Should You Build a Personal Brand as a Coach? My Honest Answer After 11 Years.

Personal branding is getting a lot of talk recently, and half the internet is against it, telling you personal branding is dead and it's cringe and you should hide behind your methodology. And I get it. If you are exhausted with all the content and showing up that you felt you needed to do, that feels like the answer. I want to give you the honest answer that I'm seeing after over 11 years of building my coaching business on just posting one YouTube video a week. Yeah, you only need to post one video a week on YouTube. Your clients will not send you thousands of dollars with without liking you, without seeing you, without feeling like they know you. But if you think personal branding requires daily posting, sharing your entire life on camera, and being everywhere all at once like that influencer vibe, don't need any of that. And I'm gonna prove it with 2 people who just had their first launches ever for a product. One made over $6 million on the strength of exactly what I'm going to show you here today. As I said, I keep seeing videos on my YouTube feed about personal branding, and I watch them and I read the comments on them, and they're filling up with many of us business owners who are exhausted saying, thank goodness, I'm so glad you said this. Hooray, I don't need to do this. And that's why I'm making this video today, because what they're saying isn't a new strategy for you. It's basically giving you permission to hide. And if you are selling coaching, you are selling a course, you are selling one-to-one. If you sell you walking a human through transformation, taking that permission to back away from being the face of your business is exactly what's going to kill your business. This is the hill that I will stand on. What personal branding actually is when done the right way is why your clients won't buy from your competitors. And there is a version to build your personal brand without it eating your life. I've been doing it for 11 years and I'm actually working on improving my personal brand because I see the benefits. Just know that you're not the only one stuck on do I do a personal brand? Do I not do a personal brand? Searching around personal brand is up over 250% this year in Google. Yeah, that's the actual chart from Google. At this exact moment, more business owners than ever are trying to figure this all out and trying to figure out what is this middle ground? How can I still grow my business without it sucking the life out of me, without me showing everything that I'm doing in every single day of my life? And when you hear these bigger creators telling you personal branding is dead, but you're seeing people who are showing up, being themselves, sell more, close more sales, no wonder it's so confusing at what to do. Now, this isn't to say personal branding works. I'm saying we need to figure out out what works for coaches and course creators specifically. And that's what I'm going to break down here, because what I'm seeing is this touch of personal branding is what gets a client to that next level that they're looking for. But there needs to be some rules and there needs to be some guidance, and that's what I'm going to break down. I think when a lot of people hear personal brand, they're thinking about influencers. Tell me if I'm right. Say influencers. If when you hear personal brand, you assume it's, oh crap, now I need to be an influencer. Now we got to film every meal that we're eating. Every workout plan, every vacation that I'm on. It also means not got to be on 75 different platforms all at once. But again, that is for influencers, and that strategy is built for likes, it's built for reach, and it's built for virality. That model we do not need as business owners. You can absolutely say goodbye to that piece of personal branding. It's exhausting, it feels fake, and your audience doesn't need that to trust in you to buy from you. But here's one of my favorite things that I saw as I was watching these personal brands are style videos. A viewer left this specific question: What's the definition of a personal brand? Your channel has your own name. You're known for having this program. I would call that a personal brand, a pretty good one. What you describe, I'd call a personal life brand. That's exactly the point. A personal brand, the best one for coaches and course creators, is your name, is your face. It is your expertise and your receipts. Attached to specific transformations for each person that you've worked with. That, my friend, is not going anywhere. That is the only thing that is going to sell high-touch or high-investment coaching. I would say that is only what's going to sell a couple hundred dollar courses as well. Nobody sends you a couple thousand dollars because your framework looks cool. They send it because they believe in the words that are coming out of your mouth. I instantly think about like Alex Hormozi. Yes, he has an absolutely huge corporation, but what was corporation built on? And why do the people that join any part of his business want to work with him? Who he is, his own personal brand. And if you think showing up as yourself, your own face, is optional for business moving forward, let me show you what my clients actually tell me made them buy working with me. Because listen, I am not the only person out there teaching YouTube strategy for business owners. You could go hire anyone