Second Act Success Career Podcast: Career Change Advice, Job Search Strategies, and Personal Development Tips

​​The Power of Personal Branding As You Grow A Business With Tonya Eberhart | Ep #38

November 15, 2022 Tonya Eberhart, Shannon Russell Season 1 Episode 38
Second Act Success Career Podcast: Career Change Advice, Job Search Strategies, and Personal Development Tips
​​The Power of Personal Branding As You Grow A Business With Tonya Eberhart | Ep #38
Show Notes Transcript

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On this episode, I am sitting down with Tonya Eberhart, the founder of BrandFace®. She’s also the author of four books on personal branding.  Tonya’s humble career began while selling vacuum cleaners door to door to pay her way through college.  That led to a job in radio, where she observed local business owners who were featured in their own advertising and positioned as local celebrities in the market. That’s when she realized the power that personal branding has on a business. Almost two decades and many successful brands later, she founded BrandFace®, a personal branding firm consisting of four personal branding books, a speaking series, and personal branding programs that are designed to help serious professionals differentiate themselves. Tonya shares her story on the Second Act Success Podcast, and explains why your personal brand is important to every aspect of your life.

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Second Act Success Podcast
Season 1 -Episode #38 - ​​The Power of Personal Branding with BrandFace® Founder Tonya Eberhart 
Guest: Tonya Eberhart 
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)

[00:00:00] Shannon Russell: I'm excited to announce that the next session of the Second Act Accelerator Course will be launching in January. Join the waitlist at secondactsuccess.co/waitlist. 

This course is for career professionals, ready to pivot to a new purpose. I will help you narrow down those career change ideas that have been swirling around in your head using my Second Act Strategy.

By the end of the program. , you will have an action plan on how to get to that next career goal. Join like-minded individuals in our private community group. Plus you will have access to weekly group coaching, live workshops, expert guests, and one-on-one coaching with me. 

I have been busy working with my first cohort of students. And let me just tell you, they have been planning and progressing so well . Now it is your turn. Join the waitlist. at secondactsuccess.co/waitlist And I hope to see you in the next session of theSecond Act Accelerator this January. 

Are you at [00:01:00] a crossroads in your career? Ready for a change, but you're not sure how to get there. Don't worry. We are about to produce your best life together. Welcome to the Second Act Success Podcast. I am your host. Shannon Russell. I am a former Television Producer turned boy mom. I left my dream job to find family balance and in doing so, I produced my dream life. Now I am a Business Owner, Podcaster, and Career Coach. My mission is to help other women, like you, find what they are truly meant to be doing. If you are ready to start over in your career or pivot to a new purpose, then get ready to be inspired by stories of women who have done just that. We will share advice and actionable tips to motivate you as you move along on your path. It is time to shine. So let's start producing your balanced life of abundance today. This is Second Act Success. 





[00:01:59] Shannon Russell: [00:02:00] Today, I'm hanging out with T She is the founder of brand face and also an author of four books about personal branding. Tonya's career began while she was selling vacuum cleaners door to door to pay her way through college. That led to a job in radio and advertising sales. Almost two decades later, she founded BrandFace, a personal branding firm, working with professionals on their personal branding. I have actually worked with Tonya to develop the brand for Second Act Success. She is wonderful. And I consider her a friend. Today, Tonya is sharing her story with us and explaining why your personal brand is important in every aspect of your life. 

Hi Tonya. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:42] Tonya Eberhardt: Hi Shannon. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here today.

[00:02:46] Shannon Russell: Such a cool story. you were selling vacuums in order to pay for college. Let's start with your college experience and go from there.

[00:02:53] Tonya Eberhardt: Of course, of course. I think I was like, a lot of people I thought I need that college degree and I was one [00:03:00] of the few people in my entire family for generations who actually went to college. Finished a degree. So it was very important to me that I do that, but I had no idea what I was going to do with that college degree. So I just got a degree in communications cuz I thought, you know, I could probably do anything I want to with that. It's pretty broad, right?

[00:03:20] Shannon Russell: That was mine.

