Building Brands and Books: Aliza Licht’s Path to Becoming a Marketing Maven Ep. 126

Aliza Licht: 00:00:00

You know what? I don't know enough about this brand. I don't follow this brand. This is not my topic, my area of expertise, and I passed. So the idea that you don't have to one, show up to every fight you're invited to, and two, speak about every single topic. The assumption is that you are highly informed about what you are speaking on. And if you're not, get informed before you talk about it.

Natasha Miller: 00:00:29

Welcome to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS how do people end up becoming an entrepreneur? How do they scale and grow their businesses? How do they plan for profit? Are they in it for life or are they building to exit these and a myriad of other topics? Will be discussed to pull back the veil on the wizardry of successful and FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS. My book, RELENTESS is now available everywhere books can be bought online, including Amazon and BarnesAndNoble.com, try your local indie bookstore too. And if they don't have it, they can order it. Just ask them. The reviews are streaming in and I'm so thankful for the positive feedback as well as hearing from people that my memoir has impacted them positively. It is not enough to be resilient. You have to be relentless. You can go to TheRelentless book.com for more information. Thank you so much. Aliza Licht is an award-winning marketer, bestselling author, podcaster, personal branding expert, and the founder of Leave Your Mark, a multimedia brand and consultancy. We talk about her time as the PR girl at DKNY, how she landed her book deals, and what's in store for her future. Now let's get right into it.

Aliza Licht: 00:01:56

So Leave Your Mark is a multimedia brand and consultancy. Where it is, multiple things. So it is my book. Leave Your Mark. It's a podcast. Leave Your Mark. It's a community where I mentor young professionals, also called Leave Your Mark. And it's where I sort of do my brand consulting and my personal branding clients under that too. So it's this umbrella brand.

Natasha Miller: 00:02:24

It's your holding company. It's. What consists of young professionals, what does that mean to you and your community?

Aliza Licht: 00:02:32

So it's interesting because my first book, Leave Your Mark was really what I consider to be a career mentor, like a virtual career mentor. It has a coffee cup on the cover with my signature red lip because when I was the former social media personality, DKNY PR Girl thousands of people would DM. Asking, how do I break into fashion? How do I land my dream job? What do I do? All these career advice things. And when I was social media personality, DKNY PR Girl, I would dish out a lot of career advice online, which led to that book. So Leave Your Mark. The book is really, the Devil Wears Prada meets Career Advice. So my mission and my sweet spot, if you will, is helping people probably senior year in college. Up to the first 15 years of working where maybe on their way they don't have anyone to look up to, they don't have a mentor. They're still building their network and their relationships, and I'm trying with Leave Your Mark to help them not make mistakes that they don't have to make. I think when you get past 15 years of working, you have your network. You have people to call upon who have either done what you're trying to do or can troubleshoot with you. So I feel like those people are taken care of. It's the younger ones that are coming up that I really try to support.

Natasha Miller: 00:04:02

So I believe you started your career in fashion publishing, and you've kind of evolved into various things into publicity and marketing, branding. What led you to start your own business versus working for any of those brands?

Aliza Licht: 00:04:20

So I was a corporate person for 17 years working as a traditional publicist for Donna Karen, and that is the best time in my career. Really, truly, it's a family. I still speak to everybody who I've ever worked there with, and later in my career there, obviously I created this anonymous social media personality that led to everything else. When my book came out in 2015, it was a pivotal time of the company where Donna Karen, herself was stepping down. My mentor, Patty Cohen was stepping down and this is actually how on brand my new book starts because DKNY PR Girl in 2015 was huge. It was considered one of the first fashion influencers on social media before we knew that word, and I don't wanna spoil it, but we basically had to shut down the account. And that created news around the world that DKNY PR Girl was no more. So at that point, when your family is sort of pulled out from under you, as you know, this feeling unfortunately, and yours is much more serious, this is work and it's not a big deal, but the whole company changed and I was kind of like, this is my cue to wrap this career in a bow and leave on a high note. And do something on my own. And my book had just come out maybe two months prior and I decided I would start consulting. But I did it for 10 months and I hated it and I sucked at it. So I went back in house again for a little while, a couple years, and then got itchy again to be on my own. And here I am.

