Peer Effect

Personal Branding and Evolving as a Leader, with Dean Seddon

• James Johnson • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Dean Seddon, founder and CEO of MAVERRIK, steps into the Peer Effect spotlight to share his innovative approach to marketing and the undeniable power of personal branding.

With a decade of steering MAVERRIK to success, Dean has mastered the art of utilising his personal brand to propel his business forward. His journey reveals the critical role of a founder in not only shaping a company's strategy but also its public perception and internal culture.

In this episode, we delve into:

  • Dean's strategic insights on using personal branding as a tool for business growth and customer engagement.
  • The balance required to transition from hands-on involvement to strategic leadership without losing the personal touch that characterises founder-driven businesses.
  • Practical advice for founders on maintaining their role as a central figure in their companies without risking burnout.

For more on how Dean Seddon harnesses personal branding for business success, follow him on LinkedIn and discover how MAVERRIK is redefining marketing strategies.

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Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com


Speaker 1:

Today, we're venturing into the heart of marketing innovation and the magnetic power of personal branding with Dean Seddon, founder of Maverick. With a rich background in the marketing sphere, Dean embarked on a journey to redefine what it means to leverage oneself for business success. What does it truly take to harness the power of your personal brand, and how does one navigate the transition from being embedded in every operation to assuming the role of a strategic leader? This is Peer Effect, the podcast that fuels you with new ideas and inspiration through interviews with founders and experts who have made it happen. If it's your first time listening, I'm your host, James Johnson, and I coach Series A plus founders to take back control, propel their businesses and live a fulfilling life. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

So prior to starting Maverick, I was very much involved in the kind of marketing world of various different forms and when I started Maverick I wanted my brand and everything to do the lead, because that's my baby I'm building, that's what I want people to know. But actually even now, 10 years in, I drive a lot of the energy behind the business in terms of the public perception and I think I thought my personal insight is I thought the brand would take over faster than the founder frontman piece and even 10 years now I'm opening opportunities just because I've leveraged me to build the business and I think most people don't realize how far you can get with your personality, shall we say, or you being a front person, and I quite quickly wanted to be get out of that and hide behind the brands and the logo and all that kind of stuff. But 10 years in it's still the most powerful thing we've got so is that something that you would say?

Speaker 2:

I found like don't, don't, don't shy away from your personality yeah it's, it's uncomfortable because really it's like my mission is to build maverick and the purpose of maverick that we're trying to achieve I have this joke in with the team is that they know all my social media accounts. They they pick my phone up and are looking through things for stuff. It's like there's zero privacy, but it's just, you are the biggest marketing asset you've got. And I thought, after being in marketing forever and sales for all of my career, I thought two, three years in I can just pull away from being that front person, but it kind of doesn't happen. Or when I realized I did do it, we noticed the difference, the impact.

Speaker 1:

You see that with a lot of my clients and founders this last couple of years A lot of people brought in sort of a head of sales to kind of remove themselves from the sales process and a lot of those hires have become back out of businesses as founders have realized they are their greatest asset and actually having a founder involved in the sales process you almost can't remove a founder from the sales process.

Speaker 2:

I think that's the difference. Though. Why are we called founders? We're called founders because we're what everything's originally built on. If you translate that to a building, you can't take the foundation stone out of it, and I think that's very much true for a founder-led businesses. You're so integrated into it and for, to some degree, there is that whole. You're scaling. You don't want to be critical to the operations, but there is an element of you can do things a lot faster if you are critical to the operations, particularly on a marketing and sales front.

Speaker 1:

So why would you try and remove it? But I suppose you build around it, don't you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you build around it and you don't want to be in the middle of it, but you have to be somewhere at the foundation of it and I've worked in a couple of organizations before Maverick and there are. Once you get to a size I worked with one they were doing about 50 million. It was still founder driven 200 and something staff and the day to day they didn't have a clue about how the businesses was functioning. But when it came to customers they were at the front end of picking up on everything that customers were saying and it was a really interesting thing to see it at that kind of size and how that works and how they become marketing assets and are much more customer facing. I I think really most founders you end up as a customer facing person. Generally I would never advise a founder to stay in the middle of the customer delivery or something like that. That could be like that's the recipe for burnout, but as a marketing asset you definitely want to do it.

