IAM580- Personal Branding Coach Helps Other to Stand Out

Naomi is an Author, International Speaker, and Personal Branding Coach who helps individuals, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and CEOs to discover, define, and develop their unique personal brand in order to effectively communicate their expertise and stand out in their craft or industry.

She is a Certified Reputation Champion by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), a PR consultant, and a Personal Branding Coach with over 16 years of experience in Public Relations & Marketing, working with 100+ brands and individuals.

Naomi is also the founder of Garrick Communications, a boutique PR agency in Jamaica, and is passionate about helping others to discover and develop their unique personal brand in order to stand out in a noisy world.

• CEO Hack: Getting up early and creating blocks of time
• CEO Nugget: You are where you're supposed to be
• CEO Defined: Opportunity to lead a team and bring value to your unique experience to the world

Website: http://www.iamnaomigarrick.com/

Linktree: www.linktr.ee/naomigarrick
Instagram: @theprchick @naomigarrick
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomigarrick/

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Naomi Garrick of Garrick Communications.

Naomi, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Naomi Garrick 0:38

Hi, Gresh. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

No problem. Super excited to have you on as well. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Naomi so you hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Naomi is an Author, International Speaker, and Personal Branding Coach who helps individuals, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and CEOs to discover, define, and develop their unique personal brand in order to effectively communicate their expertise and stand out in their craft or industry.

She is a Certified Reputation Champion by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), a PR consultant, and a Personal Branding Coach with over 16 years of experience in Public Relations & Marketing, working with 100+ brands and individuals.

Naomi is also the founder of Garrick Communications, a boutique PR agency in Jamaica, and is passionate about helping others discover and develop their unique personal brand in order to stand out in a noisy world.

Naomi, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Naomi Garrick 1:28

I am ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:29

Awesome. Let's do it. To kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. What led you to get started with the business?

Naomi Garrick 1:37

Sure. Okay. So I never ever thought I was going to be the CEO of anything. My journey is interesting because I actually studied hotel and tourism management. So I live in Jamaica, tourism is our number one industry. At that time, when we were starting to choose what subjects we wanted to take to go to university here, I had no clue what I wanted to do. People always told me that they thought I had the personality for the hospitality industry. That's something I just jumped into and so I thought maybe one day I would be managing a hotel.

But working in the hotel and visiting a hotel, it's two different experiences. I used to live on property, so I worked at the hotel and lived at the hotel because most of our hotels in Jamaica are on the north coast, so by the beach, and I thought that was great at first until I started doing it. Then I realized that okay, this literally is a 24-hour industry especially when you live on the property, you're working all the time. I noticed that a lot of the women who were in senior positions were always at work. So I always wondered if I wanted to have a family or children, when would that happen to me? Or how would I spend time on that side of my life? So I made a decision to move back to Kingston and to try and figure out life again.

I started working in media and marketing and from media and marketing, I got approached to do a few press releases for some entertainers here in Jamaica because I worked for this company called RFD TV, which would have been like the MTV of the Caribbean bars. Through that experience, I started dabbling in PR and I realized that because of the media relationships that I developed over the years, I had real relationships with the decision-makers, the gatekeepers, the people that decided what we actually see, hear, and experience in the media. I also was a pretty good writer so I started to explore that more and did a deep dive into PR.

We didn't have Google yet, so I had to really read about the PR industry and being a publicist. I went full force instead, I made a random decision after I had my son, he's 30, that I wanted to be in a position where I had the ability to say no if I didn't want to do something, and two, I would have the flexibility to be able to spend more time with him to do the things that really mattered. I made a decision to start my own company and be an entrepreneur, not saving six months' salary like I've been told, or heard. No I just knew what I wanted to do and I just took the leap. The great thing was that because I was in PR. I had developed these media relationships when the media heard that I was going off on my own, one of them, our number one newspaper here in Jamaica offered to do an article about this transition. That's how I got my first client and today the company is 10 years old.

We celebrated our 10th-anniversary last year, and never advertised the business. It has always been through relationships referrals, different recommendations, and of course, our results. That to me also showcases the power of PR and why we do what we do. So now 10 years in, I'm the CEO of God Communications. But over the last year and a half, I started really exploring public personal branding. As you mentioned, I'm an author, I wrote three books last year about building your personal brand. I'm starting to realize now another transition as CEO because I love people development. I get so much fulfillment from that area of my life now so I'm using this year to figure out do I want to continue being the CEO of an agency or do I want to be the CEO who helps to develop individuals?

Now I'm on an interesting journey right now.