Natasha Miller: 00:05:57

It's interesting to hear you say and admit, which is wonderful for anyone listening, that you tried to run your own business and you sucked at it for that time, and you went back in. These things I think aren't apparent to people that you may not have been ready. You may not have been in the phase of your life. You may not have had the background information, the place in your life to do your own business. And so I just hope that everyone takes a pause there and if it doesn't work out, then maybe just go back to the grindstone and pop back up and see what happens.

Aliza Licht: 00:06:33

Yeah, and I'll take it even a step farther. So I basically for 10 months was trying to consult. And when I say trying to consult, I will be honest. 'Cause my husband was really funny about it. He was like, when you say that you're consulting, you have to have clients. That's part of the thing. And the truth is, Natasha that I didn't get the, the gigs that I wanted. Everyone was always like, "Oh, we love you, but we don't have budget." Everyone has budget. It's how they spend it. Right? And then the brands that were coming to me, I was like, well, I don't wanna do that. So you know when you want something to fail because you're just not that into it. That is how I felt. And I actually wrote a piece, which is still on forbes.com in my former column, and the title of it was How You know You're Not Meant To Be An Entrepreneur. And I think one of the things that I pat myself on the back for is saying to myself, you know what? It's okay not to be good at this, and it's okay to work for a company. Entrepreneurship has been really trendy. Don't you agree? People are coming outta college like, I'm not gonna work in corporate. I'm gonna start my own company. It sounds super sexy, but it is really hard. So when I went back in-house for a couple years and then decided again, actually, I decided that I wanted to launch a podcast for Leave Your Mark. That's what got me excited. I was like, oh hell, now I have to consult again because that podcasts don't make money in the beginning. So then I took pen to paper and I said, "Okay, what didn't work the first time? What are my capabilities?" "What do I know how to do, but what do I wanna do?" And I crossed out pr. I don't wanna do PR. That was my entire career. I know how to do it. I don't wanna do it. And the other thing that I recognized when I self-reflected was, I hated consulting because I like being part of a team. I don't like being on my own. I don't like ideating on my own. And then delivering a strategy and saying, "Okay, here it is." Okay. See you later. Hope it works out. Hope you execute on it. So I decided to come up. Now we have this fancy phrase of calling it fractional CMO, but I called it rent-A-CMO because that made sense to me. You can rent me for an hour a week and I can work with your team and all of a sudden. I found myself being able to embed in companies that maybe couldn't afford a CMO, had maybe a marketing manager or a social media manager didn't really have someone to mentor and lead them. So I could do that and every brand, sometimes I did it for four hours a week, sometimes I did it for 10. And I had multiple companies that I did that with. And that was the sort of switch that I pressed on that made entrepreneurship work for me.

Natasha Miller: 00:09:22

Because of your work as an influencer before that was a thing, and publicity and fashion, is your community in that realm as well, or has it kind of weighed out into the fray of, are there dentists that are following you? Are there construction workers? Completely random.

Aliza Licht: 00:09:42

So do you mean. The social media community or my private community that I mentor?

Natasha Miller: 00:09:47

Both your brand. I'm not really big into the fashion world, but you're very relevant to me.

Aliza Licht: 00:09:53

Oh, thank you.

Natasha Miller: 00:09:54

So you're welcome. What I'm asking is, who is in your world right now, your community, who you're speaking to, is your voice fashion forward or is it just business brand? Entrepreneur may be forward.

Aliza Licht: 00:10:09

Yeah, so obviously I have a very big network in fashion, and of course all the people I always worked with previously, we follow each other and we're in touch and we engage with each other's content. But no, it's not a fashion thing at all. And I think that career advice and personal branding specifically for everyone in every industry.

