How to Own Your Voice and Grow Your Personal Brand on Social Media With Matthew Rolnick (Who Went From Never Posting to Best-Selling Author In a Year's Time)

Question

Ever felt like you're simply blending in the crowd? What if you could elevate your voice and personal brand to a whole new level?

Expert Guest Answer

On this week's episode of Ask The Brand Therapist, that's exactly what we're discussing with Matthew Rolnick, the VP of Strategy and Innovation at YayMaker and author of Find Your Yay.

Matthew, a corporate veteran turned entrepreneur, shares his story of finding his authentic voice and leveraging it for his success. He explains how you can amplify your voice in the corporate world and beyond and provides actionable insights from his book on building a powerful brand on LinkedIn.

But what good is a voice without relationships and engaging content? Matthew further delves into the art of crafting a personal brand and nurturing meaningful relationships.

We explore the power of a growth mindset, the importance of LinkedIn for thought leadership, and the tremendous potential of strategic partnerships.

LINKS
Connect with Matthew Rolnick
Watch the video recording of Ask The Brand Therapist
How to Find Your Voice by Dale Young

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Michelle B Griffin is a thought leadership-focused personal brand and PR strategist and founder of Standout Women Media who positions established women experts and authors into visible industry authorities.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it's Michelle, just popping in to give you a little heads up about what today's episode is all about how to find your voice. So many of us want to get out there, but we're really scared to show up. How do we sound? What do we say? And this is the episode that will help you tackle that.

Speaker 1: 0:16

My guest is someone that I met several months ago in my LinkedIn audio events and we just hit it off and he's got a very impressive background. Matthew Rolnick is the VP of strategy and innovation at YayMaker, which is all about creating events and experiences for corporate teams. He's also a bestselling author with his book Find your Yay, which we do talk about in this episode. He's a Forbes contributing writer, consultant, speaker, udemy instructor with 130,000 plus students, and helped start the Rolnick group with his wife, sabine, through the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services group in Chicago. He's got a lot going on and he is a tremendous person, super gracious, all about paying it forward and building relationships. Perfect for someone to help us find our voice, because back a couple years ago, when the pandemic started, he found he was in a situation where he had to get out there and find his voice and make something happen, which he'll tell us in this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:17

As you know, ask the Brand Therapist is all about helping you put yourself out there to build your brand and own your future. So let's get started with today's show. Hey there, it's the brand therapist, michelle B Griffin, and welcome to your weekly personal brand therapy session. This is the podcast that helps solo experts like you get unstuck and get on your way with a brand that takes your places. I'm super excited you're here. Now let's get going with today's session. Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of Ask the Brand Therapist, the personal branding talk show. I'm the brand therapist, michelle B Griffin. I'm looking forward to today's guest, matthew Roelnik. Welcome to the show. He is the VP of Innovation and Strategy at YayMaker. Welcome.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Matthew. Thanks, michelle, very excited to talk to you today.

Speaker 1: 2:18

You know that when people come on the show expert guests like you. We are here to solve a problem that personal brands face, and today it's about finding your voice. You're going to really unpack that, because you're also the author of Find your Yay how to Find your Voice. There it is and Build your Brand on LinkedIn. And this is exactly what I'm all about as a personal brand strategist. And finding your voice, really knowing who you are, is something we all struggle with. In fact, sadly, it keeps many of us stuck and silent. You know me, with PYOT in the background, that's like my battle cry Put yourself out there. But you can't do that if you don't really know what your voice means. So let's unpack that. What the heck does finding your voice mean? But before we do that, give us a little bit of background on you, because we want to hear from you first. What are you doing at YayMaker, who are you helping and why did you write Find your Yay?

Speaker 2: 3:16

Wow, I consider myself an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur. I work at YayMaker, where we do corporate team building events. We help companies with their corporate culture and employee engagement and for me, finding my voice was I was actually furloughed when I used to work at Groupon, right when the pandemic hit and I was 50 years old and I was like starting over, not sure. And this new opportunity presented itself and I realized there were things that I was really passionate about and it had to do with culture and it had to do with being authentic and I realized YayMaker was providing all this kind of happiness for companies and employees and I realized that's something I can lean into and that's something I can talk.

