Building a Trusted Brand Without Going Full Influencer

Summary

In this conversation, Jeffro and Paige Velasquez-Budde discuss the critical importance of online visibility for service business leaders. They explore how executive visibility has become synonymous with credibility, the shifting expectations of consumers, particularly among younger generations, and the necessity of building trust in a digital landscape. Paige emphasizes the role of AI and LLMs in shaping discoverability and the importance of personal branding on platforms like LinkedIn. They also address common mistakes leaders make in their online presence and provide practical steps for enhancing visibility and engagement.

Takeaways

• Most service business owners know they should be visible online.
• Executive visibility is the new credibility.
• Trust is the most valuable currency in marketing.
• People want to do business with people, not just brands.
• LLMs are changing the way consumers search for information.
• You need to build trust to enhance discoverability.
• Personal branding on LinkedIn is crucial for leaders.
• Quality content is more important than quantity.
• Regular audits of your online presence are essential.
• Visibility is about earning trust and showing up authentically.

Chapters

00:00 The Importance of Online Visibility

03:05 Building Trust in a Digital Age

05:49 The Shift to AI and LLMs

09:05 Executive Visibility Across Generations

11:50 Leveraging Personal Branding on LinkedIn

15:01 The Role of AI in Content Creation

17:51 Common Mistakes in Online Presence

20:55 Setting Realistic Expectations for Visibility

23:54 Practical Steps for Online Engagement

Links

https://www.zilkermedia.com

https://www.paigevelasquezbudde.com/the-strategic-business-influencer/

 https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Business-Influencer-Building-Budget/dp/1637747705

https://www.paigevelasquezbudde.com/quiz/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lh7J1GmMsE
https://www.paigevelasquezbudde.com/

Free High-Converting Website Checklist: FroBro.com/Checklist

Transcript

paige-jeffro.txt
Jeffro (00:02.116)
Most service businesses, let me say that again, most service business owners know they should be visible online, but where do you even start? Between client work, team leadership, and actually running your business, posting on LinkedIn or building a personal brand often falls to the bottom of the list. But what if your online presence isn't just a nice to have, but a competitive advantage? Well, my guest today is Paige Velasquez-Buddy, the co-founding partner and CEO of Zilker Media.

and she's the author of the strategic business influencer. Paige and her team specialize in building trusted brands and helping leaders show up in a way that's just algorithm friendly, but deeply human. So in this conversation, we're going to talk about why executive visibility is the new credibility, how expectations are shifting, especially with Gen Z and millennials, and how to build a brand that reflects your values without feeling like you're just chasing likes. So thank you, Paige, for being here. Welcome to the show.

Paige Velasquez Budde (00:56.554)
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on today.

Jeffro (00:59.94)
Definitely. You know, there's a lot of leaders that I'm sure have heard this before. They need to be the face of the brand. But I think there's a worry that they'll sound fake or too self-promotional. And so there's this hesitance, right? So I'm curious, how do you help those people show up in a way that feels real and doable?

Paige Velasquez Budde (01:17.918)
Absolutely. I would say there is a lot of hesitancy, especially around servant leaders that are incredibly humble, have built incredible businesses. It feels unnatural to them to build a brand around their executive brand or their leadership brand for all the reasons that you stated. But the reality is, is we don't want to go

Jeffro (01:37.083)
Yeah.

Paige Velasquez Budde (01:45.846)
and approach this in terms of building an overly promotional or hey, look at me or even face of the brand type of way. The real goal is to accelerate trust, drive impact at large scalability. And the only way that you can do that is helping build trust for your brand, for your company. And so when we speak to leaders about this, it's...

It's a visual that we have to paint that's, we're not wanting you to build a brand in front of the company. We're not wanting you to build a brand behind the company. It truly needs to be alongside it so that you can be a true on-ramp back. If you're just leading with the company logo in all of your marketing, if you're just leading with your corporate brand, it's really hard.

to gain trust in today's environment with that alone. And it's hard to compete, especially if you're in a business or an industry where you have much larger competitors, where they do have the money to spend to really get that corporate brand out there as much as it needs to be. But you just create this competitive advantage. You create just a really scrappy way to outsize the competition.

when you start building your brand alongside the company and you're able to start leading with education, entertainment, authenticity versus just an entity with something to sell. And that just so much in today's landscape resonates at a much quicker rate.

Jeffro (03:27.055)
Yeah, well, I think we've all developed a heightened sense of, and we're attuned to pitch or, you know, if I feel like you're trying to sell me something, we notice right away because we're online all the time. And so we've gotten really good at that. And you've talked about trust as the most valuable currency in marketing. So maybe you can talk a little bit more about what is it exactly that's going to erode that trust? And what do you predict is going to continue to be effective at building trust as we go into the new year?