Natasha Miller: 00:10:32

Just when you said that, it's for everyone in every industry. What I've been finding recently, and I don't know if this has crossed your radar, but as soon as I tell you, you'll be seeing it everywhere. Truck drivers. The truck driver industry is starting to become. There's a person that teaches truck drivers how to do yoga and has written a book about yoga for truck drivers. There's so many things, and that is not something that, I don't know if truck drivers need a personal brand, right. Or are interested in it, but I guess with the internet there's so much access to information. Yeah. And thought leadership that some of those lower hanging fruit that you don't think of are like, Hey, wait, I want in on this.

Aliza Licht: 00:11:12

Yeah. And there's two things I would say to that. One is, No matter what you do, what you do today may not be what you do tomorrow. And secondly, I think all of us have aspirations greater than where we are today. Right? That's why even when I think about on-brand and personal branding, I don't think it's a choice. Everything you say you do, your energy, your mannerisms, what you choose to align with, how you convey the narrative that you want people to absorb, that's for every single person needs to think about that. It doesn't matter. The truck driver may not wanna have an Instagram account, but I'm sure the truck driver wants their boss to know that they're really good at what they do.

Natasha Miller: 00:11:53

Correct.

Aliza Licht: 00:11:53

And waiting around for someone to notice that you're good at what you do is not a strategy.

Natasha Miller: 00:11:57

Correct. Let's switch to talking about the books that you've publish published. So you have two, correct?

Aliza Licht: 00:12:04

No, I'll just tease it here. There is something lurking in my brain though. Okay, great. There's a question for.

Natasha Miller: 00:12:10

What inspired you to write your first book and because one of my businesses is a publishing company. Yes. I'm really interested in, and I think people listening because a lot of my clients are like, should I publish traditionally? What are the pros and cons? And then when they do publish traditionally, they're like, why did I do that? So how did you get your first book deal, and how did you get your second book deal?

Aliza Licht: 00:12:34

Okay, well.... this is a great story and I will say part of the personal branding consulting that I do is for authors to launch their books. So I was a very, very, very well-known personality as this character DKNY PR Girl. It was anonymous for almost two years. It was inspired by Gossip Girl and literally an editor called me one day, I was in the office at DKNY and she said, "Hi, I follow you on Twitter. I think you should write a book." So I didn't have an agent by the way. I said no because I was super, super freaked out and scared. I had a full-time role. Two little kids. I'm like, there is no way I have time to do this. What if it's horrible? What if no one reads it? I said, "Thank you so much. That's so flattering, but no, I'm not interested." And she was aggressive.

Natasha Miller: 00:13:24

Are you a published author? Have you always thought you had a book inside of you? Have other people told you you've got to write a book? If so, I highly suggest you work with us at Poignant Press. We can help you write, figure out the best publishing path, and market your book to a bestseller status. Go to PoignantPress.com. That's P-O-I-G-N-A-N-T-press.com. That probably sparked your interest even more because being told no for certain people are like, let me show you.

Aliza Licht: 00:14:00

Well, it was actually the opposite. It was almost coaching myself into, so in on Brand, actually the second book I have this section on Rebranding Your Fear. And what that means is to identify it and name it, right? So I was like, "Okay, why did I say no?" "Okay. I'm scared." Why am I scared? "I'm scared that I'm not gonna be good at it." I'm scared no one will love it." What if people love it, right? I basically said, "Okay, now that you've identified that, now you have to do it because that's stupid. It's just stupid." So I said "Yes." And that's what led to Leave Your Mark. And then that was published by Grand Central in 2015, and then this is the craziest story, you're gonna die. So last year I was on the phone with a psychic and out of nowhere she was like, "Are you gonna write a second book?" And I was like, absolutely not. No one and done. So happy with the first one. I have my podcast now. No. She's like, I think you are. And I was like, "Okay, Heather, what is my book on since you're the psychic?" She was like, Personal Branding. And I'm like, oh, that's cute. "That sounds like me, but no." Not gonna happen. Natasha three weeks later, my editor Amanda from Leave Your Mark texts me and she says, Hey, would you be willing to meet a literary agent? Why would I need to meet a literary agent? She's like, so she can get you outta the contract. I put you in and I can buy your second book. And I'm like, "What? Second book?" She's like, the one you're gonna write. And I'm like, "I'm not writing a second book." And she's like, "No, you are." And I'm like, okay Amanda, this is text. What do you think is on? And I see the three dots moving. And then in all caps, PERSONAL BRANDING. So I'm very lucky, but I think that what I'm really good at is personal branding. So I was putting this all out into the universe, shaping my narrative, sharing my vision, shifting perception, which are the subtitles of On Brand, my second book, and that is what came back to me.

