Personal Brand
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Right now, you’re in one of two buckets. You don’t have a personal brand yet, or you do, but it’s not making you nearly as much money as it should. In my case, I’ve built a brand to over 10 million followers across all platforms. It has led to things like getting paid 100K for a single keynote, appearing on some of the top podcasts in the world, and helping generate over 100 million in revenue for my companies. Most importantly, the thing I’m most proud of is the chance to help millions of people build a business they don’t grow to hate.
I want that for you, too. This post walks through the five steps of building a personal brand that can bring the opportunities you’ve dreamed of into your life. But first, we need to understand what we’re building.
Understand What We’re Building
Step One
What is a brand? Think about it like this. A brand is nothing more than association. You have an object and you have association. You have Nike and you have athletes. You have Ferrari and you have luxury. A personal brand adds a person into it. So what do people think about when they hear your name? If you think of Elon Musk, you probably think space. You probably think rich. You probably think controversial. You probably think X or Twitter. If you think of MrBeast, you probably think YouTube, huge subscriber numbers, big smile, high energy. What topics do you want to be associated with?
When you think of people, who do you want to be associated with? When you think of products or hobbies, what do you want to be associated with? For me, it’s the blue shirt, it’s AI, it’s time. It’s the things I talk about.
The Old Model
The old model was essentially that you build a monetization engine first and then you build an audience. You figure out what you want to sell and then you go create ads. That’s gone. That’s not the world we live in.
The New Model
The new model is you build an audience, you build community, you build attention, and then you monetize only if you’ve built trust. The audience is the asset. It’s the new oil. That’s why so many people are doubling down and going pro on their personal brand, because the benefit can be massive. Back in the day, it used to be who you know. Today it’s who knows you. You get talked about in a room you’re not even in because you created content to help people. MrBeast was reportedly offered a billion dollars for his YouTube channel about five years ago. Kylie Jenner used her social media to build a makeup brand that reportedly sold for $600 million.
When I look at the big moments in my life, like speaking at Tony Robbins, meeting my idols like John Maxwell, and doing top podcasts like Modern Wisdom and Lewis Howes, they all came on the backside of building a brand. And a brand is nothing more than the feeling and association somebody has when they hear your name. So don’t just build a business, build a brand. If you want to be a millionaire, you can build a business. If you want to be a billionaire, you’ll likely need to build a brand. Now we understand the concept of a personal brand, but how do we actually build one?
Stop Talking to Everyone
Step Two
My friend Jen said it best the other day. She said, “If you don’t have a controversial take or an unpopular opinion when you speak, then you’re not repelling the people you don’t want, and you’re not attracting the people you do want.” If you try to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one. You sound vanilla. There’s no spice to your communication. It’s not about screaming at the crowd or being Mr. Funny Pants. It’s about having an opinion. It’s about being you.
If you’re quiet and chill and you just want to sit there and bake goods and record yourself doing that, do it. But if you want to bring the energy and show your lifestyle and be a streamer like IShowSpeed, it’s wild how much attention you can get that way. Again, it comes back to association and brand. The whole point is to talk to a specific person. What are their opinions on life? What do they want to learn about? That is your ideal audience. And if you’re trying to make money at some point, speak to people who have a problem you can help them with.
Three Questions
To figure out what you can share to really connect with the audience you want to attract, ask yourself these three questions.
First Question
What’s the toughest thing you’ve ever gone through in your life? The most powerful thing you have is often the most challenging thing you’ve been through. Your job is to help people avoid that pain. That is why people communicate. The bigger the monster, the bigger the hero. Don’t shy away from that.
Second Question
What’s wrong with the world and how do you want to fix it? Where is the problem? How do you see it? And what do you think the fix is? My buddy Ronnie says it best. What’s a specific, observable, and nuanced challenge that this specific customer has around this problem? Talk to that, and your audience will feel like you’ve got a hidden camera in their office.
