Bofta Yimam: Grow Your Personal Brand & Your Nonprofit
As a nonprofit leader, you can build your personal brand and watch benefits accrue to both you and your organization. With the right messaging, strategy, consistency, and authentic connection, your individual and nonprofit brands coexist, and each sees increased visibility and impact. Emmy Award winner Bofta Yimam, founder of StoryLede, explains it all.
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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the embarrassment of osteatosis if you got under my skin with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, with what’s up. Hey Tony, here’s what’s coming. Grow your personal brand and your nonprofit. As a nonprofit leader, you can build your personal brand and watch benefits accrue to both you and your organization. With the right messaging, strategy, consistency, and authentic connection, your individual and nonprofit brands coexist. And each sees increased visibility and impact. Emmy Award winner Bota Yimam, founder of Story Lead, explains it all. On Tony’s take 2. My moment of vulnerability. Here is, grow your personal brand and your nonprofit. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome BFTA Yee Mom to nonprofit Radio. BFTA is an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist and founder of Story Lead. As the first Ethiopian American newscaster to receive an Emmy. She helps nonprofit founders and thought leaders amplify their stories and boost visibility. Her company is at storylead LED.com and BOFTA is on LinkedIn, very active there. Welcome to the show, BOFTA. Hey, it’s so good to be here. Thanks for having me, Tony. It’s a pleasure to meet you this way. We do a lot of, uh, sharing and commenting, etc. on LinkedIn. But this is, this is much, much better, much, much. Until we can, until we can have lunch or coffee or drinks. This is, this is, uh, we’re on the, we’re on the path, we’re on the path, yeah. What did you say? By the beach? I said by the beach. Yeah, come on down. Yes, you, you, yes, sounds good. Um. All right, so you have an expertise in helping people build personal brand, and you encourage nonprofit leaders. To build their own personal brand. What’s the, what’s the advantage for the person being a thought leader and what’s the advantage for the nonprofit to have a leader who’s Out as a thought leader in the field. Right, well, there’s so many advantages. I mean, the list, the list is long, but I’ll, I’ll touch on a few that I think your audience will definitely resonate with, right, Tony? So, so one, I think there’s no doubt that it’s a human thing. It’s a human connection, right? So when somebody is a thought leader and they’re saying why they care about their mission, this is not just another job for them. That they care about this and they tie it back to their own story and they remind the audience on whatever platform you choose to be on. About why you really support and care about this mission, why you joined forces behind it, it does something different to the audience. It makes them say, 00, like it wakes them up, right? Um, and look, there are some major nonprofits where, you know, it still behooves them to have a thought leader who’s out there. But for the other 95%, I’d say double time because nobody knows your nonprofit enough, you know, that you want them to know about. About it, um, or you’re trying to break into different sectors or support networks that are gonna send you grants or uh funders that are going to support you, you know, we had, um, it just comes to mind we had someone who was like 0% visibility and when she started to step out, not only was she invited to speak on stages on behalf of the nonprofit, you know, not only was she, um, then recognized as a thought leader. And able to have more impact and more attendees inside of her program. She also got grant funding that she did not expect, right? Because they wanted to support what she was about. And she made it very clear the connection, and this is where I think most people don’t do it, Tony, is they don’t connect the dots, right? They’re not connecting why they decided to start or join as a leader of the organization and continue that story and share different threads of that story. And so one is just massive visibility and impact. So most nonprofit leaders wanna have impact. If you wanna have impact, you gotta stop by hiding yourself and get out there, start speaking about it. If you’re not speaking online, you better be. Speaking in person, right? You’ve got to be doing the things beyond what I see is like your little kind of bubble, right? Beyond the bubble that you and your predecessors probably did. That’s how you get more national and global reach. Is it, uh, I will say this, and I, and I think it’s important to say, is this an overnight thing? No. It’s not an overnight thing. And I think that’s like very important because a lot of people want the overnight success. This is a building, and you’ve got to be committed to the build and the consistency. How do we overcome the concern? Let’s, let’s take a, I love that you invoked the other 95%. Thank you. There, there are, there are listeners dear, dear to me, dear to nonprofits. Thank you for, thank you for channeling them, um. How do we overcome the fear that the CEO of the, of the smaller mid-sized nonprofit has that People are gonna think I’m using the, the charity. Like, I’m using the good name that we have in the community for my own personal aggrandizement. And, and, you know, we do good work, like you were saying, you know, in the, in the bubble in our community. But, but now I wanna, now BOFA is suggesting I go like national or, you know, whatever, international through LinkedIn or whatever. But, but I feel like people are gonna think I’m just like exploiting. Our nonprofit that I love leading for my own personal like ego vanity project. How do we get people past that? Yeah, well, we know, we know, right, valid concerns, but it’s a mindset. You know, if you ask anyone who stepped out of visibility, has one person asked you if you are exploiting the nonprofit for your own personal gain by becoming more visible. You’ll say, no, actually, we got an extra $500,000 or a million dollars grant that popped out of nowhere. You know, you, no one’s saying it. That’s the reality is none of my clients have ever had somebody say it. It’s a mindset. It’s in your head. Now, I’m not dismissing that. That’s why it’s a valid concern. I’m not dismissing that somebody would feel that. I think that’s a, that’s a, that’s a natural question, you know. And so part of it is having a discussion with yourself and saying, and I put a post about this a while ago, but like, is the vision for this nonprofit or where you want to take it, is it bigger than that discomfort, that fear, that mindset? Because if you can really put that vision and make it huge, oh, we want to raise this much, or we want to impact this many students or whatever the nonprofit’s about, then you start to say, What would happen if I played bigger? Me, personally, what would happen if I played bigger? And I tell people, well, give it a year, year and a half. You don’t have anything coming through that, like nothing. Nobody giving you a little extra, nothing happening, no more students. OK. And your, your mind was right, you know, fine, right? But that’s, it just doesn’t happen like that. It just doesn’t, it doesn’t happen. Have