In episode 10, we discuss the importance of building a personal brand because of the benefits it brings for businesses, especially for remote companies. Because if you think about it, there's no office to bring someone for a tour! So what are some ways to go about this and strengthen your digital presence?
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A big thank you to our post-production wizard, Vanesa Monroy.
[A moderately paced, trip hop song that is best described as chill and cruising. Synth and techno drums are the primary instruments in this track. This is our podcast background music, it starts playing at the very beginning]
[00:00:00] Andres: [00:00:00] Hi. I'm Andrés.
[00:00:04] Josephine: [00:00:04] And I'm Josephine. Welcome to the Remoter Podcast.
[00:00:07] Andres: [00:00:07] Follow us in season one of this journey as we cover anything and everything you need to know in order to successfully build and scale a remote-first team. Someone who's been working remotely for over a decade, our CEO, Alexander Torrenegra shares his personal experiences, lessons learned and advice for those of you who are curious and interested in exploring the future of work.
[00:00:33] Josephine: [00:00:33] This podcast is brought to you by Torre, the end-to-end recruitment solution for remoters. Get our free AI powered sourcing and processing tools, or let Torre recruit on your behalf at Torre dot CO that's T O R R E dot C O.
[Music stops playing]
[00:00:52] I heard we're looking into the topic of uh personal branding today and the importance behind it when it comes to recruiting for remote [00:01:00] work. And I have to say like that was, that's a big part of why I'm here today, actually.
[00:01:07] Andres: [00:01:07] Why is that?
[00:01:08] Josephine: [00:01:08] So, um. When I was looking, when I, when I saw this job, the job description you guys had was travel around the world and make content.
[00:01:17] And I was like, no way this is real. It sounds too good to be true. How could there, how could there be a job out there like that? But I, and then I Googled Alex. Googled the company, Googled um, saw some of the social media networks and everything. And I was like, Oh my God, I, I think this can be real. I think this is real because these people, yeah.
[00:01:40] Like they have an actual digital footprint online. And I can actually see and read about things they've done over the last couple of years. And it made me feel, um, good to see that they've been doing things for a couple of years and there's like an actual timeline that I can see [00:02:00] of information. So that kind of, um, gave me a peace of mind. And if I didn't see that, I might've not applied.
[00:02:08] Andres: [00:02:08] I remember how even after you got hired, um, I flew you into San Francisco and you were like, Oh, I cannot believe this is real. It's actually real.
[00:02:17] Josephine: [00:02:17] I still can't believe this is, no, just kidding. No, but like, it's, it's just something, I guess for me coming in from, like with no remote work experience and coming into this type of industry, that's less of what people would traditionally think of when they think of, Oh, you're going to go and get a job now as an adult. Like that's why it's so unconventional to me. So that's why I like being able to look, you guys often see things online, social media and everything. It really gave me a peace of mind.
[00:02:50] Andres: [00:02:50] You know, there's a trend coming of, uh, that it's about hiring employer branding professionals for teams. So you have marketing professionals who are being hired [00:03:00] to, to work on branding for hiring for companies. Uh, which is, which is a little bit, it's relatively new, um, particularly because of the, the talent war we're having at startups and how, you know, companies are fighting for talent and so on.
[00:03:14] Um, so that's, that's going to be quite interesting to see how, uh, on this episode we cover the whole personal and branding aspect of it.
[00:03:24] Erik: [00:03:24] So when building a personal brand, I mean everybody wants, wants to be loved and known to everybody and so on, but how does it help your recruiting and your business?
[00:03:33] Alex: [00:03:33] It helps quite, quite a lot. I think the most important realization I had on this aspect was 4 years ago, something we had, uh, our careers website, and we were doing some UX research to design a sprint, as some people call it, where we wanted to see how potential candidates interacted with our candidate flow.
[00:03:55] Part of that knowledge, by the way, ended up triggering Torre, the company that, I'm the [00:04:00] CEO of today. And, uh, I remember very vividly one of the candidates saying when we asked him after he saw the job opening on the careers page, and then he checked the job opening, he said, what would you do next? He say, I'm going to go to Google.
[00:04:16] And I'm going to look for the name of the CEO of this company. I want to see his social media. And he looked for my Instagram account. He opened, he didn't know I was, I was watching the interview and, and he went to my Instagram page. He went to my Facebook page and he looked at the public content that I had on there.
