Hey everyone, Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
And in this personal branding guide for entrepreneurs, freelancers and influencers, you’re going
to learn a dead simple four step process for growing your personal brand, developing a
personal brand strategy, and when you stick around at the end, I’ll be sharing with
you a concrete case study of how you can take everything you’re about to learn and actually
use it to generate business, attract clients and customers.
Make sure you check out the links in the description to a timestamp table of contents, to skip
around this video, along with some other helpful videos and playlist to creating your content
and personal brand strategy.
So before we dive in to these big 4 steps, let’s go through three foundational keys
to success of personal branding.
And the very first one is understanding that you are the product.
As the freelancer, the entrepreneur business owner, or is the influencer.
It’s not the content you make, it’s not the post that you do, it’s not the services
or the products that you provide, it is you.
You are the product.
So, our definition of personal branding is personal branding is the process of building
a positive reputation of you as a person and skilled professional.
So in layman’s terms, we want people to know who you are, your authentic self, and
we want people to know that you’re really good at what you do.
Because people buy from people they know, like and trust.
Faking it till you make it is not going to build that essential element – trust.
That you need in order to build a strong and powerful personal brand.
Now, the second key to success is understanding that it’s all about real relationships.
The personal branding game is not a vanity metrics of how many followers, likes, subscribers,
or retweets and comments you get.
It’s about how many people who engage with your content and your brand, actually want
to come back and engage with your content and feel like your providing value to them.
So it’s definitely not a numbers game, it’s a quality game.
And the final third key to success before we dive in to those four steps of your brand
strategy is understanding that your unique self is a strength not a weakness.
And you’ll see this in step number one which is your why.
And to understand your why, we’ll be using simon synek’s golden circle.
If you’re not familiar with this that’s okay, we’ll go through what these are.
You could always check out his ted talk by searching on YouTube, Simon Sinek Golden Circle,
or just golden circle and it’ll pop up.
It has a few million views.
Now the first step to this is understanding that now that you know that you are the product
and your authentic self matters, we need to go through these three essential question
of: what, how and why.
And how these three circles are organized.
So let’s go ahead and walk through this an we’ll go through each circle with some
concrete examples at the end.
So the first circle we have is what.
This is the general explanation of the products and services you offer as a entrepreneur or
freelancer.
Now, as a influencer, this would be your specific topic that you talk about in your content.
So this could be your travel vlog, or if you’re doing fitness, or if you’re doing cooking,
that would be your what as an influencer versus freelancer and entrepreneur, your what is
the actual service or actual product or you’re selling sneakers, or you a services business,
you’re doing design work, whatever that is, that is your actual what.
Then the next level is the how, and the how is your unique edge.
What makes you different than all other freelancers or influencers that are doing the same what
as you.
Now it’s important that we’re talking about different, not necessarily better.
You see when it comes to personal branding, there are a lot of people who do the exact
same what.
Offer the exact same service, talk the about the exact same things in their content, or
trying to build the exact same type of influencer status.
What makes you unique and different is your own life experiences, passions and skills.
So here, you want to define how are you going to approach things differently?
How are you going to communicate differently than anyone else?
Now the good news is this is just a self-awareness exercise, you’re not having to come up with
anything new, this is just turning your perception back on yourself and saying: how do I view
the world differently?
How do I solve problems differently?
Communicate differently than everyone else?
This is just a self-awareness exercise, you don’t have to come up with anything new.
This is what’s so important about being authentic with your personal brand.
And the finally, we have the why.
And this is going to be the hardest one to do because chances are you’ve never had
to do an exercise like this before.
And this one is the big reason that you get up every morning and put in the long hours
of takes to perfect your craft or grow your brand.
So what’s the reason you want your personal brand to exist in the first place.
Now I know that this kinda seem a little nebulous kinda pie in the sky stuff.
So let’s break it down with an actual case study and I will use this youtube channel
as a concrete example.
So first we have the what, and the what is, I will lift others to financial autonomy by
posting free YouTube videos weekly and offering free templates for download.
That’s it.
What, what am I physically doing, I’m making valuable YouTube content or content I think
is valuable, right?