you had a client that that happened to, like they worked, they, they went at this for a year and a half, and then they saw no, no, no change, no change. I’ve never had that happen because there’s just too many avenues that I can’t even predict where there will be change. There will be change in how you’re pulled into speaking engagements. There’ll be, uh, change even with your board, right? Let, let’s not neglect them too in this conversation. You can have that, that question and say, hey, look guys, I’m looking to, to branch out more invisibility. And here are some of the benefits of doing so that I think will bring our nonprofit and I wanna know if I, if I could just, you know, what are the chances that you would get behind this? You know, have the conversation and they’ll be like, yeah, we’ve mention others you’ve been seeing who’ve been doing this, who’ve been, whether they’ve been getting coached, consulted, or doing it internally, frankly, right? I think it’s a tough internal job because your communications team is really not assigned to personal branding. So I think that you add something to their plate, but that’s another conversation for another day. So, you know, if you ask your board simply. You know, what are the chances you’d support this? I’ve been seeing others do this, and I think there might be something to it. Can we give it a shot for a year, year and a half, see where it takes us. And I guarantee, if your board members have a pulse of what’s happening in the business world, they’ll understand that you’ve got to do personal branding. It’s no longer an option. It’s, it’s just not, you know, thought leaders who are out there are winning. And, and I’ll, I’ll say this too, their nonprofit may not be as great as yours. Their nonprofit may not be as strong, it may not have as, as, as strong as a system as yours. It may not have as much impact. Guess what? The thought leaders out there, so it. It kind of doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s just who’s out there. And I didn’t make up the rules. So don’t kill me, right? So like, that’s just the way it is. They’re, they’re out there. And if you see successful nonprofits, I’m talking about the ones who started in the past 5 to 8 years, when I’m not talking about legacy. Because I do think sometimes that’s different because they’ve had all these years of building a support network, OK? And they have changing leadership. But I’m talking about 5 to 8 years, you know, somebody started a nonprofit and who’s having massive success, guarantee they’re doing personal branding. Because you can’t do it any other way in this day and age and have massive success. It’s just really hard, yeah. And isn’t a lot of it the, the messaging too? I mean, when you’re out there, you’re not just talking about me, you’re talking about the, the community that we work in, you know, whether it’s animals or the environment or domestic violence or, you know, whatever, whatever our cause is, we’re, we’re. We’re, we’re, we’re putting ourselves out there, but we’re also sharing the message of that work and the work that our nonprofit does in our community, right? I mean, so, so another, like another way of overcoming the fear is, it’s all, it’s all in just the messaging. Like it’s not gonna be 100% about. Me and my family and my children and my animals and, and my vacations and, and my luxury we’re not gonna be having you pose in front of Bentleys and, and on yachts, you know, in, in, in scantily clad on Caribbean beaches. That’s not what, that’s, we’re not talking about you becoming an online influencer. We’re talking about you becoming a thought leader in your within. your work and your community, right? That’s right, right. Exactly. And, and so what that boils down to is brand awareness. What you’re really building is brand awareness. And you, the thought leader, you’re an extension of that, right? Uh, so you’re an extension of that, that organization. So, so when we say we’re stepping out in visibility, that’s a good question, Tony, and it’s like a thought process that you had, you know, what do we mean? Well, it means that you’re talking about your expertise, you’re sharing your, your perspective, right? You’re sharing your, your take on domestic violence, let’s say, or your take on whatever nonprofit you, you know, niche you’re in. And you’re sharing your perspective in a way, you’re sharing information, and you’re making people care beyond a statistic, right? So you, you might be telling, like, for example, one LinkedIn post might be talking about your connection to the nonprofit in your childhood and how there’s some type of connection and we weave it together. But the next post might be totally talking about the, the students you impact. And telling one of their stories, right? So it’s not all about, like you said, it’s not all about the thought leader, but it is stepping out and saying, I’m going to be sharing this message 10x. And board members and my network that I’m sending my newsletter to in my community. I, I would love for you to get behind this. I’m stepping out and I think it’s a very vulnerable and brave move to say, I’m stepping out this year. I actually think that’s a great starter to say, look, I am, most of the nonprofit leaders that I have met are naturally introverted or they think they are, and that is what they will hold a stake in the ground to for why they haven’t stepped out in visibility. And they’ll say like, I’m introverted. It’s just not my thing. And I’m like, well, how much do you care about, you know, 2xing or 3xing your revenue next year? Because that’s what’s at stake, your, your label of introvert and not dismissing that that’s true for them. But, but is that gonna be the thing when you are looking back at your nonprofit in 15 years and you’re thinking, did I have the most impact I could have? Are you OK that you called yourself an introvert to hold yourself back? Because that’s all it is, is a label and a mindset. And again, not dismissing that they might be, but is that going to be the thing that holds you back? Like you, like I’m asking, like the thought leaders on your, in your audience to really ask themselves, like, is that going to be your thing when you look back at your legacy, like, man, I could have really played bigger. And I, and I know people who wait 3 to 5 years before taking that leap, but they’re so glad they took the leap because they’re like, you know, I needed to at least try. I needed to, to attempt to do this because this is actually bigger than me. Like the nonprofit, the mission, everything is bigger than me. So why wouldn’t I go out there and at least try to step out and visibility more? And if you’re shy about speaking on a stage, well, don’t start at the stage, right? Go, go where you’re confident. I’m like, OK, if, if writing is easier, go with writing. If video is easier, go with, go with the medium that’s easier for you. And just start. The problem is, is what’s really hard, Tony, is the consistency. That’s what’s OK. Well, well, I was gonna ask you about how to start. You, you kind of, you kind of tease that like find your, like find your favorite, you know, don’t, you don’t have to, you don’t have to, like you said, go on stage if you’re not comfortable going on stage. You might get there. You might get there in 6 months or a year, but, but, all right, so like choose a channel, uh, a, a, a, a method, uh, that suits you, right, that, because you’re