Speaker 2: 4:08

And, by the way, when I was previously at corporations, I was a little shy to post because I was worried I'd be judged. And when I was at YayMaker, the co-founder, dan Herman, who I knew through college, encouraged me to really lean into it. So as I was posting more, I was connecting more and building more relationships and growing new partnerships and growing sales and elevating myself as a thought leader. But again, to answer your question, is I help on partnerships, innovation strategy at YayMaker, and then I like being a content creator and helping others fighting their voice as well.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Shout out to Dale Young. He is a good connection of mine, just brilliant man. And I read an article today, fittingly, about finding your voice and maybe I'll link to it if Dale, if you're watching it, it's really good, it was just really hit home and I'm like gosh, that's exactly what I'm going to be talking about with Matthew today, because finding your voice is so important but yet so many of us never do, and that just saddens me. So let's break this down. What does finding your voice really mean and how does one find it?

Speaker 1: 5:16

Like you went from behind the scenes Groupon was a little bit more guarded, if you will, from what you told me in the pre-show to hey, get out there. And so there's a lot of personal brands here. You can't even be in a company. We all want to share a voice not all of us, but those that want to. Sometimes they can't because they don't know how or how to find their voice. But let's unpack what that means and what led you to change it. And then you wrote a book about it. So that's super cool.

Speaker 2: 5:40

So I think you want to find, I deal with what's your voice professionally, what's your voice personally, and, ideally, align those. And so that's really what I tried to do. So for me, I knew I had an entrepreneurial background and after I was furloughed I was just sharing content, ideas that could help businesses. Before I was even at YayMaker, it just snowballed. I was meeting some great people and making new connections, and then, once I started at YayMaker, I realized the more I shared ideas that I thought of, the more I tried to help other people, the more I was connecting with others and it just emboldened me to do this more. And then, when you say, what is your voice, I looked at the reality of my situation and my passions and tried to match them. So the reality was here.

Speaker 2: 6:28

I'm with this company that drives this revenue from events, but I also know I can't just talk about that, but I'm passionate about helping people and I'm happy about culture and happiness and I realized I could a couple lanes one is about corporate culture and other than employee engagement and the more I talked about it indirectly, it benefited me professionally, but it also kept building my brand and it got me more opportunities to talk to people like you and others.

Speaker 2: 6:59

And as it kept snowballing, I realized and I was writing more articles I realized, wow, I might have a book here, because, as I was building my brand, it helped bring in like 50, 60 corporate clients and I was like, oh my God, I'm onto something. And so I decided I want to encourage other people and especially, as I said, somebody for me being was 50 years old at the time, trying to refine themselves. It was a voice that I wanted to share with people that may feel like especially in tech or things like that that can they still have a voice? So anyway, so I believe in inspiring, elevating people, but just as you promote getting yourself out there and the upside is much more than the potential downside on sharing your message, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1: 7:48

The pain of being stuck is far worse than the pain of getting out there, because you realize people are encouraging, especially in LinkedIn. People are here to encourage you, they want to hear from you, especially since, like the algorithm changed, it's supporting sharing your ideas, your insights, your takeaways. I'm really wanting to push more how I do this, why I do this, how this helps you, versus just how to content that has a place. But I feel like we're in the connection economy now. We really need humanization, personalization. So, getting out there, we all have a voice and we all need to share it. And when we were at the LinkedIn branding book, we identified almost 30 fears that people have. We actually did the LinkedIn confidence survey that is in the book, but you would be surprised how many people came up with a fear of I don't have anything to say. Who would listen to me? I'm sure you heard that quite a bit. So what is your advice to change that mindset, which is just so wrong?

Speaker 2: 8:48

For one, encourage someone to write down what's important to them, what's their expertise, what are they passionate about. If they could, if you ask somebody if you could do one TED Talk on anything you wanted, what would that topic be? Then they have to think back and be like whoa, but then they often will come up with something and then that can give a framework on type of content that they could share or they can research and share. And then to your point, like, if they don't have the confidence, what's a baby step, like I'll try to encourage people. Hey, listen, you had never posted on LinkedIn for last three years, except your new job.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Let's think of one thing you can share that you're comfortable with as a post, and it can be. Hey, I read this article. I thought it was interesting because of A, b and C. Maybe that's a first step. If not, maybe if they're uncomfortable with that, maybe they're just liking and commenting on a post and what they, and it's more than just nice Post or nice art. They share a thought or a reason behind it. So to me, I encourage people to take a crawl, walk, run for most people, I love that.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I always say warm up the feed. If you there are people who never want to post, we get that. But commenting is such a form of getting out there. It's the safety zone for most people. You can find light-minded people or people you can just start being built in a community with. So, at the end of the day, you're still better in a community and sharing your insights. I love how you said Share an article, go to an event. That's exactly what LinkedIn wants now. Give us your takeaways. Back 10 years ago, you could just throw a link on LinkedIn and and people would maybe go to it. But no one's gonna go off link. They want to know what you think of it.

