39: Building a brand that is authentically you with Matt Gottesman

How to position and scale your brand effectively in the current digital landscapeAs many of you know, I am all about energy and can feel it long before it enters a room. That being said, I will never forget the time that I met this week’s guest, Matt Gottesman, because his soul radiates. He is incredibly genuine, brilliant, and his soul wisdom is truly unmatched. Matt is a brand master and can see the bigger picture for companies, people, their brand, and can scale any business. If you are an entrepreneur struggling with marketing and branding, listen to this episode to hear how Matt builds and evolves luxury brands, positions brands for high visibility and scale in the emerging digital economy, and how he can help you use your gifts to do the same. Listen nowCarrying on his father’s legacyMatt opens talking about his childhood, and how, as a third-generation entrepreneur, he witnessed his father make a lot of money, but also lose it. He opens up about the beautiful partnership between his parents, the support, love, and trust they had that allowed them to take risks and try new ventures. He speaks about watching his father’s successes and failures, how he learned and absorbed the same traits of honesty and accountability but repeated the same mistakes much earlier in his career. He talks about his journey to get his MBA, how this led to working with massive brand names like Louie Viton, and how one brand in particular changed his method and views on what a brand truly is and how it should be portrayed. Building a brand from the heartHe shares recent tragic events that instead of making him pause, propelled him further to continue his work and help others fulfill their business goals and dreams. Matt digs into how entrepreneurs can share their passion, what things they should avoid, the kind of language they should be using when speaking with specific business partners, and how to ensure you don’t dilute your message, but enhance it. Matt GottesmanWith nearly 20 years of experience as an international business strategist, growth marketer and brand architect focusing on luxury, lifestyle, arts and entertainment, health and wellness, tech, cannabis and fashion, Matt has partnered and worked with some of the world’s most prestigious brands. Matt not only has two international business degrees (including an MBA from Thunderbird - #1 school for International Business), but a 15+ year background in Internet technology and all things digital. Additionally, Matt has a reputation for positioning brands for high visibility and scale in the emerging digital economy and has also amassed an army of his own through his digital media reach (influencing nearly 10.5M people per month) including his Forbes featured podcast, The Hustle Sold Separately. He has also launched Systems Over Hustle™ - a partnered software program to help Entrepreneurs, Consultants and Coaches streamline their sales and marketing by taking the burden of creating the automation, tech and funnels out of the equation. It also empowers them to be able to manage their growth accordingly… and without all the expensive outside resources.Quotes:“There’s a bigger education out in the world than there is in a classroom sometimes, although I’m not knocking education, I believe it takes on many different forms.” 19:18“Being taught what is the ‘right’ thing and the actual right thing, in my opinion, has become a widening gap.” -Matt 19:57“I stress to a lot of people that ‘who am I or anybody else to tell you what is right and what is wrong’, I can’t, I don’t know your soul’s path.” -Matt 20:36“The only way we can come to that conclusion internally [of what’s right and wrong] is to move, is to try things.” -Matt 20:57“Marketing tends to have a fakeness to it, but branding doesn’t because branding is where your soul is.” -Matt 27:47“Don’t water down who you are.” 28:32“Don’t water down the gifts you’ve been given and the experiences you’ve had that helped create those gifts.” 28:52“When we take the other person into consideration, we can then communicate in a way that makes it safe for the conversation, that they don’t feel judged or dumb for not knowing something, and then finding an easier way to help them.” -Matt 33:56“You have to know how to run your Ferrari engine...you have to.” 41:47“Time is definitely not infinite and what we’re doing with our time and what we’re allowing (the conversations we’re allowing, the way we’re being treated, everything) whatever wasn’t already resolved in my internally got resolved quickly [when my father passed].” -Matt 46:14“There is no measuring stick for pain and how long you stay in it.. that doesn’t equal how much you loved the person whose death you’re grieving.” 47:49“Stop watching everybody else online, it’s gonna throw your game off, I guarantee you.” -Matt 51:43“Go easy on yourself, number one, things take time. Don’t guilt yourself for not having all the answers right now. Don’t worry about imposter syndrome.” -Matt 55:15I grew up automatically thinking that partnership and trusting in a Leader to get things done ya know, is natural. 7:15 - mattTrust is earned and is respect 7:35 - mattIt's interesting what we absorb when we don't even realize it. 10:12 - mattYou don’t realize that sometimes you are repeating certain things even though you watch them handle things for the most part with care 10:30 - mattWe do what we are taught, told, and modeled. 11:00 - tracyYou’ve got to be honest about where you’re at. You can’t be embarrassed. 15:10 - mattI liked college and i liked the programs that I did but I did realize that there was a mismatch between what I was learning in the real world and learning in a university. 16:15 - mattBeing taught quote on quote the right thing and the actual right thing are a very widening gap 19:40 - mattSometimes by accident we overstep our intuition and think that something very fun and meaningful to us couldn't be a job because of what was quote on quote taught to us, that we ignore the very thing that feels the most special to us. So movement and discovery can often lead us back to that. 21:00 mattSometime we have to toss the handbook out the window 31:30 - mattDo so right by them that they will be loyal to you no matter how many times they choose another product or service 25:49 - mattBrand and branding isn’t about how this whole how it looks, its having a soul and creating a legacy. 26:00 - mattMarketing tends to have a fakeness to it but branding doesn't because branding is where your soul is and when you marry that into your marketing you become unstoppable. 27:49 - mattDo not water down the gifts you have been given and the experiences you’ve had that have created those gifts 28:50 - tracyThe ones that make it, they preach it all the time. You’ve got to dive into the details first. 41:35 - mattThere is no measuring stick for pain and how long you stay in it, it doesn't equal to how much you love the person. 47:50 - tracyStop watching everybody else online, it’s going to throw your game off. 51:40 - mattCreate a place from a place of “serve”. 52:00 matt