“Relationships are what turn into opportunities.”

Rachel B. Lee is a fearless marketing #ladyboss and the wife of Joshua B. Lee. Together they have formed a powerful business relationship that connects with audiences across the world. Rachel leads the marketing and branding strategy for Standout Authority and its clients and can help you find your voice and create influence like you’ve never imagined. 

She’s passionate about helping students navigate their careers, so In her spare time, she’s a Texas MBA and MS Marketing Industry Consultant helping our future leaders navigate their personal brands and build careers that they love.

Questions:

• What advantages can marketers get if they obtain an MBA?  
• Rachel’s journey from corporate employee to starting a company with her husband.
• How marketers can stand out if they work within a large team.
• What does it take for a personal brand to stand out in 2023?
• How should people approach marketing strategy when it comes to building a personal brand?
• How to create a clear picture of your personal brand.

And more!

You can say hi to Rachel via LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/therachelblee 

Full Episode Transcript:

Kenny Soto 0:00  

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the people Digital Marketing podcast with your host Kenny Soto, and today’s special guest, Rachel B. Lee. Hi, Rachel, how Are you?

 

Rachel Lee 0:13  

What’s up, Kenny, good to be here.

 

Kenny Soto 0:16  

So this is going to be a great episode. We’ve had guests in the past talk about personal brands, but I think it’s timely to talk about them. Again, there are a lot of layoffs that are happening in 2022. I suspect and I’m not an economist, so I could be wrong. Hopefully, I am, that these off will continue and probably ramp up even more in 2023. 

 

So I think it’s important for us as marketers to start learning about how to be intentional with our personal brands. Before we get there. I would like the listeners to get more context about who you are as a professional. So my first question for you is, how did you get into marketing?

 

Rachel Lee 0:55  

Thank you for the question. You know, I have always been a marketer, I think because, to me, marketing is really about bringing value to a person. It’s about creating that human connection. Always, that’s always been my belief. I felt that when I was early on in my career, you know, and did my undergraduate in Business at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School Business, I was there, I come from a family of business, entrepreneurship, growing up in LA around a lot of talent and artistry and creativity, kind of in the movie industry, not me in the movie industry, but my, you know, my, my, my family.

 

So I always really loved the creative energy that marketing can bring to a business like mine. It is where we take a business strategy or product or service and really bring it to life for somebody to resonate with. And ultimately, not just buy, but love, and continue to be a part of that journey of that product or service or human. And so, you know, marketing continues to evolve so much. 

 

There’s always going to be, there’s always going to be new tools and tactics, right, especially in the digital revolution and with the speed at which technology is driving change. But we always know in marketing, that if we think about the human, the person, the person we’re trying to target and attract, and what their behaviors are, what are their interests? How do we build an emotional connection? What makes them excited? What are their pain points? If you really, it’s like the psychology behind it. 

 

We’re never gonna go wrong, right? And so I’ve always loved that piece of it. I spent time on the marketing agency side, that was my first real job. And I was working with Unilever on the agency side and working a ton on the X brand. So I thought about college males 18 to 24 like day in and day out. Doing cool music tours, as when Diplo was not Diplo. 

 

We had him as the artist and girl talk. And just cool stuff like that to really activate the community. Also, through social media, it was the first time that we were using Twitter to give away tickets. And so that was my first bit into really understanding experiential in conjunction with that digital product or service, right? And really resonating that consumer marketing with a product, right? I made a big pivot when I got my MBA at the University of Texas, Austin Macomb School of Business. 

 

I graduated from there in 2016. And I pivoted into the tech world at Microsoft, doing tech marketing, and not only that, I was part of the Microsoft Partner Network. So real true b2b channel marketing, thinking about the business behind the business, right fueling Microsoft’s and honestly, a lot of the revenue for Microsoft comes through its partners. 

 

So that gave me a very different perspective of marketing a little less sexy but big corporate marketing, you know, and a big piece and I know some of your audience is younger and thinking about their careers big piece of being part of big brands like Microsoft fortune 10 companies, right? Marketing is run very much as a system to run as a system, and you as an individual, and how you show up and how you sort of stand out inside of a big corporation takes its own strategy. 

