#140 How to build an extraordinary Personal Brand with Tory Archbold
There’s a common misconception that having a logo and a website equates to having a personal brand. However, these elements are only a small part of a much larger and important concept. Today, I’m joined by the incredible Tory Archbold to talk about what a personal brand really comprises and how to build an extraordinary one.
With a strong background in PR and having started her first business at 24, Tory has achieved remarkable success in her career. From launching fashion giant Zara in Australia to representing celebrities like Drew Barrymore, she has known what it is to be at the top of her game. However, a switch in passion and purpose led to her to found Powerful Steps in 2019, with the vision to help female entrepreneurs step into their power and live with a happy heart.
In our conversation, Tory brings clarity as to what personal branding truly is, highlighting that it acts as each person’s business card. It’s what we’re known for and answers the question of how we show up, what we say and who we are. We talk about owning our own story as the first step in building an extraordinary brand, and Tory encourages us to take the time to understand who we truly are - which includes the good, the bad and the ugly.
She steps us through the framework she uses with her own business and clients to create the powerful messaging communicated by a strong personal brand. We talk about the value of investing in your brand upfront, and Tory gives us practical advice on bringing some of that work in-house as your brand evolves.
We hear her strategies around consistently sharing our story and values in a way that brings variety to our audience, while staying in alignment with our primary message. For many female entrepreneurs, this isn’t always an easy task. We feel judged, worried about how we show up and whether we’ll be able to please everyone. However, Tory encourages us to step out with confidence in our personal brand, knowing our perspective as leaders has the ability to change others’ lives.
If you’re looking to elevate your brand and make a meaningful impact, then this episode is for you. Tory is a wealth of knowledge and shares priceless insight into showing up as confidently and authentically as possible. Be sure to check out her book Self-Belief is Your Superpower via the link below to learn even more secrets on building your extraordinary personal brand.
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Tracey: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up In Business podcast. I talk a lot on the podcast about all things setting you up for success in business and being empowered and prevention is better than cure. If you're a long time listener, you'll know that those themes are peppered through just about every episode somewhere along the way.
What I don't talk much about, it's outside my wheelhouse, is personal brand and the importance of your personal brand when you're building your business and how to do it and the distinction between your business brand and your personal brand if there is one, there's not always one.
So I'm delighted to be joined by special guest Tory Archbold [00:01:00] today, who runs her own business, Powerful Steps. And we are going to talk all things personal brand. Tory is a client of mine. I've worked with her for years setting up her legals and answering questions and providing the support as she needs it.
And she has a lot going on in her business. So we do a lot together and she works with really strong women in business who are reshaping or up leveling their personal brand, even those starting out to develop personal brand and understand what personal brand is and how to do it. She talks the talk, she walks the walk, and there's no mixing words with Tory, which I suspect is one of the reasons why we get along so well.
Tory has a really strong background in PR and she'll share a little about that in the episode today. And she steps us through the framework that she uses with her own business and with her clients. It's tried and tested in relation to building an extraordinary personal brand. Let's dive in. I'll be back with you at the end.
[00:02:00] Tory, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Tory: Oh, Tracey, this is just a follow up to our very powerful coffee date. So I'm excited for this chat.
Tracey: This was always going to be fun. I've been so looking forward to this. It's always a delight talking to you. And I know that the listeners are going to get so much value out of this. Let's dive in. can you share with the listeners a little about your background? You come from a really strong PR background, which has really launched you into this business where you make such impact for women.
Can you share this a little bit for context for listeners who don't know you yet?
Tory: So I started my first business at 24 and it was built on my foundational values of passion, integrity, and delivery. Because I believe if you're an entrepreneur, you really need to have a strong base because your base actually builds a foundation for your business. It shows people how you are going to act and behave, but most importantly, if you attract people that are very similarly aligned to your values, [00:03:00] it actually acts as a form of advocacy, which means that you can actually create and build really powerful brands.
So for me, passion, integrity, delivery, and people go, why those three? Well, passion is, you know, I am so excited to create and build brands and, you know, my first business Torstar, that's what I did for 20 years. Integrity. I do not want to work with assholes. And I just feel like everyone has the right to say no.
Now, it doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or if you're in a business, how others treat you and how you treat them truly does matter. I think that's really important. So that's my integrity piece. And then delivery. You're only as good as the last podcast chat. And as you know, the last client project that you wrap up hand over.