Third Question
What do you like talking about? When I think about the perfect mix, it’s what the market wants to hear, because there’s an audience, and what I love to talk about. I happen to love talking about AI because I’m a technology guy. I also love talking about buying back your time, and people show up. I have 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube, which is crazy to me. But it showed up because I chose to talk about the things I love. If you take those three questions, your answers should hint at who you want to help, how you want to help them, the things you want to create, and the content you want to help them with.
One Sentence
Write down this one sentence: I help [specific type of person] do [desired outcome] without [the pain they’re dealing with right now]. The worst thing that ever happened to you is your mess, and often your mess is the most powerful message you have. Pain in your world is the perfect teacher. If you don’t share that emotion, you can’t get people to take motion. No emotion, no motion. If you want people to sign up, follow, lean in, and leave a comment, they’ve got to feel you. If they think you’re talking to everybody and you’re playing it vanilla, don’t be upset when you get no engagement.
Content Playbook
If you already have a brand but are struggling to create good content, I have a full content playbook that covers everything, including how to build your brand voice and the frameworks for making your content go viral. Okay, we’ve built the plan for finding the audience you want to serve. The next question is, what’s the first real step to building?
Don’t Think
Step Three
Turn off the frontal lobe. Sometimes we convince ourselves out of doing something. Just post. You’ll never feel ready, so just start. Your first 100 posts will probably suck. Accept it and learn from it. I consider them the first 100 throwaways. Run as fast as you can: video, post, video, post, and ask yourself what you can improve each time. Slow it down. Speed it up. Be clear. Is there a call to action? Am I making this about them or about me? It’s all about the reps.
I was bad at being on camera when I first started. You see me today, but you didn’t see me 11 years ago. I was nervous. I couldn’t talk to the camera and I’d get red in the face. But I figured that if I learned to communicate on camera and stopped making a big deal of the little red recording light, I’d get better over time. Now I can shoot almost any video in one take. I can stop and think a little, and that’s okay. I can breathe and keep going. The actions compound. Zig Ziglar said it best: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.”
First, Pick a Platform
Here’s what to do today. Pick one platform. If you’re asking for my suggestion, go all in on Instagram. Publish two reels a day and just start and post. Start and post. Start and post. Don’t worry about your feed.
Second, Set a Posting Schedule
Decide on a posting schedule. If you’re asking what a pro does, it’s twice a day. If you can only do one a day, that would still be great. Pick a schedule that makes you slightly uncomfortable, one that feels like a bit of a stretch, and stay consistent for a long period of time. I like to think in years, not months or weeks.
Third, Hit Record
Pull out your phone and hit record right now. Just start talking. Say something like, “I’m watching a post, and Dan just said I’ve got to hit record and publish this thing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, but that’s okay.” Then post it. If you feel compelled by this, shoot a video and post it too. The trick is to publish. That’s about 80% of the problem.
Fourth, Learn
Study the content. What worked in the past? Do more of it. What didn’t? Stop doing that. Go see what other people are doing and learn from them. Look at what my videos are doing and learn from me.
Go Live for 30 Days
Here’s where I’m going to challenge you. My friend Jen has gone live every day for four years straight. I want you to go live on whatever platform you want, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, for 30 days. Turn your phone on, hit live, and talk. The cool part is you can delete the live as soon as you’re done. Just record yourself talking to the people and sharing an idea. You never know what’s going to work, so you have to commit to the time. For the next 30 days, go live every day. Talk to your audience, even if there are only two people there, and practice, practice, practice.
Now you understand the personal brand side. You know how to find your ideal audience and you’ve started posting. But posting isn’t enough, and this next part is where a lot of people mess everything up.
Don’t Be a Sellout
Step Four
A lot of people post, get a little bit of views, and want to squeeze every penny out of their community. That’s being a sellout. It’s like NASCAR, with sponsors on everything. They sell stuff they don’t even use themselves and prioritize making money over building trust with the audience. Once you lose that trust, nobody’s going to pay you to get in front of that audience. If you have the trust, companies will line up to pay you for access to it. My inbox is full of companies that want to pay me to promote them, and I’m not doing it. It’s not what I do.
