tells me that you’re very motivated and driven Orlando to even pursue that when you don’t know how to swim. I still don’t know how to swim. When you don’t know how to swim and then say, Hey, and I’m going to be the [00:05:00] lifeguard saving other people that, that, that speaks to your character and your mindset as well.
Hats off to you. Tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started, your own podcast.
Orlando: Yeah, so I’ll draw back to where I was my first career path. What I wanted to do early on, I really wanted to be a lawyer, but then I switched. And so I was pursuing the path of electrical engineering.
So I went to school, technical school, got my certification as a technician at first. And that was pretty much what led me to, my journey with partnering. are really engaging with a recruiting firm, had no clue what they were back in those days. And at the time I’ve remembered the experience going through the interview process, being led to the client’s office and just that whole process.
It was like a white glove concierge [00:06:00] service that this staffing firm provided me. And then lo and behold, six months after not getting the job, They call me back for an internal opportunity. So that was, again, 20 plus years ago where that initially exposed me to what recruiting was, what sales was, what negotiation, what business acumen was, professionalism.
So all these things were wrapped up in recruiting back then. And so I’ve never looked back ever since, but that was the first corporate role that I’ve experienced that I think really molded me into who I am today.
Porschia: Wow. And there’s a lot that people can take from that, but one of the things that I think along the lines of personal branding, talent acquisition, recruiting, is that, they called you back right later for that internal opportunity.
So I think people forget that. When they don’t hear back or they don’t get the job they forget that, the impression, your your reputation could definitely, live on [00:07:00] with people and they might think about you for another opportunity in the future.
Orlando: So even back then, before the word personal branding really was exposed in my world, that’s what that was, they remembered me just like you said hire was as a candidate. Staying professional, being honest with the recruiting firm, being on time to everything, delivering everything I needed to, for them to represent me.
And then lo and behold, like I said, it landed me an opportunity with the organization. But again, it was that personal brand, no clue what it was, but we’re doing it unbeknownst to us. And so that was a great experience as I look back on it for sure.
Porschia: Yeah. And you’ve been in talent acquisition for a long time.
So tell us a bit about your career in the field.
Orlando: Yeah, so I started off in staffing. So and for folks that are not familiar with what a staffing recruiter does, and now I’m in the corporate space, I’ll share a little bit about the difference. So back then, the staffing recruiter is focused on multiple disciplines.
with [00:08:00] multiple companies versus a what’s now called a talent acquisition or corporate recruiter to where they’re focused on one company, the company they work for and still could be multiple disciplines and opportunity. But back then it was definitely eye opening. That, Pace and environment was very what we call smile and dial where you would just pick up the phone, call a bunch of candidates that are in the system to try to match them to a position you had.
And then you would flip in the reverse and call companies to see if you can match, them to the candidates you have. So it was a lot of coming out of your comfort zone, being able to communicate with seeing people, HR directors. CFOs financial people, operations people. So it gave you a good breadth of skill sets as you were growing, and as I was developing, or should I say myself in that space, being young African American, you’re not necessarily exposed to that type of business atmosphere, but it was good, especially in New York.
So this was happening [00:09:00] in, in the heart of Manhattan, where it was. Close to the financial district. So there was a lot of professionals, but for myself, I wasn’t exposed to that up until I got into recruiting. So this was something that, that took a hold of me pretty quickly and I adapted. And so absolutely love the environment, a lot of smiling and dialing, like I said, making placements, making money.
And so through the promotions and from that, from as a desk recruiter, you tend to grow and you get promoted to what’s called an account manager. Now you’re strictly focused on sales, so now you’re developing even more skill sets that you didn’t know how to negotiate contracts and salaries and really talk and understand the ecosystem of a client, their culture, understanding how to sell your services and having those, commonalities when you’re approaching a new client.
So those were definitely skills that over time got better and better. But initially, Oh, gosh, it was horrible. It was horrible. But again, just the [00:10:00] persistence having my background as well. And prior to that, it was military as well. So it was just going through. The reputation of making sure I’m going to punch through, I’m going to make it.