already. You’re already busting out of your comfort zone, so you have to, you don’t have to double, double that with the stage fright that you’re gonna invoke or if you don’t like doing webinars, then, you know, then do audio podcasts, maybe, maybe that, you know, that’s right, or LinkedIn or all the, that’s right, get your confidence, do the small thing, do the small thing to get your confidence going, right? So do the small thing like take the baby step and, and as you become more comfortable, you’ll say, oh, actually I do. I want to go on podcasts, or actually, I do want to do this. You’ll see that you’ll see that natural evolution of self, right? Um, and so, so first thing is, is I would say, if you’re not on LinkedIn, that’s where you want to be. That’s where decision makers are. That’s where a lot of the people who you’re connecting with in person. I will not go to an in-person event without taking that pamphlet that everyone throws away, and making sure that I connect with every single person who’s in that pamphlet. So you’ve got to be doing some of those, those basic networking steps. We’re talking about if you’re in-person networking, they’re gonna forget you if they’re not following you. Even if you had a great conversation, unless you said, I’m having a meeting with you and you’re doing that, but let’s be honest, usually that might be two people you’re walking out with saying that. What about the rest of the room? So, you know, you want to make sure that you’re, you’re, you’re networking in person, you’re, you’re taking that list, and you’re making sure you’re asking the event organizer for it, and you’re making sure that you’re connecting with them on LinkedIn. Now you’ve got a fan base. Because you’re, you’re adding fans, somebody who’s gonna support, not everyone’s gonna be a client or a donor, but they might be a fan, right? And we dismiss the fans sometimes, right? So, so allow people who might just support you to be part of your LinkedIn network. So make sure you’re doing those simple things. If you are not networking in person right now, like. Some people might not be, that’s OK. OK, that’s fine. Then make sure that you’re adding 100 people a week or more on your LinkedIn, that are your target audience or going to support you. So you have to be doing something to get new eyeballs. Everyone talks about content and we can get to that. But first things first is, are you, are you actually allowing people to come into your space and are you proactively adding them? So, so I think that’s something that’s missed, which is why I’m talking about it off top, right? Yeah, no, this is the consistency that you, you were, you touched on earlier. You have to keep up like a, a, a, a drumbeat of your, that’s, that’s pretty ambitious. I love, I love it. 100, 100 new connect connection requests per, per week, right? And you can, and you can. Mention if you met them in person, Tony, say it like great meeting you at the da da da conference. Um, I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to connect, but I saw you on LinkedIn. I’d love to support your, your, your content here, right? Just something simple, nothing too aggressive, right? Just something real cool, right? OK, so, so that’s just what I call that just, I just wanna drop a little footnote there for, for listeners. Zoe. So now to do that, you’re gonna, you’re gonna have to invest in the LinkedIn Pro. You know, you’re not gonna be able to send any messages. That many connection requests with the free LinkedIn, which, which is fine. So you know, you gotta invest a little money. It’s, I don’t know, it’s like $100 a month or something, or yeah, it might even be less than that. I think it’s like $70 a month. OK, so just, you know, not a big deal, not a big deal, but just alerting you, you know, they’ll say, oh, I, I’m, I reached my $5 a week or whatever, whatever, 5 a month limit. You just gotta, just a little, you know, not, not a, not to dissuade you, but you gotta put a little money in to be able to send that volume of, of connection requests, but The value comes as you, as you build your, your, your followers or your, your connections or you know, you, you fans, um, OK, so just, uh, just that’s a little footnote. So good footnote, and I’ll add to that LinkedIn’s always changing things, so don’t, we’re not gonna be quoted here, right? So like it could be 150 next week. LinkedIn’s always changing. We don’t know exactly. I, I don’t know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just tell everybody, yeah, that’s that’s a valuable channel. Uh, we’ve had other guests and one within the past week or two. Sort of allude, well, explicitly talk a lot about what you just alluded to that LinkedIn is really underutilized as a, as a connection tool, as a networking tool for nonprofits, for, for just building relationships. That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. So, so, so that’s, so that’s one thing you want to be adding. To your network right before you’re adding to your network, I would make sure your profile, your headline is strong, it’s relevant, it’s current. It’s saying what you do in one sentence, but the headline gives you a ton of space, as you know, too, Tony, right? So I’m referring to the area right below somebody’s name. And so a lot of times people put nonprofit leader like let’s get specific on who we help and and and how we help them and you can say that in one sentence, right? Um, you know, we help so and so so they can, right? So if you really are stuck you could always use something like that so they can have more impact so they can. And, um, you know, uh, graduate school within 4 years, whatever it might be, so, so they can as a quick one, quick win, but we wanna get specific. You can put nonprofit leader after that, and I would get more specific, executive director, founder, be specific on exactly what it is you do. If you have awards. If you’re a keynote speaker as well, um, sought after, dynamic, get those adjectives going because if you want, if you want an Emmy Award, if you want an Edward R. Murrow Award, sure, put that in, put that in. This is not the time to be shy, basically is what I’m saying, OK, like don’t be shy in your headlines because when people are looking for you. Or somebody who helps your uh organization they’re going inside of the search and they might be putting something in, you know, so they might, they might be putting dome I’m just gonna go domestic violence because we were talking about that that’s in my brain right now, but like domestic violence leader in Orange County, right? So that might that because what if they’re doing a conference and they’re looking for a speaker, they might say speaker on domestic violence and they’re putting these in the headlines. So you want your profile to say that so that you pop up. So make sure you’re location specific, get the basics down, right? And, and if you wanna be known as a speaker, make sure you have speaker throughout your entire profile. If you want to be known as a thought leader, say that throughout. So you want keywords throughout. And, and so your mission, whatever the keywords are for your mission. Like, let’s say it’s nonprofit radio, you would want to say like, you know, nonprofit radio podcast as many times throughout your entire profile because you wanna be, be sought after maybe for that, right? So it just depends on what you want to be known as, which is a great question