 

We’ll talk about that. I would love to talk about that. And so just, you know, I’ve had this experience in tech marketing, I worked at Gartner and I was leading the brand marketing strategy for a sub-brand called Software Advice. And, Kenny, I, you mentioned the great resignation, I’m part of that, I am part of that. In June 2021, I took the big jump out of my corporate job, on a path to absolutely on a CMO path, right, like, sure. Probably another 10 years, would it take you to know, and who knows, right? Who knows where life can take you? But I’m always very, always on the accelerated path. 

 

And the company is just like a rockstar, a Rockstar contributor. But I made that choice, to share my voice in a bigger, more expansive way outside of the walls of working for somebody else. And that’s why personal branding has sort of been, for me, taking all of my marketing skills, all of it is personal branding, except the difference is that you’re at the center of the story, not the company, not the product, or service, you’re at the center of it. 

 

And so similar principles for marketing I use in developing a personal brand. So I think it’s as intentional, as creative, and as important as business branding, if not more important, because of all the change that’s happening in our workforce. And economically.

 

Kenny Soto 7:26  

There are a lot of threads to pull here. The first one I want to pull on is your MBA. Several other guests have presented that they’ve done MBAs in the past. And I’d like to know your opinion. What are the advantages that you got from getting your MBA?

 

Rachel Lee 7:44  

Great question. The MBA for every, every person has a different experience in it, right? And have different intentions gone into it? For me, the MBA was a tremendous confidence builder. Because I wasn’t good at everything. I hated the statistics class. I didn’t I wasn’t, you’re pushed to take all these core curricula. The first semester is very rigorous and a full-time program. You’re sort of pushed to work in teams, a diversity of teams. 

 

And it’s not such as much about the curriculum, although there’s much to learn about, how are you going to handle the multiple pieces of what an MBA offers, which is not just the classes, it’s about the networking, the recruiting, the additional activities, right the student activities, and really being able to build my competence as a woman. And when I was, I got into the 2014 class and was applying in 2013. Which is crazy to think about, you know, nearly 10 years ago, I was in the application process. 

 

At the time, McCombs was under the 30% limit. Now, the numbers have changed and many of the universities have worked very rigorously to have a more even split, if not 6040. Where the, you know, minority piece of it is still, you know, needs a lot of work depending on the institution, but let’s just go gender-based. And so as a woman pursuing an MBA was not exactly expected. And so when I was put through a very rigorous process, and then put in many uncomfortable situations around a curriculum that didn’t always make me feel the most competent. 

 

I pushed through it to then say, You know what, I can kind of handle anything. So I think that’s a really important piece of going through an accelerated program. And the other piece Kenny, in thinking about getting any sort of higher education master’s degree, is around the recruiting and the networking aspect. Like the people, I am still in touch with my homies, like, there are some of my closest friends. So part of the reason why I’m still here in Austin, and also my husband, is that a network like those is the people that ultimately can help build a lot of connections. 

 

And those relationships are what turned into an opportunity, which is really poignant, when we talk about not only our career journey and our personal brand, but marketing, you can see kind of the thread and who I am. Because at the end of the day, it’s about that humaneness, that authenticity, that relationship building, which really becomes such an important piece of all the things we do in our life.

 

Kenny Soto 11:08  

Before talking about the business that you started with, your husband calls them out on authority. I wanted to try one more thing that you mentioned, which is becoming a rock star talent. Let’s talk specifically in the context of Microsoft because I feel like there’s a lot to speak about there. How did you stand out during your tenure at the company?

 

Rachel Lee 11:30  

I love this question. And I stood out a lot at Gartner you know, and I still stand out right? Without the corporate backing. And let me tell you, having a corporate name with your name helps. 

 

There are a lot of doors that can open up. You know, my husband always jokes, Kenny, like when, when I was at Microsoft, and we were going to South by Southwest, it was like, he could get into most places from his caliber, but he’s like you say you’re from Microsoft, everybody wants you there, you know, it’s so, you know, to me, one of my mottos with working for somebody else. 