Natasha Miller: 00:15:59

And who published On Brand?

Aliza Licht: 00:16:01

That was Union Square.

Natasha Miller: 00:16:02

Okay. So because you had such a great solid footing in the industry, and a following which tells publishers we're gonna sell books and publishers, of course, they want them to be good, but honestly, if they sell, they don't really have to be good.

Aliza Licht: 00:16:19

Sure.

Natasha Miller: 00:16:19

Right. So you have a leg up, and I think publishing traditionally for you could be a very positive experience, but your IP is tied up with those contracts or maybe they're not. So did you negotiate for retention of your intellectual property? If somebody makes a movie about you?

Aliza Licht: 00:16:39

I retained all of that.

Natasha Miller: 00:16:41

Big girl. That's great. Everybody listening to this, I was just helping an entrepreneur with her traditionally published book. They wouldn't lower the price, they wouldn't do any marketing. They won't let her do an audio book, even on our own dime, and it's challenging out there. So thanks for sharing your story.

Aliza Licht: 00:17:01

Yeah. But I won't stay to your point. I guess, kind of why I'm working on this people now. Is that so much of the marketing for book sales is on the author.

Natasha Miller: 00:17:12

Yeah.

Aliza Licht: 00:17:12

And authors are not necessarily marketers or publicists.

Natasha Miller: 00:17:16

There's so much on.

Aliza Licht: 00:17:17

I happen to be all three, so I was extremely. Active and embedded in the launches of my books. I was very lucky for On Brand. I was able to work with an outside PR agency named Cave Hendricks, who was great, but you still gonna work the relationships that you have on behalf of yourself. And I think one of the biggest things for anyone listening is start building your database and those relationships. Years before you're thinking about publishing a book.

Natasha Miller: 00:17:49

Yeah. Let's talk about your fancy Barnes and Noble signing. That looks pretty cool. Walk us through the reality of how it happened, because getting a book signing at a bookstore these days is actually competitive. Right? And getting your book in to be carried at a bookstore is challenging. And PS this is not gonna happen with you as much because you have a bigger brand. But authors that feel so good about their books being in bookstores, maybe they don't remember signing the contract that said if these books don't sell, you have to buy them back.

Aliza Licht: 00:18:23

I don't, I'm not familiar with that.

Natasha Miller: 00:18:24

Yeah. They get returned, so the publisher has to buy them back and you aren't getting royalties for them. So if you have 10 books in a Barnes and Noble in Des Moines, Iowa sitting there and nobody buys your book. Publisher buys them back and you aren't getting royalties for it, and they either retain them or they burn them. They literally burn them.

Aliza Licht: 00:18:47

That's terrible.

Natasha Miller: 00:18:48

Well, it's just so that they can't be sold on the black market and then you don't get your royalty. So anyway, how did you get the Barnes and Noble signing and how did you get all those people to come? There was a lovely line down the street. Everybody needs to look it up because it was very inspiring to see.

Aliza Licht: 00:19:08

Thank you. So every single bookstore is run independently. So the key is walking into a bookstore, asking to speak to the manager, forming a relationship with the manager. It can be an indie bookstore, your local bookstore. It could be Barnes and Noble, whatever. But every decision, what goes in the window? What books have tables and piles? It is an individual bookstore manager's decision. And that is a fun fact because you would not think that. The people who work in the store have so much power over the marketing of titles, and they do. So a couple things. One is Union Square is owned by Barnes and Noble. And that should help, except that it doesn't help because it's church and state and it's not like there's this team who's like, "Oh, we're gonna just promote all the books that Union Squares public." It's not like that. So, 'cause of my marketing and PR background, I was like, "Oh, there's a Barnes and Noble opening on the Upper East Side." "What's their launch strategy?" I asked the publicist at Union Square and she was like, "I don't know." And I was like, "Well, can you find out?" And then she's like, "Oh, they're gonna open in July." I said, great. I'd like to do a book signing on opening night. And she was like, "I don't know if that's possible." We can ask. And they said "Yes." So then you're combining. My reach, my network with regular people who live in New York City, on the Upper East Side, who are so excited that there's a bookstore, which is great. So it really comes down to being strategic, right? I mean, maybe someone would've been very happy having their signing on any other night of the week, but a former publicist and a marketer. So I know that opening night means something and. That's what I asked for and that's what I got.

