Embracing Your True Voice in Marketing with Dr. Rhonda Alexander

Andréa Jones [00:00:00]:
I'm going to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth today, y'all. You don't need a new tagline, okay? You just need permission to sound just like you. And that's exactly what this episode is about. With our special guest today, Dr. Rhonda Alexander is on the show to talk all about how to build a personal brand that is rooted in truth, not trend. Before we get into this episode, a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show.

Andréa Jones [00:00:30]:
I use it to edit not only the the audio in the video. It is like chef's kiss, magical, Making the entire process so, so easy. Plus, I love their Magic AI clips. Their little AI robot in the background pulls out the most impactful moments of the episodes without me having to comb through and do it myself. Resizes them for social media. So those vertical videos you see on TikTok and Reels, those all come from Magic AI inside of Riverside. It's literally one click. It spits out 10 clips.

Andréa Jones [00:01:02]:
I pick the best one and away I go. Saves me so much time. If you want to get on the Riverside train, check it out today, the links in the show notes, and make sure to use my code, DREA D R E A at checkout to get 15% off your membership. Rhonda, welcome to the show.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:01:20]:
Hey, Andrea, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. I'm super excited to be chatting with.

Andréa Jones [00:01:25]:
You, and I'm excited to just do my thing and be nosy and learn everything about you and your work.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:01:31]:
We love it. We love it. Yes, I love it.

Andréa Jones [00:01:33]:
I love it. How did you get into personal branding? Start us at the beginning.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:01:38]:
So I have kind of been on my own journey. It's really difficult to know who you are when you have all of these titles right. You've got employee leader, mom, sister. You've got all these titles, right? And then one day, some of those titles are gone. So my daughter moved away to go to college and my doctorate was over. And all of a sudden, I wasn't all the things. And I had to discover who I authentically am outside of being mommy and outside of being student and scholar and all of these other hats that I wear. And so while I'm not a branding specialist, while that's not, you know, what I brand myself as, one of the things that's very important in the work that I do in coaching and advising business owners and entrepreneurs is bringing who you really are to your business.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:02:37]:
And the challenge with that is a lot of entrepreneurs, especially women, don't know who that is. I recently had a breakdown with a client of mine. We were on the phone and I said, well, who is that person? And the tears just started to run. Right. So I know that the journey to really being authentic in your brand and really understanding your brand is really starts with understanding who you actually are outside of all of the hats you wear. But who are you really? And so after my own journey of discovery, I bring that to the work that I do with women entrepreneurs everywhere.

Andréa Jones [00:03:22]:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I feel this so deeply right now because I have a three year old and a one year old and I'm like, who is mom Andrea? And it feels, it feels so jarring to be on this side of it. And I'm done having kids, thank God. This is more than enough for me. But I'm still trying to figure out how to merge my idea of myself before kids and who I'm becoming after kids. So this totally resonates with me, especially having a business of. For a long time my identity was tied up in my business and now it's not the most important thing in my life.

Andréa Jones [00:03:56]:
So. Interesting, interesting. Okay. So for those people who are listening and they're like, okay, Dr. Rhonda Alexander, how do I find my real voice? How do I know what that even looks like?

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:04:09]:
It really becomes, you have to be, of course, self aware and have the ability to be introspective and honest about what you like, what your goals are. And in the absence of the demands, in the absence of the roles really sitting with, what kind of person am I? What are my values? What's important to me? Who do I want to be? Because who you wanted to be 10 years ago and what you wanted to be at that time is not the same person that you are now, not what you want now, who you are now, and even in 10 years. Right? So when we start talking about, you know, discovering who we are. Yes. I'm looking at who am I really right now? If, if I didn't have a role at all, what would I want to be known for? Who would I want to be considered as? Right. What are my values? What's important to me? And then where am I going? Right? Because I know that I'm constantly evolving. So it's being honest about what I want to do and what I don't want to do. So as you're yourself, as you're even finding in this journey now that you're a mom of Two young children.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:05:34]:
What you want for yourself in terms of what you want to do and what you don't want to do. Right. Very, very different now than they were before you had kids. So our values change, our priorities change. Who we are at our core doesn't necessarily change. We do evolve. But certain things about our character, the things that really make us who we are, don't change. But I think when it comes to discovering and determining, identifying who you are right now, in this moment, has a lot to do with what you will do right now, what you won't do right now, what's important to you right now and what's not.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:06:17]:
What do you want to say yes to in this season of your life? What do you want to say yes to? And in this season of your life, what do you want to say no to? Because we don't think about that. We think of ourselves as, yes, machines. And you get to an age, the closer to 50, I think you get. You get to this point where you're like, I don't want to do more, I want to do less. I want what I do to matter. I don't need to be at every meeting doing all the things, conquering all the giants. I want to focus on this thing that matters to me. That just comes, I think, with, again, just the evolution of life and the, you know, really becoming aware of what's important to you at various seasons.