[00:04:37] And that's a pattern that we know is other people follow as well. Right. And I think that for remote companies, that, I saw actually, we asked the guy, why did you do it? He said, well, I want to see if there is some kind of fit with this guy. If I like his lifestyle, if this is the person that I like to lead me somehow.
[00:04:56] And I think that for remote companies, this is even more [00:05:00] important than for office based companies. Because when you're in an office-based company, you see a job opening. Uh, but there are many job openings out there, or you get contacted by a recruiter, whichever the moment that you can say, okay, this is real, it's the moment you visit the office. That's when you actually say, this is not, you for sure know that there is an institution behind it. That there are actual people behind that and, and is no longer a scam. Not that you're thinking that is, there is a scam. Right, but, but, but until you are, until you get to an office space, you don't realize, or you don't actually see the atoms behind all of those.
[00:05:42] When you're remote, there is no office. Right. You can have very nice websites, you can have a lot of this stuff, but in many instances, is the people behind the company, the ones that make it real. So personal branding, especially the branding of the founders, the CEO, the leaders of the company [00:06:00] become, to some degree, the main way in which people receive the reality, atoms-wise, of what's otherwise just a concept in there.
[00:06:10] Erik: [00:06:10] And they can see what your culture is like, I guess, it goes back to that as well.
[00:06:14] Alex: [00:06:14] Uh, I think more than the culture is, they get to see what's my vibe. I do believe that that remote companies need to invest also as a consequence of that, more actively in, in social media, in a careers page, showing videos of their team. Uh, pictures of, of, uh, of their team, how they work, how each one of the members of the team gets to experience what they do, a day in the life of a member of the team, et cetera, et cetera. Because that's potentially the only way in which many people get to experience that given that they cannot, again, go to an office and do it. One of the oldest advantages of having a personal brand, especially if it's a digital personal brand, is that it makes it easier to build either at a regional or a global [00:07:00] personal brand as opposed to having a very local person or brand, which when you are hiring remote team members, it's one of the advantages that you can tap into into a wider audience
[00:07:10] Erik: [00:07:10] And people can see who you are and decide whether they want to work for you. I guess that some of the best workers are keyed into the idea of the value of leadership. So yeah.
[00:07:19] Alex: [00:07:19] I believe so. I mean, I think that's. Oh, more or less, we ended up working together no, Andrés? Would you mind sharing your experience? How did it go?
[00:07:27] Andres: [00:07:27] You did a lot of inbound marketing, what I like to call inbound marketing. So I saw Alex, not even met for the first time, uh, I think six or so years ago. Bunny Inc, uh, was hosting an event called the Dolphin Tank. Which is kind of weird because you ended up being a Shark in Shark Tank, but anyways, and the...
[00:07:46] Alex: [00:07:46] You had no connection with Tania, with Shark Tank, and, uh, we were not actually investing money, we were just providing feedback to entrepreneurs out of, uh...
[00:07:56] Andres: [00:07:56] The winners. I mean, the ones selected would get, uh, mentoring sessions [00:08:00] with you and Tania, your wife. And, and, uh.
[00:08:03] Alex: [00:08:03] And an all expenses paid, expenses, paid trip to San Francisco to stay with us.
[00:08:07] Andres: [00:08:07] Oh, that's cool. Did someone end up getting... Cool. Well, anyways, um, in that, that was a local event, again, um, it was happening in, in Bogotá. At the time you had an office, Bunny Inc. had an office in Bogotá.
[00:08:21] I remembered that by seeing you guys speak and, and respond and give feedback and all the things, it position you in a position where I say like, Oh, I like to work with these people. They seem smart and they seem like they know what they're doing. Right. And that positioning, I like maintained top of mind in a way, uh, for, for the next years.
[00:08:40] So much that when I was invited to apply to your company, I literally said to the person that invited me to apply to your company, okay, so here's what happened. He sent me lots of message. Hey Andrés, we have this position available at the company. I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. Uh, do you want me to help you getting some, some people for it or something?
[00:08:56] And he was, and the person was like, no, no, I think that you should apply. And I'm like, nah, I [00:09:00] don't think I'm, I don't think I'm fit for this. And then, no, no, you, you can do it, I think, and I think you should do. So I believed in myself in a way, but I was really nervous about applying because I was like, these guys are on a next level. And, and we definitely are, but all modesty. Um, it's, it's a, it's a vertical company. I didn't end up getting the job, but just the idea of like how excited I was to apply to the company is something that I feel like many CEOs could leverage and many, many companies starting to go remote could leverage.