I just got to stay consistent. So great time again, which led me into the corporate space now. So some tools and techniques that I, that stay with me to this day.
Porschia: Yeah. Yeah. You have a lot of great experience and a very interesting background. I would love to hear your definition of a personal brand.
What is it? Orlando’s definition of a personal brand.
Orlando: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I would say the quote I use is by Jeff Bezos and he says, your personal brand is what people say about you once you’re not in the room. And so what that speaks to is. Your work ethic, how you show up how do you communicate everything about you, both in [00:11:00] corporate America, but also this, the personal brand that’s at home.
What people tend to forget is that it should be the same across the board, but As we know, when we’re around our family and friends, we tend to let our hair down a little bit more, but for the most part, the core piece of who you are as a person of branch should stay the same. If you’re someone that people seek out information, which I’m sure, which led you into your career because friends and family came to you Porsche and probably said, Hey, how do I do this?
How do I do that? You’re educated. You’re doing this. You have a great corporate background. How do I do X, Y, and Z. And so you’ve probably found yourself always being the go to person. Now that actually is a core piece of who you are, which stays consistent no matter what in your personal life and professional life.
But the other piece of a personal brand is that you’ll hit a lot of business folks say, it’s an experience though. So what do they experience when you’re encountering you? So I’m very mindful of that not to seem, try to be overprofessional, but who I am is who I am. You’re going to get the same [00:12:00] person again, in the corporate walls in church out, out in the street, out at Walmart, whatever in a normal conversation.
So it’s a combination of what kind of I would tell you the experience plus what people say about you when you’re not in the room. So there’s an after effect. even after that encounter. Yeah, I
Porschia: love that definition, Orlando, how you put
Orlando: it
Porschia: together. That, that’s very profound. And yeah, to your point earlier about, what People come to you for naturally.
I was a problem solver. My parents would come to me, Portia. What does this mean? What do you think about that? What did they just say? Because we moved to Atlanta, around middle school for me. And the dialect was totally different, right? And then just. technology things. So yeah, I’ve been a problem solver and fell into that in my job and obviously am that as a coach and a consultant now.
So that’s a good [00:13:00] point. And I a lot of times encourage our clients to think about, what are those things that people naturally come to you for, to your point because I think there are so many career lessons that you can find in that. So why do you think personal branding is important?
Orlando: Yeah, so great question. So I will tell you that personal branding is not new. What I’d love to do because I’m somewhat of a business geek, so I’ll watch, global speakers so I can understand the language and what’s going on, even when if I’m not at that level. I still want to know what’s going on at that level.
And so what I mean by that is when I hear them talk or hear or see another business, interview, they’re talking also about personal branding and a lot of that’s coming from the business world. But when you transition that to personal, it’s not the logo, it’s not the color, it’s not the font, that’s not what personal branding is.
But the reason why it’s so important, it’s about exposure. All right. Now we’re [00:14:00] in a sea with the recent economic changes and what I like to call the career economy is that because there’s so much talent ready to be hired at this point, there has to be something else that you’re doing to make yourself stand out.
So that’s why I talk about, building a presence and not a profile. We can get into that later as well. But the need to. Bring more eyeballs and bring more attention to you is a hyper focus right now. It’s a, there’s different techniques to do that, but I like to again bring business principles and apply those to my personal career and see how that, propels me in my career.
So those things are absolutely needed to gain more exposure and in this sea of talent for you to, climb up the corporate ladder, whatever your aspirations are. But you absolutely need to be seen in this current climate.
Porschia: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I love the point that you make, and we talked to our clients about this as well, is you have to think [00:15:00] about your exposure internally, right?
At the organization that you work for, but then also externally, right? So what you’re putting out there that other people can find out about you, what people are saying about you to your previous point. So Orlando, you just mentioned it, but I know that you talk about building a presence and not a profile.
Tell us more about that.
