How to Monetize a Personal Brand

Summary

• When building a personal brand, if you don't fully believe in a product's value or agree with its effects, like an energy drink with caffeine for kids, don't endorse it; staying true to your beliefs preserves authenticity.
• Don't attempt to be both the talent and the CEO of your personal brand; these roles require different skill sets and trying to fill both can lead to burnout and diminish the quality of your work.
• If you have a strong personal brand with a large following, consider hiring experienced professionals to handle business development, allowing you to focus on what you do best.
• Avoid treating different product lines as separate businesses with their own complete teams and infrastructures; instead, have a centralized executive team overseeing all products to streamline operations and maintain brand integrity.
• Protecting the integrity of your brand is crucial; ensure that every aspect, from marketing to customer service, aligns with your brand's values and delivers consistent messaging and quality.
• Resist promoting products that don't align with your brand's identity or values; incongruent product endorsements can erode trust and ultimately lead to a loss of followers and customers.
• Differentiation in the market comes from your branding; innovative products are not necessarily required for success. Simple products can sell well if they are backed by a strong, relatable brand.
• Don't outsource the core function of your personal brand, which is content creation. Invest in an in-house content team that understands your brand and can strategically align content to reinforce and grow your brand identity.

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How To Take Action

I would suggest paying close attention to what you're really passionate about when building your personal brand. For a product or service, make sure it's something you believe in. No selling energy drinks to kids if you aren't okay with it. Keep it real, and people will trust you.

It's also a good idea to split the roles of talent and CEO. They're different jobs, and trying to do both might wear you out. If you're great on camera, focus on that and find someone else with business smarts to handle the business side of things.

When creating your brand, it's best to have one strong team managing everything instead of separate mini-teams doing their own thing. This way, everything stays true to your brand's values and looks the same to customers, no matter what product line it is.

You should also avoid promoting stuff that doesn't fit with your brand's personality. If it feels off, your followers will notice and might stop trusting you. Stick to products you'd actually use and talk about.

Remember, your brand's unique vibe is what sells, not crazy new gadgets. Simple stuff can really win big if people feel connected to your brand. So, focus on sharing that vibe.

And lastly, keep your content creation close to home. Don't outsource your brand's voice. Get an in-house team that understands you, your style, and your values. They will help your brand shine and grow, especially as you get more followers.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"I don't believe in giving kids caffeine"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you're building a personal brand, pay attention to these five things"

– Leila Hormozi

"I really know how to build businesses"

– Leila Hormozi

"Just because you're good and you have competency in one area of your life does not mean it's going to transfer over to the other"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you want to scale your brand, you need people on your team who can think about your brand on your behalf"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