that you want, and there are Absolutely bigger names out there than me. But when I ask my clients why did they want to work with me, I almost never really hear like, your framework seemed the best. It's, I felt you were the most approachable. You were the most down to earth. You felt real. You are a mom and you get it. The things in my life and how I show up as me made them trust me with their money. It's not lifestyle content because I'm terrible at that. I am not vlogging my groceries. I'm going to tell you right now, me filming usually outside my little safe space Here in my office doesn't happen. I recently shot a video in my car at golf practice for my son. I'll link it right up here. And boy, was I uncomfortable. So I am not in any means saying we need to share vlog lifestyle content to make a personal brand, but I am being me. I'm talking about aspects that make me me and unique. And that's the differentiator. Because let's be real, a lot of what we teach as coaches or course creators can be figured out nowadays between AI, YouTube. So many people are doing what we're doing. But you and who you are and how you approach the situation, the topic, the transformation, the client, that's what differentiates you and that's what makes people want to work with you or buy from you. It is so wild that people are saying personal brands are cringe and dead because AI is making personal branding a must. People are cloning themselves, generating faceless everything, flooding platforms like Instagram and YouTube, and the audience is smart to that. If you look at people who find out a particular creator that they've been following is all AI generated. I think there was like a grandma on TikTok they found out was all AI generated. Those people were ticked that they had been watching AI generated content. That is going to kill any type of trust that people have in your content when they realize you're not actually taking the time to show up and deliver content for your audience. So it's not just showing up to show your personality, it's share your receipts. Share your stories. Share how you can connect with other people. A real human on camera showing real proof like clients' stories, testimonials, timelines tied into your story. That was what AI cannot replicate and how people can know this is you and not AI because people more and more are not wanting to watch AI content. And I see it with my clients alone. One of my clients was able to create 16 videos on a channel of less than 200 subscribers, share her story, her clients' stories and make $152,000 without ever going viral or sharing lifestyle brand content. Another client of mine, her first 5 videos on YouTube sharing her story, her clients' stories, her expertise, less than 10 subscribers, was able to close $19,000 in sales just by being her on camera. No needed to vlog anything. Now let's talk about the proof that I said when it comes to personal branding and why I think it is more alive than ever with boundaries, which we'll talk about here in a moment. Over the summer, there were 2 particular creators, business owners, owners that had major launches. Now, for one, it's very surprising for summertime to be a great time to launch because usually in the online business, depending on your niche, we know it kind of slows down. Like July is usually dead. So when Jessie Jean launched her YAP Challenge over on Instagram, I believe it was in June, and then she opened it again in July, she made over $6 million. And I think that number is even higher yet on a course she first launched without any launch event like a webinar or a challenge or anything like that. The course was a 6-week challenge and I believe it was $297. Over $6 million. Now another person, Alex Petrovica, she closed over $250K in a launch in July and this was her first launch of this offer as well. And if you watch what they did that I believe got people buying when they opened the doors, yes, they provided value on their Instagram. They gave frameworks, they gave real teaching, free content. But the thing that made people buy at that scale was they showed up as themselves. They shared their personality, their story, connection, all on camera consistently. Their personal brand did the selling before they opened the doors to anything. Now they built that on Instagram, so props to them because that means daily showing up on Instagram and it works obviously. But boy, that's a treadmill because I'm actually doing the Gap Challenge myself to work on my personal brand at this moment and I've set guardrails where I'm only posting Monday through Friday, and I do YouTube videos every single week, and posting Reels 5 times a week is a lot. But I'm telling you, these same ideas can run on YouTube with 1 video a week. That's how I've gotten to 11 years in business, still profitable, still having my business 11 years later, because the best part about YouTube is as you show up, every single video you post compounds because every new video brings new people, takes them to your older videos, and it just creates this flywheel. And I even go further on transparency. Every single month I am sharing with my email list— this is one of my goals at the beginning of the year as part of my personal brand— I want to show up transparent because so many people are telling us their business is doing great when they are struggling. In fact, a lot of people who are now telling you to not do a personal brand, they are really struggling