Orlando: So I’m super passionate about leveraging the LinkedIn platform and mainly in his wife Portia because what other platform will connect you to the world as fast as it does in a matter of seconds, right? I can connect with a peer, someone higher up, someone on the way up in China.
India, Peru, wherever I want to connect with someone, you can do that in a matter of seconds. Thus creating more visibility around who you are, what you do, what you stand for in the skills you possess. So that’s a huge advantage. The [00:16:00] cool thing about it, right? For the folks that are a little timid, it’s absolutely free.
It costs you nothing to LinkedIn. And again, I think now when you think about from even just a recruiting space, About 85 to 90 percent of recruiters will pivot to LinkedIn to see what your profile looks like even after they’ve received your resume or even before as they do their searches on LinkedIn recruiter to find their candidates.
So there’s a reason why, there’s north of 900 million people. Who have active want to say profiles, but there’s a difference in who’s actually active on the platform. So that number is only around 3 million and that’s as of 2024, right? So 3 million people that are actively putting content out on a weekly basis.
That’s what they consider active. So that means it’s 900 and 900, 900 and some odd million that are not actively putting content out that frequently. The opportunity to [00:17:00] be seen is far greater. And so when I say building a presence, everyone has a profile, which is static, but to build a presence, you need to be active.
And so the opportunity is endless because 3 million sounds like a lot, but not compared to almost a billion people that are on the platform. So I think. By creating content, by creating value, will cause more employers and people to see who you are. This way it heightens your chances on landing the career, the job, the speaking gig, the book deal, whatever you’re looking for.
Skyrocket a lot more.
Porschia: I agree. I agree. And to your point about being active, I think sometimes people stop themselves from being active because they are so focused on the response. Meaning, is it going to get a lot of likes? Am I going to look popular online? And just the activity.
Is important because what I have [00:18:00] found I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time now, and I wouldn’t consider myself to have been super duper active until the last few years or so. And I’m not even like a posting every day kind of person. But I’ll say this. You have a lot of silent fans.
Everyone does. We all do. There are people who won’t like, who won’t comment on any of your posts, but they’re watching. They are talking about you. You’re developing your personal brand to Orlando’s point earlier about what people say about you. And it could be months. years down the line that they reach back out to you, or that, they talk to you in person about something they saw online.
When you say active, I want people to not get so caught up in the response of the activity, if that makes sense.
Orlando: Yeah, and there’s different ways to engage in a platform. You know this for sure from for being active on, and that’s how we connected, right? I would have never known who you are and vice [00:19:00] versa if we were not active on a platform again, a dormant profile does nothing for you.
So there’s the initial and you said the word comment, right? There’s ways you can start dipping your toe and what we call the content creation, space is by commenting on other people’s posts. Now, if you want to do that all day, for the rest of your life, that’s fine. No one’s telling you, you should do a certain thing, but there’s different entry points and as you get comfortable, you could become greater and more active and create more exposure, but you do it with intention.
If you’re doing it just because you hear some quote unquote expert or guru say, this is what you do to get X result. That’s not the case. Do it with an attention of you whatever your goal is, if that’s the line of job. And then once you land the job, that’s it. Then that’s it. You’ve done what you had to do.
Or again, book deal, whatever, speaking gig, et cetera. You’ve done what you had to do, but by commenting on the people’s posts, and I share this when I talk about it, you only need to comment on something that [00:20:00] resonates with you. Don’t go searching for everything that you need to, Oh my God, I need to spend an hour, three hours commenting on all these people’s posts.
No, I only comment on stuff that resonates with me. If it doesn’t, I just skip, I continue what I need to do for the rest of the day and there’s several others that we can touch on, but I would say that’s probably the first entry point where you’re not visible, you’re not having to think of what to say so much being a content creator, but I always say comment how you would, if you were talking to that person in person, say the same thing, you just type in it, hit and send and that’s it, move on with your day.