Speaker 1:

And not just at your clients, but also for your potential team members, and it's like marketing is such broader than just winning new clients, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, internally I've noticed when I'm more removed from the team there is a sense of something's changed. I'm sure they also are glad when I'm removed from the team at times, but because you know, I bring that kind of like let's do this, let's do this, let's do, let's push, push, push, and they need a break from that. But an extended absence of a founder founders is responsible for a lot of stuff in terms of culture and I did check out for a little while, for about about three or four months, and we noticed a massive change in the business's culture and it took us months to kind of fix some of the problems that that created of of just the drift from what you set up and bringing it back.

Speaker 1:

I went to a really interesting talk once and talked about how founders or leaders spend ages preparing speeches and writing emails and actually that's worth about 2% of what it is. It's kind of people just watch our behavior. It's like what are we doing? And that speaks to like 95%. So better spend that time just being present in the business and being with your people and sort of modeling the behaviors that you want, rather than writing fancy speeches and that that's been really hard for me because as we've grown, there's some people who've been with me till since more or less day one.

Speaker 2:

So I have such a depth of relationship with them, such like a way of communicating with them that's quite, quite direct and they're quite direct with me.

Speaker 1:

But then we've got some people who've been here, you know, a year, two years, um, you know new starters and it's it's weird understanding the differences in those relationships it's weird how, as a founder, you would go from the state where you you know all your team, your early stage team, and they know what you can do, they know what you bring to the party, they join the business because of you and then it gets to a stage at some point when you're kind of the guy in the corner that people don't really know what you do or how good you are, or they kind of figure.

Speaker 2:

You kind of just came into being running the company and you kind of don't really know what you're talking about yeah, yeah, and, and because of the nature of our business, we have some people who come in quite, you know, young, and it's their first job and so they will come in and he's the boss, but they don't really know what he does. Um, uh. And then there's other people who know I'm running at a million miles an hour with them and they get all the things I do. So it is.

Speaker 2:

It is a strange thing and adapting to that in terms of um, I had a team quite early because we grew quite quickly. Those people knew where I, where my weak spots were, they know how I get a short fuse if I'm stressed and stuff like that. So they kind of get me in that way. But obviously a whole new wave of people. They're much further removed from me and they probably don't see all of the challenges behind the scenes. It's so strange how, how a business evolves and you know you're learning people's names and stuff like that, and um, and how do you, how do you keep the same kind of ethos or vibe, whilst obviously the organization is basically growing and every person you add makes a little change?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the better you do, the less time you have. The more people you have, the less time there is to share per person. So I suppose, to bring it back to the insight of sort of the personal brand beats the company brand, I would disagree that as you grow a business it gets bigger, your time becomes stretched between lots of different things. How important, would you say, is it to find the time for your personal brand?

Speaker 2:

so I have two angles on this really. Um, I know how difficult it is for me and I teach this stuff right. So it is really important because it is a marketing asset. Yeah, and I can get through doors that my business development director can't, that my commercial director can't. So I think it really is important in that sense of being able to roll out, you know, roll out somebody that will help them get somewhere, and I found that really useful that my platform can help that from a time point of view, to build it properly. I mean, I'll give you an example I have two people part-time helping me with mine, because there's more than I could keep up with. So you're almost treating it like it's part of the marketing department of the company, and I think that's how you have to think about it. Your personal brand is a marketing asset of the company, so it's definitely worth the time.

