Discover the transformative power of a life brand in this episode with Irina Soriano, Vice President of Enablement at Seismic. Join us as we explore the concept of a life brand - one that transcends self-promotion, and instead, emphasizes service to others and contributing to the community. We'll hear Irina's insights on how this unique approach to branding can significantly alter the perception of enablement professionals and leaders. She also opens up about her personal journey in enablement and the profound impact it has made on her life.
Irina Soriano is the VP, Enablement at Seismic, the leader in Enablement. During her 15-year career, Irina built several global Enablement departments across EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and the US from the ground up. She leads the NYC Wise (Women in Sales Enablement) chapter, is the author of “Generation Brand”, as well as a TEDx and keynote speaker.
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Discover the transformative power of a life brand in this episode with Irina Soriano, Vice President of Enablement at Seismic. Join us as we explore the concept of a life brand - one that transcends self-promotion, and instead, emphasizes service to others and contributing to the community. We'll hear Irina's insights on how this unique approach to branding can significantly alter the perception of enablement professionals and leaders. She also opens up about her personal journey in enablement and the profound impact it has made on her life.
Irina Soriano is the VP, Enablement at Seismic, the leader in Enablement. During her 15-year career, Irina built several global Enablement departments across EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and the US from the ground up. She leads the NYC Wise (Women in Sales Enablement) chapter, is the author of “Generation Brand”, as well as a TEDx and keynote speaker.
Please subscibe on Apple, Spotify or Google.
Welcome to the Sales Enablement Society Stories from the Trenches, where enablement practitioners share their real-world experiences. Get the scoop on what's happening inside Sales Enablement teams across the global SES member community. Each segment of Stories from the Trenches share the good, the bad and the ugly practices of corporate sales. Enablement initiatives learned what worked, what didn't work and how obstacles were eliminated by corporate teams and leadership. Get back, grab a cold one and join host Paul Butterfield for casual conversations about the wide and varied profession of sales enablement, where there is never a fits all solution.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Sales Enablement Society Podcast, stories from the Trenches the only bias for us podcast, where we bring together enablement practitioners and leaders from all over the world, talk about the work they're doing, the results they're seeing, and sometimes we talk about when things didn't go so well, because there's always great learning opportunities there. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest this time. A lot of you are probably familiar with her work and I'm talking about Irina Soriano. She's the VP of enablement at Seismic. And Irina, welcome and maybe just tell people a little bit about yourself. I'll go from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for having me today. So, like you said, I'm the VP of enablement here at Seismic, the global enablement leader in the marketplace. I've been with Seismic for over four years and built an enablement here from the ground up as well. I have been in enablement for a good over 10 years probably closer to 12 years and lived and worked across the world. So I've been in the US, in New York here for a little over eight years. I was in Singapore doing the same thing, over in Asia Pacific for five, and before that I was in IMEA. I'm originally from Germany, so that's why I started my journey.
Speaker 2:Thanks, I'm a little jealous. I love Singapore but I mean gone on trips but never lived there, and that is one place that I think would be amazing to spend some time just to really get to know the place. It's just an amazing city, especially so.
Speaker 3:A lot of fun.
Speaker 2:All right. So nobody gets away without doing the Jimmy Kimmel challenge. So here we go. Through your amazing connections, or maybe because you live in New York, I don't know, but you are offered Jimmy Kimmel show when he announces his retirement. You can have anybody you want on the couch on your first episode. Who do you bring on and why then?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure you're going to like my answer. I would bring on Larry David.
Speaker 2:No, I love that answer. I love Larry David.
Speaker 3:So quick history on that so I had no idea who he was. I have never watched Kirby enthusiasm before. I moved to the US and get introduced to it through friends in. My husband and I started watching it and I just fell in love with Larry David.
Speaker 2:I know you get no complaint from me. No, he's amazing and fun fact. I love Kirby enthusiasm as well. But Jeff Garland and I went to high school together and I wouldn't say that we're like you know, we weren't like the best of friends, but we were friends. We had a lot of classes together. He graduated a year ahead of me but yeah, so it's been kind of cool to watch his rise and that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and trust me, he was hilarious in high school as well. The teachers weren't a big fan, but he made class really interesting.
Speaker 3:Good for you, that's an awesome story.
Speaker 2:So the reason that I asked you to join was the work that you've been doing around the concept of a life brand, and when we were preparing for this, we talked a little bit about how that's not just important for everyone personally and professionally, but how it also shapes the perceptions of you as an enablement professional or a leader. So maybe we should start with helping everyone understand what is a life brand, what makes up the life brand?
Speaker 3:Great, let's take a couple of steps back and say what's a personal brand, right?