Porschia: Yeah, I agree. I think meaningful comments add a lot of value to other people. And again, still enhance your personal brand. I love what you said about commenting. Many executives and professionals I talked to are overwhelmed by the thought of personal branding. So how else can you recommend someone just get started with building [00:21:00] their personal brand?
Orlando: So if you’re looking to get started building a personal brand with a certain goal in mind, the other way, what I say is post a poll question. And this is for folks who say, I don’t know what to talk about. One tip I give folks is start with giving best practice tips with your experience from your industry.
Certain industries may be a little more restrictive, but even people who are in the financial space and financial services, they can still give. Best practice tips that are well known and you know that you can search and find out nothing that is proprietary to the organization. But again, you can start with a poll question, give them three options and let that run for two weeks and collect the data.
So whatever scores the highest, you can then start to build maybe 10 points from that question that you can build out and then start with just posting once a week. It can be a picture, what I call a static post. [00:22:00] that speaks to, the results of that poll question you put out there, or you can add some personal text to it, just sharing your advice.
Again, it always has to be positive. And I will tell you value. Now, if you want to be controversial, that’s you want to get all that type of attention. I advise you not, especially on this platform. But if you’re looking again to increase visibility for the goal of landing something more you always want to add value on the platform.
That’s the key. No matter which medium you use, it has to be value. Add it to the platform. So again, poll question, get the results, build out maybe 10 points that you can build on that and just post on, post that once a week. We don’t need to get into how to do it automated and all that stuff.
That’s, that’s too, that’s next level for the folks who are just jumping in. Again, that’s a great way to get started. To give you the ideas you need versus scrambling and, stressing about what should you post? [00:23:00] Let the audience, let your network tell you what they’re looking for.
Porschia: I love that.
So from your perspective, Orlando, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen executives and professionals have with their personal brands?
Orlando: Yeah. What, so here’s a great example. This is a gentleman by the name of Robert Smith. [00:24:00] He’s an African American billionaire who runs a company called Vista Vista Communications or Vista Equity, excuse me.
So he’s known as one of the, or if not the most richest African American in the country. So three years ago, no one knew who this man was, unless you were in the business space, he’s all about technology and things like that. So it wasn’t until a moment I seen him on an interview, he said, in order for me to grow my business.
I had to come from behind the desk, so I had to be seen. I had to start to build, quote unquote, my personal brand to land these folks that were global, talk to people in Dubai, et cetera, et cetera. So again, even at his level, he was saying, in order for me to go to the next level with my business, these people have to know who I am, what I’m about and where my expertise lies.
So the same mission, the same plan goes for [00:25:00] us. that are, working a nine to five. If again, if your goal is to go to the next level, there is a must need for people need to see you. So there’s another gentleman by the name of grant condo. He’s a real estate guy. One of his coaches, they can’t flow you if they don’t know you, meaning you can’t, they can’t work with you.
If you’ve seen there’s no honor in being the best kept secret. That is a myth. That is just complete foolishness. You need to be known in order to get to the next level. We all have dreams and goals and visions and things like that. But in order for those to come to fruition, you need people to help you.
And people will only know who you are unless you have to be seen, right? So again, attack that personal brand with a mission. And there’s tons of strategies that I can share. But if we’re both in a career development space. But there’s again, leveraging LinkedIn. That is a massive free marketing tool for you to leverage your digital real estate to expose yourself to the [00:26:00] world, not to your community, but to the world.
Porschia: Very powerful, Orlando, very powerful. So if someone’s listening and they’ve decided, Hey, I definitely want to be seen. Maybe they’re going to take some of your advice, do some meaningful commenting, ask them poll questions, start posting, being active. About how long, on average, do you think it takes for someone to get visibility or noticed for their personal brand?
Orlando: Yeah, that’s a great question. I would tell you it depends on what your goal is. You could be seen in an hour of making a post, right? The opportunity for being seen is immediate in some cases. But if you’re saying, hey, I want to be seen because I’m trying to get to X or I’m just trying to grow my network, Again, first I would, because I coach people on this.