Speaker 2:

Time constraints are difficult. I'll give you an example into my day, I don't do the 5 am ice bath, so don't worry about that, right? No marathon before breakfast, no, well, I do get up at half past four, but not because I meditate, read books or anything like that. I go to the gym because basically I run around an office all day, most of my days. So I go to the gym because basically I run around an office all day, most of my days, so I go to the gym in the morning, then I come in and I'm into the office.

Speaker 2:

I do all of my social media content. I post the same things pretty much across all channels. I do that in the morning and then my day starts at eight with the team and we catch up on what do they need from me. Is there any? All that kind of stuff is done, but I do it first because I know it will get sacrificed to everything else. If I don't and you could argue well, I could get our marketing team to do my LinkedIn and I could just check out from it. But the problem is when you do that, you end up finding that your uniqueness gets lost into the brand and you start talking like the brand, which is a bit more impersonal and isn't your personality. But that's how I do it.

Speaker 1:

So external insight, like what is something that you've read or heard or seen recently that has influenced or interested you, and who was? Who was it from?

Speaker 2:

so there's, there's a couple of things here that I've seen recently that they're not necessarily good, but they are a lesson for a founder who wants to do good. So if you look at at WeWork right, so WeWork was the, you know, the darling of office space. It was positioned as a tech company and one of the things that I found real, really fascinating and I don't want to get kind of too is how far belief in what you're doing can get you. It's kind of a negative is because we see these stories of you know, theranos we work where they've you know basically collapsing under debt.

Speaker 2:

But but the spin of that is wow, when you're really, you really have a purpose, you really believe in something and that comes out. It's infectious for people and I think sometimes, you know, particularly because of the rise of tech, we can get like really obsessed with what our new gadget does or our new startup does. But that whole purpose piece and belief in that purpose piece is quite infectious and engaging for people and I think it's really easy to lose touch with that, even in a negative. If you're a founder with a real big mission, don't lose it, but also heed the warnings that sometimes that belief can take you beyond your business model. They're like two things in tension. You've got the reality of where you are and what you're trying to do, and then the belief in your purpose and your big picture. And the big picture will get you into lots of interesting places. But you have to make sure that obviously your infrastructure will keep you there because it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

This idea that's almost like a reality distortion field has come into play here. Like you don't know whether they started off with the intention of doing some of the things that they did, or whether they did some of the things that they did because they felt it was the right thing to do to achieve that purpose.

Speaker 2:

Was it a scam or was it somebody who just drifted a little compromise, a little compromise, a little white lie. But if you look at some of the people who were taken in, they weren't idiots. The former secretary of defense was on the board of theranos, right? You've got um, one of the malaysia's biggest investment funds, pumping money into we work that they're probably gonna write off billions and you go, wow, how vulnerable human beings are to purpose, and somebody who's on a mission and that's dangerous. But also wow from a point of view of, if I stay true to that, that can be very powerful in energizing our business. So it's a warning and an encouragement at the same time. Uh, that that rooted of why you're doing something becomes very compelling and then you have to hold your feet to the ground to make sure that that doesn't become your undoing at the same time.

Speaker 1:

But I wonder whether some of the companies that have made it have taken that path. They just haven't been caught at that moment in time and actually that belief in the mission has taken them through that kind of let's call it a left field veer. Yeah, and because they survived that moment they got to where they're getting to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, even if you've got a gazillion backers and you've got all the money in the bank to do what you want to do, there are moments when it gets quite sticky, choppy. Somebody decides they don't want to put any more money in, or a major deal breaks down, or you make a mistake. There are these moments that are kind of existential and it becomes about purpose, mission ethics and you know these are major dilemmas for anybody. But it's like, should this one thing hinder the big picture? And you're right, how many Theranos are out there that never got found out? There's an interesting one with a story I've seen on YouTube of Elon Musk where he said, basically he got to the point where SpaceX and Tesla needed cash and he was down to his last 30 million Tough times, eh, and the 30 million was enough to kind of sort one of them out but not the other. So he decided he would split the 30 million into both and both got through. And I'm thinking I know how cash flow works.