is what do you want to be known as? Think of that as you build your whole LinkedIn profile. I’ll start there. Valuable. So I love the, I love the tactics. I love the tactics, like things we can do, you know, I can start tomorrow evaluating what, what do I want to be known as and does my LinkedIn profile convey that. That’s right. That’s right throughout. And you make the point throughout, not just, not just in your headline. Yes, even in your resume, like everything matters. So even if your resume is, you know, you’ve been at this organization for 5 years, but what about all the other ones, you know, did you speak there? So if you wanted to be known as a speaker, you’d be putting speaker keynotes. Or through those previous um jobs that you were in, right? Um, skills, all those things, you just want to make a robust profile. There’s even a media section. If you’ve been in any media, you could literally add media to it. So just get that profile full before you start adding people because once people you’re adding people, they’re gonna do a quick look at who you are, and they’re not gonna accept you if they feel like. You’re not gonna add to their network, so you just wanna show up as your best self is what I tell folks like put your best self, spend a really good amount of time on that LinkedIn profile. Sure, you could have your comms team also kind of kick it back with you if you have a coms team, um, or, or higher external, whatever, whatever makes sense for you and where you are, but get that profile good. Then the next thing you wanna do is think about your content. I think it’s important that you think of your content in, in themes, right? So, maybe you’ll do a personal story, and then another one might be a thought leader story. Um, so I, I think it’s important not to stay in one thing, um, because then we sound the same and, and people are attracted to diverse thought. They’re, so when they look at thought leaders. They like a funny post every once in a while. Like, don’t be so serious that you’re, you know, it’s like we can’t, we can’t joke with you. We don’t see your personality. It’s not funny, right? A little, a little humanity, you know, like school, first day of school. Uh, you know, a, a proud graduation moment, uh, uh, you know, maybe it is even vacation because, you know, you’re, you’re thinking about self-care this week, you know, but that, that’s, you’re right, we would like to, we like to see the humanity in a little personality, yeah, and a little personality, you know, so if you’re like the, the, the, the funny. Dad, you know, let me see that, you know, uh, not every post because we’re, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a business essentially. But no, you know, then no, right? So, so very distinct from Facebook, right? I say like we’re not sharing what we ate for dinner, you know, that’s very Facebook. So, um, I said everyone just keep that in mind, right, when we say personality. Um, but, but you want to be changing up the post, then you might want to think about a case study of a, of a, of somebody impacted. So if you serve students or you serve the homeless population, can you share a case study? And if you have a photo or video, even better. Keep your videos under 45 seconds, OK? Because longer than that, a lot of view times drop off. It doesn’t get as much. So keep that under 45 seconds per video. And look, raw videos are also really good too. A lot of people want to make it beautiful, but don’t, I tell people like, again, what you said earlier, like, you just need a quick win sometimes. So don’t get over your head. I need to hire an editor tomorrow. No, quick video, quick video, quick hits. I’m all for something. I did something at my dining room table last week. Like just do, do it because we all know time can be limited sometimes, right? So just the, the goal is to get you in the motion and the energy of I’m gonna show up, right? And I think if you could show up 2 times a week at the beginning and then move to 3 times a week, is really good. If all you could do is 1 post a week next week, then do the one post. It doesn’t need to be a Pulitzer Prize, folks, right? But it just needs to be something that’s. That’s informative or persuasive or compelling in some way. And so that’s why you, you could, you could steal something that I said at the beginning and just say like I have not been visible. I’ve been 0% visibility on LinkedIn, and this year it’s gonna change. I’m trying to make a difference and try to make a difference, right? And, and you could start with something like that just to, to get people to wake up and pay attention. But if you do that, Tony, don’t lose, don’t hurt your brand by then not showing up. Don’t wait a month. You can’t have every post can’t start. Every post can’t start with an apology. I’m sorry, I haven’t been here for 6 weeks. You know, that’s, that, that you do have, well, that’s the consistency going back to what you said, you know, and even if you can only do 1 a week in the beginning and then step it up to 2. A week, uh, you know, and then some, maybe some outside appearances as well if you’re comfortable doing the, the in-person type work or podcasts. But yeah, you know, start, really, I mean, really, your message is just start, start. If it’s once a week, if it’s once a week, that’s more than you’ve been doing. Yes, exactly. So start, start, you know, I wanna talk a little about, uh, BOAFTA because this is amazing. Like, Emmy, what, what, you’re a, you’re a, you’re a professional journalist, obviously you won, you won an Edward R. Murrow Award. What, what, what’s your, what, what brought you to journalism? Not, not, not to the brand work. What brought you to journalism and storytelling? What you question. I haven’t even asked that in a long time, Tony. Um, yeah, yeah. So, um. You know, I think I was a kid, I always was drawn to stories and storytelling and writing. So I always knew that I enjoyed the writing process. Like it could be songs, it could be anything, it could be poems, like I enjoyed writing. Um, and then, you know, my, my, did you used to record yourself ever and listen to yourself like? a little tape recorder. I, I had a tape recorder and I was, I think I would listen to myself, maybe trying to like bust a note, like a singer, sing a song or something, right? So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I would. And when I feel like I’m dating myself here, but once like VHS like video cameras got smaller and smaller, my girlfriend and I, my childhood friend would like. You know, videotape ourselves for random things. So we, we, it’s like I enjoyed this because, because I used to do that with a cassette recorder. So, I’m going even further back. I used to listen to myself like pretend DJ, uh, on a, on a little, little cassette recorder. So you’re not dating yourself you are podcast. But no, but tell you, no, no, no, no, but tell your, I wanna hear about BFA. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, so, so I think I had um and then my parents, both Ethiopian immigrants who came here in the late 60s, early 70s, and, and we would always watch 60 Minutes, we would always watch it on Sunday nights. And I remember thinking, it’s so cool that they can show up on the scene and know exactly what’s going on. Like I, it felt, I don’t know if the word magical is the right word. I’ve never described it like that. But there was something that I was, uh, that captured my attention with that, you know, and so. Um, I would just see them in different, you know, locations or reporters, and it was just so cool. And they were so fluid. And I was like, how does this all, how does this all come together? I think I was just really in awe, right? And so, um, and so I, you know, um, you know, went to college and at the University of Maryland, and I did a lot of internships. It was hard for me to find my first job. I majored in communications. I, um, I applied to more than 100 TV stations before I got my first job. Yeah, and I, I mean back then you were sending in a VHS tape and you were mailing it in. So I was just doing that and I was working odd-end jobs, you know, waiting tables, whatever have you to make ends meet while I was applying and it took like a year and a half, Tony. I mean, I talk to students now. I’m like, oh, you think, oh, you applied to 5 places and you’re, you’re throwing in the towel. I was like, what? I mean, I was just, I was hungry, you know, I was you, who gave you your first shot? Where’d you get your first journalism job? Well, I did an internship after college for free. OK, 2 hours away. And I say for free because all these kids are like, if you ever, if you have a kid, let them listen to this because I’m telling you, nobody wants to work for free. And I’m like, look, that’s what I did. So after college, For free. I did an internship. I thought I was going to get the job. I was like, oh, I’ve got this in the bag. You know, I’ve been there 2 months. I was commuting back and forth from Maryland to Virginia. And then the news director got fired, left, who knows? And I was like, oh my goodness. But here’s what happened. The anchor there had seen me working my tail off and just said, hey, you know, what if, What if, what if there was a job in Georgia? Would you be willing to move to Georgia? Because that’s where my first job was, and I could connect you with the news director. Long story short, that ended up being my first job. Um, and I, yeah, and I, and it was, and it was $15,000 a year. That anchor, that anchor in, in Virginia, Melanie believed in you. Melanie believed in me. Melanie believed in me. Melanie was helping me with my resume tape that summer. Um, Melanie, I think, understood how hard it could be. Um, and yeah, she just, she extended the olive branch like I’m gonna help you, you know, and I, I, Melanie Lofton, and, um. She’s since left the business and and everything, but she, she really helped me. And so, um, and I’ll tell you that I wanted that job so badly that I, I told the news director in Georgia that, and I’ve done this a couple of times. I told him that I was going to be in town to visit friends. And I flew out there, drove 2 hours to Dalton, Georgia, small town of 40,000. And I met him just so I would be like top of the stack when a job was available because jobs was not available. So 8 months later, Call me back and he’s like, do you want the job still? Are you still available? I was like, Yes, I am. Even that, so that that was 8 months in your 1.5 job search, still scratching together odds and ends jobs, trying to, trying to, trying to pull it together. I was hustling. That’s I was hustling great. That’s a good darn story. That’s very good. All right, so that doesn’t know till this day, by the way, I think that I, I like literally flew out there just to like, hey, just so you meet me and I’m at the top of the stack. But anyways, but yeah, good story, good, good story. It’s time for Tony’s take 2. Thank you, Kate. I had a moment of vulnerability not too long ago. I’m writing this book, Planned Giving Accelerated, and I. Spent 9 months writing the manuscript. 55,000 words. And as I was writing, It was a conversation between me and the reader. That’s it. I was sitting, typing. Thinking about reader questions, channeling what they might challenge, what, what they might like to know in addition to, you know, what I’m, what I’m writing, what, what more should I be adding. It’s just between me and the reader. That’s it, for 9 months. Just the two of us. And then the next stage after I finished the manuscript. Uh, I sent it to 9 different, uh, beta readers. And these are folks who read your book, they may not read all of it, they read parts of it or all of it. And they scrutinize it. They challenge it. They question it. And that felt very vulnerable because for 9 months it was just me and the readers. Readers. I hope, I hope there’s more than 1 reader, I hope more than 1 person buys the book. Let’s assume 2 or more will buy the book, so it’ll be just me and the readers. But really, I’m thinking of one person, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m thinking of just having a conversation with a person. And then all of a sudden, these other 9 people jump in and they start, you know, I’m asking them. I, I recruited them. It’s, it’s an essential part of writing a book is to get it beta read. So it’s not like, uh, they were imposed on me. I invited them in. I need their help. I need feedback. But it’s, uh, it felt a little fearful, a little vulnerable. Because 9 months I was with this thing all alone. And then other people start. Hopefully not tearing it apart, but Giving their input, giving their input, which is, again, it’s an essential part of writing a book, but just sharing how it felt at that moment of emailing those. 55,000 words to, to folks. And, and the feedback is, uh, starting to come in. Uh, it’s, uh, it’s early, very early, but Pretty, pretty, uh, pretty positive actually. Folks, uh, some folks are laughing. That’s good. That’s good. It’s a light, it’s a light read. I would say, is it light? Is it a light read? It’s a light-hearted book, put it that way. Light read makes it sound like it’s, you know, kind of like beach fiction for, uh, you know, for the summertime. It’s not like that. But there is a good amount of humor in it. So, thanks for just, you know, just wanted to share that. Vulnerability, vulnerable feeling, letting others into your work after 9 months. And that is Tony’s take 2. Kate, congratulations on taking the next step. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is a big step. Thank you. Not many people can say that they’ve, or they’re working on publishing a book, but then when you get to that point, you can say, I’ve published a book. I’m gonna get there in September. Thank you. Yep, that’s the publication, September date. We’ve got Beu but loads more time. Here’s the rest of grow your personal brand and your nonprofit with Bota Yamm. What did you win the Emmy Award for? Where were you? Where were you then? I went, OK, so I worked in several markets and then I was in Memphis, Tennessee, and um there was a woman who um had gone through, nearly died, I will say she had been brutally raped. She had, she, her, the convicted rapist was in jail. Um, but there was a loophole in the law that she found out he was getting out early based on like good credit. And she’s like, how does somebody who almost killed me. Um, raped me, get out of jail early on good behavior, right? And so we found this loophole in the law. And, uh, you know, I give it up to Kimberly because she shared her story, which is the only reason why this was, this was not going to help her case, but it was going to help those beyond. Um and so, um, And with that, you know, she, um, she shared her story. A lawmaker found out about what we were working on, that we worked with that lawmaker