Paige Velasquez Budde (03:40.045)
Absolutely.

Paige Velasquez Budde (03:57.72)
That's right. So, you know, when it comes to eroding trust, again, if you don't have any people visible within your company, and it doesn't have to just be the leader, although it definitely should be, you can have a few people alongside you as well that are, you know, thought leaders or client facing on behalf of your company. If you don't have that, you know, why is someone to trust you? People want to do business with people.

and that's really important to understand, especially in a service-based business where client service is incredibly important. Other things that are road trust. Brands that are heavily reliant on PPC, which is pay-per-click type marketing, heavily reliant on any type of advertising, not saying that it shouldn't be in the mix. For some brands, absolutely, it should be in the mix. But if that's all that you're relying on,

You're putting yourself up for a lot of risk in this new age of media and what the landscape is transforming into, especially when it comes to the importance of LLM discoverability, which are those AI platforms like a chat GPT, a perplexity, a Claude. People are starting to shift and there's so many statistics around this and it changes every day. But what's happening is people are shifting away from just Googling.

they are now shifting to going straight to TATTPT for a search or straight to Claude for a search. And LLMs are ranking discoverability very differently than traditional SEO and what Google has ranked in the past. And you can't pay your way to be seen in LLMs. And so you do have to have trusted credibility from third party resources.

You have to have people visible to help that discover ability in your business. What LLMs are trying to figure out is they're trying to see what is the best trusted source? What is the most reliable, credible information that it can feed you? And so you just talking about yourself is no longer good enough. You have to have leaders that show credibility alongside the company. You have to have reviews.

Paige Velasquez Budde (06:15.456)
of your services that are out there. You have to be really focused in on, know, are there other credible sources talking about you such as true earned media, award recognition, all of those things help you in terms of that discoverability on LLM. So that's a big thing that we've been talking to a lot of businesses about is this isn't optional anymore. You know, if you're not doing this,

on the front end, if you're not building that foundation, and of course it's going to change very quickly, you're going to be at a very high risk going into this next era of the landscape.

Jeffro (06:56.663)
Yeah, and just to add to that, the ads are great for right now, but the moment that your ads stop, you are invisible because your stuff is not in front of anyone anymore. So you kind of need to have multiple things going at once so that if, you know, they change a rule and Facebook says, your new ad violated our policy, you're suspended right now. Like, darn.

Paige Velasquez Budde (07:16.386)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (07:19.483)
It takes a week to get you back up and running like that's a lot of lost momentum lost business that you can't afford to have.

Paige Velasquez Budde (07:26.338)
That's absolutely right. And they will change that. The algorithm shifts over time and repetitively. I mean, we've seen it happen. And I would say another thing is make sure you're owning your data as much as you can by having the right lead magnet capture on your website. We see so much that companies and leaders spend

Jeffro (07:29.909)
Yeah.

Paige Velasquez Budde (07:51.086)
a lot of their marketing budgets on either that rented media, which is that advertising social media space, or they're spending all their money also on earned media, which is the awards, the PR, that type of stuff. If you don't have the right call to action where it's bringing people back to your home base online, which is the website, which you truly own all of, and you're not...

converting them into some sort of email list, text subscription list, getting that information to extend that interaction. Again, that's very risky, like you were saying, for your business because you have to go through the rented media. You have to hope that they're not changing their algorithm, which they absolutely will. The earned media, have to be granted access to their audience. so own as much as you can and build up.

all of that demographic information and you have to build trust in order to do that. It's not very easy. People don't want to give their information away anymore because they're so skeptical of marketing and sales. So you have to be value driven in order to earn that.

Jeffro (09:05.954)
And that makes sense. So I'm going to circle back to one thing you mentioned is that a lot of consumer behavior is shifting to searching on AI even before going to Google. Now, is that just Gen Z and millennials? Or are we also seeing that with boomers and Gen X? How does that impact executive visibility for those different demographics?

Paige Velasquez Budde (09:13.026)
Yes.

Paige Velasquez Budde (09:19.223)
Yeah.