Gresham Harkless 5:04

Yeah, well, I appreciate you for breaking that down because I think so many times we don't understand that journey, don't understand the process that it takes to get to where we see successful people and don't know how exactly they're able to do that. So definitely, obviously, happy 10 years as well, too.

But I think that there's much to be said about the process to get where we want to be. A lot of times, we have to realize that the destination we get to it's not always the final destination as isn't absolute change, we have to evolve as well.

Naomi Garrick 5:30

So my favorite quote is the journey is the reward. Because I believe that everything's I think it's a Chinese proverb. But everything that we do in our lives helps us to become the person that we are today. So we may not know it at the time, but everything I've done throughout my personal life and my professional career has led to this moment, to me even being on this podcast. So I think it's really important to recognize and appreciate every step of the way and to also as a coach.

I tried to help people to look back at that journey and see, what are the things that I have done in my life actually made me offer something completely different, just because of my experience in different areas. How do I tie all of that together to become now this CEO that maybe never existed because no one has had the type of experience that I've had a no can bring this kind of value to someone who might need it?

Gresham Harkless 6:19

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I know you touched on a little bit, but I didn't know if there's anything more you can tell us about how you work with clients or some of the things that you do to serve the clients that you work with.

Naomi Garrick 6:29

Sure, so I'll talk first from the Garret communication sites as a public relations agency, we're a boutique agency. So we're small but we execute really big projects. We specialize in lifestyle brands and what we do is we help individuals, companies, or businesses to be seen, heard, and experienced by their ideal target audience. We do that by utilizing the media, so traditional media, like newspapers, radio, TV, cable TV, or if we will use digital media. So whether it's a website, a blog, or a podcast. Then we also look at experiential marketing to engage people as well. So that could be an event, a launch, some kind of on-the-grown activity, where people get to really touch and experience the brand. That's what we've been doing for the last 10 years.

We've worked with international companies like Coca-Cola, and then we've worked with some big Jamaican brands as well, like Appleton Estate, Jamaica, and Rome. So that's what we do from the gallery communication sites. But again, it's all about us, what has really worked is relationships. So we ensure that whether it's the media, whether it's a supplier, whether it's our internal team or our clients, we build real relationships. So people feel very comfortable working with us. It's like we have this really big extended family of clients and suppliers and media personalities that we work with to deliver this final product to our end user at the end of the day.

Then as a personal branding Coach, what I really do is help individuals. I mean, my brother said this to me the other day, and he was just like, I think what you do is you help people to see the greatness that they don't see within themselves. But what I do is I help individuals to take a look at themselves starting with some introspection to see who they are, and what the unique value that they believe they offer. Then how do they communicate it to their ideal audience? So whether that's through online or in person, how are you showing up in these different spaces and letting people know that you actually can solve their problem?

So that's really what I've been doing with the personal branding. It has been fulfilling for me, to be able to meet different individuals and to show them, to me something that I can see clearly after a conversation that they can't see for themselves, and then show them how to actually communicate this. So they're doing something that they really know, and offering real value and being of service.

Gresham Harkless 6:29

Yeah that makes so much sense. The part I love most about that is you kind of drill down on that relationship piece and how that works and obviously PR but definitely also works in the personal brand. Because you have to develop that relationship, when you talk with somebody. Often when you're talking about who you are, what it is that you do, and what makes you unique in those things, you have to develop that relationship with the people that you're speaking to, or connecting with on social media offline, as you said, as well.

Naomi Garrick 9:04

We forget that and sometimes we don't take the time to really think about ourselves. So like I ask people all the time, what do you do and immediately they tell me their job title. But really, that's not telling someone what you do. I mean, you could be an HR manager, but what is it about what you do in that role that actually is different or better than another HR manager? So I help people to try and identify their theme, like what is it that you love about this job that I should carry or something?

So I think it's taking the time to really reflect and look at ourselves and see what have we done, I spoke about the journey being the reward, and how you use this your special journey because I believe that we could all be the stars of our big blockbuster movie because nobody has had this life experience that we've had. So how do you use that experience now to create a product or service that you can get paid to do?

Gresham Harkless 9:58

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I know this might be your secret sauce, you might have already purchased or touched on this, but I was gonna ask you for your secret sauce. What is the thing you feel that sets you apart and makes you unique? Is it really that ability to see that in other people to help bring that out that you feel kind of sets you apart?

