Turn Your Expertise Into Opportunity

In this episode of The Human ROI, I sit down with Melanie Borden, Founder of Borden Group and creator of the Human to Brand Movement, to unpack one of the biggest missed opportunities in today’s career landscape: visibility.

Melanie has helped hundreds of executives, founders, and organizations translate their expertise into powerful digital presence and real business outcomes. Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal, and in this conversation, she breaks down what’s really holding leaders back from showing up.

We get into the psychology behind visibility, why even the most accomplished professionals hesitate to put themselves out there, and how to reframe personal brand from performance to service.

We also explore:
 • Why doing great work is no longer enough on its own
 • How to reframe visibility from performance to service
 • What “building in public” looks like in practice
 • The difference between attention, influence, and real business impact
 • How to use AI as a tool without losing your voice
 • Simple ways to start showing up this week, even if you don’t feel ready 

Melanie shares practical, no-fluff ways to get started this week, plus how to scale your presence through community, partnerships, and consistent storytelling.

If you’ve ever thought, “I know I have more to say, but I’m not putting it out there yet,” this episode is your nudge.

🔗 EXPLORE MORE

Connect with Melanie Borden
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieborden/
→ Website: https://humantobrand.com
→ Book: Theater of the Mind  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G53YGT9V

Connect with Elissa Mahendra
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
→ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
→ The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Human ROI podcast, where we explore how leadership, culture, and talent actually drive enterprise value and what it means for your career. My name is Elisa Mahendra, Human Capital Strategist and creator of the Human ROI Framework. In each episode, I sit down with leaders, operators, and change makers shaping the future of work and to unpack how value is really created inside organizations and how you can capture more of it in your own career. Let's get into the value. Welcome to this episode of the Human ROI. Today's guest is someone who has built a reputation for helping leaders turn expertise into visibility and influence in the digital world. Melanie Borden is the founder of Borden Group and the creator of Human to brand. She works with founders, executives, organizations to help them translate their expertise into powerful online presence, thought leadership, particularly on LinkedIn. Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, and is also a member of the Fords Agency Council. What I appreciate, Melanie, about your approach is that you're not just chasing the algorithms, you're really helping leaders step into their authority, communicate their expertise in a way that builds their personal brand and has real business outcomes and ROI. So we're going to talk a little bit about the psychology behind visibility, why so many leaders struggle with showing up publicly and how personal brand translates into real business outcomes. So, Melanie, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Of course, I wanted to start because I think it's an interesting story. Read one of your LinkedIn posts maybe from about a year ago now, and you talked about, we've all grown up with this notion of do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, follow your passion. And you did, but you found that an interesting thing that you also needed to follow the market and how that transformed your niche and your focus area in your own business. So can you talk a little bit about how that was born?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, absolutely. So during the pandemic, I was working for someone else, and I was watching everyone around me getting laid off. Everyone that I worked with, I fortunately did not lose my job, but I watched a lot of people lose their roles. And some people that I know of still haven't really made their comeback yet, and they're still kind of still picking up those pieces. But I've worked in sales and marketing my whole life, my whole career. That's really where I've always lived and been. At one point in 2015, I did try to go off on my own to become an entrepreneur, and it just was not great timing. My kids were babies at the time, and it just wasn't, like I said, good timings. Flash forward to 2020, and I'm seeing that there's other forces, if you will, at play. And I it made me take a deeper look at where I am in my career and how I've really future-proofed myself. And I had not done a great job of it. I've actually done a really crappy job of it at that time. And I had been working, like I said, in marketing, working for other people, helping them with their brands. And I never wanted to be an influencer or monetize anything online, but I really wanted to be able to put myself out there and have the opportunities come to me in case another pandemic happened in the future. And that's exactly what I started doing. And I started putting myself out there in a way in a time when not a lot of people were thinking about LinkedIn like they would think about X or Facebook or Instagram. And one thing led to another. And what started happening, even though I was working as a VP of marketing for someone else, I ended up going to a different company within that same vertical as a VP of marketing. And then I just kept growing and people started coming to me and saying to me, Can you help me do for me what you did for yourself? And at first I thought, well, why would they be wanting me to do this for them? Do they know how much work this is? And then it just kind of snowballed and it really became something that even though it wasn't necessarily something that I wanted to do when I grew up, it was something that became very obvious to me that why would I say no? And it's really what led me to start my own business because it was just so glaringly obvious to me that there was something there with personal brand, with leadership visibility. And I, you know, I put my finger on it essentially and just really ran with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