 

And especially a big-name brand is that you really need to use that company just as much as they use you. And so that becomes like a real example of that, right? And this then becomes how you stand now. When I started at Microsoft, I was basically given all the social media blogging. Podcasts were under my purview for the Microsoft Partner Network. That was my first bit running all the social media channels, including the paid and blogging and then podcasts had just launched. It was like something they really had no strategy behind. I didn’t really know anything about

 

Kenny Soto 13:09  

Rachel, just for context. Did you have any team members helping you? I did. Okay. Yes. Because there are a lot of channels. 

 

Rachel Lee 13:17  

Yes, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Community Manager, content writer, and project manager. And then the podcasting piece is gonna lead me to my standing-out example. That makes sense. When my manager said, you have that here here, you’re getting like podcasts, too. There was no real strategy against it. And I had no experience in podcasting. 

 

Besides remember, this was the 2006 team. Podcasts had been on the rise, I remember looking at the data at the time that had been on the rise the last, you know, five years back then. So now it’s been like this consistent rise, but a real acceleration in audio over the last call it five years. Right. So like, podcasts have just made a big headway over the last 10 years. Let’s call it right. 

 

And then social audio is a whole other thing, which direction I do a bunch of social audio, we can talk about that subject. So here I am, right, fresh out of my MBA, 28 years old, incredibly, like ready to go. I just landed this awesome opportunity that very few people got an internship opportunity as well. And so I was like, Yep, let’s give me the podcast. Now I could have thought about who could get to run the podcast to be the host. Right? Who can be the representative of the Microsoft Partner Network? What do you think I did?

 

Kenny Soto 14:54  

Did you just leverage internal SMEs within your company?

 

Rachel Lee 14:59  

I’m talking about that. an actual podcast like this situation, I could have had somebody, post it, or I could have posted it myself. And that’s what you did. And that’s what I did. Knew I Loved it, I love communication. It’s something I enjoy. And I said, it’s cheap, you know, you’re not to hire a host or to figure out whatever I can run. I’d love to do this, I want to interview. I can finally guess I can build those relationships. 

 

And then yes, I did have production support, right, we have to think about having a whole schedule, as you know, you’re running a podcast. So I thought to myself, This is gonna be really beneficial, because I also have the knowledge, I know what’s going on with the park partner ecosystem. 

 

And now I’m now you can go listen till this day to the Microsoft Partner Network with Rachael Bronstein, that was my maiden name, interviewing some of the top people out there. It was an incredible networking tool, it was easy for Microsoft, right? And I was just making this whole podcast with a whole strategy that was very new and different. 

 

And so when I, when I, when I think about, you know, younger in your career actually doesn’t really matter where you are in your career, to stand out is to find opportunities for yourself, that not only light you up, right, they’re going to be energy drivers that are going to really enhance your strengths but also going to be supportive to the organization that you’re part of. 

 

So it’s a win-win. How can you create wins? So if I’m at a big conference, and I’m tweeting, and using our hashtags, and doing all that, they love that, and guess what, I get featured on the stage with my tweets, it becomes a win-win for my personal brand exposure, and the company needs that advocacy as well. So really thinking about what are my passions. What am I good at? Where do I want to branch my career? I always knew I wanted to speak and do that. And I pray for that opportunity with my manager.

 

Kenny Soto 17:22  

So in essence, it’s really just figuring out what projects can you spearhead to actually drive value for the business, and at the same time can be something that you can put as like a notch on your belt, so to speak, for your resume and your personal brand. And it’s being very intentional about that, correct?

 

Rachel Lee 17:43  

I think so. And I’ve done that over and over in my career, looking at where things are going for the business, where it’s like, we need to be a part of podcasts, right? Or a gardener, we really needed Software Advice, we needed additional, we need to drive more direct traffic, and we needed to build more brand awareness around SoftwareAdvice. And so I knew that we needed a partnership. So I built a national partnership with this score. It’s a Small Business Administration resource group.