Natasha Miller: 00:21:03

Beautiful. That's great. Such good information and I think a lot of people try to keep the secret and the mysticism under cover, but I love your transparency. Yeah.

Aliza Licht: 00:21:14

I hate gatekeeping hate.

Natasha Miller: 00:21:17

And by the way, they don't necessarily burn the books. They destroy them, and that's language they use is destroy. So it might go to shredder. Same thing but I just want to clarify that, and so I didn't get a million calls saying we don't burn our books.

Aliza Licht: 00:21:31

Yeah. I mean hopefully they recycle them.

Natasha Miller: 00:21:34

Yeah. Well,

Aliza Licht: 00:21:34

Wouldn't you think that they would recycle them?

Natasha Miller: 00:21:36

They don't use that word, so let's ask them. Anyone hearing this, please let us know.

Aliza Licht: 00:21:42

Actually, you know what, to your point, I don't know that all the ink on those covers can be recycled.

Natasha Miller: 00:21:47

Well, maybe that is an industry tip that needs to be considered.

Aliza Licht: 00:21:52

Yeah.

Natasha Miller: 00:21:52

Okay. Personal branding online and in real life. Talk about that. I saw what you said today, which may not be super relevant when this podcast comes out, which isn't gonna be too long from today, but you need to marry those things. What do you have to say about that?

Aliza Licht: 00:22:10

So for everyone listening, we're talking about Lizzo. Lizzo being accused, being sued actually for sexual harassment and toxic workplace culture, and it made me think about the idea of people, especially celebrities or very high powered people think that they can have multiple ways of acting with different sets of people. People who they deem on their level or a certain status, they're probably the best person to, and then maybe people who are subordinates are not treated the same way. You get one personal brand and it is in every medium. It's when you walk into a room and the weight you carry in a meeting. It's when you log onto a Zoom, it's when you post something on LinkedIn. So all the things matter. And how I define a strong personal brand is; one, you have done the work. To answer the question, what do you wanna be known for In any medium, you've shaped that narrative. You've communicated it to the people around you in interesting, in different ways every time 'cause it bears repeating and you have aligned how you think about yourself with their perception of you. But the real test is, is your name dropped in rooms you are not in. Are you recommended for opportunities that other people haven't heard of yet? And the only way to have that happen is if you have armed your network with the knowledge that you're really good at what you do. If they hear of something that is appropriate for you, they're gonna be like, you know what, Natasha? She can publish your book. She's amazing. So people think that people know about them, they know their value, they don't. You have to work at shaping that. So On Brand, the new book is shape your narrative, share your vision, shift their perception. And throughout the book, I offer these mental gymnastics workbook exercises. So you actually do the work in the book, although no one seems to wanna write in the book, which is really interesting. So I made like a,

Natasha Miller: 00:24:20

I don't like writing in the book either.

Aliza Licht: 00:24:21

I know, I know. But it was my big strategy so no one could return the book. I thought that was pretty clever. But on my website, AlizaLicht.com, I created. An app that people can download and do the work in there.

Natasha Miller: 00:24:33

That's much safer.

Aliza Licht: 00:24:34

Much safer.

Natasha Miller: 00:24:35

We got in so much trouble writing in our books in school. This is probably,

Aliza Licht: 00:24:39

A 100%, a 100%. So, yeah, that's it. Listen, I spent 17 years in an unbelievable job working for an incredible founder. My identity was wrapped up in that company. I was Aliza from DKNY or DKNY PR Girl. Take your pick. Everything that I'm teaching in on brand is about building equity in your own name because it needs to be able to stand on its own. The skills and experience you have, you could take anywhere. It doesn't matter where you do it, but people have to understand that your name means something and that's on you to make happen.