Speaker 1: 10:25

And the one of the things we said in the book is no one reads one book on the same subject or one subject. You like the genre of, like 80s music. I love 80s music because it's very much my brand, it's fun, it's energetic. I work out to it because it gets me going. But I don't listen to 180 song, just like I don't listen to one person in one genre. So the more the better. But for interested in something, we want to seek out and find those voices and, as you say no. No, maybe you say it the way that one person finally gets that aha light bulb moment right, so why would you deny that? Yeah, so now that we've covered mindset very much let's talk about in the book, we can put a link in it in the show notes, but Tell us exactly the steps we need to take after that so One was just identifying your voice, personally and professionally.

Speaker 2: 11:18

By the way, you mentioned you love 80s music. I see that was in your LinkedIn profile, which I love, I think, sharing a personal element. But so what's most important to you? Identifying it, identifying who you want to reach, I think it's really important to. I Think you want to be yourself, but studying what else is out there. So looking at other people on again, I use LinkedIn a lot, but it can be any social media and what you like or don't like, how you can differentiate yourself. Those are your first steps.

Speaker 2: 11:48

I I Talk a lot about and you talk about connection. I talk about Relationships. I think relationships are so much. I try to have all these different partnerships and allies and I try to elevate others and encourage. But so I feel like that's really important and if you have a goal, if you want a top influencer and you want to run a business, whatever it is, you find others that are like-minded that have done that, get their thoughts and advice. If you get people that can mentor you or Help you, they can get emotionally invested in you and they'll help you on your journey.

Speaker 2: 12:23

So I talk a lot about strategic partnerships and how much that helped me and I talk a lot about shining the light on other people. You Having me as a guest is Fantastic for me and also you tap into my audience to. I talk a lot about that in the book and then I just share that. It's a journey. You want to be a growth mindset and always be improved and always be learning because, as you said, things are always changing. But the heart of the whole book is Relationships and helping people. People like to buy from people who they like and it's about in today's day and age, you can have relationships with anybody all over the world and I look at all customers, vendors, people I work with is all strategic partners. But that's the gist of the book.

Speaker 1: 13:09

You never know who knows someone or knows something. Every conversation I have, I learned something and I take that I always want to be learning and I equate personal branding to personal development. Keep the journey. It's my destination and I look to it as always being curious and having conversations, because it's led me to some really amazing opportunities, and it comes through people and that's the message that I really want to share put yourself out there, build connection, build community. Those are core values of mine and that's why I'm always about foundational and just going deep and not fluff. And that's why I became the brand therapist to really help listen to people, put a mirror up to him and help him pull out the goodness and the value they don't actually see from themselves because, hey, it's so hard to see our own self. So that's why I love this collaboration. And yes, and that is exactly this whole podcast started in June 2021, where I went live.

Speaker 1: 14:07

I was trying to get out there, right, I was hidden and I'm like I'm gonna do everything I can. Why not LinkedIn live? Back then you had to apply for it. I got a Application approved and I went all full force and then I just started Podcasting, recording. I got away from LinkedIn lives. So I brought my podcast back in July and I said, oh, I'm gonna be the brand therapist, I'm just gonna do solo episodes, and it'll be so much easier. Well, guess what happened? I Realized it was flat. I just felt in the inside Isn't that crazy? Because you know what I was missing? The connection, the energy of talking to people like you and I are doing right now. There is some energy force that I cannot take that away. It has to be, and that's what's gonna propel us, our brands, our businesses, our future forward. So that's just exactly why you're here today and you must absolutely love what you do and what you do in your day-to-day job of just building culture, because that's essentially what you're probably helping these people do Is finding their voice as well.

Speaker 2: 15:10

Yeah, I love talking with HR leaders. They're trying to figure out what they need to do, and I love talking to CEOs and how to form a culture. But, as you shared, it's yay can represent happiness and how do we do that? One thing I wanted to share because you brought up you talk about professional growth or professional development. I feel that is so important to so your brand continues to evolve and helping others. But I also believe in being so very humble.

Speaker 2: 15:37

I've got one story where I was. I remember when a Clubhouse was really big and I was really good to club and connecting with people. And then there was another. There was like a. I was learning about crypto and other social media. There was a new platform called bit clout that I learned in the hands of. It was interesting, but they had a kind of like a LinkedIn live or a clubhouse type format and the one who founded it was on and everybody was asking questions.

Speaker 2: 16:03

There's one gentleman who was really challenging the founder on ways to improve and I was just so impressed with this guy's knowledge on engineering and marketing and Entrepreneurship and this is a young guy, beer glasses and I said, hey, listen, I'm so impressed. I'd like you to mentor me or teach me what you're learning, and so we had a zoom and I thought he was 28. He was 16 years old. Are you kidding his name? Actually, if anyone that's listening you look at, here's a friend of mine now.

