Into The Wild 19. Your Personal Brand: Making Your Mark in the World with Erin Bury
My guest today is Erin Bury. In the decade I have known her, I've watched her grow from a PR/marketing gal to an empowered, successful entrepreneur. She worked at a tech start-up in Toronto before becoming a prolific writer and speaker. She also managed and grew an agency whose revenue she quadrupled in a matter of years before now co-founding her own start-up with her husband.
She is the co-founder of Willful, an online estate planning platform that makes it easy for Canadians to create a will in less than 20 minutes. At Willful she's responsible for driving the company's mission to make it easier for Canadians to prepare for and deal with death in a digital age. Erin also keeps business in the family as her other company, The County Wine Tours, offers bicycle tours of Prince Edward County. Her father acts as one of the tour guides.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
- How Erin's mother, a fellow marketing guru, has influenced her with great advice like "positivity is a choice"
- The pressures and obstacles of running a business based on an uncomfortable topic like estate planning
- Her biggest mistake early on was not understanding the finance and funding side of a start-up
- Why she recommends getting a business coach, especially for first-time owners
- Her journey from journalism grad to entrepreneur
- How Erin started seeing problems as things she could solve instead of leaving them for others
- The importance of personal branding and how it ties to success
- Why she believes in providing value to facilitate connections in her networks
- Learning to lead: leaning into who you are as a person and motivating through empowerment over fear
- The inherent masculinity of leadership and perceived weakness of empathy
- Financing your start-up: why it's important to understand investor types for seeking funding
- Understanding and planning your business model
- The intimidation factor and how to beat it
- Why revenue is sexy
- How Erin and her husband successfully navigate their own 'swim lanes' at the company for a harmonious home and work-life balance
Resources:
- Willful website: Willful
- The County Wine Tours website: The County Wine Tours
- Twitter: @erinbury
- LinkedIn: Erin Bury
- Instagram: Erin Bury
Public shout outs:
What it means to be a WILD woman:
"Own your choices, make the decision and get outside your comfort zone." ~ Erin Bury
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Renée Warren is an award-winning entrepreneur, a 7-figure business starter, and the founder of We Wild Women, a business dedicated to helping women launch their dream business. She previously founded an industry-recognized PR agency that worked with funded technology startups from South Africa to San Diego.
She's a mom to Irish Twins (not planned), a published author, and a drummer.
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