Andréa Jones [00:07:06]:
Yeah, I love that you said that. The what you want to be is as important as what you don't want to be. I think that's such an important distinction. One of the things I often hear, though, especially from business owners who are developing personal brands, is that where they want to be is different from where they are now. And so sometimes it feels like when they're creating, let's say, marketing content, they're recording podcasts, they're on Instagram, sometimes it feels like they're performing instead of being. What do you think about that?

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:07:37]:
A lot of us are performing instead of being, and I talk about this in my book, we hide behind the performance because the performance is comfortable. When you are in an essence or a season of being, you are who you are, whether people like you or not, whether you feel accepted by people or not. I am who I am. Take it or leave it. Most of us don't live in that space. We're trying to get there, but most of us are still in this space of performance, performing, strength, you know, performing so we can be accepted, performing so that we can be validated. Right. So that we feel that people see us and the only way they can see us is if we pretend we're who they expect us to be.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:08:35]:
If when they open this box, they get what they bargained for or better in our eyes. Right? Not that they open the box and they got, oh, gosh, woo, she's, she's a firecracker. We don't always want to get that reaction. We want people to go, yes, I met her. She's exactly what I thought she would be. There are no curveballs with her. She is, you know, always on her game. She is 100% all the time.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:09:05]:
Meanwhile, the person that really wants to exist, who really wants to be, is being completely ignored and even rejected because we're concerned that that person doesn't have what it takes to get into the rooms that we want to be in or, or to be as important as the rest of the people in those rooms. So we hide that person and we put on this mask, we put on this performance. And so we're now kind of getting to this place. Most, you know, Gen Xers, boomers, some millennials as well, getting to a place where we're like, I'm done with the performance because I discovered that it doesn't matter if I perform or if I'm real. You're going to like me or not. You may not like me at all either way. So if you're not going to like me at all either way, I might as well be me. And so a lot of us are tired of the performance.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:10:06]:
It's exhausting to be pretending in a way that makes other people comfortable and meets their expectations of you. Many of us are like, you know what, Listen, I'm just me, like it or not. And if you don't like it, then you're just not for me. But it takes self validation, self awareness, self acceptance to get to that place. And a lot of us are learning those, those skills.

Andréa Jones [00:10:36]:
Yeah. And it's definitely a skill, something that I feel like I'm just now discovering. There's so much that I've internalized as a woman, as a black woman, as a business own owner, as now a mom, you know, mom guilt is real. You know, I love that. I love this conversation. And I think that part of the challenge with a lot of people, myself included, is I know who I am more today than I ever have, and yet I feel it's hard to jump that gap between who I am now and who I used to be. So, for example, I used to say things like, I don't curse in my marketing. It's not part of my brand.

Andréa Jones [00:11:17]:
But y', all, I curse all the time in my real life. And so now that I don't care, like, I literally just don't care anymore, the curses are becoming out. And so I feel, I feel guilty about that. So how do we, how do we make that transition from, you know, that someone who I used to be, here's who I am now, and I'm just accurately reflecting who I am. And part of that, I feel like, is going to alienate people. Something like, you know, people clearly don't like cursing, like some people don't. So how do I, how do I bridge that gap?

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:11:48]:
So you, you bridge that gap by deciding what you want to be, Whether or not do you have to curse? No. Is that a part of who. If I was hanging out with you and we were just having a glass of wine, would you be completely poised and polished, or would you be still your expertise, your expert self, still your very intelligent self, still very wise, you know, all of your business acumen, but you talk differently. Would that make me think, oh, she doesn't know what she's talking about because she dropped some four letter words, not me. And I won't say I don't, but in my marketing and in real life, I really don't swear very much anymore. That's just an evolution. It's not because I made some pact and decided I wasn't going to. It just stopped fitting.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:12:47]:
And even when you, when you deal with me in real life, I cut the food like everybody else, but that's just not something I do very much. But does it bother me when people do? No. If I don't like you, it's not because you dropped the F bomb.