Speaker 3:Because that's what everybody talks about, right? So the classic definition of a personal brand is that we step out into the world usually it's being social media these days and we self promote in order to push our credibility, become one know in a specific field. We want to drive our career right. So usually the reasons behind that are self-centered we're doing it for us, right? We want to make sure we present ourselves to the world the right way.
Speaker 3:So when we look at life brand, that concept goes way beyond just a personal brand. So think about it as your digital fingerprint. So that means any Amazon review you've ever left, any like or love, and all your private accounts right. Any pictures or videos that you've ever put out there, because nothing is private these days, as we know and that also includes anything that might still hit your digital fingerprint in the future. So think back all the pictures that were taken of us when we were teenagers Now, in our case, probably paper photos, but if we think about next generation, everything is on an iPhone right now and things happen when people are out and get drunk and do things. So all of these pieces are also potential future life brand content, right? Or life brand pieces.
Speaker 3:So the life brand goes way beyond just the personal branding. When we think about controlling our life brand, the focus really shifts away from us and the focus is on them. So it comes down to what are we contributing to the community that we're in, right To the online communities that we're in? What value are we sharing? What are we centering our life brand around? Like a specific theme and a specific purpose that represents ourselves but that also allows us to give back. So the whole purpose is control your life brand and make sure it doesn't speak against your purpose and your identity. And then also, how do you use it to serve your community? So the purpose really changes between the person and the life branch.
Speaker 2:More than once I've thought how grateful I am that iPhones etc. Didn't exist when I was a teenager, even during my uni years, right. But you make an interesting point. I don't think people, even maybe now that are in their early 20s, you know, in that time ring are really thinking about this. But you're right, it's things on the internet forever. So how does somebody I want to talk about how they should leverage their life brand professionally, but maybe go a little deeper into is there when they're curating this online brand and their contribution to communities? Should they be, should there be like a plan, or they should be more organic? How does that what's best?
Speaker 3:Great question. So there's two pieces to life brand. One is how you define your identity, right, and that means you know who you are and how do you want to represent yourself in your online community. Like usually, I like to summarize this down to three words that describe you best, right? And then the second piece is your purpose. So, if you just and that you know, there's obviously some activities you can go through to make sure you find your real purpose, and a purpose could be your profession, right? So that's how my life brand started. It was centered around my profession, which was, enablement.
Speaker 3:Your purpose could be your passion. That is what I'm doing now doing life brand education, do a lot of work with, you know, women empowerment, right. This is kind of the my passion that drives me. This is also my life brand.
Speaker 3:So mine is kind of twofold, but it could also be, for example, a hobby that you have, you know, maybe you are into. You know you're 25 years old and you're into makeup and that's what you want to bread put your you know like you build your life brand around. Or you have an interest in cars, or in wine, or whatever it might be. It could also be, you know that you say, rather than just a hobby where you spend your time and interest, something you want to get good at. So I had a friend out in Asia and she wanted to be a baker. With zero skills and she built her life brand around her journey to become a baker, which was hysterical. So there's many different ways, how you can choose to set up your life, but it's important to be very specific on your purpose. What are you trying to accomplish and what's the audience that you would like to influence and that you would like to serve with what you're giving back to your community?
Speaker 2:A neighbor of ours a few years back decided to take that same journey of baker and he got so into it he ended up building a wood fired oven, stone oven, in his backyard so he could like really right, yeah, I mean, he took it to a whole another level. That's amazing. If you've done it once, you've done a good job of this and I realize it's not a one and done this is something you've got to constantly be thinking about and be intentional about. But how do you actually leverage it? Say, you've got a good base and then what do you do with it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is a lot of work, I'm not gonna lie. So it comes down to sharing your experiences. Let's use the profession right? My life brand is centered around my profession. It's an apron, right? So now it comes down to how am I serving my community? Right, and that might be you know, in my particular case, that I love to share.
Speaker 3:How do we do an ablemented seismic? What are the things that we messed up throughout the journey, like? What are the things where we're doing really well? What are some tips and tricks we can share with the community that other people can use and take to build their own practice? And this could look in many different ways, right?
Speaker 3:Some folks might say I'm only posting on LinkedIn. Some folks might pick a Instagram or a TikTok. Obviously, these days there's many different choices that you can make, but you know, mostly for enablement, I would say a lot of us live in the LinkedIn realm, but it doesn't only have to be that. So I encourage folks I mentor around life branding to start writing articles on LinkedIn. Right? A very easy way where you can share experiences and knowledge and insights for people to consume.