[00:03:22] Tonya Eberhardt: Yeah, exactly. So I started selling vacuum cleaners door to door just to pay my way through school, and I realized, that was some of the best sales training I've ever had in my life. I knew that I could not just walk up to a door and say, Hey, let me in and get out your wallet. I'm going to sell you an expensive vacuum. I had to tell my story and that's really where personal branding first started for me, was my own personal story. 

And,, I became recognized you know, in the industry as being such a young person then I also, got discovered, uh, by the radio industry because I sold a vacuum cleaner [00:04:00] to somebody at a high management position. A radio station group and they invited me to apply for a sales position, and that's where the next wave of personal branding really came into focus for me. 

[00:04:13] Shannon Russell: Yes. I think that's so interesting. So you graduate with this communications degree, and now you are working in radio, in sales, in the radio industry, 

[00:04:22] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes. Yes. So when I first started in sales, there were two things that I noticed right off the bat. One was people didn't care who I was. They did not want to see me coming because I was going to quote, sell them something unless I had tickets to a big game, or a concert or something that the radio station was giving out. And I thought, Wow, I realized again, I've got to. Make sure that I share my story and I am able to articulate what my being there could mean to them and their business. So it started there. But there's another thing I noticed too, Shannon, and that was that, there were some real rockstar [00:05:00] business owners in the city that I started in, which was Tallahassee, Florida. and every time I would go to a networking event they would walk in like they owned the place and people would just kind of flock to have conversations with them. And I thought, Who are these people? And they were business owners. And what they all had in common was they were the face and the voice of their own business and all of their advertising. So they. Their voice in the radio. They were on television commercials, they were in their print ads on billboards, so forth. And back then there was no internet. This was 1988., I realized then that putting yourself out there in that way and sharing your story and getting people to know you widely to recognize you and what your business stood for was huge. I began taking clients into the radio studio, helping them craft their own story, cut their own commercials, become known, recognized, and it worked so well for them. And then I just kind of carried that theme out through everything I did for [00:06:00] years until my second act came along, 

[00:06:02] Shannon Russell: Oh yeah. All right. I love that. That's so true because you can hear just a generic voiceover artist reading a commercial on the radio and it means one thing, but if you have this well known face of the business, voice of the business in there, it's, it sells so much more, I'm sure.

[00:06:19] Tonya Eberhardt: It does because there's a unique story as to why that person has this business. Because that business would not exist without that person. And also it's a fallback, you know, It's that trust factor. So if I. As a consumer with that business, I know that person. I feel a familiarity there. And I feel like if I trust that person, my money is safe in investing in whatever that business is. And there's just that personal connection that you can't get with just a logo. And that's why our mantra is people don't do business with a logo, they do business with a person. And it came from way back then when I had to figure that out for [00:07:00] myself.

[00:07:00] Shannon Russell: Right, Right. Personal branding, I'm sure wasn't a term back then and you were figuring it out. Right. Personal branding means a personal connection, so they're all entwined.

[00:07:10] Tonya Eberhardt: absolutely.

[00:07:11] Shannon Russell: Okay. So that is so interesting. And now you're in radio. For how long? How long were you in this role?

[00:07:17] Tonya Eberhardt: 18 years total but the last five or six years I was working across multiple media outlets, working with key clients and kind of helping them pull together campaigns for radio, television, newspaper, internet,. Direct mail. I worked with a company who had. Multiple media outlets of all types and sizes, and so I worked with a lot of the key clients to kind of help them craft a message and an image that would go across all of those and have this consistent look and feel so that they would have familiarity everywhere people, engage with them.

[00:07:52] Shannon Russell: And how incredible was that? I can just tell in the few minutes that we're chatting that you're such a people person, obviously and so like you're sitting here really getting to [00:08:00] know your clients and really, like they're trusting you with their brand, with their business, for you to figure out what are the best outlets to bring you to, to really get out to your potential customers.