 

Kenny Soto 18:19  

That’s where I learned digital marketing, by the way. But I digress. You can continue. That’s amazing. Yeah, what a small world.

 

Rachel Lee 18:27  

But like, yeah, it was a perfect collaboration totally in line with what SoftwareAdvice was doing. Innovative, because it wasn’t where they’re at, right? And this just gave me additional exposure to scoring to the Small Business Administration putting me in front of new different people, and building those relationships, because relationships are what turned into opportunities.

 

Kenny Soto 18:59  

Now, let’s talk about what you’re doing today. Can you tell the audience what standout authority is and the story of how it was created?

 

Rachel Lee 19:07  

Yes, so my husband is the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, Joshua B. Lee. And he’s a 20-plus-year entrepreneur, you know, this is his 16th business, and his sole focus the last few years, so he founded stand out authority. We, I would support him sort of as his sideline, you know, and in the strategy, and we had played around with some things in 2019. Because Kenny, when I was at Microsoft, I was very involved with the Aquas involved with the acquisition of LinkedIn. 

 

I was really curious about another opportunity to know how the acquisition of LinkedIn would affect the partner network. So I became I’m really involved, as much as I could to stick my nose around, you know, back again, you want to know how to stand out, you want to know how to build your career, seeing where things are going and raising the hand of like, anyways, I already knew a lot about social selling and LinkedIn. 

 

And so it was really supportive with sandaled authority. And I decided to leave corporate, as I mentioned about a year ago, to work on it 100% of the time and to be co-owner and CMO. Because of our mission, Josh and I are Lee. We really have this vision of human-to-human connection. Where we are revolutionizing the way in which we communicate online. We’re tired of the mass messaging, we’re tired of the inauthentic relationships, and we’re tired of the fake news. 

 

And really just this bot-hacking mentality. You know, lots of people saying they’re one thing, and then they’re just smoke and mirrors, right like, and social media lets you do that. It does. And we’re tired of that. And so a standout authority. We work with high-level entrepreneurs, business owners, C level executives, and are behind their voice on LinkedIn, in terms of their personal brand content and their entire strategy. 

 

And then also, Kenny, we have a really exciting new thing that we launched in the last few months to reach everybody, job seekers, working professionals, solopreneurs, people that maybe can’t invest in our agency or one on one service, we have our web three community. And so we have a standout authority coin. And we have a discord community. And through our coin in our community, we provide training and guidance, and coaching. 

 

And that there when I think about, you know, how do we revolutionize the way in which we communicate? And how do we build community and relationships, really excited about our community, we actually call it our family, family? And we have our family chat, and we have all sorts of stuff that goes on for our family. So that’s what we’re doing, I’d say, and that authority.

 

Kenny Soto 22:38  

I want to double-click specifically on your personal brand. When it comes to how you’re thinking about your personal brand this year, next year, 510 15 years into the future. What are the main considerations that you’re constantly thinking about?

 

Rachel Lee 23:02  

So I think that we should take a second to define what a personal brand is. Absolutely. Yeah. And then let’s talk about what are things that we’re always thinking about with our personal brand. So a personal brand is how others see you. So think about when I ask people, What do you think the personal brand is? They’ll usually say, it’s my reputation. 

 

It’s what people say about me. It’s the impressions people have, right, Jeff Bezos quote, your brand is basically what people say when you’re not in the room. Right? All of the perceptions, and it is all of that it is. And it’s also how we see ourselves. And so that piece of real understanding of ourselves is where a personal brand has longevity, right? And it really can create something that stands out. 

 

So when I’m doing workshops and talking through with people, we go through my four steps to building a personal brand, which is evaluating your skills. These are your superpowers. So what are you really, really good at? And if you don’t know, are you like, I don’t know, some people have weird impostor syndrome with that kind of thing. You’re probably already there. You’re like, I don’t know, like, I’m good at SEO, right or sub, you know what I mean? Which, but they’re hard skills. 

 

So what are those things? Did I ask? asked some people what their superpower is, that might help what other people say, not just yourself. Who is your audience? So who can relate to your background and experiences? Okay. And then three, what’s your different intuition? What makes people build trust with you is your credibility, so really think about your unique experiences. Some people don’t really realize the languages that they speak. 

