Growing Your Personal Brand: Why LinkedIn is the Place To Be

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Gus Bhandal, where we talk all about the world of marketing and how to use LinkedIn to grow a trusted personal brand. Gus is an experienced marketer and has worked for some of the world's largest companies. He now runs his own digital marketing agency and has been since 2017; where he has helped literally thousands of companies around the world with being better on LinkedIn. He is the UK's number one* LinkedIn trainer and offers social media and marketing strategy for business owners, senior executives and corporate teams. *according to his Mum.   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST The right balance between personal, professional and sales in your content How to use LinkedIn for business growth through engagement and outreach How to curate your LinkedIn audience and manage spam connections   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Gus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or X Check out the M Guru Website Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook   Transcript Teresa: Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the Your, Dream Business Podcast. Gosh, like I am not having a good day today. I've got a couple of episodes to record today, so God knows what they're going to be like, but welcome to this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you're having a lovely, lovely week. So this week. Now I don't wanna put any pressure on, but I've got high hopes for this week because I am interviewing the very lovely Gus who in brackets the marketing guru. And Gus is very funny and we laugh and we see each other. So I'm really hoping that we're gonna have a bit of a giggle today. Well, you learn some things as well, of course. So please welcome to the podcast, the very lovely Gus. Gus, how are you doing? Gus: I'm very well, I think I'm even better now that I've heard that ridiculously fantastic, introduction. And it's, but I feel pressure now. I need to be funny. Teresa: Yeah. It's always hard when people say that, cause I think I'm quite funny. And then when people go, Oh no, you are really funny. I then feel like I've got to be really funny. I've got to be really funny. I'm much better off the cuff. Gus: Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to be natural. Right. Yeah, exactly. Teresa: I did a talk once. I did talk once in Nashville for some, seven figure mastermind, which was very intimidating. But actually it was amazing and they were all women and they were like, you should do stand up. And I thought there's a very big difference to me coming out with a little funny and actually doing stand up. I'm fairly confident that wouldn't be for me. Fancy being of stand up Gus. Gus: No way, no, it's yeah, far, yeah, far too much pressure. I like, I like making people laugh when they don't expect it, when they turn up and think this guy's gonna be funny. That's the moment I'm not funny, basically. Teresa: And you've been doing some speaking, and obviously, you know, I speak, and I've done funnies. Like, purposely funnies on stage, and some of them haven't landed. Gus: Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that, actually, because a lot of my, I said to somebody the other day, and I shouldn't give away my secrets, but I, I Pre plan my jokes kind of thing. So I know when I do presentations, I know where I'm going to stick something funny in and yeah, sometimes it's kind of, when I write it down, I laugh to myself and I think, this is hilarious. I'm the funniest guy ever. And when you kind of stand up and say, and the room is all quiet, you have to quickly move on. You're like, okay, cool. That's yeah. Next, next, next item. Teresa: That is me all over. Like I will do something and I will laugh about myself. Ages, I'd be like, God, I'm hilarious. I will literally like praise myself, pat myself on the back. God, I'm so funny. But yeah, it is, it is a bit awkward and they don't laugh. I sometimes I have the problem where I don't leave enough of the, I don't let it land fully before I then move on to the next thing. Cause I speak so fast. So that can sometimes be a problem in my world. So just. You know, a little tip for you there, Gus. Gus: Yeah. Yeah. Just, really wait for people to laugh. Yeah. Yeah. Teresa: And if they don't get it, maybe follow up with a brrm ch. Gus: Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good idea. Or I might just have a slide that says laugh, you know, like in the audience. Teresa: Exactly. Cue laughter. Gus: Now's the time. Teresa: I think that is the one, what we should do. That's how they're going to get it. I love it. Gus. Okay. Now we've pitched you up to be a comedian. How about we start, as we always do, by you telling us who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today. Gus: Wow. Okay. So, I was born in the late seventies in. Yeah. Wolves grave hospital. I won't go into that. You know, I'm a, I'm a Liverpool,like I support Liverpool, FC and I used to tell people I was born in Liverpool because basically people always say, Oh, how come you support Liverpool? And so I was used to, yeah, I was born in the Paul McCartney hospital, you know, in the seller black children's award, you know, it was the kind of, it was all very made up, you know, you know, Jimmy Tarbuck was the midwife and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, no, I was born in Coventry, born and bred in Coventry. Spent my life here until I moved to London and started a marketing degree. And at that point it kind of all took off. I tried my hand at nearly every subject going and I failed at everything except marketing. And I thought, okay, maybe I'll, maybe I should make a career out of this. So that, and that's kind of, yeah, that's where it went on. I spent years working for some large companies, international organizations. I worked for local authorities. I then run a pub and a restaurant for a little while, and then I started my own marketing agency and that's where I've, come and even, even that is niche. So I, I help businesses with marketing and marketing strategy and all that kind of stuff. But, it starts with LinkedIn. That's kind of where I say to people, right. I'll train you on LinkedIn. I'll get you great on LinkedIn. And then we'll do other elements of the marketing mix. Teresa: Okay. So a couple of things. First off, I don't think I've interviewed anybody or they've certainly not alluded to me that has a marketing degree because I have a marketing degree. Did you start your degree in marketing? I started mine in business and then within the first year realized that I wanted to sack everything else off other than the marketing or did you go straight in marketing? Gus: So, cut a long story short, basically I did business studies as a GCSE. And I thought, Oh, this is pretty cool. But then I wanted to be a lawyer. So then they said, Oh, you should do history for a level. So I did history for a level and I failed it. So I couldn't be a lawyer. So, but then I did also psychology for a level. So then I thought, right, I'll do psychology at university. And I went to university and it was all biology. Like we were dissecting brains and stuff like that. And I thought, yeah, this ain't, this ain't for me. I started on psychology, I also did a minor in sociology and I hated sociology because there's no wrong answer. It was just like, it was very wishy washy. It was just like, everything is right and I was like, I'm not gonna, you know, survive in this. And then I moved into law, I thought, Oh, I'll give my hand, you know, try my hand at law. And then I saw how long it was going to take to do a law degree and I thought, forget this. Teresa: I thought law for a while and then don't forget that. Gus: Exactly. And then I moved into marketing and that's where I, that's where it became second nature. Cause once I started doing marketing modules, it kind of, for want of a better phrase, it was like, this is so easy. It was like, I go, you know, I can do this standing on my head. And I think that's the thing when something becomes second nature, it's so much easier to deliver to others as well. Kind of thing. So that's, so I failed at everything else before settling on marketing, basically. So psychology, sociology. Teresa: What's left? Gus: I went through the prospectus. It was, it was quite close. It was, you know, I almost got to zebra farming kind of thing. I was that...