Rain Bennett
- Feb 4, 2021
- 3 min read

Ep. 78: Growing Your Authentic Personal Brand with Heather H. Bennett

Welcome back, storytellers! We made it to season 6 of The Storytelling Lab and what a ride it's been. On this episode, we're back with another storytelling expert, Heather H. Bennett. Heather is a personal brand coach who is chocked full of applicable tips to propel your business forward. Tune in for a fantastic episode about the importance of growing your personal brand!

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Have you ever felt like you couldn’t quite find your voice?

You knew you had something to say and you had a passion to help people, but struggled to establish and grow your personal brand so that you could actually help those people?

Yeah, me too.

It took me a lot of hours and energy to find those unique intersections that set me apart from others in my field and allowed me to figure out my specific target audience.

We talk a lot about this on my podcast, since it’s been such a big part of my journey and any success I might have had in the past 2-3 years.

So to kick off Season 6 of The Storytelling Lab, I brought on an expert personal brand builder.

Heather H. Bennett is a creative brand coach based out of Chicago that has worked in branding for over 20 years. And no, she’s not my cousin, but she's definitely TSL family because I met her from a previous guest on the show back in Episode 61, Troy Sandidge.

Part of the benefit of this show, and making connections in any network, is meeting like-minded people who help you grow.

Heather is one of those people.

We talked about how to live and work true to your authentic self, while using that authentic self to build a brand or career that adds value to your life as well as those you serve.

She helps people do that by simplifying their social media (I struggled with this one a lot!), clearly defining their product/service lines (okay, I struggled with this, too), and helping them find ways to reach their ideal customer.

If that sounds like you, then good news! You are HER ideal customer.

And in other good news, she recently published her new book, Fun and Fulfilling Careers One Question at a Time.

We all hear these buzzwords like authenticity, vulnerability, empathy, and even storytelling all the time now. But what do they really mean? How do we really utilize them to carve out our perfect career paths and make a difference in the world?

What does it really mean to be authentic? How authentic should we actually be?

And who likes feeling vulnerable?! What could be the benefit in that?

Heather and I talk about all the strategic ways to uncover those “soft skills.” Which, by the way, is a ridiculous term because those skills are imperative to being human, being creative, and building lasting relationships with your customers, clients, and communities.

If you’re trying to build both a fun and fulfilling career, this is the episode for you!

Some of the highlights of our conversation:

Working as a marketing strategist and personal brand coach
Understanding your personal brand
Defining a “brand”
Defining a “personal brand”
Overcoming resistance to personal branding
How to develop your personal brand
Using storytelling to inform your personal brand
Identifying your target audience
Understanding your target audience
Reaching your target audience
What is “target marketing?”
Heather’s favorite part of her job
Keys to unlocking your potential
Finding the best environment for you to thrive in
Using your personal brand to find a job
Taking control of your health and happiness