 

But the fact that they’re the first generation, the fact that they’re, you know, certified and Google Analytics, like, all of these things. And then lastly, your passion. You know, what are you passionate about that drives your energy up and excites you? And I think a big piece of what’s happening with great resignation, and just this massive shift that we’re seeing across the workforce is that people are prioritizing their mental health, their well-being, they want an emotional connection. 

 

That’s like one of the number one things that companies are finding that the research shows people do not have an emotional connection with the work or the business, and that is what is leading to them leaving Yes, it also pays the people always want to get paid more we know that. But the emotional connection is where we get hung up, right? Can you because we’re like, oh my god, this is such a good title. 

 

This is because they’re paying me so much. But you have a little feeling in your tummy. You’re like, I know, I’m not gonna love this job. Like, it’s not exactly what I want to do. But the titles are really good, and the money is really good. And hey, listen, sometimes we do need a pair of bills, and we need a job. So I totally respect that. Totally. I do. 

 

Kenny Soto 26:44  

Yeah, absolutely. But then you have to think about for the most part, what’s gonna really get you out of bed. Yes, after you’ve been working there for a year, because it’s usually once you hit the year mark, that you start questioning yourself, especially if you don’t have that passion. Yeah, exactly.

 

Rachel Lee 27:01  

And that’s why they always do this, you know, millennials are one thing, but now you got Gen Z, and now find everything that’s like, oh, they stay in jobs, you know, one year, two years, they’re shifting all the time, and blah, blah, blah. There are a lot of reasons for that, of course. But some of it is because we’re chasing this ideal of what we think our career should be and what we think we should do. 

 

And to me, when we have an understanding of our personal brand, and by the way, a personal brand is an evolution. It’s an evolution. If I was 25 years old, and you asked me, What is my personal brand, I would not have the answer. I wouldn’t be like, Oh, I’m a branding Lady boss, you know, I help people find their voice and build their competence, so they can grow their influence, and create opportunity and change the world. 

 

Like I couldn’t answer any of that. But what I could tell you, or maybe I could tell you now, I hope this is part of my path, right? This is why I’m out to do what I’m doing that you could tell me what you’re really good at. Right? You’re really good at what is unique about you doing that work, and what kind of starts to give you energy. 

 

So I think too, as our personal brand is you I mean, ultimately it’s you it’s your story, it is your legacy, and it is going to evolve and change. But I do think that we have strengths. We kind of like it’s like, you know when you’re a little kid, it’s like I was always comfortable taking the stage. 

 

It was always kind of ready like in high school. I was the student body president. There are always things you speak about in front of 1000 people. So there’s no surprise that here I am speaking and I love this. So I do think that there are things about us, Kenny, and whoever’s listening that you know, are you, how you integrate that into your career is going to ebb and flow. It’s going to ebb and flow. But the clearer you are on who you are and what you want to create. Then you’ll create a more consistent personal brand that you love.

 

Kenny Soto 29:16  

And that cocktail of four things is really what helps you define your strategy for your personal brand. And the strategy for the most part for your clients. Correct?

 

Rachel Lee 29:27  

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And another helpful one, to have another little helpful tool for people. When you’re thinking about your LinkedIn headline. This is so clear like, Okay, you need to write a LinkedIn headline. Do you have 240 characters? I think it is. And you could say, I could say I’m CMO Santa’s authority or that I’m an SEO whatever. an SEO analyst I’m sure your child is exactly right. Just put your title on there. 

 

Or you can think about this frame. I help X, who is your audience to do? Why the product or service? What are you physically helping them do? What are you doing? So they can achieve Z, the outcome, the benefit. And so often people forget the why so they can, which to me sticks to the emotion. Like the real reason why we’re doing what people will just list off their resume to me. And I’m like, Why, like, the why behind you? So think about that frame. And that can help people like, what am I trying to do? What am I trying to achieve? And how can I say it in one sentence? Can I say this in one sentence? You know so that’s another helpful tool?