Naomi Garrick 10:15

I'm starting to see that no, but also, I think from the agency side that I never used to see myself as creative, I come from a very creative family. But they're more creative in terms of like art, and design. So I always thought that I was the one who just didn't get this creative street. But I'm starting to embrace the fact that my creativity is in the ability to ideate. So I love to sit with clients and just like, create ideas for their business or their brand and then we find the right people to execute it. So I think one is the ideation process but then also what I mentioned about the relationships.

I think the relationships for me is why we have a lot of our retainer clients keep coming back, because they trust us with their brand and they trust us and just as an individual as well, someone that that understands what they're trying to do, and they can call and actually have a real conversation, not just about the work. I think the relationships have definitely set us apart and having that boutique experience where even though we execute a big idea, we still can bring it right back down to a very small scale with how we relate and engage with the people that we're working with.

Gresham Harkless 11:20

So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So that could be like an app or book or habit that you have but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Naomi Garrick 11:30

What I started doing last year is getting up really early. Then I found that just creating blocks of time, so I guess time would be the big thing. But creating blocks of time to do specific things, whether it is to check emails within these blocks, I'm not consistently checking emails and responding to people. I read in Tim Ferriss, his book, The Four Hour Workweek, which I highly recommend. He spoke about the fact that he only checks emails twice for the day because he finds your email account, and your email inbox to be like a giant to-do list for everybody else.

Gresham Harkless 12:02

I definitely appreciate those hacks. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a co nugget and that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger self?

Naomi Garrick 12:13

I just made a post about this today and I heard Oprah saying it. It's something like you are exactly where you're supposed to be going through the CEO journey. You have the ups and you have the downs, and you're just like, why aren't things working out for me? Or why am I in this situation? Why am I having this experience?

As time progressed, I realized that in every one of those situations, I needed it to happen because it led to something else important or just a different kind of project or if I lost a project, then I realized that if I had this project, I wouldn't have gotten this opportunity, a bigger opportunity that was waiting around the corner.

Gresham Harkless 12:53

Absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on this show. So Naomi, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Naomi Garrick 13:02

Being a CEO means to me having an opportunity to lead a team and to bring value through your unique experience to the rest of the world through service.

Gresham Harkless 13:14

I definitely appreciate your time even more Naomi, what I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Naomi Garrick 13:27

Okay, great. So if you don't mind, I would love to share some of the things as we start a new year, it can be very daunting. As we look back on the previous year, we're just like, we didn't accomplish a lot of the things that we thought we were going to. So what I would love to share with this year's CEOs or anyone who's watching this podcast, is just some tips that can help you to get ready for this year. To not be so scary, don't be so hard on yourself that you didn't accomplish these goals. This really helps me every year when I'm starting to refocus.

So, one, I like to do a reflection on the previous year. I actually take time to write out all the things that I've done for the year, the little things and the big things. So we forget, we get so caught up in the stuff that we didn't do that we forget that we did some really cool stuff in the previous year in those 365 days. Then I pick a theme for my year. So I love picking a theme that helps to drive everything. So my theme this year is all in, so no matter what I'm doing, whether it's my job, it's coaching, it's relationships, I'm going all in and that way if I fail, it's okay, because I know that I gave it my best. So that's my theme and I applied it to everything.

Then I started looking at the goals for 2020. What are some things that I really want to accomplish? I look back on the 2019 goals, are there goals that need to be known come 2020? Or can I just scrap some of those goals altogether?

Then the fourth thing I do is I have to find my circle of genius. So I recommend just like whether it's a mentor or mentors but look at the areas of your life that actually could use some support and then identify those people that really got to help you to be your best self or to help make you accountable for those goals, whether it's professionally or personally. So I rely on different people in my lives for life in different areas to help keep me accountable to ensure that if these are my goals, they check in with me, or they give me some additional advice or an appointment to a different resource that I didn't think about.

I think sometimes as CEOs, we feel like we have to do everything ourselves. We have to realize that it's okay to ask for help. It helps us to cross that bridge a lot faster and probably even better because someone's done it before. Now we don't have to do it the same way they did it, we can do better, or we can learn how to make it work for us. I think that's what I would leave with your listeners. Then to find me on Instagram, I'm at the PRChick or at Naomi Garrick.

Also, you can visit garrickcommunications.com or iamnaomigarrick.com. So if it's PR or Garrick communications, and if it's personal branding, it's iamnaomigarrick.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:00

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Naomi. What we'll do is we'll have those links and information in the show notes and thank you so much for the wonderful words of wisdom and advice to get started. Then to also reminds us that there's nothing new under the sun, everything has been done and can be found in talking to somebody with still podcasts or a book often.

So I definitely appreciate that as well too and I hope you have a phenomenal rest today.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless.

Thank you for listening.

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