And I believe that delivery when you actually combine that in a really potent way with the passion and the integrity piece actually allows you to fast track and build really powerful forward momentum in your business. So those are the three. They created an [00:04:00] extraordinary business for me.
I had 22 staff, 10 freelancers. I attracted the world's top performing brand celebrities and influencers as clients. And I guess, you know, some of the brands that people will know that I was able to launch into this country that are probably the most recognized ones and the most significant in terms of case studies was, you know, Zara, where we had 22, 000 people that walked into those stores.
On day one, we did a million dollars in sales. It goes down as the best retail launch in history, not only in Australia, but I believe as well for Indidex.
Tracey: Oh my goodness.
Tory: Yes. And the last one I think everyone, knows as well is Drew Barrymore was my client and we were able to launch Flower Beauty into Australia. And that was actually when I decided to turn my back on the PR and brand communications industry and start again.
Because I believe as a business person, you need to be protected by what you've created, but you also need to trust what you're about to step into. And my [00:05:00] passion and purpose had switched. And I really wanted to use the framework that I had developed to build all these other amazing brands, not only in Australia, but around the world and transform it into a framework for female entrepreneurs to step into their power.
So in 2019, 20, I created Powerful Steps and now we work with entrepreneurs all around the world. It's really about them taking ownership of their story and activating their lives to the next level and attracting a high vibrational client but most importantly, working and living with a happy heart. That's really important to me. Happiness breeds happiness.
Tracey: It does. Oh my gosh, it does. And I've got to say, you and I have been working together for years now. And there was a synergy from the outset and all of the comments you make around vibration, saying no, the happy heart, aligning with your values, it all resonates so well. And this is one of the reasons I was so keen to have you on the podcast to share you with my audience,[00:06:00] because when we take the next step in that, so we have these conversations and we identify the values and we understand our why, and so we're female entrepreneurs and we want to be out there doing all the things, then someone mentions branding and someone says, okay, you're going to build a business, you're going to up level, you're going to up level in your business, you're taking it seriously, you're ready for the next step. Let's talk branding. And many of my clients say to me, I've got a logo. I've got a web designer. So what I'm here to talk to you about to share with people is that actually is not your brand, friends. Our logo is not our brand. We want to talk personal brand.. So can you dive in Tory and give some context on this? This is so important.
Tory: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, a logo is important because it does distinguish you from other people. A website is obviously important, but if you actually drill down onto the analytics, how many people are actually landing on that site? If you're not driving it from a personal branding perspective, you're likely getting less than a hundred people per month [00:07:00] if that on your site.
So the question around personal branding is so important because Your personal brand is your business card. The same way that when you write a book, it is your business card. It is what you are known for. So for me, you know, I grew up wearing black dresses in my first business. I was invisible. I was behind the scenes and that was because I was representing other people.
Now as a female entrepreneur, which is really your question is how do we show up? How do we own who we are? What color do we wear? What do we say? How do we frame it? All of those questions go through people's mind because they're either suffering from imposter syndrome, they feel really judged. They think, Oh my gosh, if I post that, what are people going to say? And I literally say, who gives a fuck? It's what you think.
And if you're in your power and you're waking up with that happy heart, that's a magnet for miracles, this is where your entrepreneurial journey gets really powerful. This is where you can build an incredible business. You can attract the right clients. [00:08:00] You know, you can do seven, eight, 10 figures in business per year. This is how you start it. Number one, you've got to own your story. So for a personal brand, if you do not create and make the time to understand who you are, the good, the bad and the ugly, you are not going to go anywhere as an entrepreneur.
You know, even if you want to go and sit on a board and you're going, am I good enough? Yes, you are. Because I always say, it's not all the things that you do that tick boxes that matter. It's a challenges that show resilience and agility and your ability to step up from that the people are now looking for.
So what we teach in our business attraction program and definitely in one on one mentoring as well with some very high profile, you know, multi award winning entrepreneurs is this. Your story can be broken down into five points. Simply open up a Google doc or you can go to my website and we actually give you the framework for free.
So you can go to my newsletter, sign up for it, and it'll all be there so that you can [00:09:00] actually put this into action. The first thing is this, number one, your story begins, where were you born? You know, What country, what was your family life, siblings, you know, divorce, family, happy family, your feelings, all that, get it out.
Second point is, is who did you want to be when you left school? Yeah, so in my story, my parents wanted to box me, they wanted me to go study interior design, marry a nice guy, have a white picket fence, you know, all those things that you grow up and you think, oh, that's what I want. But in part two of my story, I stepped out of that box because I didn't want to be boxed.