Let’s start with a strategy, right? Let’s understand your why factor and what you’re doing. Let’s look at your current activity, your comfort level. [00:27:00] So are you someone who’s not afraid to come on video? If you’re someone who says, Hey, I can be more visible on the platform, but I don’t want to be seen.
So there’s LinkedIn audio, right? Are you someone who could initiate and bring community and people together to have an engaging conversation like we’re doing with our podcast? You can do it that way, right? Or you can, be creative and posting stuff that creates engagement and conversation. So understanding your why and how you do that is, is definitely crucial.
First, the timeline will be. It’ll increase over the frequency. I currently now sometimes in a given week, I’ll make about seven posts. Sometimes it’s two a day where it’s one in the morning, one in the afternoon and that scheduled posts that are due to go out or at least a minimum of one a day. And that depends on the activities that I personally have going on, whether it’s an event or a podcast or whatever have you things that I’m a part of in my professional career and then my personal career and my business.[00:28:00]
So it all depends on your comfort level and the speed in which you’re trying to get there. So it’ll vary per person. There’s no one bullet to say if you post once a day, you should see a 3000 increase into your, your following and connections. Because, again, it all depends on the value you bring and what you’re talking about.
So let’s get specific around that first, and then I can help them build out a plan, a content strategy, a cadence on how to post based on their comfort level and, because life gets in the way. You don’t know how frequently they can do it. So let’s talk about, let’s get a plan first, a vision so I can get you rolling with at least 10 weeks of content that you’re not stressed week over week, trying to be, someone that you’re not.
Porschia: I really love everything that you said. I am a big believer in customization. So we talk a lot about customized job search strategies, customized career plans, all of that. And I love how you mentioned that [00:29:00] the strategy that you work with your clients on depends on, what their goals are and what they can do.
I think that nowadays, and it’s probably because, You know, really at the forefront, you can Google anything, you can ask chat GPT, and you can hear a standard answer, right? But that might not work for you, right? We can ask, someone down the street, your coworker, your neighbor, whomever, right? But again, that might not work for you.
So I really like the customization part of it. I think I generally post around two to three times a week and I’m super busy. I could probably have more help and more time to post more, I think that’s getting me some exposure. I think a lot of times people Google things and they think, Oh, I’ve got to post As much as Orlando, right?
But a different place. And it’s okay. So thank you for sharing that.
Orlando: No problem. And the last thing I’ll add is I’ve been [00:30:00] extremely blessed to work in career development, talent acquisition, recruiting, but also now spawned a career outside of corporate doing the same thing. So everything I post is going to be in my ecosystem, right?
It’s career development is this. You’ll see a personal post here and there, but the core of what I’m doing is all about career development, building people up, giving them the right advice. So I’ve been lucky no matter what I post for the most part is going to centralize my mission, right? And now I’m hyper focused on building, the number one career development podcast period.
That’s the mission with that. And with everything that I bring again from the professional world and personal world, we’ll share all around career development. And I don’t care who sees it. My goal is how many people can I get to see it. And I can filter from there, who I will work with organizations, who I partner with, but the goal is to be seen at a large [00:31:00] scale.
And I do it based on my lifestyle. So if it doesn’t work and I go ghost for a week, I don’t care. Just because I’m busy. No worries. Sometimes that helps by not posting for a while. Then you re engage. Your activity I wouldn’t be concerned about the likes, but the views and things like that, the engagement goes up because people, and you’ve trained the audience, you’ve trained your followers to say, oh wow, Portia posts three times a week, I’m seeing it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I know it’s been a week, it’s Wednesday, I don’t see her, where’s she going?
And then you come back next Monday, you don’t post Wednesday and Friday, they’re like, oh. Wow. She’s back. Okay, great. And then the engagement goes up. You like that was a, that wasn’t such a creative post or it wasn’t that deep, but you saw a two, three, five X and engagement and views on the post, right? So sometimes going dark for a little bit, then coming back does serve you in that capacity as well.