Andréa Jones [00:13:03]:
Well, that's the real thing, isn't it? That's the real thing.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:13:06]:
It's not if I don't want to work with you. It's not because, you know, now if you're just obnoxiously vulgar, that's one thing. But if this is just, you know, you're just using it to color how you speak, that doesn't, that doesn't bother me personally. And so I think about this in terms of a good friend of mine who really felt like she had put herself into this perfect little box. As an entrepreneur, you know, I always show up polished. I always show up, you know, in my perfection, in my most professional self. But. But the nitty gritty of me is I get down and dirty with you.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:13:46]:
I, you know, I'm in The trenches with you. And she's like, I don't feel like my folks get the sense of who I really am until I finally get in a meeting with them, and I take off all of that, and they go, wow, you're really. You are totally. You know, your personality is amazing. But it's like I get to see your flame, your fire. I get to see what drives you, what makes you passionate, not just your expertise. And so she really spent, like, the last year funeralizing this Persona that she had boxed herself into and really got comfortable showing up and saying, I don't care what you think of me. This is who I am.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:14:38]:
And I want to be true to me because when I'm true to me, I attract people who like me, and I get to work with people I like, who understand my vibe, my flow. You know, they're not going to be offended by my directness. They're not going to be offended by my colorfulness. They're not going to be offended by my extra ness. They're going to expect that from me because when they saw me on social, when they saw me in public, I am who I am. And it's been really beautiful to watch because she's one of those burn it all down coaches. She is amazing at what she does, and I have seen this evolution go from someone who was still amazing at what she was doing, but not as bold as she is now. And so she will.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:15:32]:
She likes to mix, swears in the most creative ways. Great. I love it. I. I can't do that, but I love it. But. But the thing about it is the people that she's now attracting, because now her brand is so authentically her, she's attracting people who are like, yep, that's my girl. I need that in my life, in my business.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:15:56]:
I need that kind of support. And so when it comes to bridging that gap, sometimes there's no bridge. Sometimes there's a door close, and you say, you know what? That's just not me. That season is over. That's just not me anymore, and I'm okay with that. Thank you. Past Andrea. Thank you so much for getting me where I am.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:16:21]:
I appreciate you. I love you. You're amazing. But here I am in season two, and season two is taking all of the masks off, and she's going to show up how she likes to show up. And the people who are for her, they like her. They like that. They want that from her and do that without apology and without guilt. That part.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:16:46]:
Without guilt.

Andréa Jones [00:16:48]:
Yeah. I need more on that because this season two is great and I love it. And, you know, sometimes those little doubt gremlins get to me.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:16:57]:
Absolutely.

Andréa Jones [00:16:58]:
Especially I know a lot of my business owner friends were in a season of drought in our business. It's tough times in North America, US and Canada specifically right now. And so I'll use myself as an example again, you know, coming through this next iteration of my business, this next iteration of me, and then going, wait, is it. Because I started cursing that my, that my business is, you know, a little bit slower than I want it to be. And so I think that there is something there to be confident about that decision. But I'd love to hear your expertise and your thoughts on, you know, it's season two. We're showing up as we are. How do we continue on with strength and not with doubt?