I love that. And I know that you worked with hundreds of individuals and businesses and executives to do just that, to think about how are they showing up online, how are they showing up on LinkedIn? But people still have this fear of being visible. What's behind all that? I mean, these are very accomplished executives who are very proud to show off the resume and to show off the accomplishments, yet are not willing to show up for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah. So I think the real fear behind all of it is being misunderstood or being judged publicly. And the way that I explain it to a lot of people, and I incorporate this when I'm talking to a group of people, is if you were born with a 19 in your birth year, you weren't inherently born with this ability to promote yourself online because it wasn't a thing. It didn't exist. And so it's a muscle that you learn to flex like anything else. If you're training for a marathon, you have to run a certain amount of miles every week. It's the same thing with putting yourself out there. You just have to do the thing in order to move fear through the sphere of being judged for being visible. And I don't think that people are afraid of sharing their ideas. I think they're afraid of saying something wrong and it being out there and then that living forever in, you know, in the ether of them saying the wrong thing or upsetting someone on their team or someone on their board, or maybe they have a startup and they're pre-seed and they're hoping to get funding and they're afraid if they say the wrong thing, they're not going to get the investment that they hoped. There's a million different examples like that. But I think when it just comes down to it is people are just afraid of saying and doing the wrong thing and not having control.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

And I think it's interesting because I think certainly if you're representing a brand that isn't your own, there's a higher level of scrutiny. And I think by nature, we're all conditioned to fear judgment. What will people think of me? What will people say of me and are not willing to have that conviction? What I love, and I'll just uh, you know, brag a little bit about your book. You can see all my flags here, is called Theater of the Mind. And one of the first things that I flagged is this idea of building in public. And I thought, ooh, you know, that is an interesting strategy because to your point, people fear that judgment. And as you're building, you may not fully have everything figured out yet. You don't necessarily have your point of view articulated well. So, how do you get people started in building in public?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So, one of the biggest, I would say, pieces pieces of advice that I would give to someone is to reframe visibility instead of a performance, it's a service. And when you can flip that switch mentally to I'm not putting on this show for everyone and for the algorithm. What I'm doing is I'm bringing to market an idea that's not just something that I've lived through, that I've worked through, that I can help others with as well. I can also teach you this, and then you in turn are inspired by me, and then you take that next leap to do that next thing. So I think the biggest thing is just your mental state of mind of who you are. And a lot of times also when it comes to building in public, nothing is going to be perfect. So when it comes to building in public, we always see the after. And the after is not a realistic representation of what someone started with because not everybody has a team of five or six people that's executing on all their content. And a lot of times when we start posting, if we have a startup or if we just launched a new business and we are doing this build in public and documenting what we're doing, we hold ourselves to this crazy standard that isn't necessarily realistic. And I think the best way to get started is just how you think about it and the way that you will frame it in your mind.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

And I love that. And I think about we aspire to be the polished influencer when you're getting out there and you're looking at wow, this person has 200,000 followers on LinkedIn, this person has 100,000 followers on LinkedIn. But if you have followed the person along the way, you can see the early days and what it has has grown into. I think also what I've observed is there is power in the authenticity. People like the polish, but they appreciate the authenticity, is how I think about it. And you mentioned it starts in the mind. And I'm intrigued because the book title is Theater of the Mind, and you talked about not performing. So can we dig into that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, of course. Of course. So when I first heard the expression theater of the mind, I was working in the auto industry. And the way that it was introduced to me was dealing with the public and dealing with customers and their interactions with you in the showroom and that you have the ability to change someone's experience based on how you act, based on how you're presenting yourself. And the original meaning of theater of the mind came from radio in the 1930s when people used to sit around a radio and listen to a Western or listen to a drama and they would have to imagine it. And so I had this idea in my head for a long time of theater of the mind when it comes to your personal brand, because how we feel about ourselves is very different than how others view us. And you can really create the narrative that you want, or you can allow others to create it for you based on what they see. And so the concept of theater of the mind just really to me is something that everyone has the ability to make a change on their forward-facing brand and how they approach things. And when it comes down to it, no one is thinking about ourselves as much as we are. No one is thinking about how we look as much as we think, what we're wearing, the post that we're writing, that we're re-editing and rewriting and rewriting. All of those things are ultimately in our heads.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, yeah. And so as we get out of our heads, right? You mentioned small things, just like building muscle, just like running marathons, do the thing and others things will follow. So if someone is out there thinking about, I'd really love to be more out front with my perspective, with my expertise, and be more visible, but I don't yet feel the confidence. How can they get started?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