Speaker 3:We put together last year a whole webinar series with my whole team that everybody participated in, where we said let us tell you our strategy and give you all our handouts and all our tactics. And you know that was again done with the purpose of serving that community, to give back and help them progress in their own enablement journey. Or it could be what we're doing right now, going on a podcast and speaking about what you do right. So I think it comes down to the maturity of your life branch journey as well. You know, if you're 25 years old and it's your first time on LinkedIn, you're probably not going to go on a podcast in the first five minutes, and that's okay, you know. But there's still an opportunity for you to share and give back to folks that might be in a similar situation. That you are right. So I think it's never too early to start sharing and serving the community through your life branch.
Speaker 2:So that brought an interesting question to my mind, and that is it sounds like you should come up with a plan, right? So going back to your 25 year old example okay, maybe not ready for a podcast now, but how am I going to get there? What am I going to do to develop myself and come up with enough contributions that I'm an interesting guest for a podcast? Perhaps I'd like to speak at an enablement conference. What am I going to do? So any advice for folks on how do you create a plan like that? How do you make progress and track it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think it's really the groundwork starts with, like I said, the life brand definition, right, identity and purpose. I have a whole life brand launch kit in my book generation brand for folks that need a little support To get there about. Once you have it it's you know, the best way and that's usually my recommendation when you're starting is to share about three times a week right now I know folks that are very motivated and they go.
Speaker 3:I share every day. Wonderful, right, if you have the time to do that. But the consistency here is key to give back because you also want to attract people's attention, right. So, if you want to get invited to speak somewhere or be invited on a panel, on a podcast, people need to see your name. Right, and this is not just about you posting, this is also about you engaging with what your community is posting, right. So and again, that's that's a little bit of time commitment as well right, to see what are other people saying. Share your opinion, you know. Share other people's posts, right. That's also something that's very important because it helps, you know, to expose what they are saying, but also, vice versa, they might do the same for you. So usually I would say you know, you don't have to have a built out social media plan that automatically pushes your content. I'm not a fan of that. Anyways, I find that a little bit just an authentic over interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've tried it out in many different ways, especially as I tried to build up, like my Instagram and you know it's not for me like I'm more the organic poster rather than anything else, and I think people feel that as well. Like that, that authenticity, like people can tell where it comes from. Or if you have some auto post, generate it, you know. So I think that's that's something to it, like keep it real, keep it light, but make sure that consistency behind what you do and then engage with other people's posts as well.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. The authenticity I think is always been important, but I think now more than ever, that's just what people are looking for. There's just not a lot of patience for the kinds of things that you're talking about. You mentioned Instagram, linkedin, etc. Do you have a recommendation on whether someone should pick the best and really focus on that so they have a multi platform strategy, or does it matter?
Speaker 3:I think it matters, especially if you don't do this full time. You know, and that's that's why I do, I have to do this on the side, right? So I have to spend time in the evening or, you know, on the weekends. It can be quite time consuming. So I would say, depending on what you, what purpose you base your life brand on, that is how I would pick your platform. So, if you go, hey, my life is going to be my profession. Enablement, like LinkedIn is your place to go.
Speaker 3:If you say so, I'm working with with somebody at seismic at the moment and she's she's on a very great journey towards her life brand and it's more in the artistic realm Right, where she wants to start basing her life brand on. And the right place to go with Instagram, with that, it's going to be video pictures right, that's the place to go. And then, if you more into quick snippet video advice, like tick tock might be your place to go, right. So I think it really comes down to the type of content that you will be sharing. Unless you do this full time, I would not recommend that you focus on two platforms at the same time. Okay, right, it, and it's a lot like it's a. It's very hard to manage, so I would pick one, stick with it and do it really well.
Speaker 2:Great advice, thanks. How can someone use their life brand to build confidence and that might be confidence in themselves, because no one else is gonna have confidence in you if you don't exude that self-confidence. And you already talked a little bit about how you build confidence that others have in you based on your life brand, but we talk a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's specifically an important topic for women as well. Right, because we know, based on Research and studies and you know, I've read a ton about it that there's just a confidence gap between men and women. Right, and this follows women throughout their entire career, like all the way until the end. They kid, it never goes away. I wake up on days and go, I make zero confidence today, I suck and I go. Where does this come from? So the reason why life brand is super helpful because you know you, as you're giving back, you impacting other people's lives, right, and I'm not saying you need a hundred thousand followers to do that. You can have a hundred followers to do this, well, as long as your voice reaches one person and Whenever I hear back from somebody. So I give you like an example. I put out an Instagram reel on how to negotiate your salary, right, and I had a young lady from Russia messaged me like private message me and say, hey, I used to your tips and tricks, like and it worked, and I'm so amazed. And she sent me this whole, this whole thing and that kind of hit me on a day where I was, like, you know, not Feeling my best here today, but the confidence boost that that gave me, that what I had to say helped somebody make a change in their life. That is absolutely Incredible and the for me this comes.
