TES 081 - How to Build a Personal Brand

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to brand yourself so you can have more impact, more income and more freedom. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution Show. This one, we're going to dig into something that I think is really, really important today, in today's market for entrepreneurs and a lot of people in my community, and that is how do you build a personal brand? You know, for instance, how does someone like a Simon Sinek or a Seth Godin or a Brendan Burchard or Jim Collins, how do they go about building a personal brand to get themselves out there in a way that they're known for the differences they make with the knowledge they have in their head? And what I'm going to introduce you to is this process that I call the Influencers evolution. It's the process that I take my people through Entrepreneur Academy and when I'm working with my high level clients and it's how I built my practice. And with this episode, just like most every other episode, this comes with a specific action guide. And in this action guide, I'm going to talk to you and give you a tool. And the tool is what I call the influencer's personal Brand Articulator. It's a worksheet that allows you to start to articulate your brand out into the world in a different way that really elevates you up the ladder of the evolution. You'll understand it when we get into it deeper in this session. But if you want to get the action guide, which I think you should, just go to melabraham.com session081 and you'll be able to download the guide. If you are not by your computer and you're out running around, maybe you're driving. I want you to be safe, but I still want you to have the tools. I still want you to have the value. So here's what I want you to do is at some point when it's safe, just text me one. One word, no spaces. My legacy to 38470. When you text me that you're going to get a link back to you that you can download the action guide and really start to get into this personal brand articulator and understand what it takes to elevate you to a personal brand. So let's jump in because I think there's some things in here that we need to think about as we move forward and really start to build this concept of a personal brand. How do you get known for what you know and what you know makes a difference? And so the key here is this, is that if we don't get this thing right, the challenge that you're going to face is one of the challenges you're going to face is that there's going to be tons of friction. In other words.

When we talk about personal brand, it's about you. There's a reason that personal is in the front at the beginning of that. It's a about you, it's about what you know, it's about what's internal to you. It's about your 10,000 hours, it's about your expertise, it's about your journey, it's about your wisdom. I mean, there's some things that have happened to you that are valuable to people out there that you get a chance to have a conversation with, to train, to work with, to help them along in their journey and in their maybe their struggles that may be similar to yours. I mean, for instance, I've been a cpa. I've lost one third of my net worth in a Ponzi scheme and rebuilt it within 18 months. Not only rebuilt it, but rebuilt it to 300% three times of where it was at by understanding a certain level of skills. I've been a martial arts sensei. I've been in the martial arts for 40 plus years now. And the fact of the matter is, is that all of those things create a level of expertise in different areas. They're not all in the same area that allow me to to be with you here today. But they come from within. See, the challenge is that a lot of times when we don't get this right, there's tons of friction because it doesn't come from within. It's not part of your being, it's not who you are. And so we need to figure that out. The other thing that happens when we don't get this right is that you start to feel completely isolated. You start to feel on an island because you. It just doesn't. It's not you. And so you. You seem to. To realize that, and there's this lack of congruence and. And you're. You're out of touch. And then the third thing that happens when we don't get this right is that ultimately you're invisible. I mean, people don't see you. People just effectively don't see you. And what happens, and what do I mean by that is that, is that the marketplace doesn't even know you exist. When we don't get the personal brand piece right, they don't know about what you know. They don't know about the difference you can make in their lives. And they don't know you exist. They see you. If they see you at all, they see you as a commodity. And we don't want to be a commodity. I want you to be that premium provider, that one that's sought after, the one that's chased after, the one that is hunted. Because what, you know, makes a huge difference in people's lives. And so if that's what happens, if we don't get this right, what happens when we do get this right? I think one of the first things that happened is this, is that we find ourselves in this natural state of flow. I can sit here and talk with you about the different elements and concepts of my intellectual property, the things that I know because it's part of me. It's what I've lived. It's my 10,000 hours plus, if you will. So there's a lot there for me to do. So I'm in this natural flow, and I can chat and we can talk, and I can go deeper and deeper as needed based on that. So you find yourself, when we get this right, in that natural state of flow. The second thing that happens is that you create community in this process. You create community because what happens is that you actually attract the people that you resonate with. You actually attract the people that see what you have is essential to their lives, and you attract that. And they then create a conversation with you, and you have a conversation with them which creates community, and they all support each other. And all of a sudden you have a bunch of standing shoulder to shoulder on a journey with you because you've done that. And then the third thing that happens when we get this right is that you find yourself in demand. Ultimately, people are searching you out. You become the hunted. You know, it's an interesting dynamic. Like many of, you know, I've been doing value businesses, buy and sell businesses. I've done this for decades now and have had the blessing of, of learning a ton about entrepreneurship and businesses through that process. Now I started out doing marketing and all of that for that part of that business. I don't do a lot of that anymore because I've built a reputation, I built that presence in that industry that the phone will ring, people will search me out, they've heard about me, they know about me, and they'll search me out. And that's what we want for you. I mean, imagine this. Can you imagine what it's like for you to just wake up and know that you have positioned yourself properly in a marketplace, in an industry, in a niche to solve a problem, a solver, an influencer in that space where you know that people are always searching out and when they search for you, you're the first name that comes up, you're the second name comes up. You're the top of the top of doing it. That's what this is about. So if that's why it's important, in other words, in other words, we got to get ourselves in a place where we're in demand, where we're creating community, and that we're in flow. So what do you need to know? And that's the principles that I think are really important to really bring this home for you. And I think the first thing that you need to realize is that your deeper thinking.