And then I’m providing free templates in order to help entrepreneurs, freelancers,
and influencers like yourself.
That’s pretty much it, pretty simple right?
Okay.
So the next place we have is the how, how are we going to do this?
Well for how, I will relentlessly document the process of what it takes to turn a passion
or skill into a full time business.
Now my unique twist on the type of content that I make is it’s very documented and
list formatted.
You’ll notice in this video, I’m talking about steps.
Pretty much every content video I do is either a list or a series of steps because that’s
just how my brain works.
While some, there’s a lot of more successful or larger entrepreneur YouTube channels, their
focused more on the success and lifestyle aspect of it.
That’s not really me, I’d rather be a little more boring and a lot more practical
and hands on with whatever I’m talking about or with whatever I’m teaching.
And so that just my unique edge being very process oriented, very documented.
It’s a lot more boring than the you know the cool videos with the Lamborghinis, or
working on the beach, or travelling around the world.
But that’s not who I am, that’s not my personal brand.
And so I have to stay authentic to myself, just like you need to stay authentic to yourself
and wherever, wherever you are in your journey.
And finally we have the why, and my why is, every individual has the capacity to control
their financial future.
And this is my big why for the channel because I’m focused on people who are hardworking,
they have a vision, they have a passion, they have a skill that they want to bring to life.
And my job is to document all the silly little processes that it takes to be successful as
a business owner, freelancer, entrepreneur and deliver those for free.
And so that’s my big why and that one little sentence that took months to develop.
Like this doesn’t happen overnight, that took month to develop is the driving force
behind the how, which is you know documenting the process, and the what, which is creating
YouTube videos and free templates in the aspire notebook.
So I hope that this example helps you figure out or at least gives you a little bit of
insight on how to come up with answering these four?
questions.
I know it can feel like pie in the sky, but I guarantee you, once you have these down
you’ll have a tremendous amount of clarity in the type of content you want and who you
want to target, which is the next step – who.
Because a brand that tries to speak with everyone winds up connecting with no one.
Remember, our second key to success was focusing on the relationships that we’re building
not just vanity metrics of how many people we reach or brand awareness.
We want real connections.
And to do that, we need to be very cognizant of we’re trying to connect with.
So with your personal brand, are you trying to connect with potential clients, are you
just trying to grow a audience or fan base, are you trying to connect with potential mentors
or employers.
And this could actually change overtime which I’ll get to in the next section.
And it’s okay if you’re not quite sure yet.
But it is important to just choose at least one or two people that you have in your mind.
There’s a link in the description to a customer avatar tutorial to show you how to put together
a profile of who to talk to with your content.
But for now, just with your who, just think about who you actually want to connect with
because that’s going to drive our next step, which is the medium and content.
So when it comes to your medium which is gonna be step number three, this is where we’re
actually gonna start talking about creating content and there are three main ways to communicate:
written, voice and video.
Now, I recommend doing content either that’s around a video or around voice because that
has you actually talking.
And the best way to actually connect and build a relationship with someone is if they hear
your actual voice, they hear your tone, they hear your inflections, and obviously video’s
the best.
But not everyone wants to do video and that’s okay.
If you don’t wanna do video, that fine.
I highly recommend checking out podcasting if you’re not someone who wants to jump
in front of the camera, and if you are a really great writer, you really like writing which
I hardly find anyone who actually really enjoys writing.
But if that’s, if that’s you, then great.
You can go ahead and do writing and then focus on that and just be aware of the limitations
that only writing and not having any sort of audio media has.
And so that’s number three, choosing your medium.
And finally, number four, we have the content and this is where you’re going to create
really strong thought leadership pieces to connect with whoever you’re trying to connect
with that you identified in step number two.
And then also position you as someone who knows what they are talking about.
Now what’s great is through this thought leadership pieces, you’re going to be able
to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about.
And that’s the quickest way to actually build trust with the potential client or a
potential fan or potential employer, by just showing people hey I actually know what I’m
talking about and I know what I’m doing.