behind the scenes because they aren't seeing the revenue growth, the signups like they used to. But I have been telling my email list every single month what I'm making each month, breaking down by my expenses, sharing what I did that didn't work, sharing what I thought was going to work. I'm giving it all out every single month as part of my personal brand of transparency. And the response has been insane because like I said, half the internet is performing successfully when they're really struggling behind the scenes. And people can really start to pick up on that now. We're all pretty smart when it comes to online business these days. Now before I share with you what I think they are right on when they are saying personal branding is cringe and I want to tell you, I broke down an entire training on how I create one video a week, how I teach my clients to create a one video a week system that allows you to have consistent leads and sales just by doing this on YouTube. It gives you my entire framework. I will link to it right here. It's also right below here in the description box. It's about 22 minutes, and it tells you everything that I do to build that system. What they do say that I believe in is that the content machine is real, and it will eat you alive. These are the boundaries that I've been talking about to help. Help you build a personal brand that doesn't burn you out. A multi-platform strategy like YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn and podcasting and Threads and stories and lives— that strategy makes me want to barf because that's not what a personal brand is. That is a media company. And for me, I'm not here to build a media company. I'm not here to be a Codie Sanchez. I know exactly what my number needs to be at the end of the year for me to say I've had a successful business. And I'm even going to tell you, it's not a 7-figure number that I need to hit to feel fantastic about my business, to live the life that I want, to afford the things that I want. So I know I do not need to show up on all of these platforms. And I think most of you watching here today don't need to either, because 99% of you watching here today don't need all that content to hit your revenue goal. If you have a revenue goal, like a monthly or yearly, let me know down in the comments. And that's the part that makes building this personal brand actually attainable. Doable, because you need to figure out what do you need to do in your business to live the life that you want to. As I said, I'm not here to build an empire. I don't want to. I was talking to somebody through DMs, Nikki. I will link her Instagram up here. She said something like, "I want to build a retirement-proof business," meaning I want a business. I want to work with people that I actually enjoy working. I still want to work when I'm older. I don't want it to feel like a job. I don't want it to take over my life, and I think. I think that's the goal right now is that sure, we can retire and we can go visit our kids off wherever they go. We can go be nana, but we can still have a job and a business and people that we work with that we really enjoy doing and gives us a sense of purpose without grinding ourselves to the bone pumping out content for the sake of pumping out content. I'm actually doing that the last 2 years. I've worked about 20 to 25 hours on average each week and I had my best business year yet in 2025 and we are right on track to hit the same numbers in 2026 as we did in 2025, and I've not increased what I'm working anymore. I'm also not increasing what I'm posting either. Caveat, I do test some things and I try some things out to prove a point. That is for another story. Because when I create a once a week YouTube video, I'm doing all the things I just mentioned. I'm showing up as myself. I'm making connection as a human. I'm sharing stories about my life that tie into what I do with my clients and the results that I get 'em. That makes people connect with me. I'm consistently posting new content every single week. week while I'm at the beach for 2 weeks with my family, while I pop on over to Amsterdam to go to a Harry Styles concert. My channel keeps working for me. My once-a-week YouTube videos keep working for me and allow me to build that personal brand. And that's what it has done for me for 11 years. I want you to answer this question for me down in the comments before you add another platform, another format of content, or even a brand new funnel. What is enough? What is enough revenue? What is enough client clients? What is enough working hours? Because every decision you make for your brand needs to hinge on that. As I said, I don't need to make 7 figures. I have the max amount of clients that I can work with without bumping into the amount of hours that I want to work. And your personal brand in 2026 is what's going to help you hit those numbers. And if somebody tells you personal branding is dead, I'm telling you it's more alive than ever before. You just don't need to invest in the personal brand story or idea that the internet is selling you. That is basically influencers. I mentioned that I have a complete training that shares with you how I build a once-a-week video system with my personal brand, building my personal brand for the last 11 years. You can watch that complete training on your screen right now. It'll walk you through the entire engine, including all the client receipts behind it. See you over there.