Leads to valuable impact, leads to the impact that you have in society, in your community, in the industry, in the marketplace that you're working with. And here's the thing behind this, that it's no longer about information. Information is ubiquitous. I mean, we've got Goog, Mr. Goog, the Google, however you want to call it, that allows you to have access to information at your fingertips. I can just go type in and I can get as much information. Now, I'm not saying it's all good information, and I'm not saying that it's all real or true information, but there's information nonetheless, and that's where you fit in. This isn't about information anymore because it used to be that the keeper of the information was the one that had the highest value. That's not the case anymore because information is now a commodity. We've got access to it at our fingertips in our phones. Whatever it is that we want to do, we've got access to that information that allows us to be able to bring that forward. So the real Key is, how do you interpret the information that you become the interpreter, Information that you broaden the conversation around the topic, the subject area that the solutions, the challenges, the problems that you're solving. You broaden that by expanding the thinking, by deepening the thinking. So what we want to do is we don't want to just repeat the things that other people have said on the topic. Let's just, for instance, look at it and say, well, maybe you're talking on productivity, or maybe you're talking on leadership, or maybe you're talking on corporate culture, or maybe you're talking on relationships or fitness. You know what? Repeating what other people have done doesn't necessarily extend the thinking, doesn't extend the body of knowledge. And that won't set you apart, it'll just set you with. In other words, people will see you as the more of the same. Well, we want you to be seen as different. We want you to be seen with a distinction. We want you to be seen at a point where they're going, huh, they know everything that's gone on before and they're giving me a little more. So we want that deep thinking is going to lead to greater, greater impact. So you're going to have to do the work to get this stuff out of your head, to think it through and to build the depth and the layers into your content, into the information that you have, the solutions that you bring to the table, the. To really make that come to life. And then the second piece of this and the second principle is to realize that your positioning is intentional. In other words, we can go out there and say, just start putting blog posts up and just start putting YouTube videos up, going out and speaking, picking up gigs. You get a call and someone says, can you write an article? And you say, yes. And it's this haphazard, hodgepodge mess of content that doesn't position you in this specific way that you are choosing to be positioned. So what do I mean by this, this concept of intentional? Just that I want you to define. We need to define what we want to be in our space. Question is, what do you want to be in your space? Do you know that specifically? And is everything that you're doing moving you towards that space, towards that place? And if it's not, we got to shift it. Bottom line is this, is that your positioning in the eyes of your market, your positioning in the eyes of the industry, your positioning in the eyes of your peers needs to be intentional and not be left for them to decide. Because if you allow the market to decide they may define you in a role that becomes, you know, if to take a turn from the Hollywood is you become typecast. And we don't want to be typecast. You want to present yourself in the light, in the posture and the position that you want to be presented in. So we need to be intentional about that. And this process allows you to do that. Then the third thing is to realize that we need to have a platform obsession. So what do I mean by platform? There's a couple things that I mean by platform. First things first is that platform for me is about reach. It's about audience, but it's about reach, which means that it's also about impact.

We need to be obsessed with reaching our audience, reaching them geographically, reaching them emotionally, reaching them intellectually, reaching them in their demographics, in their psychographics, understanding what industry they're in in location. So we need to be obsessed about being there with them for them and standing by them and serving them in that process. That's what, what I mean by platform obsession. It's about getting your information out there in a way that serves them in a place they're at, with the pains that they have to move them to the solutions that they need. The bottom line is that businesses to me are all about improving the human condition. It's not about profit. Profit becomes the byproduct. Let's improve the human condition, let's have the greater impact, let's have the high impact. And in the process, the profit becomes the byproduct of what it is you're doing. So, so those are the principles that I think that we need to focus in on. There's a couple of other ones, but these are the most important ones. How do we bring this to life? And this is when I want to introduce you to what I call the influencers evolution. In order to do that, I'm going to, I'm going to jump onto the iPad. So we'll draw this out on there. If you're not watching on the video, then go to the YouTube channel. You'll see this on the video, but you'll see it also in the blog and in stills and pictures also. So let's just jump into the influencers evolution. Let's jump to the iPad for a moment and let's understand what it is we're trying to do here as this comes through. So the first thing is this is that we need to realize.

