Boosting Visibility: Using Awards and Books to Grow Your Brand

In this episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast, the wonderful Sophie Milliken, MBE, the founder and CEO of Moja, is chatting about the importance of getting noticed through awards and writing books. Something that makes many people uncomfortable, we discuss why winning awards matter and the common mistakes to watch out for when you are nominated for an award. Sophie also talks about how writing a book can help boost your business's visibility. Plus, we share tips on how to tell if an award is legit or a scam, and how to make your submissions stand out. If you're a course creator, coach, or membership owner looking to grow your brand, this episode is full of useful advice and strategies.   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST The Power of Awards – Winning awards can significantly boost your business’s visibility, but it’s important to submit thoughtfully and avoid common mistakes like submitting for the wrong categories or ignoring the submission guidelines. Writing a Book for Business Growth – Writing a book can be an excellent way to increase your visibility and credibility, positioning you as an expert in your field while attracting new opportunities. Spotting Legitimate Awards – Not all awards are created equal. It’s crucial to be able to differentiate between genuine awards that will add value to your business and those that are simply out to make money off unsuspecting participants.   If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Sophie Milliken on Instagram or LinkedIn Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list,  Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter   Transcript Teresa: Have you ever thought about going for an award or been put up for award and didn't get it? Do you wonder whether it's worth the effort because sometimes we have to go to a fair bit of effort in terms of putting a submission in and convincing them why we need to get it? Or maybe you don't even think about going for them in the first place because you're thinking I'm not good enough to win an award. In today's episode, we are talking about the importance of getting visible and specifically around awards and winning them, how to know whether they're worth it, how to know what you should look out for when you're putting together an award submission, and And some of the common mistakes that people make. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, Theresa Heath, wearing as always. And I just want to thank you so much for spending the time with me and listening to this episode of the podcast. It really does genuinely mean the world to me. Obviously I sit and record it on my own when I do solos and things. And sometimes you can feel really disjointed from the people listening. So I just want to say a big, massive, thank you. I really appreciate you being here on today's episode. I am talking about. One of my favorite areas, or one of my key [00:02:00] areas that I talk about, we're talking about visibility and how to become visible. You, if you've listened to this podcast before, we'll know that this is a big thing that I teach. It's a big thing that I talk about because if we're not visible, if people can't see us and they don't know that we exist. exist, then they're never going to be able to buy from us and becoming the go to expert is really important in terms of growing an online business. And that's exactly what we talk to today's guest about. Although we do talk about it in a slightly different way. Today I'm interviewing Sophie Milliken. Sophie is an MBE. I mean, that's like so impressive. And the founder and CEO of Moja. I think I've said that right. It's M O J A. She worked with entrepreneurs and senior executives to amplify their personal profiles and become the authority in their industry. As I've said, this is very much in my wheelhouse, which makes this a great conversation. She's a multi award winning businesswoman [00:03:00] and a proud mom. She also enjoys supporting the North East region where she lives in the UK. and is a co founder of City Ladies Networking, a networking group for women in business running a monthly breakfast events in Newcastle, London, and Paris. Very fancy. So, Sophie came on to talk about visibility and we kind of ended up going down to like roots or two rabbit holes, which I'm super glad that we did because these are two things that we've not really talked about before. And the two areas of visibility that I don't talk a lot about because these aren't my zone of genius, but they are for Sophie is we talked about award winning, which yes, I won some awards, but I wouldn't say that I'm an expert in award winning things. And we talk about writing a book and how these two things can be huge for your visibility and help you show up as the go to expert. So when it comes to [00:04:00] awards, we talk about are they worth going for? How do you know if you are good enough to go for an award? What should you look out for? And what are some of the common mistakes that people make when applying for awards? And then from the book point of view, we talk about what it takes to actually write a book. She's written three. We talk about how long it will take and what it will do for your business and for your visibility when you have a book. So this is a really nice rounded conversation about two areas that Sophie is really, really smart in and gives some really good insight to both of those things, whether you're looking to go for awards or write a book, I still think you're going to find this a really interesting conversation in terms of getting visible and how important it is for your business. So without further ado, here is Sophie. Sophie, welcome to the podcast. Sophie: Thanks for having me on. Teresa: My pleasure. I'm excited about today's conversation because we're talking about something that always makes me cringe when I say it. [00:05:00] When someone says about my business and I say I'm a personal brand, it always makes me feel like, like my ego is all on show there. Like, yeah, I'm a personal brand. Like it just feels horrible. However, Well, we're going to get into this about why we need one and what it is. And that's the thing, but let's start with what do you describe a personal brand as? Sophie: So I have this love hate relationship with the term personal branding because it's just bandied about all the time now and people are always going on. You've got to have a personal brand and you see all these personal branding coaches pop up all over social media and it's just become a bit of a thing. So I think what people, a lot of people think is is just doing a banging LinkedIn post or an Instagram post that does really well, and you get loads of likes on it, and that's kind of what people associate with personal branding. For me, the social media part of it is actually the very last bit, because A [00:06:00] social media post doesn't really last for very long, whereas all the other stuff that I think underpins someone's personal brand will be around forever. So I often say to people, you know, Google one of my clients, for example, and all the stuff that pops up should be stuff that we've helped to put there. And it might be things like an award win. It might be that they've spoken at an event or Or they have a new book out, or they've got a podcast, or they've been on someone's show, or they've been on TV. So all those different things that will raise someone's profile, make them more visible, which they can then talk about on social media. Teresa: Yeah. And in my experience, this becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy in this fact of you have to, and I think this is where people get the mistake or make the...