- Hey, everybody, this is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com
helping you create something awesome today.
So today, we're gonna talk about personal branding
and we're gonna talk about whether you use your actual name
or you come up with a new brand name or a company name
for your brand and why I think the real answer
is that maybe you do both.
So one of the things I decided to do early on
was I decided to brand myself around my name, Roberto Blake.
There are a lot of reasons that I did this.
One, I definitely wanted to establish who I am
before I decided that I wanted to establish a company
because from my point of view
what I wanted is I wanted people to be invested in me
and then support anything that I do and that I spinoff
whether it's this YouTube channel,
whether it's another business,
whether it's a online magazine, whether it's a podcast.
I want people who are personally invested in me,
respect me as a subject matter expert,
respect what I'm doing to also invest in anything else
that I do moving forward.
Some people do this the other way.
A lot of people wanna put the business first.
They wanna disassociate themselves from it
and that's fine too.
There are a lot of people who don't want things
tied to them for a very specific reason
and would rather have it under the moniker of the business
and they'd be the operator behind the scenes.
It's a matter of what your comfort level is
and what your objective is.
I know that we all have a personal brand that matters
and that reputation matters
and I wanted to leverage my reputation and my experience
in my favor down the road for the long game
so I wanted to really build that thoroughly first.
I also wanted the ability to use that
to be able to work with other businesses
and companies in the future on my name and reputation
and just be a Google search away.
That was something that I felt would be very important
in the long term.
It's worked out very well for me
and so I established that personal brand.
Now, on the other hand,
building out companies and other brands and other things
such as what I'm doing with the podcast,
what I'm doing with other things in social media,
plans that I have later,
about maybe two years down the road for an online magazine,
spinoff channels that are super microniche channels
that I plan to launch but not be the face of.
Those things are things that will benefit
from my personal brand and my reputation in the future
but if it wasn't that I was going to do that
then I would go another way.
If I was the kinda person
that had a lot of people working behind the scenes
instead of being a one man band
then maybe I would do it in a different way.
It really just depends on what your circumstances
and what your situation is.
The reason that I think that both are valuable
is because they tend to be.
We care about people a lot more than we care about a logo.
It's become more important as time goes on
for me to put my face out there
and for people to react and resonate with a human being
and get comfortable with me as an individual
than a logo or a monogram
and so I think that that's the direction
that things are heading.
I think that social media and video marketing
and live streaming and all of these things
are pushing us in that direction
to where we're much more comfortable with people
than we are with logos and brand names.
It's not to say that those things aren't valuable
and that as you scale, they aren't important.
They are but I think in combination
that they work better together than they do individually
but again, that's my perspective and opinion on it.
In terms of coming up with a name,
I know it's something a lot of you struggle with.
The thing is I think about the naming conventions of things
based on what you wanna be associated with,
what your taglines or catchphrases are,
what you've already associated with your brand
if you're a personal brand.
I mean, that's where I derive it from
but you can do the opposite.
You could come up with a company name
and then incorporate that into your regular language
that you use as an individual.
Some people do that.
So I just think it comes down to
what best fits your circumstances, your personality,
the way you think, the way you communicate
and what you think is gonna resonate most
with your target audience.
My goal and objective is to educate and motive people
and I know to do that, you have to be a motivational figure.
You also have to be an effective teacher.
You have to be clear and concise with your information
but you also have to be a little bit entertaining and funny
and I find that I do that better being laid-back
and very open with people and very relaxed and calm
than if I were to try to present
in a much more buttoned up fashion.
It's just not something that is comfortable for me.
I can be confident and I can present well enough
and I've done it in my corporate life
but it's not something that I enjoy as much
and my passion translates a lot more
when I'm being direct and personable with people.
So again, you just gotta find your fit,
find your groove and let it work for you.
Don't try to go against the grain of who you actually are
or what you think is appropriate
in the context of what you're doing.
Make what you do naturally work for you
instead of against you.
At least, that's my advice.
Anyway, if you still have questions,
leave those in the comment section.
If you enjoyed this video and you found it helpful,
I give advice like this all the time each and every week
in the Create Awesome Community Newsletter.
So you can sign up for that at robertoblake.com/newsletter.
Link is in the description and in the annotation.
Also, you'll get my free eBook,
The Seven Points of Personal Branding mini guide.
Might actually help you in defining your personal brand
and figuring out your communication strategy
so definitely check that out.
Also, there are a ton of resources in the description
and a lot of this stuff is free so don't overlook that.
Anyway, like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content on the channel.
As always, you guys, thanks so much for watching
and don't forget, create something awesome today.