And this is where the power of my story starts, because in that Google doc, I write, you know what? Backed myself when I worked for all the biggest media companies in the world, Columbia Tristar, you know, I worked on the Godzilla movie. I worked for MTV, Nickelodeon. I fell in love with the power of storytelling.
So part three of your story is, okay, well. You've now got the knowledge and you've got some idea about where your passion, your career lands, what are you going to do? [00:10:00] So for me, that was 24. Came back to Australia, no one wanted to engage me. So guess what? I engaged myself. Created my first business.
Attracted the world's top brand celebrities and influencers. You know, I'm at the top of my game. What does that look like? Write down all of the success stories that you have. Because like when you're invited onto a podcast like I am today, I can rattle off. I launched Zara, it had 22, 000 people through on the first day of launch.
It did a million dollars in sales. Know your numbers, know your case studies, know who advocates for you. That's all in part three of your story. Part four of your story is always that kind of like game changing moment that wake up from the universe, you know, your live and live or die moments. So for me, it was, I was like burnt out, like a crispy fried chicken, look like I was this glamorous powerhouse going to all the best parties, creating the best parties, had the best little black book, but I'm walking home.
I'm a single mum. I've got a shit load of trauma going on in my life. [00:11:00] And then the universe said enough, here's your game changing moment. So my appendix burst. Basically, I was due on a flight to London, 70 hours before I went, I ended up in hospital emergency surgery, 2am in the morning, I lost 8 kilos in 5 days, I was on life support, I had to reframe my thinking, I had to reframe who I was.
So point 4 of your story is always that wake up moment. I recognise I was a people pleaser. I put everyone at the top of the list and myself on the bottom. The only way I got through that was to rewire, to look at the patterns in my life that I needed to break, to surround myself with better people and to start saying no, you know, fuck off to the takers and hello to myself.
I think that's really important that you acknowledge like, what is that moment? Everyone's had some kind of traumatic experience. So from that traumatic experience, you then go into part five. Who do I want to step into? I'm at that transformational point in my life. Who do I [00:12:00] want to become? And for me, that was, I'd lost my passion in Torstar. I knew that I wanted to find love. I knew I wanted to show my daughter a better way of living. I knew I needed to step away from the old version of me and into the new, more powerful version. In comes powerful steps. In comes my soulmate. In comes my daughter with stability and better friendships, better understanding of who I am.
And that's how Powerful Steps was created. So you got your five point story framework. And you start understanding, you know what? I'm not so great at this. I've got weaknesses. Oh, I've got weaknesses. I actually need other people to translate into possibilities. Or I need to hire better team members, better agencies, better legal support, like whatever it is through that framework as an entrepreneur, you recognise what your personal brand needs, what your business needs for you to lead others.
Do you attract the right [00:13:00] clients? Then you've got to go, okay, well, what's my personal style? What's my image? You've got to invest in good photography, right? You can't have a picture of you on LinkedIn where your face is cut out from other people. It's just like a boring kind of shot and you've got dead eyes.
So you start investing in better styling, better photography, a copywriter to help you really nail your story, your bio. And then what you do is you start showing up. You start stepping forward. You start introducing to the world who you are. What are your values? What's your intent? What's your purpose?
Most importantly, how did you get to be the woman that you are right here, right now on either Tracey's podcast or on LinkedIn? That is how you build a really powerful personal brand by not being afraid of anchoring your every move to your truth.
Tracey: Wow. That's engrossing, listening to that. Some of that I knew. Some of it, I didn't know. Thank you for sharing that. [00:14:00] Did you say, and this comes down to a, where do you start? You can actually go onto your website and download a starting point and check out obviously your programs and we'll put those details in the show notes, but that's a lot.
And when women look at that and think, okay, right, I'm going to sit here now and I'm going to work on my story. I'm going to work on Tory's five points. I'm going to understand or get some clarity, more clarity around where I've come from, where I'm going, who I am, all the things and, and anchor themselves to their why.
I spent a long time working on my why. As you're talking through your story, I'm going, yes, that was my point. Yes, that was my trauma moment. Yes. But it took a long time to land in the beautiful aligned space that I'm in now. But then what? When we're talking about showing up, so all right, perhaps we need a stylist, perhaps we need some help.