Speaker 1:

And maths.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so at some point somewhere there, there's got to be some kind of other story of how Tesla and SpaceX got through. So yeah, I'm not advocating that. Oh, you just push through all this stuff. It's just interesting that how powerful that kind of sense of mission can be.

Speaker 1:

So it's quite. It's quite the first point in terms of making time for personal brand, the sense of mission. Is that a personal mission or is that a company mission, in your view?

Speaker 2:

well, it's kind of two things, isn't it? It's it's the mission of maverick, but it's also it's also your mission for maverick, that there's two things there. You know, you start a business most people are not starting it just to make money there's a belief in a bigger picture that they want to make. So there's there's almost the the mission of their baby, and there's the baby's mission itself. So you're, as a founder, you're kind of carrying two missions of I want my baby to succeed and my baby's mission is to do this. So I want maverick to absolutely thrive, I want it to prosper, I want the whole team to prosper, all of that stuff.

Speaker 2:

And then there is what's maverick's mission, which is actually to help a million businesses and it's that second mission that resonates with people it's, it's the second mission, but sometimes the first mission the success of maverick or the success of theranos or whatever that can get clouded and you end up where you compromise on one to get the other what is a practical hack or tip that you would share with other founders for making things happen?

Speaker 2:

uh oh for making things happen. Uh Ooh for making things happen, I think. I think the biggest challenge for a founder is obviously process. So as soon as you get further away from the operations, the process kind of everything slows down. Um, and that, that for me, was a challenge.

Speaker 2:

So the quicker I learned how to convey to my team how I wanted something done, the better my life got, the more I I was one of those people that stayed in the middle of things too long and then created almost a culture which was still working out of Dean has to have the final say.

Speaker 2:

And the hack for me was I had to almost stop telling people things and start asking people things, because what I would do is I'd just tell people and then I create the wrong culture of they would wait for me, and that slowed everything down. So initially Dean was the speed. Then we reach a point where Dean is the bottleneck and it took me too long to adjust from. I'm no longer fast enough for the company. I have to change how I approach things to basically get the company to work faster than me. But because I was so keen to control, I slowed the whole thing down and I created a dependency on me to sign things off that really I should have empowered people earlier. So I think not sharing my opinions is the tip. Don't share your opinions.

Speaker 1:

Ask people what they think way more I said my team like don't ask me a question that you don't want my opinion on, because actually a it's an opinion, there's no, there's an opinion, there's no, there's no way, there's no reason why I'm more right than you. But also then you're just going to bring me into the process as well. I think maybe I'd also add like, teach your team not to ask you some stuff, just do it yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I think that if I could rewind, I would stop telling, stop sharing my thoughts Three or four years earlier.

Speaker 1:

So for contact people listening three or four years earlier would be. What sort of size would you be as a business?

Speaker 2:

Where, in 2018, we would have been about 15 people and I would have started asking more questions then, rather than telling people.

Speaker 1:

And at that stage would you have started developing your key sort of key management team and key people around you, or was that stood in flux so?

Speaker 2:

looking back is, you know, your 2020 vision? Looking backwards, right? If I'd have done what I do now, I reckon Maverick would have been maybe twice the size it is now. From following this one tip, just that one tip Earlier, empower the team earlier, ask more questions and stop telling things what do you think was driving that behavior of telling rather than asking?

Speaker 2:

I guess it was partly. I'd got some experience so I knew what what would and wouldn't work. So there was that part. There was also the part of for a period that would have been slower Because I would have had to go through the from my point of view hopefully the team aren't listening the from my point of view, hopefully the team aren't listening but I would have had to go through the pain of of letting them work things out and going, yeah, but I want to go now, I want to do this now. So that bit would have slowed down and I was uncomfortable with that because I wanted pace. But then I reached a point where I have to do this anyway because I can't get any further pace out of the team. So it was kind of like we had to slow down really almost for a period so that the team could, I could get out of the team's way.

