Building my Personal Brand
For those who know me, the first thing that probably comes to mind when they think of me is my height. I’m 6’4”, and have been tall my entire life. But when I ask people for other words they would use to describe me, the list looks something like this:
Yachting
Thoughtful
Mature
Quiet
Knowledgeable
Patient
Despite generally standing out for being the tallest person in the room, and happily engaging in any conversation about boats and yachting, I’m actually an introvert, and the idea of talking about myself, and putting myself out there has always been uncomfortable.
The fact that you are here, on my own personal website, reading a blog post about me, is something I never expected to happen, but I’m so glad it has, and I’m SO glad you’re here! Taking the steps to launch my personal brand has taken time, and a lot of thought, but it’s been such an incredible journey, and one I thought might be interesting to share.
I’ve been so fortunate in life to find success in just about everything I put my mind to. I certainly never imagined myself selling anything, let alone something only 1% of people can afford and nobody really needs. But my passion for yachting and being on the water was so strong, it was like a magnet, and the early part of my career took off much faster than I imagined. People could sense my passion, and trusted my experience and instincts. They were happy to work with me, and I was off, on my yacht sales career.
After finding success, and building a great network of clients, friends, vendors and service providers all over the west coast, my wife Lindsay and I moved to Seattle, WA. I planned for a rebuilding period, to take some time to get started in a new market, meeting new people, and establishing myself and my reputation from the ground up in a new place. Seattle is a major boating hub, and unlike California and Florida, there are no licenses required to be a yacht broker, so the competition here is crowded, clients are loyal, and I knew it would be a while before I would be enjoying the success I had found in California…I just didn’t plan for COVID.
COVID hit, and the days of meeting people the traditional way at boat shows and marinas suddenly disappeared. I had also just started at Worth Avenue Yachts, having made the conscious decision to move away from representing specific brands as a dealer, and instead focusing on exclusive brokerage sales, essentially relationship sales vs product sales. I’m so happy to have made that shift, and Worth Avenue Yachts has been a phenomenal team to join, but trying to break through in a new region, at a new company, without a new product line to drive leads, and without being able to use traditional methods to meet people and build relationships, I felt like I needed to take a new approach to my business. I decided to build my personal brand.
The part of sales I’ve never been comfortable with is the flash, the ego, the “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude. It always felt unnatural and fake (because it is). So many yacht brokers and brokerage houses claim to be the best— they spend all their time talking about themselves. I knew I didn’t want my personal brand to feel that way.
Finding a branding team took some time. The words people use to describe me mentioned above are 100% true, and I wanted to find someone who could help an introvert build a personal brand authentically and take the time to really understand who I am, how I approach relationships, business, and life, and help me craft my message. I wanted a place for people who I’ve never met in person to be able to genuinely get to know me, and for those that I have met, to get to know me better. But even more importantly, I wanted people who are looking to work with me, to be able to understand my “why”.
Working with the branding team, I found I’ve been able to really dive deep and understand so much more about not only how I approach work and life, but really understand and appreciate who my clients are on a level I had never reached before. This alone has been so valuable and rewarding and given me such an appreciation for the underlying reasons people buy and sell yachts.
I’ve realized I love working with clients who understand their “why”. Why they want a yacht, or why they want to try yachting. But many clients don’t have their “why” figured out when they start searching, so helping them uncover their “why” is my 2nd favorite part of what I do (my favorite part is being on the water with my clients watching them enjoy their new yacht!).
I feel so much more connected to my clients, and the relationships we build together are so much stronger. I love what I do more than ever before because I now trust the process, I know who I am and the value I provide, and I know the types of clients that I enjoy working with. I realized that while building a personal brand meant getting comfortable talking about me, what it really has done, is made me more comfortable with trusting my gut, with creating structure in my business and life, and with providing clarity and focus of the value I bring to my clients.
It has been some of the most rewarding work I’ve done, and I’m so glad to have invested in myself in doing this. I’m proud of where I stand today and am so excited to continue to build this personal brand to have an even greater impact.