 

Kenny Soto 31:03  

Yeah, when you need to mention that, I recall this lesson, I learned marketing from the former founder, his name is Shawn poori. For those of the listeners that don’t know, check out the podcast, my first million, but essentially, he has this framework called the super Mario marketing tactic. 

 

So Marielle is the customer plus mushroom, which is your product or service, the mushroom is not what you’re selling, what you’re selling is super Mario, plus the mushroom. And then he basically becomes the big Mario, right? That’s what you’re selling, you’re selling what happens to the customer when they use your service or product. 

 

And if you’re not leveraging that in any kind of marketing, especially with your personal brand, you are not going to stand out amongst other people who may look at speak like you, you need to figure out how to differentiate yourself. And that headline is a perfect example of that framework. So I’m glad that you mentioned that. You talked about web three. And I don’t want to gloss over that. Because that’s definitely something that I’m very interested in. 

 

And as a marketer, I have not interacted with web three at all recently. How important is web three for marketing today? And part two of this question would be, is it still too early? Is it too late? Or is there still time? What are your thoughts on what three?

 

Rachel Lee 32:29  

Listen, I am learning like I am a novice here. And this is why it’s so important, right? We’re always learning that curiosity, and especially as a marketer, if you are not learning and looking ahead, you’re really going to be outdated, quite frankly. Is it too late? Heck, no. Um, you know, web three essentially refers to the blockchain, blockchain technology, like a true view just like blockchain, which is, you know, a ledger of all the data, right? And I, again, am not going to sit here and explain blockchain. 

 

I don’t want to, I don’t have to, and I’m not good at it. But this is my blockchain. And that conversation has been happening for the last 10-plus years, right? As for engineers, and developers, I mean, Microsoft, they were not new. The technology piece of it, right? Then we’ve seen over the last, you know, to let’s call it 2017 has been some of the bigger boom, right of like cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, a theory, like you’re an expert. And like OG in web three, if you started out in like, 2016 2017. 

 

That’s kind of crazy, right? Um, and now there’s a lot of businesses in particular around that when you think about web three, there is the whole crypto aspect, but you know, there’s decentralized finance. So that whole piece of it, there are NF T’s non-fungible tokens. And here’s what I believe, you know, all of these little pieces to me, really come down to this idea of decentralization. 

 

Are we ever going to be fully decentralized? Like if you think about the world we live in now, we two, have centralized organizations, Google metta, Microsoft, and on and on and on, that hold the keys to everything. They hold the keys, and all of our data, we don’t have control, and even if they say, we do, we don’t. And web three is giving more control to you, right through our wallets through these different capabilities. 

 

Is it going to be fully decentralized, Oh, thanks? So let’s be real, because even in the biggest companies, you’ll hear coin-based right exchanges, or you’ll hear about big NFT projects, that are still run by businesses with the venture. VC funding. Like, anyways, Kenny, the point being think, well, for a long time, yes. Are we too late or whatever? We are not too late. We are still living 199.9% in a web two world, which is this world of interactive websites, and big organizations owning our data. 

 

And what’s going to happen? What’s happening is these chips, right, these shifts for marketers to start. And that’s not just marketers, it’s businesses. To think about how I can bring in some web three technology, what can be done on the blockchain? And that’s going to be different for different businesses, a finance financial company versus a real estate, for instance, huge, like, what’s going to happen in terms of contracts, like the way entities are going to blow up the real estate industry, they’re already they’re starting to titles. 

 

So like, depending on your industry, it’s going to affect you in different ways. I think, as a marketer, we get to really think about the people. Our customers, where are they at in their journey? With web two and web three? And how, how can community ownership, and decentralization help serve our customers? Every company is a different way that gaming is going to be very different, right? If you think about the metaverse, so the real estate in the metaverse, right? 

 

So I just think, I mean, if you’re a marketer, and you’re in anything metaphor, like if you aren’t, if you’re a Metaverse, you’re not thinking about what that doesn’t even that wouldn’t happen, right? Like the whole gaming world. The huge fashion industry is huge. Music, huge, and a teaser, there’s a lot of cool stuff happening and fashion and beauty, like all of that right real estate. So I think my advice is to do what I’m doing, which is to learn to start learning, do your research, and start listening to podcasts, one of the things that I’m starting to do is listen to some good podcasts and just get educated. I went to consensus, which was big. Coin Coinbase is a big conference here and awesome. 