If you don’t know yet, I’m actually gonna show you in the case study, exactly how to
go about doing this if you feel like you don’t have the experience or knowledge yet.
But what’s very important here is that you focus on creating pieces that are very informative,
and demonstrate that you know your stuff, you know what you’re talking about, and
you do it in your own voice.
Definitely don’t try and be, don’t try and do corporate speak, just speak in your
normal vernacular with your normal tones, and you are going to be able to connect with
the right audience.
Again, it’s all about authenticity, it could be the exact same thing, information as twenty
other blog post or fifteen other podcast.
But because you’re delivering the information, and your unique how, it’s going to be different
and connect with a different set of people.
Now thank you so much for watching, if you got some value out of this video and you’re
still watching, hit that like button because now it’s time to go into the case study.
Now this case study is an example of thought leadership.
If you’re not quite sure how to put together your content, check out the link in the description
to a full content marketing strategy playlist.
it is the second playlist linked in the description.
Now when I first started my youtube channel, I was focused on getting, building an audience
of fellow entrepreneurs who are going through the same struggles as I was.
I wasn’t necessarily trying to get clients and so a hundred percent of my content was
all about that.
Later on down the road when I’m trying, to started to grow my agency, I started to
do more like 80 to 20.
Eighty percent for entrepreneurs and 20 percent for small business owners who might actually
wanna reach out and do business with me.
This case study is an example of one of those 20 percent, and this is youtube advertising.
So looking at the digital marketing space, there are a lot of people who do Google Ads,
and there are a lot of people who are very good at Google Ads.
But, when I was looking in the marketplaces, I saw there weren’t a lot of people talking
about Youtube Ads.
Now, I personally knew nothing about youtube ads.
So, what did I do?
It took about three thousand dollars in six months, now you don’t have to spend this
much, right?
This is just an example, but over six months and a little over three thousand dollars,
I tested youtube ads.
I figured out what worked, what didn’t.
I trial and error, I destroy a lot of my videos organically on this channel, and I tested
different messaging, I tested different placements, the whole nine yards.
It took a really long time.
But after that six months, I found that I was in a experienced bracket that allowed
me to create a monster youtube advertising thought leadership piece.
So I made this really long comprehensive youtube advertising tutorial where I walk people from
I don’t know what youtube advertising is to oh my gosh I have everything I need to
set up and run my first campaign.
Because I was able to actually deliver results and show that hey I’m getting leads for
less than five dollars per conversion.
That gave me a tremendous amount of clout and authority when I was telling people how
to set up their youtube ads.
And this one video, took forever to put by the way, this one youtube video has generated
over ten consultation calls and actually has resulted in two clients.
And these are people who are reaching out to me, called they don’t know what youtube
ads are.
They go to youtube, they watch this crazy comprehensive video and they go, oh my gosh
who’s this Jason nerd?
We should probably reach out to him and see if he does youtube advertising for businesses.
Now I say two out of ten right?
So there are a lot of people who didn’t wind up business with me, but this is how
thought leadership works.
This is how your personal brand is eventually going to bring people in.
I wouldn’t have that kind of result if I just make a five minute youtube video about
hey this is why you should do youtube advertising.
Thought leadership pieces do need to be very in depth and comprehensive, and you know what?
Ninety five percent are, actually more like ninety nine percent of the people who engage
with your thought leadership pieces, they’re never going to contact you.
They’ll just go do it themselves.
But it’s that one percent, that actually wanna pick up the phone and say hey I’d
like you to do this.
And these sales calls are likely going to be a lot more pleasant and enjoyable simple
because they’re already used to your voice and most importantly, you’ve demonstrated
your value.
And you’ve built your brand even with those people that didn’t call you this time.
They’ll see that you continue to create great content, you continue to be genuine
and authentic.
Be it your content and your vlogs and your post and/or your blog post, and eventually,
they’ll either reach out or they refer someone to you that will actually do business with
you.
So thank you so much for watching, I hope you got some value out of this video.
If you did, go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe for more in depth marketing
tactics and strategies, just like the ones covered in this video.
Comment below if you have any questions, and as always, keep building the business you
love.