[00:09:30] Um, we had this one guy who had never seen you in your life. He's now working as a, I don't know if you know this, but he's now working as a freelancer for us, kind of almost full time. And when I asked him, "why do you want to work with us?" He, his reply was, "I just really want to work with Alex and you."
[00:09:46] And I was like, okay, cool. Welcome. Uh, but yeah, I feel like, personal branding is really important and it doesn't have to be, I mean, a thought you can go global, right? If you go and check your Instagram followers, Alex, the vast majority are going to be [00:10:00] from Colombia, right? Or Latin America and maybe your Twitter followers will be a little bit more diverse, but it ended up helping not only the volume of candidates you can get really fast and the speed you can get candidates fast. We've seen that in our, in your case, but also kind of like trust. It generates trust, you know, it generates trust for you and your, and a connection in a way.
[00:10:21] I remember finally, one time when you finally made an offer for me to join the team. I pretty much knew that I had to let go of my own company. Um, I used to have my own consulting firm back then, to be able to join you and I was like very hesitant of leaving my four year old a baby to join another one, join a two year old baby, one year old baby at the time.
[00:10:43] And one thing that like, literally, this is pretty weird, I think I shouldn't, this doesn't make me sound so professional, but I landed in Bogotá after an ad consulting gig that I was doing the day before I had had the call when you made the offer to me. And I landed in Bogotá and as I'm leaving the airport, the first billboard I [00:11:00] noticed, and I had to walk through there because it was like the billboard before the door to leave the airport. A huge billboard of Shark Tank Colombia with Alex on the middle of it, and I'm like, this is a sign of God. I definitely should join these guys.
[00:11:13] Alex: [00:11:13] A sign of Sony Channel Latin America. By the way, something I used to, um, my social media presence used to be exclusively in English, but, uh, recently because of Shark Tank Colombia, I switched my Instagram to being in Spanish and, uh, I continued tweeting primarily in English. So now I have, like two very different audiences. One on each channel.
[00:11:38] The Twitter following is way more technical, remote work focused primarily. While the audience in Instagram is primarily entrepreneurs, Spanish speaking people that are either thinking about starting a business or they're growing their business somehow.
[00:11:53] Andres: [00:11:53] And you almost always get a response from relevant people when you tweet them, not only because your account is [00:12:00] verified, but also because you seem to have certain level, like people see your, your Twitter and okay, this guy, it's like kind of a big deal. I've actually experienced it twice when we, I don't know if you remember, we tweeted the people at Drift for them to, to explain to us a little concept in terms of marketing and how they hired a product marketer before getting to product market fit.
[00:12:17] And they actually responded, the CEO responded, your tweet, and then they created a 20 minute podcast explaining the reasoning behind them and mentioned to you a couple of times. And, um, we've also engaged for like, I dunno, like a big, uh, big name in a tech, Twitter. Um, Ryan Hoover, I think, uh, from ProductHunt.
[00:12:36] He has also engaged with you a couple of times. So it kind of helps not only from the recruiting perspective, but also from the business perspective to be able to access these kinds of personalities.
[00:12:44] Alex: [00:12:44] Yeah. Now something important is that I didn't start doing this with the goal of personal branding. Personal branding has been a consequence of, I really started that just trying to build communities and help people, and that's, for example, the main reason why I [00:13:00] accepted the invitation to join Shark Tank Colombia. I wanted to be able to teach people how to talk to investors, how to reject investors. In some instances when they thought they needed money, when in reality they needed something else, which is actually quite common, and people believe that they need to raise capital when they actually have other needs.
[00:13:18] They told him, I want to be a dolphin instead of a shark in Shark Tank. It has helped a lot, so I think that personal branding, for the sake of personal branding, it's very difficult to get it. Personal branding is usually the byproduct of pursuing a bigger dream in general. I love helping that audience that you end up building.
[00:13:38] Andres: [00:13:38] People are gonna notice it. When you're trying to sell them and when you're trying to really help them.
[00:13:42] Erik: [00:13:42] Well, what I noticed right away about Torre and Alex was that you, you talked so much about values and and helping people as you said. And that attracted me personally, and maybe it doesn't attract everybody, but it attracts people that share those values, certainly.
[00:13:57] Alex: [00:13:57] Which is, which is a great filter for [00:14:00] when you're recruiting, right? I mean, like for example, in Torre, we say we hire entrepreneurs. We give priority to people, significant priority to people that have either been entrepreneurs. Or people that have as a goal, being entrepreneurial someday in the future.