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:17:45]:
So you're not alone. Let me just say that to you, okay? I have been in this entrepreneur game for most of my career. I'm 30 years into the game professionally and 20 of those, I've been an entrepreneur. This last stint has lasted me now 10 years. So I understand the cycles of the economy. I have lived through the last major recession where I had to shut my business down and go get a job. Like, I have been through the worst of the worst for me as an entrepreneur. And I went through the whole Covid thing.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:18:23]:
I was a full time entrepreneur at that time with staff, understanding how all of these things work. You know, what do you do when you start having these doubts and that little voice is like, you're not going to make it. You know, this is, you're, you're failing right now. First thing you got to do really is look around. We're all in this rocking boat together and none of us are. I won't say none. Few of us really are like, I got it. We're good.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:18:57]:
No worries. I think everybody is gathering their teams, gathering their strategists, thinking, praying, meditating, whatever your thing is to get that confirmation, to remain grounded, to say, okay, I don't want to lose it here, but stuff don't look so good right now. What, you know, hey, Jesus, what we fitting to do? You're not alone. We're all, every business is in this kind of constant evaluation because we're all preparing to pivot if it becomes necessary or to hunker down if it becomes necessary. My advice to my clients and people, I've been asked this question because a lot of people are asking this right now, what do we do? I say double down my mom has this saying, she's. Before I take it back, I'll add more to it before I call it quits. I will be consistent. I will invest in myself, I will invest in my business.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:20:11]:
I will keep my eyes open and constantly be looking for opportunities. Because there may have to be a shift. There may have to be a reorganization, a reimagination of doing things. The only time you really get yourself into a big bunch of trouble is when you're like, I'm married to this idea. We're going to do this idea, hell or high water. You might still do the idea, but how you execute it may shift. Or maybe the idea itself may shift. When I say double down, I mean bet on you.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:20:45]:
Bet on the fact that this is your life's assignment. Bet on the fact that this is what you're called and assigned and what you must do. If it wasn't, you'd have a 9 to 5, and then you'd have a whole other set of issues to be concerned about with pink slips and layoffs and furloughs. But as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you're doubling down isn't necessarily becoming rigid and becoming married to the ideas and the successes that you currently have and have previously had. It's betting on you. It's being confident that I am where I'm supposed to be for this dispensation of time. And when that changes, I'll know. But right now, I don't feel in my heart that things should change now.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:21:29]:
Might there come a period in anybody's entrepreneurial journey where you feel like, I need somebody to finance this dream and I need to go and get a job? Maybe that's a part of the journey sometimes. But in those moments where you feel like you have doubt, you may not have the most confidence in your idea or your business or your. Or how you will succeed in that moment. But you've got to be confident that this is what you're called to do and this is your assignment. And if you can be really, really secure in that, it doesn't matter what comes, you will always know. This is my journey. This is my walk. And whether I do this plan or that plan, I'm going to succeed, period.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:22:14]:
Because I'm assigned to. I'm supposed to. So just being aware of how that may happen could change. But who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing, I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing. No question. So now, okay, the how, now that we have the why figured out or the what? Okay, now we can talk about how. And that can change.

Andréa Jones [00:22:37]:
A lot of what you talked about requires like inner confidence and inner strength. And you've spoken a bit about being self aware. So for those people who are listening and they're like, I'm ready to start this journey, what's one thing that they can do? Maybe an exercise or activity that will help them start removing that mask and showing up as themselves.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:22:58]:
One of the things I encourage people to do is to let your body help you make decisions. And by that I mean if somebody says, hey Rhonda, can you meet us Thursday at 6 for a three hour meeting? And my knee jerk reaction is, I don't want to do that. Like you get a, a thing in your chest that's like no, or you say yes and, and it feels like there's dread, dread, dread. Your body is saying we don't want to do this. And when you call or text that person or those in that group back and say, you know what, I don't think this is a good idea for me today. Can we either find another day or I don't, I don't think this is good for me at all, I'm going to decline, I'm going to pass. When your body feels that freedom, you go, oh, that's what this is like. That's what freedom is really like.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:24:03]:
Okay, now self awareness in this context is sitting with how I feel and being honest about what my body is saying to me. My body just went into fight, flight or freeze. My body is absolutely not interested in doing this. Which means when I get in this meeting, I'm going to be angry, I'm going to be anxious, I'm going to be disconnected, I'm going to be disinterested, I'm going to be resentful. And every time somebody asks me to do something, I'm not going to want to do it, I'm going to do it begrudgingly. I'm not going to give it my best, not going to give it my all. So self awareness, a really easy, sort of moderately easy, is paying attention to what your body is telling you when people are asking you to do things, even if it's outside of being asked to do things. When you're thinking about an idea, a new business venture, a new business idea, before you close the notebook, sit with it, how am I feeling about it? I've created entire strategies, new LinkedIn strategies, new email marketing strategies, and when I closed the book or when I picked it up the next day, I went I don't want to do any of this.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:25:19]:
None of this makes me feel excited. Good. I don't want to. And so I didn't. I said, well, when I make, I'll keep it and throw it away. But maybe at some point the vibration between me and that project will be back in sync. But just because I had the idea doesn't necessarily mean I'm married to it or that I have to do it. When my body said we don't like this, self awareness allowed me to sit in that feeling, acknowledge the feeling and make a decision.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:25:58]:
Do I want to move forward or not? Now can you be led by your feelings? No. Right. Because there are times that you'll have to do things you don't necessarily want to do or feel like doing. But there are times when that self awareness, that ability to feel will keep you off of a path to doing something that's only going to make you miserable. So you really have to be wise and self aware using that wisdom discernment. You know, what's right for me right now? What should I be doing? What does my business need? What do I need? Right. In a season of rest, when your body is screaming for rest and you've got a six page strategy that you're determined to execute, you're out of sync and it's not gonna, it's not gonna succeed because your body, much like mine did, your body will be like not interested and it will shut the lights off and go home. And you have no choice but to sit still and get the rest.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:27:01]:
And then once you come back now you've got all of these things that you can try and play around with. But self awareness really starts with honesty. Self honesty. How do I feel? How do I feel about this thing? What do I want? And being honest, I don't want to do that now. Is it something I have to do? Okay, then I'll suck it up and I'll do it. Is it something I don't have to do and I don't want to do it? Oh, well, no, I'm not doing that. Because a lot of times we have a choice, do we want to or not and our body is telling us whether we want to do it or not. And so if I'm not feeling it and I don't have to, I'm at the stage now.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:27:51]:
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to do it.