Paige Velasquez Budde (09:24.054)
Absolutely. So we're starting to see it across the board. I definitely, the early adopters were the younger of the generations that you mentioned, but, know, GenX, is, you know, a lot of still in the workplace is starting to heavily kind of shift towards this as well. And, you know, what we're seeing there is leaders who are, you know, well-indexed online and have that credibility and listed on multiple sites for multiple things, whether it's

awards or boards that they're associated with or philanthropic causes, all of that indexing that leads in connection with the company and the brand helps brand discoverability. So as much as we can get leaders out there teaching and educating, especially on third party sites or doing awards on behalf of their company, those are all very rich ways to enhance

that visibility. just talked with a lot of executives last week who were, their companies won and were listed on the Inc 5000. It was incredible to see the difference in LLM discoverability of those that had won awards like that and those who had not. And so another thing to think about is recency. So I get a lot of people that tell me, I

already been featured on the business journal for my local area, or I've already been on a local TV segment, or I've won that award five years ago. AI, LLMs really focus on recency. So most citations are within the last 12 months. And so whether you've done it already or not, it's important for you to be doing it now and keeping consistent with that type of strategy.

Jeffro (11:18.666)
You need 15 minutes of fame on a regular basis. Stay in front of people.

Paige Velasquez Budde (11:21.102)
And that's right. And the way to think about it for so many servant leaders who are hesitant to do this is this is absolutely the way to best represent your company and best get visibility for your company and serve as that on-ramp back. You know, I talked to many leaders even on LinkedIn who are hesitant to be posting because they're like, that's all my company. I don't want anybody coming to my personal LinkedIn. The reality is in most service-based businesses,

you're being referred to by name. know, there are a lot of times wanting to say, go work with Jill over here or Joe, his team fixed me right up. You know, those types of things when people go to search that name, you have to think about if you were being referred to by name and someone goes home, they open up their laptop or phone and they search you, whether it's on an AI, LLM or Google, can you be found? Are you coming up? Is your business coming up?

alongside it. And that's what a lot of leaders miss is they spend all their time and resources on creating this beautiful corporate brand, which you should have a strong brand, but they completely dismiss what's happening with their visibility as a representation of the company. And so when you think about even just LinkedIn, so very tactical for a minute, a personal LinkedIn page gets way more organic visibility.

in LinkedIn's algorithm than a company page. The reason why is LinkedIn as a company wants you to pay to be seen. They see it as an advertising vehicle, but a personal page, they expect you're contributing to community content, you're contributing to education on the platform, you're contributing to relationship building on the platform, which helps them.

Jeffro (12:53.748)
Yes.

Paige Velasquez Budde (13:14.67)
So the best thing that you can do as a leader is you're resharing what's on the company page. You're talking about, you know, pointing back to the company, what you're learning, you know, news breaking items that are affecting your industry that you can speak as a thought leader on. And so when I sit down with CEOs that are going, I don't do anything on there, online is not for me. You know, I really encourage them to look at that and see, you

helping or hindering your company with that approach. And most of the time we realize it's a hindrance.

Jeffro (13:48.384)
Because as you mentioned, someone might refer you and then the person goes look them up. If they don't find something that meets their expectations or exceeds it, that's now a red flag. Right? Like, why can't I find this person? Or why does their website look like it was built 20 years ago? Now suddenly they're not excited. But if it meets, they're like, oh wow, this guy looks great. I'm going to contact them. And so that right there, it's huge reason to do it.

Paige Velasquez Budde (13:51.182)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Velasquez Budde (13:54.721)
Yeah.

Paige Velasquez Budde (13:58.776)
That's right.

Paige Velasquez Budde (14:05.592)
That's right.

Paige Velasquez Budde (14:14.698)
Absolutely. when it comes to personal names, so as you you've probably done the research on your company name, if you haven't on your executive name, your brand name, Google that in an incognito or a private browser and see one, are you coming up? Can you be found? Two, if you're not coming up, is it because you just haven't built that online presence in a way that connects to your company?

Or is it that you have a common name? That's challenge with personal names is we've seen it where we've had CEOs or leaders who have names that are shared with celebrities or athletes. We've even had a name shared with a serial axe murderer from the 70s. And that's something you don't want, right? So just sitting down and really doing that analysis is so incredibly important to make sure that you're building the right first impression.

Jeffro (15:01.683)
Thanks.

Paige Velasquez Budde (15:13.09)
for you and your business.

Jeffro (15:15.676)
Yeah, and as we're talking about this, you know, we've touched on AI and how important it is to actually do this, to have executive communication. What's your take on the role of AI in this? Is that what should it be?

Paige Velasquez Budde (15:27.562)
Yeah. So, you know, a few different things. know, one, I think in terms of there are a few challenges with AI now. One, when it comes to assisting you, when it comes to marketing or content creation, I do think it's a great place to brainstorm. And especially if you have it trained on all of your framework or your philosophy or your brand voice.

but it is creating so much noise because what's happening is the barrier that was there in terms of creating content is now gone for a lot of brands and people. And so they're just producing and putting content out there like crazy. And what I encourage you to think about as a leader is it's not about

Jeffro (15:58.93)
Yes.