Speaker 2: 16:34

His name is Hunter Paulson, so now I think he's 17, maybe 18 now. I think he just recently graduated high school, going to college, but he's this consultant entrepreneur kind of genius, but I was like but, but what I realized Throughout this, all of our professional journeys, is the importance of learning, and it can be of someone at any age. I've got mentors who are 85 and this he was 16 at the time. But I just feel like we shouldn't put titles at such weight. It's just what's the interest? Knowledge or like-mindedness. I'm a believer in really getting myself out there with a lot of different people who think a lot differently, and I love to share best practices and so and I like shine the light on people like that as well.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Absolutely. I call it showcasing and I really love doing that spotlighting and others. The two things that really Get on my nerves when we are judged by our titles or ages, even in parents, is everything, because you just don't know someone until you talk to them. So I'm all about the conversations, so finding your voice on social media. We are here in LinkedIn. Let's dig into some. I know you really are into LinkedIn and the social selling. Let's get into some real good best practices, actionable things, because the this is a personal brand therapy session and talk show. We like to give how to, but let's talk about how do we start sharing our voice, practical ways on LinkedIn, all right so sharing I call thought leadership Mm-hmm, I mean, it is post.

Speaker 2: 18:01

you can do a video of yourself again Again if you find an article you like. I think that is just getting yourself out there so people know your opinion and ideas. I feel like that's the first steps and, as well as engaging in other people's posts that you're interested, I feel like that is step one. But if someone who tells me, hey, I want to build my brand or I want to increase my thought leadership, how do I get my voice out there? I've asked have you ever thought about writing an article?

Speaker 2: 18:32

Linkedin makes it very easy. Now, with the help of the chat, gpt, it can give you a lot of ideas. You don't have to copy it or verbatim or things, but you can use it to help get you started or give you a framework. If someone's really serious and they're like, hey, I want to build a brand, those are natural steps. Another thing that I started doing, like what you're doing, is I started realizing I'm interested in certain topics, but I decided to interview other people, so I literally I just go to Zoom, hit record and, boom, I just post them on LinkedIn. But I was reaching out to CEOs of big companies chief revenue officers, head of marketing or head of HR anybody that I thought had interesting things. I would learn from them and share that, but it positioned me more as a thought leader and got my brand out more by getting feedback from others. So I'll go back to your question, though I think it's starting with just some posts and knowing the topics or topics that you want to talk most about.

Speaker 1: 19:41

I highly agree, finding that core topic you want to be known for. Think back to what would I do A TED Talk on for me, I want to one day, putting this out in the universe, to do a TED Talk on the power and the payoff of putting yourself out there. That's the general thing, but that's a lot about what I talk about in my content. One of the ways people come to us and come to me and you is I want to share my voice, but the minute we have to start writing, we freeze up, and I'm guilty of this too, because my previous industry was insurance and legal B2B services, so very buttoned up, so I'm really extrovert and fun. So you come talk to me in Pensacola, where I am. I'm all over the place, fun. But sometimes I just get this whole aura over me at least when I started first writing LinkedIn. It freezes me.

Speaker 1: 20:29

One of the things I love to tell people is look, go pull up otterai or some recorder device that's gonna transcribe the minute you speak, and just go talk your posts out, ask yourself a question and then just talk it out and you're gonna find the free flowing language and the izzisms I call them the things that you say those catch words that you always say and that's gonna start planting seeds and helping your voice just really get more vibrant. So that's one of the best ways I like to tell people in the actual application. But I do think articles are an excellent way. They don't have to be long and, the beautiful thing, they are so well searched in Google. I can't tell you how many times I do research and those articles pop up Now come on.

Speaker 1: 21:15

That's thought leadership right there. The thing about it is because Google gives LinkedIn so much priority. They're really high ranking and they don't have to be hours and hours long to write them. I'm sure you do that too. You don't spend hours and hours writing your articles, do you?

Speaker 2: 21:32

No, actually for me it comes a little more natural. I get inspired. Literally it's just an idea, kits and eight minutes later I've got an article out there. So I'm a little different from that. I don't overthink, I get excited, I post. But I do think if you have a special interest that you can talk about it. You talk about 80s rock. There was once I wrote an article and I did a Van Halen theme. Might as well jump and the importance of taking risks.