to close a loophole in the law for sadly the next victim. But, but at least, you know, with Kimberly sharing her story and getting the support, we were able to do some good. Yeah. And what station were you at when you got that, uh, WHBQ in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis, Tennessee. Congratulations. That’s a, you know, you notice how you, you notice how you like, you, you become, you talk a little softer when you’re recalling that. Like you, you know, like you’re a little reflective, you know, it’s traumatic. I felt for her, you know, and I think anyone watching would have felt for her. I mean, it’s just her life was upended and changed forever because of that. And so. Uh, she’s a survivor. I mean, that’s, she’s, she’s she’s a survivor, a beautiful girl. So I, I say it because I, it’s, you know, you win an award for that, and then you think of her story. And so it’s it’s hard, you know, it’s hard sometimes to, it’s an interesting position. How about the Edward R. Murrow Award? What was that for? Um, so that was wild because, um, A senator had a news conference, and look, senators have news conferences, as we know all the time, and I’m right outside DC, but this was in Macon, Georgia, so small town. And I was a one man band reporter, which is you shoot, edit, and then show up on camera. So you do the whole, now they call it multimedia journalists because they, they, they fancied up the word, but it is usually you’re like carrying your camera, filming yourself, you’re doing the whole nine by yourself, no videographer. And so, I was a one man band reporter. And I was at the news conference. And like, I used to wear sneakers to work every day because I just felt like I was always running, you know, and carrying equipment, right? Because I wasn’t in fancy heels. I was shooting this conference. And um, And the, the, the senator had very odd behavior. It’s like he held a 3 minute news conference and he walked out and right, it was just very odd. Like, what’s going on? And he was really upset and he pushed the photographer from another from a from a newspaper out of the way, like knocked him over, um, or his, his bodyguard, excuse me, did. And um, I’m trying to recollect it because this is like 15 years ago, and or 1010 years ago. And anyways, I pursued the, I pursued the bodyguard and was like, asking him on camera, like, why did you just do that? So he just knocked over. Yeah, that’s what he did. It was the bodyguard. He just like knocked over that um. That that uh newspaper photographer. And so it was just, again, it was just this really odd, you know, it becomes a regular day, regular news conference. So I pursued him, kept filming, kept asking questions, and it was all very breaking news. I want breaking news. Um, the video went viral. I was interviewed in like Atlanta for it. And um we followed up with the senator. I mean, it was just, it just was an ongoing story. Like I said, it was wild. It was bizarre. And um, And they had the video to then press charges on that bodyguard because I had kept filming and I had filmed the actual assault. So like the assault took place in front of me and I just kept going. So just I kept carrying my camera. So, so that was the, um, that was the breaking news story that I won that mural for. Yeah, you had the instinct to think about that. I had the instinct like this is weird. Why would this is weird and what is going on? And this is wild and just. And everyone was like, Weren’t you scared he might come for you? For some reason, I just, you just in the moment. I was like, no, not really. I don’t know why, but he certainly could have just knocked me over too, you know, with a little hand as a bodyguard. So, and I don’t really know why he had a bodyguard or his, it was his nephew, I believe, at a news conference anyway, like I said, the whole thing was bizarre. Who was the senator was bizarre? Oh my goodness. Now you’re, oh my goodness. Because you’re asking me, I forget. Uh, it’s all right. It was a senator. It was, it was a US senator from Georgia. Yes, uh, yeah, well, it was a state senator. It was a state, state senator, OK, it was state senator, state senator. He has since passed. He has since passed 90%. This is again a while ago, um, and did you remember his name? Yeah. Did you ever find out why they left the news conference so abruptly? They, they gave us just a generic statement like, no, you know, it was just, it wasn’t really um. Yeah, this was back in like probably 2011. They gave us a generic statement. Yeah, it was a generic statement. It makes me curious. Yeah, well, you’re a good interviewer. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, they just gave a generic, generic statement and the whole thing was bizarre. I mean, they just, and then they didn’t want they want to answer our questions afterwards, you know, so it was just, it was wild. Yeah. And then how come you left journalism to, did you go from journalism to having your own business to being an entrepreneur? I did I did. What, what was, what was behind that shift? That’s a big. It is a big shift. It was a big move because I clearly had sacrificed a lot, right? So I, I’ve done a lot to get wherever I was. And I think there was just a push inside of me that wanted to. Play bigger. Like, I think what I tell nonprofit leaders to do and for-profit leaders to do, it’s like I, there was a, it was part of me that, yes, I was speaking to thousands of people on camera, but I think by that time I was in Pittsburgh. And I was anchoring and reporting, but I, there was something that I wanted. KDKA, were you with KDKA? No, I was WTAE. Are you familiar? Yeah, OK. I went to, I went to Carnegie Mellon. That’s where I got my undergrad, Pittsburgh. So, uh, KDK, sorry, KDK is the only one I remember, but, um, yeah, the, the only station east of the Mississippi with a K because it was, because it was one of the, it was the first station, it was one of the first stations. They let them because all the stations east of the Mississippi have W. You know, W W A B C W E T A, etc. but KDKA, they let them keep the K east of the Mississippi because they were maybe the first TV station. I didn’t know something, yeah, but west of the Mississippi is all the K’s except for, except for KDKA. All right, yeah, fun fact, fun fact. OK, if you were, I remember W W E T, no, W T W T A E WTAE is the ABC station there and so I was there for almost 5 years and um. And so I, I think I just felt this pull that I wanted to, to try and do my own thing. I wanted to build my own thing. Um, I still freelance, you know, occasionally for the NBC National News in DC. I’m right outside DC. Yeah, so sometimes I’ll pop up on TV, but I’m, I’m really fully in the business. I just, I like it. I, I like being able to dip my toe in. And I also enjoy what I do in my own business and speaking. I do a lot of workshops, um, but. I think for me, it was this pull to do something bigger and to do something different. And I, um, I couldn’t ignore it. I don’t know if anyone’s felt that way who’s listening, but it’s just like I couldn’t, I couldn’t ignore the poll. And I said, well, at least I’ve got to try it. And if it, you know, works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, you go back, it was fine. I left on good terms. But I just felt, I felt like I was playing small. You know, I felt like I was playing small. I wanted to speak globally. I wanted to just do different things. And