KaileiCarr.com | Episode 64: Jennifer Ransaw Smith Tells Us How to Elevate Our Personal Brands

Episode 64: Jennifer Ransaw Smith Tells Us How to Elevate Our Personal Brands

Kailei Carr 12 April 2016 Beyond the Business Suit/podcast 4

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS | More

In this episode of Beyond the Business Suit I had the pleasure of interviewing Jennifer Ransaw Smith, Personal Elevation strategist, leadership development mentor and Personal Branding consultant. You will see that Jennifer and I share many of the same philosophies when it comes to personal branding and elevation and we had such a great time talking about it.

In this episode you will hear:

How the book, “The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters, changed the trajectory of Jennifer's career.
Some women in corporate America who Jennifer believes have been able to successfully leverage and elevate their personal brands.
What people who may not be at the most senior ranks can do to elevate their brands.
What Jennifer thinks about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's personal brands that have made them current front-runners for this election.
Three things professionals and executives can do today to start elevating their personal brands.

Jennifer's Bio:

Jennifer Ransaw Smith is a nationally sought-after Personal Elevation strategist, leadership development mentor and Personal branding consultant. As the founding CEO of Brand id|Strategic Partners, the nation’s only full-service personal elevation agency, she works with entrepreneurs and executives from coast-to-coast to help them leverage their expertise to become game changers within their industry—and corporate teams to help them.

After more than a decade of helping some of the nation’s most prominent brands like Burger King, AT&T, Texaco, Clairol and Coke position and differentiate themselves in the marketplace, Jennifer recognized the urgent need for an agency that positioned people the way that marketing and advertising agencies positioned products and services (with a dedicated team enthusiastically motived and focused on the elevation of that specific brand). It resulted in the birth of Brand id|Strategic Partners, one of the first full-service personal branding agencies in the nation to transform experts into brand assets.

Called a True Visionary by her clients, Jennifer is on a mission to empower her clients and audiences by providing them with effective strategies that can be implemented immediately to make significant changes in how they are currently being perceived. Her goal is to teach people to become the Chief Marketing Officer of the Brand Called You, Inc. She divides her time between speaking, training, and coaching clients on how to become the person to know in their industry.

Her tips, tools and strategies have appeared in a myriad of places including ABC, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun.

Quotables:

“Most people are not operating from a strategic plan. Most people are winging it. Most people don't consciously cultivate a network that's going to help them ascend.”

“We decide ‘I want to get to another level' whatever that level is, but we're not making sure that things in our environment are going to position us to do that.”

“The only thing that separates those who are completely annihilating the game from everyone else is the decision that they got up that morning or that week or that year and said, ‘I am about to annihilate the game!'”

“When you're in your zone, you really don't have competition.”

“Your company has nothing to do with your personal brand.”

The Final Five:

Some of Jennifer's personal secret weapons of success: she's a beast when it comes to learning things quickly. She has the ability to read something and link it to something unrelated.
If I asked 10 people who know Jennifer to describe her using 3 words or phrases, they would say: fierce, creative and nice.
Jennifer's morning or night time routine: She follows Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning (here's a link to my interview with Hal that Jennifer mentioned). She gets up at 5 am, she does 10 minutes of meditation or silence, then affirmations (101 positive affirmations on YouTube), visualization (she created a video on Slidely), exercise (Oprah's Soul Cycle 15 with Angela Davis), reading (currently reading Stand Out by Dorie Clark) and journaling.
How Jennifer manages her life, family and career: she has a home office and she unplugs a lot on the weekends. They do one-on-one dates with her children and family movie nights. She stayed home with each with them as well. They are together a lot as a family and her children see what she's doing with Brand | id.
Jennifer's favorite power outfit: a form fitting dress and heels. She's big on bulky jewelry. She also recently grew out a blonde afro (she had been wanting to do it for a long time and got the courage to do so!).