Speaker 1: 22:01

But if you can tie in a personal interest to a business application, I love that I think it's a kind of popular culture or something relatable other than maybe here, and marry the two and then that's part of your voice. It makes it easier to talk about yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:20

So I think whatever you have a personal interest in, I believe in incorporating that as your brand. I like when people post about it and I think it just it humanizes someone more. I have another friend who has dyslexia and was really shy about it, but I really encouraged them because we talked about it. We think I should post about it and I go absolutely share. When you make yourself vulnerable and you share your story and the obstacles you had to overcome and who you became your successes. People are connected, connect with so this gentleman. He's been posting a little bit on dyslexia and it was amazing the stories he shared with me after he posted the connections. I think a CEO said my son has dyslexia and I have paraphrase, I think I got this right and said we both read your article. It meant so much and he just strengthened that relationship. There's a lot of things, personally, that you can post on LinkedIn or social media and, as long as you're being human about it and tying it in and you have some actual takeaways, that can be really helpful.

Speaker 1: 23:23

And going back to that word I coined a couple of years ago, called professional the blend of being personable and professional. You don't have to be personal. Tell us how your deep secrets dyslexia, if you want, but some people even don't want to do that, but we can be personable. And then we still wanted to have some professionalism. So we know that it's a business platform, so the combination of both. Like you would talk to people at the water cooler at work, we don't sit there and go. Let me tell you how to do this right, we just flow it. So, if you can try to think of it that way, I know some of us work from home now, so it's a little bit hard to imagine, but we just want to have personability in our lives and relatability. So that's your voice. Your voice is you. The voice is the way you talk out in the real world. On LinkedIn, my co-author and co-host, michelle J Raymond, calls it your digital twin, and I couldn't think that's a more brilliant analogy. Talk to someone here as much as you can like. You would probably talk to someone in the right context, of course, but that's how you find your voice and the minute you get out there, take it from me who is silent and stuck all those years. The minute you get out there, the fact that you got out there, it gets so much easier. You get more clarity, you get more insight, you get more courage and that just keeps you committed and it keeps you on track.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Now I do want to recommend committed. I don't like to use that consistency word because I filed it in Michelle's jargon jar, because commitment to me is a word. We're looking for. Commitment to you because you are doing this to own your future. Commit to that person you are showing up for, and commitment to the process. So when you use the word commitment, it's part of my framework for my PYOT presentation. It's a deeper meaning. So you're committed to your cause, you're committed to your job, you're committed. You wrote a book, so let us know your commitment by getting out there sharing it, and then let's amplify that right. There are so many ways today, especially on LinkedIn, to find people we can collaborate and can just snowball our mission. So, absolutely, I think that we're so aligned on that. That's why we're talking today. So, with that being said, as we end our time here, which has been so incredibly helpful on today's Action Will Takeaway, what would you suggest?

Speaker 2: 25:42

that one thing that could take real tangible action and get out there and do something today Again it depends on their experience level Someone who's not very confident yet or getting just there, just want to dip their toe in the water. I would recommend them to think of that first post or that next post as well as what the topic they'd like to talk about, or at least make a thoughtful comment on somebody else's. So somebody who's more advanced either again doing a LinkedIn Live, writing an article, doing a video whether they're just themselves I would make those as a recommendation, as the next step and somebody who's really advanced and has already built their brand, like yourself. For me, I would look into a book if you really want to take it to the next level. My book has turned out to be an amazing almost business card that's presented so many new opportunities where people want me to speak or form new partnerships. So it depends the level of your app, but those would be some initial steps.

Speaker 1: 26:47

I love that takeaway. So my takeaway is, depending on what level you're on, what you just said, one best way to start putting yourself out there. This show is called Ask a Brand Therapist and it has two ways that you can get featured and get out there. You can submit to me a personal branding question. I'm going to answer it. I'm going to shout you out if you want and put you out there, and then, if you're an expert guest and you have a really good topic that can solve the personal branding question of the day we'll talk about, I would love to feature you because my goal in this new rebranded show is to get more voices out there. We all have a voice that needs to be shared.

Speaker 1: 27:24

That's what I wrote in the post about this today, and so I would love to feature. So I'll put the link in the show notes. But that's how you get out there. You take that initial step, you decide and you do, and you make that one first step and I promise you things just snowball. Matthew, thank you for being such an excellent, insightful guest today. It's just been such a treat to talk to you.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Thank you. This was wonderful fun for me and I look forward to continuing following you on LinkedIn and collaborating.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Until next week, everybody, keep putting yourself out there. You have a brand to build, a message to share and people to impact. I'll catch you next week, take care. That's a wrap for today's brand therapy session. Need help with your personal branding journey? Then head on over to the brand therapistio and grab my free resources to get going today with your brand. And until next time, keep putting yourself out there. You have a brand to build, a message to share and people to impact. Take care, everyone. I'll talk to you soon.