[00:14:15] And because I'm so open about it, and in general, everything I say is either about tech or entrepreneurship, that ends up attracting the crowd that is interested in the topic.
[00:14:25] Andres: [00:14:25] And that it's interesting for you. Into your business. Yep.
[00:14:28] Erik: [00:14:28] So personal branding is really about the transparency. It's not about an image. It's not about a manufactured thing.
[00:14:34] Alex: [00:14:34] Yeah. Which for some people might be difficult. Some people really want to keep their, their lives private. My suggestion, I only have like one Instagram. I don't have a personal Instagram and a public Instagram, but I see how for some people that might be the way to go to. Keep one for yourself and then one, uh, that's public, in both cases, it has to be you. It's not like you can really fake it, but uh...
[00:14:56] Andres: [00:14:56] It's really hard to manufacture an image that is not you. [00:15:00] It's way easier to just document, uh, who you are and, and what you believe in, and when you think about. And I feel like some CEOs could be, um, afraid of projecting an image that ends up excluding a lot of people, or that might not be as attractive for people.
[00:15:17] But I think that everyone has a, a story that it's interesting in a way. Like I, like we met this, um, CEO from this big remote company the other day, and I, and I was surprised of how nerdy he was. And, um, but I don't think the negative, I think that older nerdy people might be interested in working with him precisely because of that, of his personality and how it might be attractive for them.
[00:15:39] Alex: [00:15:39] Yup. And I think also quite, uh, something important to do that many people are afraid of is pick sides. There are many people that like to be neutral. They don't necessarily like others to disagree with them. I believe that for personal branding and even for the company, it's important to pick a side and whatever topic. Pick a side, pick a belief and stand for that, [00:16:00] that belief, and that's going to attract people. When you're neutral, it's very difficult for you to gain followers. When you have a side, you are going to get enemies, but you're going to get a lot of friends as well. And for example, we do it with remote.
[00:16:11] I'm, I'm an evangelist of remote work and there are many people that might disagree with me and there are many people that don't like it because of pragmatic reasons. For example, it might end up increasing the salaries of most engineers in Latin America. And it's not good for local companies. And many of them have told me like, don't do this because you are diminishing our businesses locally. Well, but I'm helping a lot of engineers locally as well. So, and I prefer to help the engineers. And there are people that might disagree with me out of other principals, but there are many, many, many others that, that love and feel identify with what we are saying in here. So yeah, because I don't be afraid.
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[00:16:59] Andres: [00:16:59] Hiring [00:17:00] is a mess. I've been researching the topic for two years now. I've met with vice presidents of HR of large organizations such as SAP and Coca Cola and so on. I've also met with entrepreneurs and startup CEOs and small business owners. And I've also met with, um, talent job-seekers, sorry, uh, people looking for jobs for all kinds of jobs from, you know, $400,000 a year professional is down to, uh, getting started internships at, you know, $12,000 a year and so on. And it just sucks. It's a such a long process. It's not very well structured. Nobody really knows how to do it well, and everyone has its own way of doing it. Um, so you know, just being able to have a structured way to do it, um, is something that we're really, really interested and passionate about it.
[00:17:48] Josephine: [00:17:48] So, Andrés, before we cap off this week's episode, I wanted to do a little activity with you on personal branding and, um, I want [00:18:00] to get, I don't, I haven't seen your social media, like platforms or profiles yet, and I don't know if you've seen mine, if anything, just pretend you haven't, but I want to see what your first impressions would be as somebody who's looking me up or something like I'm looking you up, you're looking me up. I want to hear your first impressions of my profile. See what you think.
[00:18:24] Andres: [00:18:24] I have not seen your social, is it on? Should I Goog-
[00:18:28] Josephine: [00:18:28] I'm gonna pull it up on my phone and you're going to give me yours and we're going to switch right now. And
[00:18:34] Andres: [00:18:34] One, two, three, go. Okay.
[00:18:37] Josephine: [00:18:37] And here's a switch. We're looking at our Instagram, right now.
[00:18:41] Andres: [00:18:41] Are you blind. Your, your type is so big on this phone.
[00:18:44] Josephine: [00:18:44] Your type is so small. Okay. So that's nothing to do with personal branding. It's just our eyes.
[00:18:49] Andres: [00:18:49] Wait, what is 'Yung Rice Cake?' Is this your account?