There must be a list. There must be a ton of things that we need to consider when we're showing up to be consistent with our brand. And we're not talking hair and makeup and [00:15:00] stylists every day before you get onto Instagram.
So what does it all mean in the day to day? How do we make sure once we've got clarity and we've up leveled and we're working with the right people that we're actually showing up and being consistent? Because there is a difference sometimes between your personal brand and your business brand.
Most of us though are the brand of our business. It's our face, it's our name, it's our, it's our baby. So, women make comments to me along the lines of, Oh, but I think that I can't share that because that's not my brand. Or I think I have to live two different lives. And I think there's a lot of confusion around that.
Tory: Yeah. Consider what you want to keep private and what you want to make public. So there are certain things that are completely off limit for me that I just will not talk about. But I'm pretty much an open book. So I have a private Instagram account, which has got... Thousands of people wanting me to confirm them, but I think I've got like 400 of what I would consider my really core posse of global networks.
I catch up with people that I've known for a lot of time on my personal, I do stick that back once a year as [00:16:00] well. So it goes up and down, but that is like, that is personal. That is for my inner kind of circle, but let's not forget that our inner circle is also five friends, right? But you've also got to stay connected to media and other people that, you know, you value and they value you.
I think that's important that you have a personal account. Then on your professional account. Now, here's where people get it wrong. When I started out, I invested so much money in branding, which was fantastic because it definitely put me at a level of what was attractive to the audience that I wanted to work with.
So that was definitely a no brainer. And we definitely spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars on that. And I do recommend it that when you make money to reinvest it back into your brand, it's, you know, that is really important. But as I've gone along the highway of life and as technology now, gives us so many options, we've bought all of that work in house. And actually as an entrepreneur, I've also self taught myself a lot of the different ways to use the technology to [00:17:00] save a lot of that investment that we made up front to actually reinvest in other ways in my business or my family or my lifestyle. So I think that's really important. Invest up front in your personal brand.
But once you've really nailed it and you've got the momentum, use what's being created by that agency or that resource to bring it in house. Now, when you look at all the trends around the world now, even when you do a podcast, people don't want this, you know, massively glossy version showing up all the time.
They want the raw and the real, but most importantly, they want the key message that they can take away, that they're going to then action in their life. Now you as an entrepreneur, as a leader, it doesn't matter where you represent yourself or what category it is. If you break it down into three pillars that you consistently talk about and you rinse and repeat that message, that is what you will be known for.
Right? So I'm obviously known for creating [00:18:00] and building powerful brands in my past for Torstar. A lot of people are attracted to that. Now for females. I'm known for the same thing, right? But I'm still using the same framework. The second thing that I'm also known for is a coffee date. I coffee date a lot.
So when you have a personal brand, you actually need to share it with others. Go coffee date with people. So every day, for the last 20 years of my life, I've always had a strategy of who I'm going to coffee date with, weeks in advance, months in advance, and it's always three key people. So like it's a core message.
One with someone I know, one with someone I want to partner with, and one with someone completely outside of my comfort zone, right? So you and I, when we had a coffee date, it was a partnership coffee date, but now you would be in my first pillar, which is someone I know. So you move that around, like Drew Barrymore, when they hired me, outside of my comfort zone, partnership, then it ends up in my tribe.
So you look at that. So that's the second pillar that I always talk about, and people go, oh, your coffee date strategy changed my life. Great. [00:19:00] Third pillar I talk about is wellness because in my five point story, I have the near death experience. I've suffered burnout. I've realised I was a people pleaser.
I realised I had all of these things that every woman goes through in terms of feeling judged. Should I show up? How do I become visible? But it actually all comes down to health and happiness. So I'm also able to talk to that. Now if you have three pillars, it's not just one core message. It's three different ones.
What you're doing is you're taking people on a customer journey as an entrepreneur. So you're rinsing, repeating the same things, but you're tapping into your story. But how can people get bored, because you're not just drilling the one message down? So it's like when you, um, show up for a podcast, for a media interview.
Whatever it is, what you're doing is you're showing people you're an evolved leader. You're showing empathy, you're showing compassion, but also you're showing from a thought leadership perspective how people can change their lives by [00:20:00] working with you. That's really important.
Tracey: This is so good. And you've turned something that can be inherently complex and the way you've been able to break it down, business owners can listen to it, take it away and action it now, which is so good and so helpful, which is what, which is why I want to bring you on. you know that that's why I wanted to bring you on.