[00:08:11] Tonya Eberhardt: Mm-hmm. , I don't know if you recall the term integrated marketing that happened probably in the early two thousands. That term came along, and that's actually when I split from the media industry. And I opened up my own agency to consult media because media was getting ravaged. The internet, right? I would have television station owners and newspaper owners come to me and say Internet's taking all of our business. And I thought, go get your piece of it, integr it into what you're doing. Use your media outlet offline, vehicle to send people online to have that one-to-one engagement and marry those two and do an integrated approach. And that's what I did for about six or [00:09:00] seven years after that. That was probably my second act. And what I'm doing today is probably my third actually But it all like came from this common thread. Of really having a curiosity for, why do you do what you do? Like what inspired you to start this business and when we look at, you know, branding somebody as the face of their company, we look at answering five very, very important questions. Who do you. How do you serve them? What qualifies you to serve them? How does it make their life better, and what makes you different? Unique from everyone else. Also trying to serve that same customer. And so if you can answer those in your, in your brand, within your brand, then you can infuse that brand into your marketing and that's the message that you put out there through your marketing. 

[00:09:52] Shannon Russell: Agree. Yes. And so a lot of these businesses that you worked with, were they small businesses or were they large Corpor.[00:10:00] 

[00:10:00] Tonya Eberhardt: They were not large corporations. There were no like Fortune 500 or Fortune 100 s, but they they were medium sized businesses. Most of them family owned. They might own three different television stations in three different markets or 12 radio stations. Eight markets, 

[00:10:17] Shannon Russell: So when you decided to leave your, media company that you were at and start your own agency, let's talk about that. You just seem so confident, so I'm sure you were like, I know this is going to succeed, but talk to me about, Leaving this company you were at for 18 years and going out on your.

[00:10:33] Tonya Eberhardt: Over that 18 year course, I'd been with three different radio companies throughout that time. So when I decided to kind of branch out on my own there it was not a smooth, easy, confident decision . I thought, Oh my God, is this gonna work or is this not gonna work? I think I was like most people out there, I knew I could do this. I didn't know if I could convince other people that I could do this. Thankfully, you know, it worked out really well,[00:11:00] for a number of years, but I still hadn't hit my zone yet. I was still missing something. Because I was working with people that had been in the media industry for many years, and they were. Hell bent on doing things the old way. I decided one day I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna work with that anymore. And I think what was the real kicker for me is I'm sitting at my desk one day and I'm, I looked around and I thought, gosh, you know, anybody that walks through that door I could do business with? And I thought, that's awesome. And then what was terrible was any, anybody who walks through that door I could do business with, because here's what that. I was no longer special. I was no longer specialized in anything. And people could go to six others in my city, and they could get the same type of services. So even though I was different, our team was different. We still weren't specialized. We didn't have anything different to offer people that really set us apart from anybody else in that industry. [00:12:00] And that's really. When the big second act came along for me, I had to really sit there and think, What is it that I want out of life? What is it that I can truly help people with and feel very fulfilled at the end of the day? So that's when the idea of BrandFace came along, because the one thing that I knew was a common thread and what I love to do every day was I love to help people present themselves in a manner in which they deserve to be presented. I'm a firm believer that everybody has a star inside of them, everyone. And so we like to unveil that inner star and, and it, it really gives 'em so much more confidence. Once you get that brand dialed in and you know that no matter where people run across you in. Online and offline world, that they're going to see something that they trust, somebody that they respect, and everybody deserves that.

[00:12:59] Shannon Russell: They [00:13:00] do and you can, you can actually bring that to fruition for that person.

[00:13:04] Tonya Eberhardt: I knew that you needed to specialize in something because if you don't, you're not special to anyone, right? If you try to help everyone, you'll just help yourself ride outta business. But the biggest problem was in 2008, 2009 came along in the big mortgage debacle all across the world. It impacted so many businesses, including mine, there were many business owners who had to take in whatever they could take in to survive. We were one of those, and there's no question about it. We really build landing pages that correspond with integrated marketing campaigns, but if we wanna build a full fledged website, we can. And so we started doing that to get money through the doors. And then the years go by, the market, starts to turn back around, the economy starts to turn back around, and that's when I realized, okay, it's time for the shift. Because you can't keep doing this. You, you're gonna end up in a really, really bad place. Having to do it is one thing, choosing to do it is [00:14:00] another. So that's when I knew, okay, I've gotta kind of get re honed in here on what I'm meant to do and how I can help people very uniquely. I don't have a problem saying no. And when I say that it's like if somebody comes to me and says, I started a new business. I need you to brand my business. It's like, no, we don't brand businesses. We brand the face of the business. And as a result, that helps you to be able to tell your business story, but it's more about why you started this business and who you serve and you know, all of those things. Built upon the foundation that that person created their goals, their morals, their ethics, their values, all of that kind of stuff. So I've been asked many times, Hey, brand my business, and the answer's no. If they don't want to be the face of that business, and some people don't, if they don't want that, there are better places for them to go. Where people focus on business branding versus personal branding. Just one of the things [00:15:00] that, you know, makes us very unique is like we only work with personal brands.