 

And I just listened Kenny, and to be a great marketer is to always be learning and to always be testing and learning. So I don’t know if we have a crater coin. No idea what the whole tokenization piece is super in its infancy, we have no idea. Who knows what, what’s got where it’s going to be in a year from now. But Josh is like, let’s learn because then we’re gonna be ahead. And now we’re learning how we mark it a coin. How do you mark it to a community? How do you mark it? Twitter is like a whole different game when you’re in this space. 

 

Twitter is like the place to be hasn’t really been on our mind, you know? So I think those are just some tips and things to start thinking about and just start listening and learning not to do anything yet. Of course, maybe joining our community will be that’s our hope, right? That we can help people have their first coin, get their first wallet, buy their first cryptocurrency and give value, right? And to give value and our community. We have almost 1000 people inside our Discord and only a few short months. And several 100-coin carriers like that are pretty cool, right? Like, you don’t, that doesn’t happen. 

 

Kenny, in normal marketing when marketing I’ve done in the past, it just doesn’t happen to build a community organically. That’s not paid marketing. It’s not really SEO. That’s very impressive. It’s through our personal brands and the content we’re creating on LinkedIn and you know what we’re doing so it’s really about the Creator economy.

 

Kenny Soto 39:58  

Now, Rachel, I’m definitely going to have to have you on again for like part two, because there are still so many things I’d like to ask you. But I wanted to end off with a hypothetical question. If you had access to the time machine and went back into the past about 10 years, knowing everything you know, today, how would you specifically accelerate the speed of your career?

 

Rachel Lee 40:19  

Okay, 10 years, so be 24. And, I mean, if I was 20 I guess I was when I was in New York at the time. Yeah, in 2012, I was living in New York, working for Walter Isaacson on the agency side. And I was working at 10 on the X stuff, right? A lot of Unilever and a bunch of the other clients, just everyone is tracking with my brain right now. 

 

Um, you know, I think that I, I would have, I would have started building my social and being more cognizant of it even sooner, right? Thinking about building that an online portfolio, you know, now, you can easily make a website that just is Rachel V. Lee, or whoever you are, and just keeping track of the projects you’re doing getting those recommendations, like as soon as I work with somebody, Hey, would you be open to writing a quick recommendation on my LinkedIn profile like, so then I would have had had to do more recommendations, right from the early career evidence, evidence of what I was doing. 

 

Because it also was really helpful for me now when I fast forward, I think I would have been better at keeping track of all of the amazing shit that I’ve done. And kind of actually, like truly probably making a personal brand website, easy peasy. But that ends up being like a real marketing tool when you’re interviewing, like when I interview people, and they have a portfolio and it’s impressive. It’s super impressive. 

 

So I’ve seen that with some of the 24-year-olds now and I’m like, Oh, shit, like I definitely should have done that. I think that’s an I just can’t stress enough. Always be networking. At the end of the day, if you’re going to an event to connect with every speaker, you’re listening to me right now. 

 

And if you don’t send me a LinkedIn connection request, I’m insulted because you heard it is an opportunity to put me in your network. And that’s a shame. So always be networking and just be building your personal brand now on LinkedIn, that portfolio you know, really documenting all the amazingness that you are.

 

Kenny Soto 42:56  

Thank you, Rachel. And if anyone wants to say hello to you, where can they find you online?

 

Rachel Lee 43:00  

Rachel V Lee on LinkedIn on Instagram though Rachel V. Lee Twitter though Rachel V. Lee clubhouse Rachel B. Lee, everything is the Rachel V. Lee because why SEO?

 

Kenny Soto 43:11  

Absolutely. And thanks again for your time today and thank you to the listener for listening to another episode of the people’s Digital Marketing podcast. And as always, I hope you have a great week.

 

Bye.