It’s, it’s hard if you’re working full time for someone, you know, it’s hard. Sure, sure. Well, now you encourage, now you encourage others to take the step that you took to not, not, not play small, get out outside your comfort zone, right? Be, be comfortable outside the envelope. Yes, yes. And, and look, we all have, every time you want to go to a new level, like there are things I think about doing, and I’m like, oh, am I ready for that, you know, everyone has. You know, different levels of where they are, because if you’re, if you’re growing, then there’s part of you that wants to expand and do different things. And I think that, you know, I think about, OK, well, what’s next for me too, right? So that’s all of us. I think that’s, that’s, that’s all everyone thinks that you’ve got it all together just because you’re, you know, doing different things and doing them pretty well, right? But, but, If you’re evolving, there’s a part of you that’s like, what’s next for me? You know, what, what does this still resonate with me? Am I still happy doing this? Does this still have impact, right? And I think those are good questions. You know, so basically, I’m saying I don’t have it all figured out either. But the part I do, I figured out, I’d like to share, you know, so. So that’s perfect. So let’s, let’s talk more about, uh, the, the personal branding. But thank you for the, both the yam interlude. I like to, I like to know, I like to know about people. I think listeners like to know about people. I agree. I agree. It was, uh, it, it was a good flashback. I had to reflect and really think back. I’m like, oh yeah, yeah, it’s fun. Thank you. Thanks for flashing back with us. So what, what more would you like to say? We got, we got, uh, some time together still. What, what, what haven’t we talked about around? Around this work, uh, you go like a quarter in the slot. Go ahead. Yeah, look, um, I think the first thing that people think about is, am I gonna do this or is someone gonna do this for me? And is it gonna be my comms team? And I, I, I think I touched on it earlier, but if we have time, I’ll touch on it here. You know, your comms team is usually already overloaded. Um, and they are focused on the organization’s brand and distinction might be a comms person. That is true too. I should say that. Yeah, that that is true too. And so they’re already feeling from maybe writing the newsletters and doing the socials, they’re already handling the organization’s voice. And it’s important to make a distinction that your brand is different than the organization’s. And I think a lot of people are like, wasn’t the same thing? It’s like, no, it’s it’s two different things. You could be an extension of it, but it is two different things. And so, And knowing that when you have somebody handling the organization’s voice and the personal brand voice, it can get tricky. Um, it, it can get tricky because it’s a lot to manage. Also, um, the personal branding is a beast on its own. You wanna be thinking about you on stages, who’s gonna edit that video, if you’re going to, but how are you going to essentially handle the inner workings of getting your brand out there? And I think it’s an undertaking that people underestimate until they try to do it themselves. And when they try to do it themselves, they really enjoy it. And I think there’s a a small percentage, but they actually enjoy the writing and the doing of it, and they’re really good at it because they really own it and they want to do it and they feel confident. Most, I would say, need some support and need some help. In crafting what their story threads are going to be. Um, and I like to tell people that one way, that this is a tip, really, so get out your pens, is if you’re stuck on how to tie in your story to back to, um, Your mission Think of transformational moments. So when you went from this to that, you know, so it could be, it could be from journalism to entrepreneurship, for instance, right, exactly, from $15,000 a year to X amount of dollars a year, from being a one-man band reporter to having a whole team doing a documentary. Like, so think of the transformation, because there’s a lot that happened. I mean, I probably have 10 more stories I could share, right? Or 20, like there’s a lot that happens in the in between. But I want you to think about the transformational moments going from this to that. And you’ll often see this, like, this is a good way for you to think about it when you read the bios of authors on the back. And it’s for inspirational authors. You know, so Iyanla Vanzant went from single mom to Oprah’s to being having her own show on Oprah, you know, right, so, or from a domestic violence survivor to that. She did a lot of things, but she focuses on one or two to go from this to that, right? And she’s like a spiritual leader who’s out there. Um, a celebrity, a quasi celebrity. What’s her name? What’s her name again? Iyanla Vanzant. She just popped in my head because I saw a commercial before I got on this show, this show, like on IG. So, so this is what happens, right? My, you know, look, it’s brand awareness, I guess she’s doing, yeah, she’s doing it. Yeah, she’s doing it. But if you look on the good ways or you look on a podcast, you know, somebody went from this to Mel Robbins, a lot of people know Mel Robbins, the podcast. Host, right, who’s done, I think she’s the number one podcast in the world or something. She, she went from, you know, being $800,000 in debt with a pizza shop with her husband, to now having the number one podcast, right, from this to that, you know, so, so thinking of your own transformational moments, I think is really big. Um, so that’s a place for people to start writing now. Write down 20 transformational moments that you’ve got maybe 10 of those that you might want to make publicly stories. Not everything needs to be shared out loud, right? So, so, so, so I think that that’s a way. So imagine, so I go back to the comms team. Imagine your comms team trying to help you with this. It’s just a lot, right? It’s a lot. They’re, they’re like, what transformational moments we’re focused on the organization. So I think it’s, you either have to own it yourself, maybe have a really good, Team behind you, not just one person. Thanks for pointing that out, Tony. The team behind you or you externally, you know, you know, you hire outside and you figure that out and you see if the board can support that whatever way you go. See if the board will get behind you too, because the board might say, I have somebody who could maybe sponsor that, or maybe there’s unrestricted grant dollars, right? Just people can get creative when you start to tell them what you’re doctoring up and what you’re dreaming up. Um, one client got a 2 year grant to work with us, right? But she, she kept us like on her list. And she’s like, I’m working on this grant, we get this grant, I can use it for this, as long as I tie it to this, great. I’m like, OK, cool. So people find ways once they’re committed, and they’re like, OK, I definitely want to do this. People find ways. Um, others just get funders maybe to support it, or their their organization is doing better as their visibility goes up too. Um, and, and look, some people, Tony, I think it’s important to mention, never want, but I don’t mention their names, because they They don’t want anyone to know that we’re ghostwriting for them. They, they want to hold it close