[00:15:04] Shannon Russell: I love this. I have so many questions for you. How did you even come up with this idea for BrandFace? And tell me about the creation of that new business 

[00:15:13] Tonya Eberhardt: Okay. All the lovely ladies listening to this right now are gonna love this story. I had it in my head as a book. I was writing a book and I was trying to think of what is the name of this book? I knew it was all about personal branding being that best face of your business, right? And so I came up with the term brand face, and there were two people who are b. In the marketing world that were working with me at, that agency at the time, and whom I trusted very, very much and I said, What do you guys think about the term BrandFace? At that moment I became like a lioness, and I said, It's BrandFace. I'm doing it and I trademarked it. that day. It says what it does, right? Branding you as the face of your business, you are the brand face. Wasn't long after that, before I [00:16:00] thought, you know what? I can turn this into an entire business. But at the same time, I had other clients, we were just doing production for, just doing web development for, and so there were, cherry picked a few of 'em. We had worked on their personal brand, but now,, this is also where I think a lot of people will identify with this story of mine is because I sweated and stayed awake at night for weeks. Thinking if I shift this right now, if I change all of this from just doing business with anybody to just doing business with these people, even though I knew in my heart and soul that's what I had to do, I figured that I would lose about 70% of my business pretty much overnight, and I did within a year, I. Tripled that business. So that's what happens when you really, truly specialize, even though in a moment there's pain, right? And there were days when I wondered, Oh my goodness, this is gonna work. But obviously it did because if you know [00:17:00] in your heart that that's what you're meant to do and that's what you wanna do, I've never questioned that. I've never questioned what BrandFace would become, I've failed at many things, many things, you know? Fortunately BrandFace is not one of them.

A knock on the wood, Right. 

[00:17:14] Shannon Russell: So you closed down your agency then, and you were rebuilding this brand new business. But what about the book? You said you were starting to write the book

[00:17:22] Tonya Eberhardt: So at the time I was actually going through a divorce. The agency stayed with my ex at the time, and then I realized it was around the same time frame. I was writing that book and it just happened to be a God thing for me. , it was an amicable split. But I looked at my book one day and I. This could become a company, and this is how I leave without harming others. I leave that business here. I could branch off in this area. And it was a tough time. I've gotta say to a lot of women out there who've been through the Big D and especially in the midst of a change. I walked out that door [00:18:00] leaving behind two businesses, and I have one book in my hand, and I had one client. I have no businesses yet. I, I had just filed for the business license and I thought, Can I do this? Can I do this? But I knew all along I could. I also knew it would hurt and it did for a little while.

[00:18:18] Shannon Russell: But you were in a position where you had to. It was a clean slate, and you were ready. You had nothing stopping you.

[00:18:24] Tonya Eberhardt: I didn't really but I can tell you there were many moments that I thought of just like giving up and laying down on the floor and just going to sleep. But those were the days that I forced myself to go into my. Pick up my tennis shoes, put 'em on and go for a one hour, two hour walk. And every single time I did that, I had the answer I was seeking every single time. So if you're out there feeling tired and feeling defeated and you know, feeling overwhelmed, put those shoes on and go walk You're gonna come up with the answer.

[00:18:54] Shannon Russell: Yeah. I feel like you just had a million ideas in your head and you were like, This is going to [00:19:00] happen. Tell me about actually making it. Come to be.