Speaker 2:

So I think it was my urgency to progress was going no, we're going to do this, and I deprived my team of their learning curve.

Speaker 1:

That's how I work with my clients. I sort of go slow to get there faster, and actually it's not about how far you run, it's actually about where you're trying to get to, and often we can find ourselves doing running lots of unnecessary miles when we could have just gone a shorter route.

Speaker 2:

And we had to go through six to nine months of pain to get that right.

Speaker 1:

Does that come back to this idea of, let's say, asking questions? If you can engage your team with questions, I'm wondering how that triggers back to personal brand as well.

Speaker 2:

I think it does. If you look at the founder world, you know the founder communities. There's a lot of big thinking going on. There's a lot of where's the future now, Because I think COVID the change in the world over the last four or five years has forced us to think about where we're going. What does the world look like, Even if you are doing a more conventional startup business right? So I think we are more forced to think things through.

Speaker 2:

And when it comes to the personal brand, I think the most engaging people help you think. So in one sense, my challenge was I built my own personal brand over years and people would say to me externally Dean, you really give me a good thought there to help me think and I could do this better and improve this, but when it came to my leadership style, I wasn't doing it that way. So the real compelling personal brands don't just tell you things. They help you see things. They help you see things. They help you see things more clearly. And that's part of the allure of the founder is that sense of passion and mission, and people are fascinated by that and what journey you're on and that's what's fascinating. And they they can see and relate to some of the stories that you're sharing, but also it gets them to think about their own stories. So if you're starting something and you know over the next three to five years you're going to scale up to about 30, 40, 50 people, Actually, the personal brand police publicly might not seem as a priority once you've got some investment or once you've got that kind of the ball rolling, might not seem as much as a priority as building the team, because you know that you can't do this without a team in my world.

Speaker 2:

I started the other way around. I started and got too busy and thought I need some help and so I hired to assist me and then on that journey had to go. This is no longer about me. And then on that journey had to go. This is no longer about me. So, yeah, I would say I was very much the personal brand first and had to develop my leadership second, which was not comfortable, I assure you.

Speaker 1:

Actually, you kind of need both, because your personal brand influences your internal and so a lot of people maybe do. They come from a big business and they, oh, I'm going to do this bigger business on a smaller scale and grow it, and they come in with that leadership style more fully fledged, but without the personal brand. Yeah, Whereas you would almost the other way, the other way around.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I've met. I've met people the other way around, where, let's say, I'm the scrappy founder who just works, works it up and builds it up, but it kind of evolves into something. I've seen the other side, where you come with a plan and of course then sometimes you end up learning the scrappy stuff along the way as you get into it and you know that doesn't go to plan and this doesn't go to plan and you you're juggling things, and so I I guess I came from the juggling things upwards and that was a hell of a painful journey. And some people might go the other way. If I've got a perfect plan and everything's like all you know, everything's in the right place, and then you end up in the reality, which is far more messy than the paper, and it feels like both sides are needed the whole way through.

Speaker 1:

Let's say we could take the elon musk example. Maybe three years ago his personal brand drove everything. It drove hiring, it drove engagement. It drove marketing. It drove, even drove government subsidies.

Speaker 2:

When they've taken so much money in government subsidies, that is down to like so to your own team is something I wish I understood fully a long time ago, because I think if you don't understand that you allow other people to set how things work or you allow things to evolve by their own just uncontrolled evolution, shall we say, if, if you let it run riot.

Speaker 1:

Reflecting on our conversation with Dean, it's clear that combining personal branding with leadership is not just advantageous but essential for the growth and culture of a startup. Dean's narrative, from solopreneur to leading a thriving enterprise like Maverick, highlights the profound influence of personal connection and the art of leadership in fostering a culture that echoes beyond the company. Thanks for tuning into Peer Effect as always. Join us every Wednesday for an episode packed with inspiring journeys and actionable advice from founders who are making it happen. See you then.

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