Paige Velasquez Budde (16:19.746)
the quantity. So it's not about the amount of times that you're posting. It's not about, you know, being clever with every single post. It's really about how can you be more of you? And that's what's really breaking through in today's landscape because it's so noisy. So I think it's great again for assisting with brainstorming creativity in that manner. But when it comes to the actual creation of content,

Maybe you get started with it, but make sure that it really embodies you. It's really showcasing you. It's showing that true authenticity to build that trust at the end of the day.

Jeffro (17:02.13)
Yeah, you have to start with quality, even though it's tempting to go with quantity because you can now. That there's already enough quantity out there. And so no one will see your stuff or care. You could build up to that if that's part of your longer term strategy, but you're going to need a big team and like do that intentionally. Quality at scale is very hard. But you can't just do quantity without the quality. It's not going to work.

Paige Velasquez Budde (17:05.217)
rights.

Yes.

Paige Velasquez Budde (17:12.91)
That's right.

Paige Velasquez Budde (17:25.249)
rate.

Paige Velasquez Budde (17:29.812)
Absolutely. And for especially for executives who are who trying to best represent their brands online that are trying to be that on-ramp back. I like to encourage them to think about what are they already doing behind the scenes as the leader of the company that is really impacting the growth of the business.

think about those things and find ways to do that a little bit more visibly at scale with your content. So for example, employee appreciation is just like a very small tactical thing that you can start thinking about being a little bit more visible with, especially when trying to recruit.

Also looking at relationship building on behalf of your company. That to me is up there in the top three responsibilities of a business owner and CEO, especially of a service based business. So just thinking about how can you use content as an excuse to reach out and start building relationships that are going to advance your company. So sit down with your team and write out the 15 to 20 people that are most important for you to

build or deepen relationships with over the next year and create a content series around that, whether it's spotlighting them. One of my favorites is doing an interview series. So kind of like what we're doing, sitting down and having a conversation and just getting to know them, showcasing their expertise. That's so incredibly powerful in a business development strategy because it's not sitting down for a sales pitch, which if you ask them to lunch or coffee,

they're gonna expect that. So it's a very different way to approach that relationship than your typical normal, but it also provides really strong content that is valuable for your audience.

Jeffro (19:22.183)
Yeah, no, those are great ideas. Do you have other common mistakes that you see founders or executives making when they start trying to do this?

Paige Velasquez Budde (19:33.038)
Yes, you know, I would say the biggest thing whenever a founder or a leader starts to get really active online, they tend to focus on one category of content versus a diverse look at content. So there's a few ways I would maybe think about this. So I encourage leaders to think about themselves as the editor in chief of their own newspaper. So for example, if they were

the editor in chief of the New York Times. What makes the New York Times such an interesting read? What makes people subscribe to it so that they read it over and over and over again? Well, it's the mix of content that's included. A lot of leaders tend to focus on this one category that we call more of a you-driven content. So it's all the content that connects back to...

their framework, their company, their services, their intellectual property, their story and journey. And all of those things are important to post about. But if that's what you're posting all the time online, people are gonna get tired of that. So instead of that being 100 % of what you're putting out, which is kind of like filling your newspaper with op-eds or advertorials, make that only 20 % of what you're putting out online.

The two other categories to consider and think about, one is called news-driven content. So thinking about what's going on in headlines today, what are the breaking studies, what's going on in the community that maybe we can tie our expertise to and speak on. So whether you're a seasonal business, thinking of certain times of year that people might be thinking more about your services, how do you speak into that and build content around that?

And then the last category, so these are kind of a 40-40 split. The last category is what we call relationship driven content. So exactly what I was talking about earlier is defining what relationships need to be built on behalf of the business and utilizing that leader's time to go out and do that, but also build really strategic content. So again, your time is kind of those high value things.

Paige Velasquez Budde (21:50.1)
And having this diversity in this mix of content really makes you seem more like a media outlet than a marketer with what you're doing. So I'd say that's one big thing. Another big thing is just auditing your discoverability. you know, doing this with your company and also your name as a leader, but doing that private Google search, making sure that, you know, what's coming up is exactly the first impression that you want to have.