That's such a great question. So, number one, I would find other people. If you're talking specifically about LinkedIn or if you're talking about Instagram, find the people that you follow whose content resonates with you. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to say the same things as them or write the same way as them or look the same way as them, but you might like their style and their perspective. So find people and follow those people. That would be my step one. Then step two is really reimagine where you want to go in your career. If it is a career-minded move, or maybe you are great in your career and you're just hoping to continue to climb where you are. Make sure that you're leveraging all the assets available that you have access to on your LinkedIn profile, as an example. Because every time you make an adjustment or make a change on your profile, you're sending a signal to the algorithm that you are using the platform and that you're relevant. And as of January, LinkedIn after Reddit is the second place that these large language models are looking for information when someone is doing a search. So you want to make sure that your content is showing up if you are on LinkedIn and you are relevant, meaning you are active, because that's all you really have to do to be relevant with the platform, be active and to start there. But finding those people, I think, is the number one thing. And then I'll I'll close that with lastly, there's a lot of people who get ideas, for example, when they're not at work and they're not at their computer. Take your phone, if you have your phone on you, or if you're somewhere you don't have a phone, and just write it down. Send yourself a text message or a voice memo and get those ideas down, even if it's in the middle of the night, and start your own folder, whether it's on your computer or on your phone, where you have these notes available to you that you could actually use in the future. And that's some of the best content that comes out is when you're not thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm smirking because oftentimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning, and my brain has been very active. So that's why must be why I feel so tired. And now affectionately call them nightstand notes because I write them down on the nightstand and then they make it over to my desk at some point. But often inspiration strikes at not the time we're sitting at our desk in front of a screen. Yeah. So visibility matters, but to an end. So you mentioned, is it in line with your goals? I think I referenced earlier a post that I read of yours that said, or is it in service of what others need? And this show is called the Human ROI. So we're looking at careers, culture, enterprise value, how these things are building enterprise value. And it starts with brand, which is why I was so excited to speak with you. As you think about human ROI and visibility, what is the connection between the two?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

I think the human ROI is the return that's created when your experiences become visible and trusted. Because most people already have decades of that expertise and of insight. And the problem that I usually see is that the market can't see it. People assume that if you have this experience, that automatically people are gonna know. They do not know. They will not know unless you are out there. So when you translate what you know into ideas, people can then understand and apply. And then opportunities happen faster. The right people want to work with you. Your credibility scales. And to me, that's human ROI. So it's your experience when it becomes visible and trusted.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah, that's great. And I think you gave some really good examples of as an aside, I'm really shocked at how many professionals don't have a LinkedIn profile. And so, again, they may have other platforms that they're on. And we're talking mostly about LinkedIn now, but you've given some really concrete examples of how to get started. Those three things you mentioned follow other people, really understand what you're after, be present. But how do you scale visibility? So you just mentioned scale because you know you're talking to people and you're coaching people in your practice to get to the 50,000, the 100,000, which is a very, very small percentage of LinkedIn users. So, what are those different strategies once you're active and you're posting and you're visible to really scale it to a larger degree?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Well, one of the ways that someone can scale their presence is by community. And what I mean by that is one of the ways that I have found in my own journey of growing a larger presence on the LinkedIn platform is to really tap into number one, going on podcasts and being a part of somebody else's community. Um, in addition to that, I've also partnered with other individuals as well who creating business opportunities where we're sharing our networks by doing that as involved. So a lot of times when you see somebody who has a large presence, most of the time on LinkedIn, it's not because they purchase that following, because LinkedIn has a pretty strict policy with bots and they're on top of everything when it comes to third parties and any extensions that you might have or giving any access to your profile. So a lot of times what I see is yes, there's a lot of growth strategies and there's growth hacking that can be done to grow yourself. Something that comes up a lot of times when I'm working with someone, when we're executing content and strategy and engagement for our clients, something that always comes up is I'm not getting the visibility I want. I'm not getting what you get, and I want that. And what I tell my clients and what I'll share with you and your listeners is my intention was never to become an influencer. And I don't recommend that anyone starts this process with that intention in mind because it's honestly a race to the bottom. Because what will happen, truthfully, is if you're so focused on the metrics, the engagement metrics, the ones that you can see in a dashboard, that's all you're gonna get. You're only gonna get the metrics that you see in a dashboard. And there are so many other KPIs or K performance indicators that someone can see beyond a dashboard that someone like myself who is fully immersed in this process where you can have a smaller network with smaller engagement on your content, and you might be able to convert that into a six-figure contract where someone who might have 300,000 followers who gets 2,000 pieces of engagement on each post is struggling to even convert it into a meeting. So it really depends on what your goals are. There are people when their goals are like my goal is to have 100,000 followers and to get brand deals. That is my purpose in life, and that is a valid purpose to have, but it's usually not the type of clients that I engage with or interact with because, like I mentioned, a lot of times it's a race to the bottom when it comes to just measuring based on those metrics only.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