Speaker 3:It's building confidence through serving others. That's what it is. That's what it comes down to. You know, confidence might be a little bit in our DNA. Like I read it, I believe it, but I think there's a lot of external factors that impact our confidence. And Seeing that how we serve is impacting other people's lives is the huge confidence boost.
Speaker 3:And the interesting thing was actually that there is a study out and I referenced in my book as well that, you know, women actually feel more confident serving, and serving even through self-promotion. Right, because sometimes it could be at the same time. You can self promote while you still serving your community at the same time. Doing it with this mindset Makes things for us much easier, right, and self-promoting is also a confidence booster. It's very important for us to do that. Women also hold back and don't want to do it just because they fear social consequences Somebody's not gonna like me, I'm gonna be a brown-nose or Whatever. It might be that we might get hit with right? So I think those are two important components. They're serving and then also using your life branch to self promote, to put confidence that way I Love that concept of building confidence through serving others.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's something that gets talked about often enough because, again, you know, we all see, you know folks that are building their brand through just, really, just in your face, kind of self promotion, and Whereas what you're talking about not only is more authentic but it really is building up the community, whatever the community is that you're serving. And I'm pretty sure that at least some of our listeners right now are a little surprised to hear that you have days With your successful track record, with the work that you're doing, that you have days where you're not feeling it and you're questioning yourself. So thank you for sharing that, because, again, I'm sure we have some listed like like, wow, okay, I have those days too, and so now I kind of have some ideas to cope with it With. With Good that you.
Speaker 2:Going back to what you said earlier, where you know we start cleaning this digital footprint from the moment our parents probably post, you know, birth pictures. Holding you in the hot holding is in the hospital, right? How should those, how should we be thinking about when we have children, those that have children, protecting their life brand? Because, again, that's that's, I don't know, people start thinking about that soon enough.
Speaker 3:That's a very interesting question and I had a lot of the kids with parents on this topic, so I give you my opinion right and you're right. So your digital fingerprint starts with the first picture that your parents put about you on the internet. That's it right and we have no say in the matter now. Is this gonna matter a negatively impact our life later on if there's a few baby and toddler pictures floating around the internet? Probably not right. I'm talking about the pictures that lead to cancel culture. That means we're never gonna get a job again or we're getting kicked out of school or like.
Speaker 3:Those are obviously the ones where the problem Come in. So do I think it's bad to post a picture about your kids? No, do I think it's the right thing to ask for their permission when they are able to give it? Yeah, I think that is. That is a rightful conversation to have and you know, some kids might not know yet what this means, obviously, but I think that's the moment where life-brand education starts, right, cuz, let's face it, you know, my mother always said to me like don't put anything on the internet, like, and I, when this started for me, I didn't care what she had to say, and I was in that that's a fair point yeah.
Speaker 3:I did not care. So if I was 16 today, knowing what's going on and I get how people on social media and all the stuff that's happening Like if my mother said this to me, I wouldn't have a care in the world what she has to say. So I think doing the education early on the impact this can have on life, on career, on, you know, anything that's anything that might hit you in life, is super important to have this like at the teenage age. You know, and this doesn't mean they couldn't be posting online, it just means do it accordingly to the identity that you want to portray and pick a purpose right and make sure with whatever you post, it doesn't speak against it. So I think that's one and two is the whole.
Speaker 3:You know everybody has a phone these days, right, if you're in a room with somebody, there is a telephone. That's just reality. So being aware that at any point in time you can be recorded, somebody can take a picture of you, somebody can take a video. I mean, there's enough in the, in the newspapers, where we've seen this happen and people got kicked out of school for right. Or you know, it got put on Twitter and got shared 10 million times. So I think it's having that awareness be surrounded with people you trust, you know, and don't get hammered at a party with 200 people and you know what you're doing anymore, because that those are the situations when things happen you know which, just personal commentary.
Speaker 2:That's kind of sad but it is. It is what it is right. Deal with reality, not what you wish sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 2:Like to for probably a bit of time to go in depth on one more question, so I want to give it a little bit. Let's go back to enablement. So for a long time, a lot of us have taught our sellers and and CSM's are the, the communities that we enable and support how to use social for selling, for, you know, building a brand that is customer-centric and so it's interesting to them. The concept of life brand really takes that to another level. So what, if anything, should enable men, leaders and practitioners be thinking about to help the sales reps and the others that they support this be something that's part of enablement.