[00:19:03] Tonya Eberhardt: You know, it was, it was a phenomenal thing, the one client I had at the time ended up to be my business partner in BrandFace, Michael. And it was phenomenal because I knew I had, That support. And I could had somebody to call and say, Okay, what do you think about this direction? It took my attention off of the negative side of things. And then after that, came three more BrandFace books in pretty close se succession. I co-wrote one with my partner Michael, called BrandFace for Real Estate Professionals because he was in the real estate industry and his brand had just. Taken off after the first year of us working together. And then I also co-wrote, BrandFace for Home Improvement Professionals with a gentleman named Ron Greenbaum, who is known as the basement doctor in Columbus, Ohio. After that, Michael and I came back together and we wrote, BrandFace for Entrepreneurs. The. Idea originally [00:20:00] was we could do these in any kind of industry and the only prerequisite was, I'm gonna use a client of mine. And the client has to be a success story in order to be a co-author and then things fortunately got so busy we didn't even get to finish that particular plan to go into multiple industries. So that's still a future plan. But for right now, we just got so busy doing what we were doing based off of the books we'd already done and becoming known for, you know, the personal brand. 

[00:20:32] Shannon Russell: What are you doing with clients and personal branding.

[00:20:36] Tonya Eberhardt: the two categories of professionals that we work with, number one was real estate. Real estate came along because Michael, my business partner, was in the real estate genre. When people started seeing his brand, we started getting more clients in the real estate world. We realized, holy cow, real estate needs this because they're already kind of putting their face out there so they were already sort of a natural for the BrandFace. [00:21:00] So now that we've worked on those systems and gotten more people on board, our team, now we are working on the second major ideal customer for us. And that's coaches and consultants and of course, podcasters, speakers, authors all fall within that category because most speakers and authors and podcasters are also coaches and consultants of some kind. And here's the reason we chose those two. Ideal customer sets. Number one, Michael's in real estate. So that's who he is. We are both. A coach and consultant, we're also podcasters, we're speakers and we're authors, so we can speak to that and say, We've been there, done that. We get it, we walk the walk. So those two ideal customer sets are perfect for us, and that's kind of where we started out. So we have clients today across five countries. 45 states in the US and we have an international team that is in the Philippines, in Mexico, in Canada, in Columbia, in Great Britain, in the United [00:22:00] States, and it's 100% virtual work that we do. We've probably met only maybe three of our clients over these last nine years in. So if you're somebody sitting there thinking, You know what? I'm gonna start my business, but I can't be everywhere or Can I do this virtual thing? The answer is absolutely, you can

[00:22:18] Shannon Russell: Right. And the past couple of years have taught us that anything can be done virtually, and it's probably made your business even that much more successful and accessible because everyone's been looking online the past few years just changing their life 

[00:22:31] Tonya Eberhardt: So true. And, you know, the pandemic changed all of that. What was so fortunate for us is our business didn't change at all during the pandemic because we didn't have to suffer that way. We were already 100% virtual since 2013. 

[00:22:49] Shannon Russell: Did you flourish through the pandemic with more people creating online business?

[00:22:53] Tonya Eberhardt: actually we did. We did. And, and people actually having the time to devote to it, that was a [00:23:00] big factor in their minds, not in ours, because for us it's really simple. It's just, it's a six to eight week process. But it's still hard for them to sit there and think when they're overwhelmed. Okay, well I don't have time to build a brand. And that's what the pandemic did bring to us is people that finally had some time on their hands.

[00:23:17] Shannon Russell: Are you happy? It just sounds like the has just taken off

[00:23:21] Tonya Eberhardt: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We are so fortunate. We're so blessed, truly, and not just because you know the business is successful, but because the people that we work with, they're some of the most phenomenal people I've ever been blessed to meet. 

[00:23:37] Shannon Russell: Let's talk about branding a little bit more and dive into that other entrepreneurs might build their business and not wanna be the face. I'm sure you see a lot of people who are a little apprehensive about that. In this day and age with TikTok and Reels and Facebook and everything, you kind of have no choice. Am I wrong,

[00:23:55] Tonya Eberhardt: Yeah, well certainly, the younger generation has no choice. Right. I think we just [00:24:00] need to embrace One of the biggest mistakes that every entrepreneur makes is they begin to market before they build their brand. And so that means, who are you? Why should people follow you versus everybody else? What do you bring to them to make their life better? And how are you different from other people? What's your story? And, and having some consistency in bringing the a message, a good, strong, purposeful message. To, to your clients. your brand is that message that you're putting into those marketing vehicles. So what is your purpose? And that's where a lot of people go wrong. They waste so much money on marketing, and that's where you hear people complain and gripe that marketing doesn't work. I tried that. I tried that. I tried that. When in reality it's their message and their image that isn't dialed in, and that's your brand. That's what you put onto all those things. So, so that's a, that's a huge, huge thing that I want people to [00:25:00] realize is marketing will mean nothing to you, and it'll be a complete waste of time and money and effort unless you dial your brand in first and figure out who is it you're marketing to, what do they need to hear from you in order to engage with you and and how are you presenting yourself differently from everyone. There are million personal branders in the world. There are million coaches and consultants. There are billion real estate agents, right? So, So, how do you set yourself apart is the real question, and that's what your brand helps you decide.