What I'm hearing is it's quality over quantity. I want to dig into something you just mentioned because you said and it makes me feel better about the platform, and I'm an avid LinkedIn user, is they're really protective over third party and bots and things like that. And we are in a AI saturated world at the moment. But I'm finding that, I mean, I go on LinkedIn and I see people's post, and clearly it's written by AI. And some people do better than others with scrubbing it and making sure that it's still authentic. It's okay to use it to expand thinking and edit and things like that. But it's also interesting to me that some folks will copy your post, put it into LinkedIn so that they can respond to the quote, and it's just paraphrasing what you said. And I think, what world are we in at the moment that people have forgotten how to respond authentically? And I've seen the studies of the brain scans of what AI will do to your brain over time if you outsource your thinking and judgment. So it's a really slippery road, but you're talking about human to brand and the value of a human voice. And I think it's still there. And I think with all the AI that's happening now, people are yearning for that more authentic human voice. What are you seeing in that space?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

So it's interesting because I absolutely love AI and it's a big part of the work that I do now, and I leverage it every day. And I do laugh a little when I see when I post something, and then the comments are just my post and responding back to me in a different way. Yeah. So I see that and I see it a lot everywhere, not just in my own. But I think that at the end of the day, if someone's looking to differentiate themselves, they need to tell stories and they need to be a real person and they need to say, okay, if I'm gonna have to use AI because I need to be efficient in time and I just don't know what to say, use it as a thought partner, use it as an ideation tool, but don't use it to completely replace everything. Most people would be surprised to know that a lot of my content is written by AI and a lot of my images are AI. But I've just become a subject matter expert at using it. That if someone sees it, they might not necessarily think because it's something personal and because I'm responding to the comments, that they might not necessarily call it out. But, you know, I think that AI can summarize information as much as possible, but only the humans can create interpretation of the content. And our advantage is always going to be perspective, how you're going to connect ideas, how you're going to explain patterns, you know, how you're going to apply your experience. Your experience is the greatest strategic advantage that you have. And just to think about, you know, I'm sure at least every single one of your listeners can think of at Least one story in their career where they learn something. It could be a great story, it could be a sad story, it could be a happy story. It's a story and it's about something that you truly experience that AI can't recreate. AI can create a story, but it's not a real one. The real ones are the differentiator.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And it's not yours. So you mentioned, you know, everyone has a story. And if you think about that in everyone listening, I know that you have many tools in your toolkit and you've built out playbooks to help coach others in this space. So what could you give someone that leaders could walk away with this week? I know you've given lots of nuggets, but if you were to say this is one easy thing that everyone listening can do this week, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

So I would say once a week, share something that you learned from a decision that you made, something that's trending in your industry. You know, you could also check the LinkedIn news to see what's trending there, because a lot of times the editors will pick up content, especially if it's referencing one of their news stories or a problem that you've solved. Every single person that's listening can extrapolate their own content through one of those three things.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

I would be remiss if I didn't say there's lots of gems in your book as well. Thank you. So if someone's feeling stuck, or if someone's feeling like, okay, I've I've listened to Melanie, I've gotten all her tips, I've done the things, and I'm not seeing the momentum that I'd like. How do they grab your book? If they need one-on-one, how do they reach out to you? What's the best way to engage you?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

They can go to my LinkedIn, which is search up Melanie Boarded on LinkedIn. Amazon is where my book currently is. It comes in three different formats. It is also going to be available on anywhere books are sold. And my website is humintobrand.com, where you can, whether it's bulk order, hire us to do advisory work, or if you're looking to have someone provide services, we do all of the things that someone can imagine. It's ultimately, I think the book itself is my field work and my experiences that are real, that really happened, where someone can read that and say, okay, if I'm stuck right now, these are the things that I need to do to move myself through that. So, but I so appreciate asking for all those things.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, I think it's it's helpful to know that you're not alone, that someone else has gone before you, and that they will tell you where the potholes are in the road. Don't step there. That might not be a great feeling. So I always like to share that because I think the power of community, you mentioned the power of partnerships, partnering with other people, I think is so important on this journey that we're all on. And so I really appreciate your time today and sharing your expertise with us. I think that as we were talking, it really became clear to me that personal brand and visibility is part of the human ROI equation. So I really appreciate it. And thank you for joining us. Thanks so much. If this episode made you think differently about how value is created inside organizations and the return you're getting on your career, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe wherever you listen, follow along on our LinkedIn newsletter, and leave a review if it resonated. Thanks for investing your time. And until next time, keep investing in what creates real value.