[00:18:53] Josephine: [00:18:53] That's my account. Okay. So my first impressions of Andrés' account is that it is... [00:19:00] quite professional. your name is actually the username, first of all, um...
[00:19:06] Andres: [00:19:06] Isn't that how it's supposed to, like...
[00:19:08] Josephine: [00:19:08] No, no, no, definitely. But you have the entrepreneur as your business Instagram profile, uh co founder and chief growth officer at Torre. And your experience around the world. Is that Gary V? Yeah. Oh, very cool. I see that you have a, a lot of, um, inspirational quotes that are in Spanish, so I can't actually read them, but I'm just gonna move forward. Nice. Nice Instagram.
[00:19:40] Andres: [00:19:40] I mean, I think it's just a collection of personal things.
[00:19:46] Josephine: [00:19:46] Yours is personal enough, but it's still got this like professional vibe that if an, if an employer were to go on, they would be like, okay, I see his, uh, I see his vibe. I see what he's about. I don't know what [00:20:00] you think about mine.
[00:20:02] Andres: [00:20:02] So I see you love jiujitsu. That's cool.
[00:20:05] Josephine: [00:20:05] Oh, yes. For the listeners out there, I am, uh, I practice jiujitsu and I love it. Brazilian Jiujitsu, to be specfic.
[00:20:13] Andres: [00:20:13] Is your account like um, like uh private?
[00:20:16] Josephine: [00:20:16] No, it's quite public. Okay. I don't have anything to hide.
[00:20:21] Andres: [00:20:21] So this looks really, really personal. I don't see any, I don't see much work related here in, in terms of like your posts. Um. I like. There's a section called Remoter and they see your feet by a pool and it says pre-conference. Okay. Friends making moves around their world. Okay, that's, that's a cool, what is it, that's a cool flex?
[00:20:43] Josephine: [00:20:43] It wasn't even, it wasn't even flex for me.
[00:20:45] Andres: [00:20:45] Oh, your, your your feet again. Okay.
[00:20:48] Josephine: [00:20:48] I guess I'm all about the feet.
[00:20:50] Andres: [00:20:50] Is that a thing?
[00:20:51] Josephine: [00:20:51] Oh God.
[00:20:53] Andres: [00:20:53] Um, but you know what? I like that it looks, it's personal. You look like a human being. You don't look like an influencer. You don't look [00:21:00] like a, someone trying to sell me something. You don't look like someone trying to do much but live. And I like that. I really, really liked that. I also like that. I see a lot of people on it. I, I feel like those accounts that are like, just like photography of places and stuff like that. I like them, but I won't like my friends to have those accounts. I like to see them, I mean, the places you go, oh, they're cool, they're cool. But like, you know, I'm not following a place. I'm following you.
[00:21:28] Josephine: [00:21:28] Yeah, there are. I agree. I mean, there are accounts for that, and if I were to make a, let's say, photography specific account or anything and curated as such. Sure. But, um, yeah, it's my personal account and I've been filling it up since 2012.
[00:21:46] Andres: [00:21:46] Wow. Yeah. Seven years of work.
[00:21:50] Josephine: [00:21:50] Seven years of work right here.
[00:21:51] Andres: [00:21:51] So to the listeners, let us know in the comments, um, what your handles, what your social is like, what is your, uh, I [00:22:00] follow a lot of Instagrams. So what is your Instagram profile? I'd love to follow you there and see if you're a building and location photo guy or a humans, human lover, or a personal human, humanized human version of you.
[00:22:18] Thank you so much for tuning. A few last words. If you enjoyed that episode, please...
[00:22:23] Josephine: [00:22:23] Follow us on social media @remoterproject and let us know what you think about the latest episode.
[00:22:28] Andres: [00:22:28] We'd love for you to join us as we continue building the Remoter library on our website, remoter.com. That's R E M O T E R dot com.
[00:22:37] Josephine: [00:22:37] If you want even more resources, sign up for our free Founding and Growing Remotely online course. You can find that on our website or check the description for links. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:22:54] Andres: [00:22:54] And by the way, we've got some exciting news.
[00:22:56] We're gearing up for season two. This time, we're going to go [00:23:00] further into interviewing remote work leaders all around the world, and we'd like to ask you, what are some questions or topics you'd like to hear covered next time? Who would you like to hear on the show and let us know through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, um, you know, carrier pigeon, whatever it is you like, we're all ears.
[00:23:18] Josephine: [00:23:18] And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling. So what part will you play in shaping the future of work?
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