[00:25:32] Shannon Russell: You don't wanna throw everything at the wall, like by honing in on it is really where the, the gold is because you're honing in on your brand and then you know what to post. It's like figuring that out first.

[00:25:44] Tonya Eberhardt: You got that right? Because otherwise, here's what ends up happening. You end up posting a lot of the same stuff that everybody else in your industry posts, because what you do is you skim through Instagram or you skim through TikTok, or you watch YouTube videos and you see [00:26:00] somebody in your industry doing well, so you try to emulate. You don't need to emulate anybody. If you do your brand correctly, you will have no competitors because no one will be like you. That's what I really wanna convince people of. A lot of time, PE times people come to us and they're interested in our branding program and they'll say, Well, can you send me some examples of people you've branded in my industry or in my city? And I. Fall on the floor and faint because it's like, Oh, please, you're coming to us to be different .Stop looking at what everybody else is doing. 

[00:26:31] Shannon Russell: It's really taking that time to focus on you before you make your next move. What you want to do for your next step, for your next act, and then everything else will kind of come together. Until you take that time, you're not going to build anything.

[00:26:45] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes, you're not gonna build anything unique or memor. You know, lots of people have stumbled through life and just marketed themselves, but what happens when you do that is you are forced to outspend your competitors and nobody wants to have to outspend.. [00:27:00] My goal for people would be to not have to spend more money than all of your competitors. It would be to put out something purposeful, meaningful, and memorable so that you didn't have to spend that much money. Because the people that have to outspend, you're gonna have to spend more than your competitors for the rest of your life because you're not unique and you don't stand.

[00:27:21] Shannon Russell: You mentioned earlier about unveiling your inner stars.

[00:27:24] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes. Everybody has the star inside. We have qualities, we have things that we can do, the skills and the talents and reasons we do things and to me, the reason people do things is really what makes that star shine brightly. If you know you're. Why you're different, how you're different, and you can articulate that confidently. So much self-worth comes from that, and that makes a business explode.

[00:27:52] Shannon Russell: My listeners, whether they're going to create their own business or they just want to find a new career or pursue you know, [00:28:00] maybe that book they've always wanted to write, whatever their goal is I think what you're talking about can really be brought into personal branding for anyone, business owner or not, having value in yourself and portraying that to others.

[00:28:15] Tonya Eberhardt: Absolutely. It all starts with those five questions, right? It, it starts with your passion. What do you enjoy doing? What are the things that really just kind of set you on fire? But then you've gotta answer those five questions and I'll repeat 'em real quick. For anybody that wants to write 'em down, who exactly, who do you serve? Exactly. How do you serve? What qualifies you to serve them? How does it make their life better and what makes you different from everybody else? Also attempting to serve them and if they can answer those five questions. and that is the beginning of creating that brand. Of course. Then after that, you have to kind of pull the story together, tell the story, create imagery that supports and surrounds that [00:29:00] story, and that becomes, how you begin to get your business message out there to the world. 

[00:29:05] Shannon Russell: Phenomenal advice, Tonya. Thank you. 





[00:29:10] Shannon: Alright. It's time for our Five Fast Qs of the Week. Here we go! 

[00:29:15] Shannon Russell: Name one thing that these different chapters in your life have taught you.

[00:29:20] Tonya Eberhardt: They've taught me that life is going to change around you and you better adapt. know your own way out. Because, you can't control choices that other people make. You can't control everything that happens to you in your life, but you can control that next step. What do I do from here? How do I utilize that? How do I use that as a springboard to do something positive with it? I used to tell to my kids all the time when they were young, what good purpose will that serve? I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna say this to this person, or I'm gonna treat this person this way. I would say to them, Ask yourself, what good purpose do that? Will that [00:30:00] serve not what purpose will it serve? Because you can come up with any answer for that. What good purpose will that serve? And if you can't answer that, then don't do it.