We need to realize that some of the things that we're doing is there's six stages if you will, of what I call the influencers evolution and the stage one. And stage one is what I call purpose.

What's your purpose? What is it about you? This is. If I had to make it in a statement.

You are it.

This is really about you. You are it. This is what is internal to you, your 10,000 hours, what is inside of you that we need to bring out in this process. Here's the thing. If we don't get this right, if we don't get this right, this is why you're going to find that there's a fair amount of friction in your life, in your professional life, because it isn't congruent with who you are. It isn't part of who you are, it's not flowing from you. But when we do get this right, that's actually what happens. We end up in what I call flow. Okay, this is the first stage of the, of the influencers evolution. The second stage of the influencers evolution is where it's what I call perspective.

And this is about what you know. This is about the insights, the ideas, the things you know, the things that you want your audience, your marketplace to really understand. So this is really.

You know, it. It's what you know in the process. So we need to capture all your insights and there's a process to do that. We need to capture your insights, we need to capture the things that you want to teach with your audience in a way that you can then communicate it. Here's the issue is if you don't have a process to do that, it's a drain. If you have a process to extract the unique insights, the things that you know out of your head, what that actually does is it gives you distinction, makes you distinct in that process. So that's one of the reasons this is really important for us to do the third.

The third stage is what I call positioning.

Positioning is about them. This starts to move. It is about you bit, but it's about them. It's like, who do you want to see? Who do you want to serve? This is really coming from a place of understanding that they get a chance to see.

Being what you know. Okay, they get a chance to see it. And that's the challenge that we need to start to move through. Here's the deal. If we don't position yourself properly, and remember I already said that I want you to be obsessed with positioning in the sense of being intentional with it. If we don't position you properly, you're going to find that you're invisible.

To your marketplace. They don't see you. They don't even know you exist. And if they do, they don't see the value in you. We need them to know you exist. We need them to know what you exist for. We need them to see the value in it and they need to see the need. Bottom line is it's. If you're going to be an influencer, it's not about knowing stuff, it's about making a difference with the stuff you know that's the key. It's not about knowing stuff, it's about making a difference with the stuff you know. And then you become known for that. And if you do that positioning properly, you find instead of being invisible.

You'Re in demand.

You're in demand. And so now we've moved up those three stages, and these are really important stages. And then this next stage, that's where the core of the work is to really become an influencer, to build that personal brand is in this next piece. It's really about.

Platform.

This is when you finally get it to them, they finally get.

Being your stuff. The solutions, the insights that you have. When you have the platform properly done, it's amazing. But if you screw it up, if we don't have the platform, in other words, we don't have the reach. We're not getting to the right people. We're not getting to the people that need us. We're not working with our core because we don't understand them. You're going to find that you're isolated.

Yet when we get this right now, you're building community. Remember that community piece becomes important because they're going to be your champions. They're going to move you forward. They're the ones that are going to be screaming to the hills about what you know and what impact you've had on their lives. They become your army, the salesforce, without even having to pay them. Okay, that's. That's the cool part about it. Then. The next piece of this is. Is what I call prosperity.

And this is about the rewards. This is about the meaning. This is about.

Being fulfilled, if you will, in doing that. This is about.

What do we value?

What do we value? If we don't know this going in, we might be chasing, like I said, the profits, the cash flow, which I get it, we got to pay bills and we got to. We got to make a living and all that. And this is a commercial endeavor. Absolutely. Will never take that away. Listen, I am a cpa. It is about making business successful. But business in and of itself and is about creating an impact, about doing something that's meaningful. It's about creating community, serving society and living your dreams. Let's build it so that becomes the reality. It's not about solely about profitability. Profitability, when we do it right, becomes the byproduct, not the focal product. Profitability becomes the byproduct, not the focal product. When we do this right, the thing is that if we don't get prosperity right, all of a sudden we're running and we think we're successful, but we can't figure out why we're unfulfilled and miserable. I mean, I got a guy that I know who's probably worth $150 million and he's miserable as hell. Miserable as hell. He's got three or four airplanes I don't even know anymore, and cars and.

Property and all that. But he's unhappy. To me, that's not success. Success is a holistic thing. Thing. It's about health, it's about relationships, it's about financial, it's about experiencing life. It's about a lot of things. It's not about one. It's about a lot of things. So if we don't get this prosperity piece right, we're going to be unfulfilled versus when we get it right, we will be fulfilled.