Andréa Jones [00:27:53]:
Yeah, I'm not going to do it. I love this. So many nuggets. I hope y' all have been writing this down or re listen to this episode because so many things in here, I was like, yes, nodding my head yes. And I have to now go and do it. For those people who are listening and they want more of your insights, more of your work. You have a book coming out in January. Tell us about it.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:28:16]:
So my book 7 Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman is actually out now in print 7dirty Secrets.net to order. So thank you so much. This is my fourth book. And this book is the journey of my taking off that mask, living this life where I was the perfectionist. I had all of these things. Everybody thought I had this great life. But behind the scenes I was insecure, I was heartbroken. I had these secrets that I was carrying around and over performing, overachieving.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:28:48]:
And one day my body said, we're done, we're finished. And I had a huge breakdown. Back in the day, they would have called it a nervous breakdown, but I had a huge panic attack and it took me six weeks to recover from. And in that time, the concept and the bravery for this book was born. And I have been able to be really honest about the things that I secretly carried that many black women that I'm noticing are carrying. And it has begun to resonate, especially since we have changed administrations after the whole Kamala thing. And this book has become very meaningful to quite a lot of us because while they may not have had the same breakdown as me, a lot of black women have been performing for acceptance and performing over achieving to fit in and to meet expectations and self sacrificing and all of these things that we're very accustomed to doing. So I talk about those secrets in a very vulnerable way.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:29:58]:
And then I talk about what it means to redefine strength because coming out of that, I had to do something different so I wouldn't end up back in that place again. So I talk also about the seven truths I learned in an effort to help those of us who might be on the path to having this similar kind of breakdown. To avoid the breakdown but still have the same self discovery and to understand how to prioritize self, how to take care of yourself and how to stand up for yourself and how to be authentically you unapologetically. And so the audiobook for that comes out in January and I'm very, very excited. It will be on Amazon. It will be on Audible and itunes January. And I'm super, super excited. So 7dirty Secrets.net the number 7dirty Secrets.net is how you can get the.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:30:54]:
You can order the hard copy book. And then if you'd like, you can get on the wait list to be first notified when the audiobook drops in January.

Andréa Jones [00:31:02]:
Beautiful. Make sure y' all grab this book. I'll put that link in the show notes as well. On the andrea.com 382Rhonda, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Dr. Rhonda Alexander [00:31:11]:
Thank you so much for the invitation. I've had a ball talking with you today.

Andréa Jones [00:31:15]:
Yeah, it's been fun. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. Make sure you check out our website for everything coming up soon. Our next what's the Scoop session will be December 2nd. Links are on the website. If you want to know everything about what's happening in social media this month, that is the session for you. I will see you then. Bye for now.