In this 2021 video review, Ryan Mannion discusses Vince Thompson’s concise 80‑page book Build Brand You: Insights for Pursuing Your Dreams. Mannion frames the book as a practical mentor for anyone navigating career change, job hunting, or entrepreneurship. He emphasizes treating the job‑application journey as a repeatable process rather than a one‑off form, and he credits his own mentor for helping him turn that process into a successful entrepreneurial career. Thompson’s background as an award‑winning brand builder in sports, events, and culinary marketing (and founder of the Melt U internship program) informs the book’s focus on small, actionable branding steps: developing a strong LinkedIn profile, crafting a resume like a blind date, pursuing traditional and virtual internships, being relentless in the job hunt, and delivering heat in interviews. Mannion highlights the book’s chapter index—"Take the Shot," "College is the Ultimate Professional Lab," "You Are Your Brand," etc.—and uses analogies (e.g., casting 100 lines to catch 2 fish) to illustrate the importance of persistence. He concludes that the book can serve as a mentor itself, or point readers toward mentors like Vince Thompson or Milt Yu, helping them build a personal brand that supports long‑term career dreams.
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What's up, Book Thinkers family? This is Ryan Mannion, and I am— I've had the pleasure to read and now review this book by Vince Thompson called Build Brand You, and the subtitle is Insights for Pursuing Your Dreams. Build Brand You. Could you imagine if your personal brand was as strong as the New York Yankees brand? Think about this for a second. Your personal brand, your LinkedIn, your Instagram, your resume, how you— the applications that you send out, the forms, how you follow the application process, how you prepare yourself for interviews, how you execute those interviews. It's all a long and detailed process. Now what if you were to grade yourself on this process? You were to grade yourself on your brand that you're representing publicly? I know for myself, I wouldn't grade myself incredibly well, but I will tell you something, which is that when I started to apply for jobs, I dealt with it as a process. And the only reason I dealt with it as a process and not a form is because I had a great mentor in my life that was able to help me understand that. And that communication, that connection, that rapport that I built as part of that application process landed me a job that has totally enabled the entrepreneurial career that I now have. I had a great boss, I worked with great people, and everything was awesome. And it was because of the process that I took, which was just good enough to be able to basically now create and pursue my dreams. So I want you to reflect on what type of job you've done in creating and building your brand, and now how you plan to do it as we move into the future. We're in 2021. We just started 2021 as this book is being reviewed. We're in January, and I think about like how many people have either thought about, or because they lost their jobs in some way, shape, or form, have considered changing careers. And when you change careers, you're going through a process. You're— when, when I went from the corporate world to becoming an entrepreneur, I went through a process and that process was to realize how important my brand was. I was no longer tied to a corporation. I was now me. And so my brand has become that much more important. People who are going out to get new careers or new jobs, your brand is so important and your brand creates what you get out of a new career or a new job. And that might be a new career, new job that you're in for many years, if not many decades, maybe 40 or 50 years of your life. So in this 80-page book, Vince Thompson talks about all the unique small elements of branding that you can do to put yourself in a better position. Vince is an award-winning brand builder. He does sports marketing, event marketing, as well as culinary marketing. He actually created a program because he's so passionate about the younger demographic called Melt U. For his company Melt, which is an award-winning brand builder out of Atlanta, Georgia. And Melt U are for people who are in sports marketing, event marketing, culinary marketing, and it gives them an opportunity to explore an internship directly in the field. Vince shares in his book that one of the unique opportunities he had as he pursued applications as a process and not a form, and he really put a lot of time into it, Are the people that mentored him along the way to be able to create his best self and ultimately end up impacting so many people with the brand that he built as an entrepreneur. He shares something in here that a lot of you will find funny, which is, you know, 100 casts equals maybe 8 bites, which equals maybe 2 fish. And as we all know, it's very true. And although I view it as like maybe a little bit extreme, it is reality. And even if you were to cast 20 times, think about how much better of an outcome you'd receive, how much closer you get to being able to pursue your actual dreams instead of the job or career that's put right in front of you. He talks a lot about the internship search. I compare it a lot to my experience with early exits of a business even. So that's what I took from that. You know, we have to start— if we want to ultimately be acquired by a strategic partner that can get our mission and vision out there further, you have to start that process at the foundation. And you have to put out feelers actually for like years, uh, at times to finally get the partner that fits really well. And together you can have a far greater impact than each individual company was able to achieve. And that's a lot like the internship process. You spend months or weeks, whatever is comfortable for you, putting out these feelers, working the process to ultimately get and be able to speak with the person that really matters to you in pursuing your dreams. Lastly, I wanna touch on the index of the book, which will give you a feel for each of the chapters within it. Introduction, Welcome to the Real World. Chapter 1, Take the Shot. Chapter 2, College is the Ultimate Professional Lab. Chapter 3, You Are Your Brand. Chapter 4, Get LinkedIn. Chapter 5, Think of Your Resume as a Blind Date. That was an interesting chapter. Chapter 6, all about internships and now virtual internships. Chapter 7, Be Relentless on the Job Hunt. Chapter 8, Bring the Heat in the Job Interview. In conclusion, keep the job you get. Awesome book. I did a lot of this. I only did a lot of this in my career because I had a mentor that was able to support me and lead me during that effort. Maybe Vince Thompson can be your mentor in this process, or maybe Milt Yu can be your mentor in this process. Or maybe just this book, if you give it a shot, can be your mentor as you pursue your ultimate dream. I hope you will enjoy this book. Thank you.