And I know that there's value here that everybody listening can take even just one thing if they wanted to, as a place to start starting from new, recreating, up leveling, next level, it applies across the board, and I love that. Thank you.
There's so much to it, Tory, and I just love the way you are so blatantly honest. There's no mixing words with you. And that's one of the things I love about you so much. I think that's why we connected what we hit it off instantly. I'm known for being direct and blunt. There's no mixing words with you. And I think that that's just a fabulous connection, a fabulous partnership.
If you're listening to this and you think, Oh my gosh, now I need to work on my [00:21:00] personal brand. I've got my logo. I've got my beautiful website, but now I need to get some clarity and work on the personal brand. Please go and have a look at Tory's website because we'll put the link in the show notes.
All the details are there. And if you want to take it a step further, the book, please. Tory has a book and it's called Self Belief is Your Superpower. And who doesn't want that as a superpower?
Tory: It's so good. And I have to say as well that quite often, you know, people come to me and they go, Well, it all sounds really easy, but how do I do that framework? So I just want to say yes, you can get the information on the website, but what I've done is I've broken it down actually into online masterclass videos as well.
So there's two ways if you want to work at your own pace. There's a really simple entry point. It's called the Network Like a Pro online masterclass, which actually gives you the five point story framework and the coffee dates so that you can go out there and just start mapping and planning out how you're going to elevate.
And then we also have our business attraction program. So I host one in person [00:22:00] four times a year. I have to say the women in the last group, one of them just won a one, Breakthrough Entrepreneur of the Year for Women's Agenda Awards. We've got so many people speaking at TEDx around the world now, you actually meet the most incredible people, like one lady's just nailed six front cover magazines in the last month and she said it's because she's used the framework, that five point story framework, the three pillars with the talking points, she's reinvested in her personal brand, but she's not afraid to show up.
And the reason why I wrote the book was really ... it was a book that I channeled through all of my experience, Tracey, for people to know that it's okay to make mistakes. I've made so many mistakes. It's okay to own what you can't do. For instance, I can't cook. Lucky I married a really nice guy who can cook and my daughter learned how to cook at boarding school.[00:23:00]
Recognise what you can't do. Delegate that to other people to create space for what you want to step into. And if you are really looking to elevate your personal brand to the next level, don't just go, yeah, I'm just going to outsource it and it's going to be amazing. Unless you do the work on your story, you're never going to have that breakthrough. So that's my best advice.
Tracey: And that's a great place wrap up and end and you've nailed it. That's priceless in itself. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's been a pleasure having you on here and I cannot wait to get this episode out.
Tory: Thank you so much, Tracey. And thank you as well for making my business bulletproof as well, because once you have a personal brand, it is so important that you actually knuckle down and get your legals right, because as your brand expands, your business, your profile increases, you have to [00:24:00] get the legals right.
So we need more women like you out there, not only investing in sharing how to have a really good, holistic, powerful brand, but also showing us how to create boundaries so that we have a successful brand. So thank you.
Tracey: Bless your heart. It's an absolute delight working with you. I love it. And I'm sure we're going to continue for many years to come.
Thanks Tory. Thanks for joining me.
Tory: Thank you. Are
Tracey: Ah, I know there was so many nuggets of gold in that episode. I personally am going to listen to that again and take notes. There is so much that we can all take away to action from this episode with Tory. Tory's details are in the show notes. The name of the book, Self Belief is Your Superpower, we'll include that in the show notes as well.
And Tory's given some really helpful information on how you can utilise or leverage from her framework, work with her, check out more, understand more, and learn more about what it is that we can be doing to build our own extraordinary personal brand, build or up [00:25:00] level in the case of many. I hope you enjoyed that episode.
I really enjoyed recording that as you can tell. I would love to know what you thought of the episode. I would love to know your key takeaways. There were just so many. If you don't follow me on Instagram, please do. I'm very active over there. And I'd love it if you dropped me a DM to let me know what your key takeaways were, what you loved the most and what you're going to do next.
Thank you so much for joining me as always. I appreciate your time so much, and I will catch you next time.
LINKS:
Tory’s book: Self-Belief Is Your Superpower
Connect with Tory:
Website: https://powerful-steps.com/
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/tory-archbold-b8542715
Connect with Tracey:
Book a Strategy Session with me here
Get your copy of my Annual Legal Checklist here
Check out my Getting Paid Made Easy course here
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tmsolicitor/
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