be amazing if he pushed something like an energy drink Beast energy beast mode something like that and when we talked to him about it we were like man we still feel like that would be such a good product for you he said something that was really important which he was like I don't believe in giving kids caffeine he would never represent something that he didn't actually believe in if you're building a personal brand pay attention to these five things most of the people that I've spoken with in the last month in terms of like personal brands are stagnant and they can't figure out why they can't scale the first mistake that I've seen is that they try to be both the talent and the CEO so what I've seen is that a lot of people have you know called myself or Alex and they've been like dude like I can't do it anymore like I'm at the point of breaking and it's because they're trying to do both they think okay well I've figured out the content machine now I've got to go build the business and so what tends to happen is that one the content starts to slow down because inevitably they put their attention into the business and so you only have so much attention it's finite and here's what I have realized I really know how to build businesses does that mean that I know how to build a brand no it is a completely different skill set I have had to learn from all different kinds of mentors and so what does that mean it means that just because you're good and you have competency in one area of your life does not mean it's going to transfer over to the other and so I think the first thing to realize is are you the talent or are you the CEO my attention is full-time on CEO does that mean that I'm going to be the best content creator ever absolutely not it's probably going to be way worse than it could be the biggest thing that you can do for yourself as a favor is if you have a prominent personal brand and you have millions and millions of eyeballs and hundreds and millions of Impressions you're getting hire somebody else to build the business bring somebody on who has the experience building the business like you want to build I mean look at somebody like Mr Beast for example like go look at who he recruited to build his company in fact finding Talent as a personal brand might even be easier because more people are likely to respond to you on LinkedIn Instagram Facebook because they see that you have millions of followers the second mistake that I see most personal Brands make is that they build multiple businesses rather than multiple product lines anytime I ask someone like can I see your entity structure let's see how you're structured it's one thing to have products that are held in a different LLC for legal protection that makes complete sense but to then treat them like separate businesses with completely separate teams separate financials separate HR separate marketing separate sales that has been what I have seen to create a lot of trouble in a lot of people's businesses and why is that if you look at the biggest brands in the world they have centralized oversight and so what does that mean they have a CEO that is CEO of the brand not of a single product then what you want to have is you want to have the CEO the executive team that's centralized and then you want to treat these like product lines where you have an operator in each product mine that is being quality checked by the executive team of the brand and so what a lot of people do is they do the opposite they actually just have different CEOs different operators and different executive teams for each one of the products or Brands and what does this do this creates a whole heck of a lot of overwhelm basically you have like six businesses the second thing that goes wrong here is potency if your brand is what fuels all of these product lines then what is the most important thing to protect your brain brand if you look at some of the biggest brands in the world they have insane legal protection departments what do I mean by that it means like if someone else speaks the brand if someone else tries to use the brand advertise the brand without using the language they require then they will go after them immediately and so you should think of your brand in that manner which is are they selling it in a way that is congruent with their values of brand are they servicing it in a way that's congruent with the values of the brand and I've seen this so many times brands that are high trust High loyalty and then when you get on the phone they're just like hard closing you trying to sell you some like honestly some and the reason is is not because that person thinks that that's how you should sell it's because that person doesn't even know that they're selling that way it's the same for customer service I've got bought products from some brands that are high trust High loyalty very reputable Brands when you get on the phone with their customer service they couldn't be more Rude why is that I assume it's because of this because they really just have no oversight over what's happening and you start to lose customers you start to lose traction you start to lose attention and that leads me to the third piece which is slinging how many people have you seen out there that have amazing Brands and they're they're like pushing the weirdest products right products that they don't talk about that they don't show that they use that you don't even know that they like maybe it's on their podcast maybe it's on their Channel they're just advertising something because they're making money an example of this would be like if Alex tried to push like Rolex or something or like a suit company like no way in hell is he wearing a Rolex or a suit so obviously it would be incongruent with the brand is there anything wrong with making money off your audience no but is it going to be favorable in the long term to try and make money in a way that is not congruent with who you are in the short term you might make some money on those freaking ads but in the long term you're probably going to lose money because you're going to lose customers You're Gonna Lose eyeballs you're gonna lose trust so a good example of this is actually Mr Beast we had a conversation Alex and I we were like wow it'd be amazing if he pushed something and get energy drink Beast energy beast mode something like that and when we talked to him about it we were like man we still feel like that would be such a good product for you and he said something that's really important which he was like I don't believe in giving kids caffeine I don't want to push things that aren't good for them he's like you know my chocolate only has a few ingredients and that's why I'm proud of putting it out there he would never represent something that he didn't actually believe in the fourth mistake is misidentifying where success in the business is going to come from a lot of the time what I see is that somebody thinks that they need to develop a completely new product that is like brand new innovation in order to be successful in business what you have to realize is that your brand is what differentiates your product not the product itself and so there's no need to add extra complexity business and building a brand are complex enough on their own trying to also build a product that is you know a leader in Innovation is going to throw so much into the mix and what I've seen more often than that is that that fails like Kylie Jenner for example is there anything actually different about her makeup I have bought it so I can tell you like not really it's fine but it's no different than a lot of other makeup another example would be like the rock tequila like love the rock love the tequila but like is there anything really that different between his tequila and a different tequila like not really it's just him representing the brand that is what the competitive Advantage is the reason that people buy from a brand because they relate to the brand they trust the brand they like the brand and so it's like whatever that person has to sell or associate with those people want we actually have a very simple product and use your brand to promote it and probably actually want to sell more than if you did create some crazy Innovative product the fifth and last mistake that I see most personal Brands and influencers make is outsourcing the core machine okay so what is the core machine when it comes to a personal brand or a content creator influencer it's the content team if you're looking at your personal brand like you would look at a business every business has strategic hires and a strategic hire is a hire that you're willing to invest more in and that's best to have closest to the core of the business meaning like have it in-house because it is aligned with the strategy of the business as a whole so an example for this would be in manufacturing having the supply chain manager somebody who you probably pay more for this role you probably get them immediately and they're probably in-house like that is a very important role so if you think about your personal brand like a business then it would make sense that you would invest in your content team in that way and so a lot of what I see in terms of like pain of people that have a personal brand is that they don't have full control full artistic control over what's going out there and here's the thing if you want to scale your brand you need people on your team you can think about your brand on your behalf this is a strategic area where it makes the most sense in my opinion for most personal brands people with tens of millions of followers to invest in having an in-house content team and if you don't have that amount yet say you don't have millions of followers but you want to I would say invest in the content team now because the thing is that if you want to get there you need alignment in your brand and people who understand you more than they understand how to get views