Speaker 3:That's a great question. I think partly it could be. It probably be a marketing slash enablement project. I would say I think the key here is with sellers. If they Built their life brand right and they structure it around their profession right and they're putting valuable content out there, not spamming people or you know Valuable content where people go, oh, great, I learned something today from this person that ultimately Positions them as consultants right, like as knowledgeable in the community. It probably helps them to get referrals right where people go. This person knows what they're talking about.
Speaker 3:You know, in our case, our sellers, when they post about enablement, that should obviously speak to people like myself out there, right, because they go. Great, here's something I can learn something about enablement from a seller. How amazing is that? So I think the power is. The power is really big and making sure that you give people the tools to do it right. Right, so there's a way around feeding sellers also content that they can use and post and make their own right. So, like you know, not everybody is familiar with how to drive a good social media strategy. So I think that's the support we can give as enablement, you know, and marketing folks combined, and then I think there's something to be said about when the company Itselves, like, promotes their people's life brands across across the board right, not just sellers, but really everybody who's out there like that's global brand marketing for them as well.
Speaker 3:Right, if I go out, then I have a strong life brand and I work in seismic is right, that's, that's amazing promotion for any company. You know, there's a huge opportunity there when, when organizations generally promote their people's life's brands, you know they, they can turn into influencers, right, they can. You know they out there they're sharing the word and they do it, but at the same time while they're employed at that particular company, right, so there's a, there's a big power behind that. That I think sometimes is not realized enough, you know.
Speaker 2:But organizations, I'm sure there's people sitting there listening right now or thinking, wow, never thought about this before. Maybe they even feel like they're kind of behind the curve on this. So there are a couple of first steps that you recommend for people to start Getting aligned and creating that life brand, regardless of where they are in their career.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's never too late. You can. You can start controlling your life brand in your in your 50s and your 60s it's? You know? I talked to my dad about it. He's in his 70s, right? So it's never too late. I would say the best place to start is just to realize what your life brand actually is. Okay, how big is it right? So I've done this with mine. When I started this whole journey and I did- a rough calculation across the board.
Speaker 3:You know how many accounts do they have? How often did I pose, how often did I like and love? And I had roughly already over 50,000 Footprints out that or fingerprints out that that I have left, and I'd happily use social media that would be. So that's shocking. So I think getting an understanding what you put out there, what your interactions are and what could impact your life brand, I think that's a very first important step. So it's just the, it's the awareness what is my life brand, what does it do and where do I currently stand in that regard? And then I think step two is really sitting down and defining hey, this is my identity, this is what I stand for. Pick your life brand purpose and then pick up basically the channel that you want to focus on, and then you're pretty much good to go. This doesn't have to be a huge lift that you learn as you go. It's with anything else, it's learning by doing as well as you start the journey.
Speaker 2:So, before we let you go, want to give you a chance to maybe drop one additional piece of knowledge on everyone that may or may not have anything to do with enablement. So you've been given the gift of time travel, but there's only one restriction you can go back and coach young arena, but only on one thing. What is that? One thing you really wish you'd understood better, earlier.
Speaker 3:Wow besides the whole life-friend topic, obviously, that we just talked about for the last 20 minutes Um, I think I would tell myself how important it is to be patient Patient in life and also a patient in business, patient at work.
Speaker 3:You know, I've I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that right, we often want things Very quickly and we're ambitious and we want things to happen. And it's the same in life right in life and in work and I feel that piece of patience, sometimes just sitting back and Let life happen a little bit, is something I struggled with my whole life. You know, like wanting the things when you want them. That's that's often how it rolls for us. But really having that patience and sometimes just letting a little bit of time go by until the timing is just right, I think that's something that would have served me very well in my younger years, if, if somebody had told me that a little bit earlier. You know, life is happening for us, life is not happening to us right and often that's sometimes the mindset that we're in. So, um, once you change that, the patient comes with itself. So I think that that'd be my piece of advice.
Speaker 2:That's really powerful. Life isn't something that happens to us, and I think it's very easy to get caught on me, especially right now. We've got the economy and it's just so so much uncertainty in the world and and and I think that's a message of hope to people that you actually can, to a degree, you know, take control and be proactive in your life and your choices. Well, thank you for that and thank you so much for spending this last 25 minutes with us. It's I've learned a lot. I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of great feedback from the audience, so appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and thank you to everyone else who's listening for investing your time with us as well. Stay safe for the next two weeks, and then we'll be back with another new episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining this episode of stories from the trenches. For more sales enablement resources, be sure to join the sales enablement society at s e society org. That's s e s o c I e t y dot org.