Because we're working for the right reasons, for the right why, if you will. Some of you have seen me draw that model of when Jeremy drew the picture of me when he was six years old. That kind of taught me one of the most important businesses business lessons I learned, which is about the why of business versus the what and the how in doing that. So then the last piece of this, which you would kind of look at go, huh? Why didn't. Why is this the last. That is about the plan. We need the plan. In other words, I need to be able to see it. And I do this last because if I don't get the first five right, I can't create the right plan for it. So I got to know my purpose, I got to know my perspective, I got to build my positioning, I understand and build that platform. I got to understand what the prosperity piece is and then I build the plan to make that all a reality. And so if we don't plan based on the decisions and the things that we're doing in the five stages before in this influencers evolution, what you're going to find is that you'll have random results. You know, you'll have up years you'll have down years, but you'll have random results, you're going to have random outcomes and it's just not going to be filling it's peaks and valleys. And that's really not a way to live. It's in fits and starts. It's just you can't live that way, you can't sustain it that way. So the reality is that, that when we set the plan in place and the strategies, the tactics and the things that I teach put it in place, we end up with predictable and deliberate.

Results.

And so that's really what we're dealing with in this whole thing of the influencers evolution. This is the key to changing and shifting the things that you do. This is the key to building a practice that puts you at the forefront. A personal brand to elevate you into a place where people are searching you out because you will make a difference in their lives. The difference that you make with what you know is tremendous. It's dramatic and that's the key. So we need to extract that out. We need to position you properly, we need to build the platform so we can reach, we can build it around the prosperity that you want in your life. We create the plan and we execute on the plan. So how do we do this? Well, I'm going to give you a tool here and you need to download the action guide if you haven't done so already in order to do, use this. And it's really the influencer's personal brand articulator. To download it just go to melabraham.com session081 or text me.

Text me mylegacy1 word mylegacy to 38470 I'll send you the download link. And when you get this, what you're going to find is that you're going to get a summary of some of the work that we're doing and a workbook, a template for which you, you can answer nine questions. Nine questions that as you're building this out, when you work through these nine questions, it starts to give you a template to elevate you to that personal brand status. And so I'm not going to go through the nine questions here. I want you to download the guide. Yes, I'm going to make you download the guide to get the nine questions and to work through the exercise in a way that really starts to build things. Because in those nine questions we're going to worry about what's your solution? How do we position that solution uniquely, distinctly and with depth in the marketplace we're going to walk you through a couple questions that talk about your tribe, the people you serve, the community that you're creating, what do you need to do with respect to that? And then the last piece is what's the results you get about the results that you get. So download that, walk you through those, those, those elements and really start to build this out. Use the tool consistently and constantly to build that personal brand out in the marketplace. Because when you build that personal brand, you move away from commodity, you become known in the market space, you'll be able to command premium fees, people will search you out. Here's the thing, it's not about marketing that's going to get you the personal brand. It's about creating the depth of knowledge that has a huge impact. And then when you layer the marketing on top of that it says, as my son says, it's a match to gasoline and it's going to explode your business. So that's what we need to do to really build this, build this out. So I hope that you found this of value that to understand the influencers evolution, the stages you need to go through to build your personal brand. Just like, just like a Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Jim Collins, a Brian Tracy, these are the stages that you're going to need to go through to build your personal brand and get yourself out there. If you haven't done so already, you know, download the guide again melabraham.com session081 or text me mylegacy1word to 38470 we'll get that to you because this is the first step to building your personal brand and getting yourself out there in a big way that sets you apart from everything else that is out there that is commodity based. We want to set you apart, we want you to make a huge impact. So if you haven't done so already, do me a favor, subscribe, hit the button right now. Don't wait, hit the button right now. Subscribe. Stay with me because these tools are going to continue to come. This is my way of becoming your personal mentor.

In this context. We can go deeper in other ways but right now this is one of the greatest ways for me to do that. The other thing is if you have a question, if you have a challenge, if you have a problem that you're trying to deal with in business and success in wealth.

In thought leadership, anything like that, go ahead and leave me a note. In fact you can go to askmelnow.com and leave me a message. I'll make sure that I pick it up on one of my upcoming episodes or just leave comments. I love comments and I want to have a dialogue. I want this to be a conversation, not me talking at you, talking with you to really build some things out. And the other thing that I ask you is do me a favor. Share this. Share this information. Share this link with a friend. Get it out there so we can help people shift their paradigm in their life, to give them the tools that they need to be successful just like you. So thanks again for being part of this. Thanks for being on this journey. I hope this serves you and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. And until then, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way. Because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.