[00:30:08] Shannon Russell: Mm. That's great. I've never heard that. I love it. next question. Would you recommend taking a leap into a big life change to your best friend?

[00:30:16] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes, if I knew, if I knew that was something they truly wanted to do, I think it's all in our desire. So, absolutely. I would also be very honest if I felt like that was something that was going to harm them versus help.

[00:30:29] Shannon Russell: What is one piece of advice that you would give to someone who is trying to start a second act?

[00:30:35] Tonya Eberhardt: Be true to yourself, because the business, that you are attempting to create will never go any farther than you'll allow it to, and so you want it to be done for the right reason.

[00:30:48] Shannon Russell: What does the next chapter look like for you?

[00:30:51] Tonya Eberhardt: The next chapter for us is really, Dominating that coaches and consultants world for personal branding and helping people to [00:31:00] dial things in. Because I've been there, I've been stretched in eight different directions and not really understanding which one was the most, uh, Enjoyable or profitable or anything else, but it's taking all your passions and narrowing down to like, this is my personal brand. This is why I'm doing these things, and this is how I articulate it and put it out there to the world. So to me it's that. It's the coaches and consultants because there's so many like us out there, uh, who need help.

[00:31:28] Shannon Russell: And to work on your books. Are you planning on expanding your books as well?

[00:31:32] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes, there is one more coming out by the end of this year, and it's taken everything that we have developed since the original book series came out and really articulating it better because there are formulas that we've created since those original books that we don't have in print anywhere. They're just utilized in our programs when we work with people one to one. And of course we talk about them quite a bit on podcasts and things like that, but there's [00:32:00] nothing in publication form for somebody to sit down and go top to bottom and build a brand with that. And that's what we're gonna. 

[00:32:06] Shannon Russell: Fantastic. And speaking of podcasts, do you have your own podcast as well?

[00:32:11] Tonya Eberhardt: Yes, it's called Be Bold Branding, and my business partner, Michael Carr, he and I, co-host that together and we've been co-hosting, I think now for about three and a half years. Although originally we called it Fearless Friday. Because people do, like you mentioned earlier, some people are hesitant to put themselves out there because they don't know how that's going to be received. And so we wanted to teach 'em, Hey, just be fearless with this. but then, we started closing every podcast out with Prosperity Favors the Bold. So be bold. And then we realized what we really wanted him to do was build a bold brand. So that's where Be Bold Branding came.

[00:32:48] Shannon Russell: I love that. 

[00:32:49] Tonya Eberhardt: I just wanna leave everybody with this positive thought of everybody has a star within them, every one of you. And so let's bring that out, unveil that inner star because it's [00:33:00] gonna teach you so much about yourself and also help you in the growth, a massive growth of your business.

[00:33:08] Shannon Russell: where can our audience connect with.

[00:33:10] Tonya Eberhardt: BrandFacestar.com is our main website. You can go just learn all about us and if you want to, chat with us, just hit that, contact button on there and, you'll fill out a little short form and we will, uh, jump on a call with you and kind of talk about you and your brand and where you're headed and the challenges you're having. So brandfacestar.com and Shannon, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for having me.

[00:33:34] Shannon Russell: This was so wonderful. You shared so many amazing tips and I just love hearing your story. So I will be following you and we'll be talking soon. Thank you.

[00:33:43] Tonya Eberhardt: Same here. Thank you so much. 

[00:33:45] Shannon Russell: Tonya shared so much with uson personal branding, growing a business, and just the importance of finding your inner star. 

I hope you gained some insight into the world of personal branding and how it's important for not only business owners, but [00:34:00] for all of to learn more about Tonya and connect with her. Go to brandfacestar.com. Thank you for spending some time with us today. And I look forward to speaking with you again on the next episode of the Second Act Success Podcast. 

[00:34:14] Shannon: 

Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act Success. To view show notes from this episode, visit secondactsuccess.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much. Thank you again for listening. I am Shannon Russell, and this is Second Act Success.