You know, those first four links, that's your first impression online. It's all visual. You know, you're no longer able to create that first impression in person. It happens entirely page one of Google or on, you know, an AI platform when somebody puts in a prompt. So just making sure you're really looking at that from time to time. I like to do an audit exercise quarterly, just kind of putting in your name, putting in your business, seeing what's coming up.

and then just controlling as much as you can visually and content wise on everything that's coming up. So just auditing, you might realize, you your ex account that you didn't delete from, you know, 10 years ago is coming up as the third result. When you search your name or that old YouTube video that an intern talked you into forever ago that's not painting you or your business in the best light.

Jeffro (23:07.77)
Thank

Paige Velasquez Budde (23:17.708)
Those things either need to be taken down or they need to be rebranded to create the right first impression.

Jeffro (23:24.835)
Yeah, and I'll throw in something here. You tell me if you've seen this, but I would assume a lot of people have the wrong expectations in terms of timelines and how this is supposed to work. Because if you've been used to doing PPC, you can track every ad to a sale or not. You know, exactly like, OK, this one brought in this many customers. With this, it's so much harder. Like you can't always say this video brought us this much new revenue, because as you mentioned, it's building relationships that can take months or years.

Paige Velasquez Budde (23:33.006)
you

Paige Velasquez Budde (23:45.43)
It is.

Jeffro (23:54.072)
to bring about a result where maybe you work together or they hire you or something. And so you have to shift your mindset to like, this is just something we're deciding to do now going forward. It's not like we're going to stop next week because we didn't go viral yet or something. It really is just about, okay, this is now part of how we engage with the world as a business, how we help, how we connect. And over time, yes, it will pay off, but it's not just a

Paige Velasquez Budde (24:09.357)
That's right.

Paige Velasquez Budde (24:20.523)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffro (24:22.591)
x plus y equals z.

Paige Velasquez Budde (24:24.662)
Yeah, that's exactly right. I think that's the hardest thing to wrap your mind around as a business owner and leader is that you don't have that direct correlation sometimes with this approach. But again, if you're not building those foundational blocks as things are shifting in the landscape, you're going to be behind. And so just thinking of it as an investment into being ready for this new environment as it continues to shift.

is so incredibly important, but also looking at, you know, really what touch points, what accelerates trust, what accelerates credibility at the end of the day, and making sure that you have all of that wrapped into your funnel or your sales process, and just being able to reinforce those things no matter where somebody lands, whether it's on a personal asset from a leader standpoint or the company asset, is just so incredibly important.

Jeffro (25:22.902)
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you, Paige, coming on the show today and sharing all this with us because I agree. It's it's super important. You got to start now. The longer you wait, you know, the more behind you're going to be. So this is just a great reminder that, you know, visibility isn't just about exposure. It's it's about earning trust, owning your story and showing up in a way that aligns with who you really are, both as a leader and as part of your business. So if you guys are listening right now and you want to connect with Paige or learn more about her.

Paige Velasquez Budde (25:30.808)
Yes.

Jeffro (25:51.372)
book, The Strategic Business Influencer. You can check out the links. They'll be in the show notes. But I've got one last question for you, Paige, before you go. What are some practical first steps for someone who hasn't posted on LinkedIn in months or ever?

Paige Velasquez Budde (25:58.126)
Sure.

Paige Velasquez Budde (26:07.75)
that's such a good question. Practical first steps, you're just getting really clear on who you are and how you want to be represented. How are you going to best represent your company? There's a framework that I created called the Influence ID. I actually have a free workbook on my website if you're linking to that for anybody who wants to download it. But it's just getting really clear on how do you establish clarity? How do you establish credibility?

and consistency for your company. There's essentially five steps to it. It's looking at where you came from, where you're wanting to go, areas of differentiation, defining your content pillars, which is so important whenever you start posting content, capturing the right visuals to represent you, and then crafting your one-liner. Setting all that up before you just press go is building the right foundation again to make sure that you have

highest and best use of your time, which is that you have such finite time as a leader and an owner of a business. So getting clear on that so that you're using your time highest and best use, I would say is the best place to start. Step two is just focus on teaching and educating. know, so many people get wrapped up on how do I market this best or how do I promote my company best? You're probably already reading the headlines in your industry. You're probably already reading what's going on in your community.

Just build those habits that you already have into creating some content out there that others can follow.

Jeffro (27:43.735)
Yeah, great advice. even if you think, oh, that sounds boring, like, no, the clarity, do it. It's going to make everything else. So your content will be so much better if you do that. So thank you, Paige. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify. It helps more business owners discover how to achieve digital dominance in their industries. That's it for now. See you next time.

Paige Velasquez Budde (27:49.484)
Yes.

That's right.