Trust Is the Currency
Trust is the currency you’re trading when you build an audience. Think of Apple. What Apple has in the market is the world’s trust, and because of that it’s a trillion dollar company. When people honor you with a follow or your content shows up in their feed, the best thing you can do is honor that trust. Show up and give. Don’t try to monetize too quickly or sell too quickly. Just keep giving.
Someone once asked me about a way to monetize his audience even more. I told him the whole point of leaving money on the table is to leave the money on the table. If you’re selling something to your audience every time you open your mouth, how long can you keep that up without giving anything back?
Three Rules to Not Be a Sellout
Here are three rules to follow.
Rule One: Reply to Comments
Reply to at least five comments on every post. Support people, add value, and answer their questions. Don’t think you’re too cool to reply to comments.
Rule Two: Reply to Every Single DM
If somebody follows you and sends you a direct message, always say something, even if it’s just a thank you for saying hi. The person who showed me the way on this is Gary Vee. He has replied to every DM, every email, and every SMS for years. I don’t know when he sleeps. He might not be able to keep that up now, but if he could, he would. I’ve always tried to honor that.
Rule Three: Give 10 Times More Free Value
Give 10 times more free value than you ever ask for. I dare you to give away your best stuff. Take the thing you get paid the most money to do for somebody, unpack how you do it, and give it away. My whole philosophy around content is to die empty. I sit in my office and do things that make me tens of millions of dollars, and then I come in here and unpack it and show it. I have no reason to keep it inside. The whole playbook is out there, and I don’t gatekeep.
If you do this every day, you can build an audience that actually trusts you and shows up to support you. If you have a book come out, they’re far more likely to buy it, because you’ve poured into them for years without asking for anything. Everything we’ve done so far builds an audience that trusts you to solve problems, and only then do you get to the next step.
Monetize
Step Five
You don’t need millions of followers to make money. Many people I’ve taught this to have monetized with fewer than 10,000 followers. My buddy Mike Brown had around 7,800 when he came to me, and I showed him a simple strategy of messaging new followers and talking to them. He reportedly did a million in revenue in the first year off Instagram alone. He doesn’t have a massive audience, but he talked to them. What matters is knowing the ways to make money from your brand without coming across as a sellout. The best way to monetize is to solve a bigger problem for people in your audience who already trust you.
Have you ever followed somebody who drops bombs every time they talk, and then you buy their book or read their newsletter and think, “I have a problem today that I know he’d have an answer for. I wish he had a product or a workshop that could give me clarity”? Those are the best scenarios.
Trust Comes First
I created content for almost a decade before I ever sold my first book. When it launched in 2023, it sold 20,000 copies in its first two weeks, becoming a Wall Street Journal bestseller and reaching number two behind Atomic Habits. It sold because of the trust I built over almost a decade of content, pouring value into my audience without asking for anything. I always prioritize trust first. You give away your information, as much as you can, your best stuff, and then people pay you for implementation.
Three Ways to Make Money From Your Personal Brand
There are three main ways to make money from your personal brand.
Way One: Ad Revenue
The platform pays you for views, like YouTube. It’s a slow build and it can be unreliable, but over time YouTube revenue can cover the cost of your production, your editors, and your videos. When you publish on a platform, they need to make money to cover their costs, and if you do it long enough and grow, you get a portion of what advertisers spend to run ads on top of your videos.
Way Two: Brand Deals
This is where many people make their money. A brand pays you to create content and collaborate. It can be good money, but you need to align with the right partners. Most creators do this, and the ones who struggle with it are willing to sell their soul for anybody’s money.
Way Three: Own the Product or Service
This is one of my favorites, and it often has the highest upside. You built the product, you’re aligned with it, you know how it gets delivered, the audience trusts you, and it’s something you can invest in over and over again. Think of MrBeast with Feastables, Ryan Trey with Joyride, the Nelk Boys with Happy Dad, or Logan Paul with Prime. There are a ton of examples. That said, it’s an advanced move. Most content creators are not business operators, so it’s tougher to do.
Pick One
Pick one: ads, brand deals, or your own products. Then go all in. Choose one strategy to monetize, build trust with your audience, and introduce it, without trying to build them all at once. Master one and win.