That
Porschia: is great to know. So tell us more about the career talks podcast. [00:32:00]
Orlando: Yeah. So I started that about three years ago, three and a half years ago. This is when I believe we talked about this a little bit before we came on air last week when we spoke is this is when LinkedIn live you had to fill out the application to, to get approved.
So I filled it out, didn’t know, what really, what my mission was at that point. But when I got approved, I didn’t know about it for about three or four months. I was like, Oh my God, I lost three months of activity. I’m about to lose access, got nervous. But then I said, you know what? And this is a fear that I continue to have today.
I’ve never done what I’ve done one. So I’ve done one episode where it was just me for about 20, 30 minutes. That’s when I hit my 100th episode. And I just shared the 10 things that I’ve learned from that. But I’ve always said, Hey, I got this massive network. I know how to interview. I know how to ask questions because I’ve been doing it for, 17 years at the start of this.
And let me just tap into people who doesn’t want to be on a podcast nowadays, talk about what they want to do, expose [00:33:00] their brand, their business, their services. And so I just started leveraging that at conversations, the cool thing. And here’s another thing. Why personal brand, of course, I got stories for days.
Why personal branding is such a big deal. The company I used to work for three years ago, the CMO had his LinkedIn lives going on and I had mine. And so I said, you know what, let me pitch the company I worked for if they would sponsor mine. And so we can show two active, LinkedIn live users with the same organization, him touching on a higher level of robotics, RPA stuff.
And I was touching on career development, but we’re driving the same mission of exposing the company. They said, yes, I pitched them. They said, yes. He turned over his whole marketing team to me who did all the production behind the scenes because they looked at my content. They saw the value, the consistency and said, you know what, let’s do it.
And so that was a huge win back then to say, wow this personal branding thing is so real to [00:34:00] get the company. That’s paying you a check to then say, I’m going to sponsor what you love to do on your own. So great example.
Porschia: Yeah. I think that’s an amazing example. We’ll be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so people can find you online.
But what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Orlando: Yeah, absolutely. It’s going to be LinkedIn. Definitely connect with me there. It’s just Orlando Haynes. Send me a message. Typically I can respond within a day or two if you want to connect. Also, I would share please subscribe to the podcast.
Both. Portia and I subscribe and you’re going to get tons of value from both of us in this space. So you don’t have to have all your eggs in one basket. There’s multiple people you can listen to, you take what you can from each other and apply it to your life. But the goal for my podcast is every episode has a mission and is that you’ll walk away with at least one actionable advice that you can take to [00:35:00] your career immediately.
So that’s the mission. And then broadly again, it’s to grow it across the world.
Porschia: Great. Great. I’m interested to know, Orlando, what’s your definition of career success?
Orlando: Yeah. So that is similar to just asking what success looks like, right? It’s personal. So for me I have no problem sharing that Career success for me would be retiring corporate America.
I have no problems with that at all. And even though I currently work in corporate America, but my goal is to separate from corporate America and just support and help folks in their career development through my medium of the career talks podcast, that’s my success. It’s not about making millions of dollars and things like that.
If that happens, God bless, that’s phenomenal. But as long as I can support my family support my mission and do it on my terms, that’s career success to me.
Porschia: [00:36:00] Great. So I want to ask you our last question that we ask all of our guests. How do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career?
Orlando: Yeah. Great question. It’s going to be personal branding, both in corporate. And on the platform LinkedIn in corporate, it’s going to be different. It’s how you show up, how you execute, who are you connected with? Are you someone that is a go to person? Portia explained how she was coming up, how myself was coming up.
If you’re that subject matter expert in your field, which is, people know who you are based on the level of work you provide, and when you leave the room, all they’re doing is singing your praises, that’s your leg up. And that’s your opportunity to either excel within that company or create another opportunity for you in another organization, but it’s going to still be around execution and personal branding.
Porschia: Orlando, you have shared a lot of tips with us today, [00:37:00] and I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers. We appreciate you being with us.
Orlando: Thank you so much, Portia. I look forward to our next conversation. [00:38:00]