to their chest, and I respect that. So yeah, you’re not supposed, yeah, if you give up their names, that would, that defeats the point of ghostwriting. Yeah, yeah. Well, some, some, some don’t care. Some are like, that’s fine. They’ll talk about us, and they’ll, they, they don’t, they’re like, yeah, they help us. Like, OK, you know, CEOs get help all the time with their speeches, like whatever, you know, it’s like they see it as that, you know, like, like a CEO getting help with a speech. They don’t see it as being disingenuous. But I, I say that to say, so there’s some, if I say too much specific information, it would give away someone. So I’m just, I’m playing very general right now. So what I’m saying intentionally to protect them. Um, go ahead. You had a question. Yeah, I want to, uh, I want to close with the, uh, with the big ass calendar behind you. OK. What’s that about? You, when we, before we started off, off mic, you, uh, you said big ass calendar is a thing. I don’t, I don’t know about the thing. So to me, the boxes are very small. It looks like a whole year. Uh, it’s like a little 1 by 1 inch by or 1 1.5 by 2-inch boxes. What do you do with this big ass calendar? Right. So, um, this is by Jesse Itzler. I may be botching his last name, um. So, he’s an entrepreneur who talks about, like, if you want to have a really exciting life, you’ve got to make sure you’re intentional behind it. And so he has a whole um calendar that he created and all the boxes and there’s these stickers and I’m about. 2 months of what I’m going to be planning on doing. So you really plan out your whole year. So I have to sit and plan out my whole year. And what it is, is you, um, you pick. Um, an activity that you normally wouldn’t do, but that would be for yourself. A lot of people have kids and they do things all the time for their kids. This is about like, if he’s like, if you can’t take every 6 weeks, 1 day to do something for yourself, that you normally wouldn’t do. Then you’ve got to fix that. Like you should be doing something for yourself. So not to say you won’t also do things for your kids, but this is about intention for self. OK. So, and, and look, I might be misquoting him, but I’m going to give you all the the brief version. OK, they’re both the version. So, so, so, let’s say, so last year, I took like a pottery barn, a pottery making class, because I was like, I’ve never done that before. It’s right up my street. And I’ve been curious about it. I’ve been like, oh, I want to sign up for this pottery class. So I took a 2 hour pottery class. That’s the thing I would normally do. It was my like small activity every 6 weeks. Then he also has a daily habit every quarter to implement. So that daily habit every, every day would be maybe just to drink an extra glass of water. Maybe it’s to walk 15 minutes, maybe it’s to move for 15 minutes, but it’s some type of daily habit, and every quarter, you’re compounding. So if it’s a 15 minute walk, maybe next quarter it’s 8 glasses of water. Now you’re doing 8 glasses of water plus the 15. So each quarter you’re, you’re adding to it, OK? So you’ve got your daily habit, you’ve got your every 6 weeks, and then. I think it’s every, and then I can’t remember how many times a year, but you’re doing like, um, That it’s called a uh. Every 3 months, I think you do like an actual thing thing that would be even bigger. So, um, it would be like, um, I’ve never gone hiking, and so I want to go hiking. So he has this whole formula. But the big thing is that this will be the year of that when I look back, it will be the year I launched a podcast, went on podcasts, and it’s called a misogi. And then the misogi is that big thing that you’re gonna look back on. Maybe it’s you cleared your debt, maybe you bought a new home, maybe it’s you um. Went on a trip to Japan. It’s the year. So you, when you look back on that year, you should remember it as the year that I did that thing. So, so he has 2 or 3 things that I just described that are all part of this big ass calendar and so there’s stickers and now I see you have multi, you have multicolored stickers. You got yellow, orange, purple, red. Do those mean different things to you, the red, I assume the red, the red are birthdays. The orange are my like, uh, every six week activities, um, and then yellow is travel, but I haven’t filled it all out yet. No, I can see it’s just it looks like you got it last April or May. You got looks like you. Last entry is maybe June. Yeah, a little travel in June coming, like 3 day travel in June. 4 days I have traveled before that. 3 or 4 stickers there. All right, yeah, you’re working and my monthly um move goal, my, my daily thing, my daily habit right now is like I must, I sprained my, I fractured actually my ankle, um, late this fall. And so I just got out of physical therapy. So my thing is now 15 minutes of movement every day to get this ankle back up. What I want to do is more, but I say 15. You know what I take away from this? You, you, you practice what you preach. You encourage people to go outside their comfort, uh, zone, outside the, outside the, the envelope of security, and every, whatever, every 6 weeks you do something for yourself, or every, and every 3 months you do something that you’ve never done before. So. Both the yam practicing what you preach. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. It was so fun to be on here and I love the questions. So it got, it got me thinking. It got me thinking. I’m gonna Google the senator because I now it’s bothering me that I remember his name, man. Oh, Senator Brown. There it is. Sorry, Senator Brown, Georgia. All right, what year was that? What year was that Edward R. Murrow Award? 20, I, I’ll tell you right now. Hold on, 2011, 2011, 2011, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s, you know, you do so many, honestly, you do so many stories that I don’t like to, to say just the ones I got awards for because I really, I really believe like a lot of stories were even more some powerful and compelling, but Sometimes those are what gets, you know, what gets recognized as out of my um purview, right? But there were a lot of stories where people shared a lot of beautiful things that invited me in their home, and I, I don’t take that lightly. I think that’s, um. It’s, it was, it was, um, it was gratifying, you know, it was beautiful. So I admire journalism. Uh, uh, if I hadn’t gone to law school, my, my second choice was to go to a master’s degree in journalism. I, I admire the work of journalists. It’s essential for our country. I, I, I feel badly that they’re, that they’re marginalized and, and it’s criticized so unfairly, I think. Uh, I just, I admire, I admire the field. So thank you for doing that work. Thank you. Thank you. Both to ya mom. You’ll find her company at Story Lead. Now, it’s L E D E, the lead, like the introduction to a, a, a piece that would draw you in. Storylead.com. You need to connect with BFA on LinkedIn, uh, and you’ll, you’ll find both of us active together often. Botha, thank you very much. Pleasure. Thank you, Tony. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Next week, systems and processes so your people thrive. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you, find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.
eport and CEO Mike Rusch shares the results from their survey of mostly small- and mid-size nonprofits, plus his recommendations.