Natasha Miller: 00:25:16

Great. And the last thing I wanna talk to you about, which you kind of hinted at earlier, is what are you working on for the future?

Aliza Licht: 00:25:23

Ah, yes. Yes. You heard it here first. First of all, I think right now what I'm having a lot of fun doing is corporate speaking. Yes. So I'm going into companies and I, my talk is really about the importance of establishing your personal brand at work to drive success. Because employees who want to grow at companies and progress in their careers need to understand that it's still their responsibility internally to shape that narrative and make people understand what they're great at or how they're contributing. So that's been really fun and that's a huge focus. The podcast is also a huge focus, growing that as well. So I'm still doing that. The community, I'm growing that very, very strategically, very slowly, because we have a very great intimate. Way that we currently function, and I don't wanna lose that. So it's not about opening the floodgates there. And then to answer your question more directly, I believe, since it's popped into my head like four times now, I have a fiction bug.

Natasha Miller: 00:26:28

Oh, that is not what I expected, but I can only imagine. Do you wanna say anything more to that, or do you just wanna put that out there?

Aliza Licht: 00:26:36

So, I am what is called stream of consciousness writer, so it's gonna come down to, maybe one of these days, I'm just gonna have downtime to open my laptop and just start writing. And I know you have to finish the whole manuscript to pitch it to editors, and that's daunting. And that seems like impossible, but-

Natasha Miller: 00:27:00

You might not need to. It depends on where you are in the world and you can get a good framework and then hook somebody. You can do it. I know you can.

Aliza Licht: 00:27:09

Wow, thank you. Yeah. So anyway, I don't have an idea yet necessarily, but. It's percolating around in my brain. It just keeps on popping up. You know, they say that where your mind wanders, you should pay attention to that. I find my mind wandering to that.

Natasha Miller: 00:27:26

That's lovely. That's good. I can't wait for that. I wanna thank you for how you show up on social media and in the world, because even when you're talking about challenging things and people making mistakes and people maybe not being aligned with their brand, you don't do it in a way that is so negative. I see a lot of people in social media, they say, "take a stance", "choose the black or white". And I think the maturity and the wisdom that you have is something that I wish a lot of people would follow. I think some people with a big following have taken the let's skewer and be negative and take people down maybe even in humor. And so I personally just wanna thank you for keeping it professional and something for. People to follow and achieve after. So-

Aliza Licht: 00:28:19

Thank you that, that no one's ever said that to me. I really appreciate that. That was really amazing to hear. I think. Well, maturity, yes. I'm heading towards that five oh number, so there's that.

Natasha Miller: 00:28:30

It's the best.

Aliza Licht: 00:28:31

I definitely have.

Natasha Miller: 00:28:31

It's the best. It's the best. Don't worry about it. It just gets,

Aliza Licht: 00:28:34

I'm not worried. Not worried. Maturity check. But I think brand guardrails is really what I wanna say because that is part of, that's part of the mental gymnastics exercises in On Brand, understanding where you have permission to play and how you wanna show up in those areas. And I think that having a mental filter on your guardrails and where they begin and end will keep anyone in line in any medium that they're going into. So, for example, the Budweiser scandal. I was asked to go on TV for that. And I did my mental filter check and I said, "You know what? I don't know enough about this brand. I don't follow this brand. This is not my topic, my area of expertise." And I passed. So the idea that you don't have to; one, show up to every fight you're invited to, and two, speak about every single topic. The assumption is, That you are highly informed about what you are speaking on, and if you're not, get informed before you talk about it. For more information, go to the show notes where you're listening to this podcast. Want to know more about me, go to my website, NatashaMiller.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you loved the show. If you did, please subscribe. Also, if you haven't done so yet, please leave a review where you're listening to this podcast now. I'm Natasha Miller. And you've been listening to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS.