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- [00:00]
A
On this episode. This is one of an ongoing series we're going to explore personal branding. I have my friend and a person who coaches for the future. His name's Matt Essom. We're going to hopefully persuade him or nudge him towards perhaps why he would want to develop a personal brand, have a different take on it. So stick around. Now, I don't want to put words in his mouth, so rather than me restate what he said. Matt, take us back there.
- [00:26]
B
I think the essence of my point was attention for the sake of attention is worthless. I think you were mid telling me about all of the opportunities that were coming your way and all the stuff that was happening for you. A lot of it you were crediting to having a big following and having a big personal brand.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah.
- [00:47]
B
I think the thing that triggered me was you were talking about ways to get more attention to get yourself out of there. And to me, it felt a little bit like the kind of Big Brother generation. I don't know if you guys have that in. Oh, yeah, the States. And I think that kind of triggered a part of maybe me which was I couldn't think of anything worse, like, I'd rather have no money and be a starving artist than be on camera in front of a million people doing stupid stuff for the sake of being famous.
- [01:16]
A
Let's pause it right there. I think this is a great place for us to be in what I hope to be is an ongoing series as we dive into this, because Matt has just voiced, I think, the opinion of so many creative people I know out there. They'd rather be starving in pursuit of their art and their craft, to be representing themselves in some artificial way with cameras all around them. The pursuit of fame or notoriety for the sake of it being a pretty hollow pursuit. And I would agree with that general statement, but that's not what we're doing here. But this is good because so many people are going to hear this. So if you are a person who is an entrepreneur, an artist, a creator, a coach, a strategist, a consultant, some service professional, and you have a deep well of experience, you're good at what you do, then this may be an episode for you to see where you net out on this. So I'm going to ask you to listen with an open heart, a curious mind, and allow the conversation wherever it goes. I'm not only saying this to our listener, I'm also saying this to Matt. Now, the funny thing is, prior to this conversation, we were just talking about, like, the point of personal brand. You're like, maybe I need to do this. What are the next steps? And so first, I want to tackle the mindset. So today the focus is all the mindset and our belief systems. Because getting into tactics, what we can do, it won't really matter if you're not really bought in. So if you're ever curious, this is the episode made specifically for you. Now let's get into it. Okay. Now, across the world, there are very talented people in very different disciplines. And you've probably wondered to yourself, why aren't I getting the opportunities that Mary or Joe or Bobby are getting? I'm better than them. At every kind of objective measurement, I'm better than them. I'm. I'm more articulate. I have a better body of work. I have greater experience. My team's bigger. We do bigger revenue. We work with bigger clients and bigger projects for bigger budgets. We're more profitable. Why are they getting more opportunities all of a sudden? And then what you used to be able to say that they're getting. You have better clients, and all of a sudden you see it slip. The slider moves. And now they're getting the better opportunities. They're speaking on stages that you're attending. They're networking with the people that you've read books of. Something has happened, and we're living in a different time and space. Matt, you're old enough to have been in a time in which you're probably a working professional, pre social media. Is that a safe assumption?
- [03:36]
C
Yeah.
- [03:37]
A
Okay, what did you do back then to generate work for yourself?
- [03:41]
B
Primarily networking events.
- [03:43]
A
In person?
- [03:44]
B
Yeah, in person.
- [03:45]
A
And for people who don't understand what networking events, what would they be like?
- [03:50]
B
So you'd be in the room with some fairly influential agencies and people. And so it was any event where I thought there would be either potential clients or potential people that might give me work. At the time, I was just a freelancer, so a bigger agency. If I could impress them, if I could get the opportunity to show my portfolio, I would just try and hang out in as many of those places as possible.
- [04:11]
A
Okay, did it cost money to go to these events?
- [04:15]
B
Most of the time they were free. Or it might be ten pounds a ticket or something.
- [04:18]
A
Okay, so pretty low ticket. And how many people show up to these things roughly?
- [04:23]
B
I'd say between 100 and 150 for those main ones, but I would do smaller ones as well.
- [04:28]
A
And how much time would you spend going to these things? Just the physical time. They're not commuting time or anything like.
- [04:33]
B
That overall I'd say like one to two hours a week.
- [04:37]
A
Oh, okay. Pretty consistently then.
- [04:39]
B
But I don't feel like I need to go to those networking events anymore to get clients.
- [04:45]
A
So it stopped serving the utility for you?
- [04:48]
B
I think so.
- [04:49]
A
So what's replaced it?
- [04:51]
B
My online presence, I guess building a LinkedIn following.
- [04:55]
A
You may be making your own argument for me.
- [04:57]
B
Okay, so on.
- [04:59]
A
All I'm doing is for people who are listening. I'm just asking him a series of questions now. Channeling my introverted creative people. The idea of going to weekly event for two hours of people you don't know is so scary. They wouldn't even do it, but they would do it. And they would just stand in the corner and go home, say that was worthless. And they may be able to show up so many times before they like totally give up and say this is worthless. Because it does take some social skill, some EQ to be able to be in a room with strangers and to eventually get to know them so that you're not being annoying or weird. Feel free to correct me where I may have made an assumption. But for sake of time, you go to events because you're drawn by the ability to network and look for opportunities and you're willing to have conversations, whatever the moment needs, so that you can hopefully meet people that can either set you up with somebody that can help you or that will help you go get an opportunity or introduce you to something they can become a client or refer to. Those are important things. What did you freelance in? What did you do?
- [05:58]
B
That is a great question. A lot of things. Basically I was a bit of a Swiss army knife. So I started off in front end web development, then I moved into UX design and then I ended. Towards the end of my, say, creative career, I was more of a marketing and design consultant.
- [06:14]
A
So each time you worked with a recruiter, you tell them a slightly different story as you move through the.
- [06:18]
B
Yeah, I would just say, hey, look, I'm doing a bit more of this now. And then I try and get a project doing that. So when I was in doing front end web development, I would talk to the designer and be like, hey, can I work with you a little bit on this project and just try and get experience basically and just try and add those things to the portfolio.
- [06:34]
A
All right, so the second thing that you did besides in person networking event is. I think you said in person, cold outreach.
- [06:42]
B
Literally.
- [06:43]
C
Yeah.
- [06:43]
B
Like I literally go into people's offices.
- [06:45]
C
Yeah.
- [06:46]
A
Okay. You are already now demonstrating a second set of unique Skills, because most creative people would never do that. Yeah, it's too anxiety ridden. It's too crazy for us to go knock on the door of somebody and tell somebody something and not just want to run. Yeah. So from the time in which you graduate from uni to you no longer freelancing with the day rate, how long did that last?
- [07:08]
B
About four or five years.
- [07:09]
A
Okay, great.
- [07:10]
C
Yeah.
- [07:10]
A
So I think you're capturing some part of the audience that listens to our channel or this pod. Okay, this is fantastic. Let's keep going on this. All right, here's the interesting thing that I'm noting. And I think that people are already seeing the trap being laid out. So we're attracted to people who are noteworthy, and there's a lot of social proof that goes into that. And the social proof, When I say social, I mean social media, like how other people see evidence of competence or expertise. So you're like, they're founders, so there's a title there. Then you have an agency that's another title or label. They have a certain number of people working for them. They've been X number of years in business. These are markers, shorthand or heuristic for something else. And they have a body of work that you can look up and go onto a website that's pretty cool. But the one that was most interesting, the one that stood out, was this young, late teen, early 20s guy, Stephen Bartlett, who now is a phenomenon. But there's this word I wrote down, his reputation preceded him. And this is the business that we're in, where we have a reputation and reputations can be very slow. Like I always say to people, trust is hard to build and easy to lose. It takes a long time for you and trust, it only takes 1F up for you to lose it all. That's why we're always skeptical about people. We're very guarded. All right, so the other thing that you were talking about is I don't do these in person networking events anymore because something else is more powerful, more likely to get me in front of the right people. But I can do it at scale that doesn't nearly require the investment of time anymore. And that you're like, I'm on LinkedIn. So tell me again why you think social media is stupid.
- [08:50]
B
I don't think social media is stupid. I think attention for the sake of attention is stupid. I worry about the people who have millions of followers but very little influence. When they actually ask people to do something, people don't do it because they don't respect Them because they're selling their soul to entertain people.
- [09:12]
A
You have a lot of judging language in this.
- [09:14]
B
I'm just being honest.
- [09:16]
A
Selling your soul. Like I don't think anybody's selling their soul, people not respecting them or whatever because. Or they're getting attention for attention's sake. So I think when I said you think social media is stupid, I think I was being reductive, but I was trying to mirror how reductive your thing is. I don't want to do social media or do personal branding because attention for attention's sake is stupid. It's almost the mirror opposite of that. It doesn't have to be like that because I think the people you and I look up to have a lot of substance and they've learned also how to create massive amounts of real tangible influence.
- [09:48]
B
Yeah, I agree. I think there are lots of people online doing it correctly, like you being one of them. And that's why I respect you and that's why I like being friends with you. So I guess my concern is about how do I do it properly and how do I not make that mistake.
- [10:07]
A
So this is wonderful. This is not a one strategy fits all because we're very different people. You can just tell by the way we sound, the way we look. We're different people with different goals and missions in life. And my whole thing is I'm very socially awkward. I do not know how to work a room, period. And instead of learning how, I've given up on that and I've just done something different, which is to become so well known that people will just walk up to me so I don't have to develop social skills. This works for me and it's working really well for me now. So we all are, in a way inventing solutions to our own problems. So if you don't like social media, then you work in in person networking events or you literally knock on doors and that works too. So what I want to say to everybody who's listening to this is, first of all, we're going to talk about lots of ideas in our ongoing series on building a personal brand. You don't have to do the whole thing from A to Z. You can just pick parts that work for you and you don't have to do it as prescribed and you can change it, you can modify it, you can combine it with other ideas. But I'm hoping some of this starts to unlock what I imagine to be a lot of resistance around this. And we know this is an axiom almost to a point in which it's become cliche. People hire who they know and trust. Know and trust. It's pretty straightforward. So before anybody can hire you, they must know that you exist. And there's a lot of ways you can do this. You can do it in person, which is high friction, high effort. You can do it online, which is low friction, lower effort, but still effort. And there's different levels of intensity and the outcomes that you can get. Just because you show up to an in person networking event doesn't mean you'll meet anybody that's willing to give you work. Just because you pose online doesn't mean people will just start following you or they'll give you opportunities. Both require a level of intentionality, effort and consistency in how you show up. Not consistency in the frequency of posting, but how you show up. Because we've all seen this and we've observed this about an acquaintance or friend of ours. Like I don't know who you are. Like who are you today? I can't recognize you. Not physically, I can't recognize you, but I can't recognize you because you're showing a personality trait I've never seen in you before. That trust is hard to build. You've lost my trust. What we do is we just do this one step at a time, get known. Hopefully people like you enough to try you or to engage with you. And through that interaction online and in person, they can determine if they want to trust you. Now. In his book show youw Work, Austin Kleon writes about this. To be found, you must be findable. I think there's great wisdom in that very simple phrase. People are making it very hard to find them. And so you could be really talented. You can be very earnest in the work that you do, full of ethics, charge a very reasonable rate for what you do. But you're like, how come my inbox is empty? How come I have no new leads right now and it's stressing you out is because we have to master the game of being known. Now. It's great that you shared this because all the things you did, I never did. I've run a company for many years pre social media. And what we did back then was we had, we had reps. I guess that's the equivalent to your recruitment agencies. And the reps were signed exclusively and they were very particular who they worked with and represented. And so you're as good as the company you keep. So they represent a handful of agencies who are non competing sometimes. And they would go to advertising agencies, knock on their doors and show your body of work and see if they can generate something for you. And we existed with reps for 25ish years, for the almost the entire length of our company. We did pr. We hired literally PR firms who would get us press and they would send us copies of everything they got for us. We would also have an executive producer who was doing outbound sales and also doing in person networking events. He would or she would attend parties, go to functions, opening screeners, do the wine and dine stuff. So I outsourced all that because I didn't want to do it. We would take out ads, they were called advertorial, where you would get insert into magazines and you'd pay several thousand dollars to do that. We would take ads out in directories like Alt Pick or the, or the Black Book. Basically directories where advertising agency folks would look through to find who's who. So we did everything in our power to be in front of the decision makers who were considering who they would work with, who they would hire. That was a lot of work, as you can imagine. It was quite expensive and there was a layer of opaqueness that I could never tell because we did this, we got that. So I'll just put this out there for people. Whether you're in Matt's shoes as a solopreneur freelancer or a person running an agency, getting work, getting known requires a lot of work. There is no way around this. There really isn't. Now maybe there's one cheat code. If you're extremely good looking, extremely charismatic, from a great family, living in the epicenter of whatever it is that you do, and your work is, bar none, like the top quality work, you may not have to do anything because people would just seek you out. And those are unicorns. They do exist and they're like, this marketing stuff is nonsense. And I would agree with them because they don't need it. But if you're listening to this and you're curious, there's a high probability that you need it.
- [15:19]
B
I am interested in your perspective because I think there is one more cheat code. And I think that cheat code is more relevant now than it's ever been because the world is so noisy with social media and content and that cheat code is basically borrowing the attention and the trust of somebody that has already built it.
- [15:43]
A
Yes.
- [15:45]
B
And you have been extremely generous with your time and your platform and your audience for me. And I'm just curious of your opinion because the way that came about was, I think it was Mark who was in your team at the time sent you a copy of my book. So obviously writing a book gives you some authority, but I didn't have lots of followers. To you, I was basically a nobody. So I'm just curious what made you give me the opportunity to originally come on the podcast and form a relationship with you?
- [16:22]
A
I'm going to say this is going to sound really weird and people are going like, whatever, dude. I don't look at whatever accomplishments I have or social following as a way of defining myself. I just look at myself as an entrepreneur who's trying to make it in this world. And you're an entrepreneur trying to make in this world that we're at different levels in terms of on our journey towards achieving whatever it is we want to achieve. So I am no more important than you, and you're no less important than me. That's just my general perspective. So this answer is dependent on time and place. I'm at a time and in place where I have time to talk to you. And so if we're going to have you on the show and to do a pod with you, I'm okay with that. Today it's become a lot harder. Not because I have a higher self image, it's because there are lots and lots of people now asking for that same amount of time, which I don't have time for. So if I do what I do really well, more people want to be on the pod than not. So now it's become a problem of selecting. So I have to become more selective. Did I answer your question?
- [17:25]
C
Yeah.
- [17:25]
B
Right time, right place. And I guess I'm just looking at. We're not necessarily having a debate or discussion, but I'm in the camp of how important really is personal brand, and you're in the camp of personal brand is super important. So I guess I'm just raising that as a why did you pick me for the book? But like you said, that was four years ago. I think five years ago now.
- [17:43]
A
It's a long time ago.
- [17:45]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:45]
B
Right time, right place.
- [17:46]
A
Yes. And everybody has the right time, right place. Okay, now, so I can be clear. Let's just go into this. You're skeptical but curious about building a personal brand.
- [17:57]
B
What I want is more inbound opportunities. So I would say I'm pretty happy. I'm happy with my business, with the clients that I work with. I'm happy with how much money I earn. But I have to do a lot of the outrage. Like I have to. I'm the one actively building relationships with people. And I don't mind that, but I've been doing this for like close to a decade now and it would be nice to have more opportunities coming my way rather than me being always the one that feels like they have to create it. And I see people who have a big personal brand and I spend time with you and I spend time with Daniel Priestley and I see the people and the amount of opportunities they have by having that personal brand and that profile. And I'm like, I would quite like some of that.
- [18:40]
A
All right, so I want to be clear on my position on this. I believe if you want to scale your expertise on a one to many model and you have knowledge and you are committed to doing the work, I believe a personal brand can accelerate this. So I'll share a story. Not to name drop, but I'm going to share a little story. I'm at a very intimate dinner with some of the most influential people you could be at a dinner with. And Dan Martell walks in and he's talking about stuff and he goes, the thing I learned about personal brand is it's a force multiplier. And he said I was the reluctant, uncommitted one. So as he tells the story over dinner, I've told it at least once before. He's. He goes to his other friend, a guy named Alex Hormozi, and he goes, man, you were so anti brand and now you're going nuts on his stuff and you're blown all over the place. I'm not convinced, me. So over dinner they talk and he's convinced. And he shares a stat that's staggering about how many qualified inbound leads that Alex has per day. The number is probably higher than most of us have for sure, safely in a year or even 10 years, maybe even our lifetime. And he famously said on stage, mid transition into building a strong personal brand, he said, I'd rather be rich than famous. Somewhere along the way, he realized the two are not two separate ideas. In today's economy, you become rich because you're also famous, because fame allows you to shine a spotlight on something. Now, if you're an empty person, pretty vacuous, like you have no ideas, you're pretty hollow as a person. You'll just shine a light on that. And that's what you were worried about before. But I don't consider that because I am a person of substance, of experience, of lived experiences, battles won and lost that I can share. I have knowledge to impart with others. And if you're that kind of person, then you will want the light or the ability to control where the light shines. And that's what this is about. And just one side footnote here. If you're my friend, if I consider you my friend, and I don't consider a lot of people my friend, I feel that if I have any ability to influence anybody, I don't want the spotlight for myself. I want to be able to share this with my friends. It's like you have a resource. I'm not trying to hoard that resource. That's why some of my friends are able to do stuff with me. Because I'm like, if I can help you in this way, I'd be more than happy to just put it out there. Not for strangers, not for acquaintances, but for people who keep showing up. I get the measure of the person. I think you're good enough for me to give this trust in this relationship too. Okay, putting that aside for a second. So this is not for everybody. This is not for every Tom, Dick and Harry. Now, Priestley and I would get into this real interesting conversation one time he goes, chris, here's the problem. Everybody who says they want a personal brand cannot have one. I'm like, what do you mean? So he goes and explain. He goes, for example, on like, how do you know somebody's gonna blow up? I said, they have to have a certain je ne sais quoi. They have to have the it factor. It goes, not everyone who can sing becomes a pop star and not everyone who's got a auto tune voice. That doesn't exclude them from becoming a pop star. There's other factors that we don't consider. And there is personality, there's charisma, there's tone of voice. There's even like just physically the way you look or you have a lot of personal style or the way you say things in your phraseology or your point of view and your take on the world is so unique and refreshing or different or funny. There's an X factor and we can't count on that. All we can say is if you do these things, it gives you the best opportunity to develop that authority that you look for. Now, to your question, and we're going to have to have a debate about this. You want more inbound opportunities. And I have been fairly clear and adamant on this. I'm not an advocate for teaching personal brand to develop inbound opportunities. They happen despite you not trying to get them. And so it's a very different approach. And the reason why I say this is because the vast field of personal brand coaches are all designing their pitches to help you get more inbound opportunities. I don't think what they're doing is called personal branding. I think what they're doing is called social media marketing. They're using the platforms to market to people. And so they're in your inbox, they're on your email list, there's follow ups. Almost every single thing that they're doing feels very transactional to me. And that's the opposite of personal branding. Because in the world of brand, on one side of the spectrum is brand long term consistent value being delivered to customers or audiences, on the other side it's called performance marketing, which is good for short term cash flow. But they're in opposition to each other. And quoting Hormozi again, he goes, you can be a millionaire, you can get everything you want in your life if you're willing to delay the ask so that the value that you give to people, the transformation you're able to create in people, is so deep that when you ask, they'll be more than happy to give. And the longer the delay, like delayed gratification, the bigger the ask, the more likely they are going to buy. And he quite literally proved this a couple of weekends ago when he did his book launch for $100 million models in which it was reported he sold over 3 million books for the tune of a hundred million dollars. An astounding feat because according to him, he's not been asking for too much and he's created massive amounts of value or transformation for the audience that they're more than happy not to buy one book, but 200 books or 4000 books or however many books they bought. That is incredible. So the mistake that a lot of people make is piece of content and ask, give you something, get something, give you something so that it's very transactional. And if we enter into that kind of model, I'm not the right coach because I don't know how to do that. This is not what I'm trying to teach people. So we have to make a determination here. If you're interested in doing this thing that has no predictable return on investment, that requires you to have an it factor that may or may not pay off for you, because if you don't have it, there's not much we can do.
- [24:51]
B
Okay. Yeah. You're not selling it?
- [24:54]
A
No, I didn't sell it.
- [24:56]
B
Then. Yeah, then.
- [24:58]
A
And be as hard and honest and as direct as you want to be.
- [25:02]
B
Yeah. I guess my first response Is then not so much what's the point? But then what is the prize at the end of the rainbow?
- [25:08]
A
Yeah. Okay. When you're an old man in your deathbed and you look back on your life, what moments will matter most to you? What kind of universal questions or objectives have. Are you thinking about have accomplished or things like that? I'm just curious.
- [25:25]
B
I think experiences, relationships and bodies of work, like books I've written, pieces of creative I've created. Like, I. I want to write a musical album. So, yeah, I think like people, places and some kind of purpose.
- [25:43]
A
Okay, let's take this one at a time.
- [25:45]
C
Okay.
- [25:46]
A
When we say people and relationships, I think most people would say, I'd like to experience the full depth of being deeply in love and someone have loving me back.
- [25:56]
C
Yeah.
- [25:56]
A
It'd be a sad existence not to have that feeling. And we're not talking about like your parents or not a platonic love. We're talking about like an intimate love to experience that.
- [26:03]
C
Yeah.
- [26:04]
A
And so if you go to your grave not having met that person, experiences for any period of time, it could be 10 days, it doesn't really matter to know the depths. And you're like, I gave myself. I hurt like hell, but it was all worth it. Okay, so that's one thing.
- [26:17]
C
Yeah.
- [26:18]
A
The other thing is that you want to leave behind some kind of knowledge. You said some books or you've authored things. And now books are like a legacy media, but it represents a bigger idea. And so we're like moving from in our younger lives to wanting to be known and moving to our more kind of introspective self, to being remembered. What will I be remembered for? How did I contribute to society? Did I leave this place a little bit better than I found it? Because I think what would be devastating to all of us is to know that your life did not matter. So mattering is important. Yes.
- [26:54]
C
Yeah.
- [26:55]
A
Okay. There's one thing that you didn't say, but I think is probably already on your mind. And it's what almost everybody says is, did you get an opportunity to know yourself? A lot of people do go to the grave. Who. Who am I? Who was I in this life? And was I able to know, to accept or embrace and to express my truest self? And there's lots of stories when somebody's 80 years old and they have a health scare and they start to live their true life. They give up the things that they were told to do to fit into society, to be accepted, to be loved, and they started doing their own thing and then they blossom. So for 85 years of their lives, they weren't living their true selves. And then in that Last moment, from 86 to 185 to 101 before they expire, they live the full richness of expressing themselves. Mostly because there are duties that are imposed upon us by society, by our parents, our culture, that we're supposed to be doing something other than what we should be doing. And I love this Picasso quote, he says, and I always mix this up and it's something like the purpose of life is to discover your gift, and then the meaning of life is to give it away. And I love this quote because it's so profound. Despite not just being one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he's a profound thinker too. And I think they're related. And I just love that quote so much. Because we all have a gift. We don't know it yet. We think our gift is what we do for a living. It's not. The gift, believe it or not, is you. I don't want to sound like woo here. We're not going to that space because I'm not woo myself, but your yourself. You are the gift. You don't have to do nothing but to reveal yourself. And once you know who you are, then it's your duty, your obligation, your. The meaning, your purpose is to share it. There's only one person in this universe, this world, can do what you do, and it's you. And so what is the meaning of developing your personal brand? According to me, according to Chris, it's to be the USU you can be. And this is a journey inward more than is a journey outward. It's not an outward expression, although there are components of that. It's who is Matt, who is Chris, who's Daniel, who is Stephen? Who are all these people? And the weird thing is, and we've. You've witnessed this because you went to a workshop, I think we did, in London. When I asked people, if you reflect on the people in history, the people who you are most drawn to, the most magnetic, they usually exhibit two or three of these traits, if not all three. Number one, they have really high self awareness and self acceptance. They have disarming vulnerability about them, like they're just comfortable in their own skin. There's good and there's bad. And they make it all present to you because they've learned part of the self acceptance part is there's no good without the bad. So to hide the bad, to hide their Struggle is to deny the existence of part of them. And it's at least half. Or maybe it's exactly half. And the last part, I think is we're seemingly attracted to people who are very self confident. And self confident, if it's defined by the dictionary, is something a belief in one skill to, to solve problems, not what most people think it is. So you've developed some kind of skill and that's part of your gift. So these three things together is you. I know who I am. I accept and embrace that person. I recognize there's darkness to me, there's a shadow component to me. There's an equal but opposite energy in everything that we do. And then lastly, I've developed some skills and I believe I can use those skills to solve problems. Fantastic. So we think about characters in history. I won't name any name, but you can fill in the blank. And you can use this as a test. Are you really drawn to somebody of substance, somebody of meaning that's withstood the test of time? Mostly we try to think of deceased people because everyone's a work in progress, right? Deceased people cannot rewrite their bios. So you can say who. Who are you drawn to? And generally speaking, they exhibit these three characters characteristics, not just you, but to a larger population. They're usually leaders, they're usually philosophers, they're profound thinkers. And they do these things and they give us permission to be ourselves. And the reason why they're so attractive, so magnetic is because we feel calm in their presence. We feel seen and heard and understood. So the whole point of building your personal brand, to use a modern language, is to know yourself, to discover your gift and to be able to express and share that with the world. That's the point. Coincidentally, you do know this already. The scorecard we all should be using is impact. The more lives we can impact, the likelihood not always the more valuable we become in influence, in. In monetization, in terms of opportunities and associations. I'll pause there, throw it back to you.
- [31:50]
B
I love what you said in response to what does it mean to build a personal brand? And I feel like I've been working on those three things for the last decade. And I have had more therapy and coaching and spent money on mentors and I'm a very introspective person and I feel like I have a lot of those attributes. I'm definitely not perfect, but I could be more of myself and accept myself more and all of those things. I guess for me there's still a missing piece there's still a missing piece between all of that, which sounds like great, fun personal development work, which I'm more than willing to do and continue doing versus how does that relate to having a big following and opportunities? Or doesn't it? Because then I'm totally lost in terms of the correlation between personal brand and notoriety or influence or following.
- [32:44]
A
If we are able to express ourselves in our truest version, it means something. It means that we're not doing it with an agenda, except for to express ourselves. This is really important because if you scroll through your mind and go through the LinkedIn feed, there's lots of people who are, quote, unquote, thought leaders are building their personal brand. But you can smell the agenda a mile away. Enroll my program, sign up for my email list, buy this thing almost always. And so for a period of time, I can't say it always, Ramosi would make content. That was a reflection of what he learned from Vanderbilt, what he learned in running gym launch, and what he's been able to do with acquisition. And there was no ask. You're like. And people became suspicious because we've been conditioned to look for the ask. And when there's no ask, we're like, what is up? Something dirty rotten is happening here. And like I said, it's dangerous for us to look into the life of somebody that's still alive because the story's not complete. We were only seeing chapters of an unfinished book. But as a model, if you give wholly without an agenda, you will endear others to you in ways that performance marketing can never do. That I say that performance marketing, direct marketing, repels, and branding compels.
- [34:05]
B
I agree. Can I ask you a question on that?
- [34:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, please.
- [34:08]
B
I totally agree. Right. Hormozi did do that. And a lot of the people, like Stephen Bartlett, for example, like, gives a ton of value on his podcast and gets these amazing guests and the production value super high. The first thing that comes to my mind is like, Horosi was able to do that because he didn't need money. He literally just sold a business for hundreds of millions. So he 40 million. Okay, so he was able to just create content and give all his lessons away. Like, he wasn't trying to sell anything. At the beginning of this conversation, you said me and you are both entrepreneurs, right? And like, my definition of an entrepreneur is somebody that has impact but also looks for opportunity. Like, an entrepreneur is somebody that creates new opportunities that didn't exist before. Somebody who solves problems in a way that haven't been solved before. And by doing that, by definition you are creating value and therefore you can ask for money back. So I think I've always struggled with this disparity between give stuff away for free and do all this stuff and prolong the ask versus actually building a business and actually being able to employ people and actually being able to solve problems. Because you need money to be able to do that.
- [35:15]
A
Yeah. So I don't see them necessarily in conflict or any of the things that you're saying is in conflict because Matt as a consultant, as a coach and advisor can make money and that's how we pay the bills and keep a roof over our head and you can build a nice business. But Matt as a thought leader is building his personal brand is about expressing himself. And he needs to do this for quite a long period of time. It doesn't happen overnight. In fact, I'm telling you right now, it's like a three year minimum commitment before you actually see any real results. And then all of a sudden these two worlds will collide. So I say to people, imagine a map of the United States and the proverbial train leaves from New York destined to meet in la and LA leaves headed towards New York. We'll just say, because New York is the financial capital of the country, right. Let's just say that's performance marketing. And then from la, because we're image based. Let's just say it's a little woo, it's you're building your personal brand. Where the two meets is where revenue happens. Now if you're all performance marketing person, you buy $2 million worth of ads, you get to LA and you'll get to LA pretty fast. But you have done it on the field of capital. You'll be burning money because you pay for marketing, that's what you do. Or quite wealthy doing that on the opposite side is you building personal brand. It's like there's no clients, it's slow, it's a grind. You're like chopping trees down, you're throwing into the furnace and it's just, it's going but ain't going that fast. So one's like a bullet train, one is like an old school steam locomotive. They'll meet somewhere. I'm not an advocate for a 100% one or the other. And the formula just depends on the person where they're at. So I'm like more like an 80, 20, 80 in the personal branding. 20% of performance because eventually you can accelerate some of your success. But when Alex says he doesn't need to make money. He sure is making a lot more money than a person who doesn't need to make money.
- [37:11]
B
Yeah, but he didn't have a personal brand before he made money.
- [37:16]
A
No, he just did a lot of work. Yeah, just like me. Yeah, I did a lot of work running my agency when no one, heck no one knew me from Adam. Right. And I wasn't on social, I wasn't doing quote unquote thought leadership. I was making YouTube videos. I wasn't on Instagram, just an old school, talking to clients, doing good work, managing my team, showing up every single day. But see, here's the thing that we can learn. See, I think like any of these great philosophers, they have somehow either met their need for survival, that they can think of bigger issues. So when we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they've already mastered the bottom three. Food, shelter, safety, belonging, community, all that kind of stuff. They're moving more towards who am I and what is my human potential. And when they figure that out, they're learning about themselves. And when they learn about themselves, they have come to some kind of epiphany. I've been slowly looking into different religious and non religious characters or people in history and they almost always seem to come to the same conclusion. Whether it's from Christ, Lao Tzu, Confucius Buddha, Plato, Socrates, this kind of like richer way of looking at the world in your life that transcend the need to make money. And they do go to their graves knowing who they are, knowing that they've made great impact and they think hopefully loving and feeling loved. So I think when we're just in the grind, is a person who's literally working in a coal mine right now thinking about building their personal brand? No, because you're just thinking how do I pay for formula and diapers? So it's the activity of the people who are in a place of privilege. I'm not saying because mom and dad gave you a lot of money, but because your need to sustain or subsist is no longer necessary. And then it brings you this higher truth, this greater purpose and you can do, you can make greater impact. Now relating back to Ramozi, he used to say this. I make content. I'll never sell you anything. That's a promise depending on who you talked to. He's broken that promise a couple of times already because he's asking a lot now. So if we say that if we use the most up to date data and then we're going to stop talking about hermosi because we. And it's my fault. I take full responsibility for this because I should speak about what I know is perhaps he's one of the most genius marketers that's existed in the last, at least in this generation. Because what I found really interesting in his pitch, the one he did recently for his book, $100 million offers or models, is that he goes, here's what I've been doing the last couple of years. And he was collecting massive amounts of social proof. And he said this book was already written. It was actually the first book I wrote. And so he may have figured out his five, six year plan, how he's going to go from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And it would be diabolical, a stroke of marketing genius prowess on a scale we've not seen before. And he was able to pull it out. So I was sitting there reflecting on my own life. It's if I want to have $100 million 24 hour period, I need to be collecting social proof, helping people while asking for nothing. So when I do make that giant ask, it's available. Because everyone who does build a giant personal brand does have a really big ask. There is some light at the end of that tunnel. Simply put, you could just sell more of your books or you can launch a TV network or a vodka brand or some spirits brand. You can do that because you've earned the right to do that.
- [40:45]
B
This conversation didn't go where I thought it was gonna go. I feel like, where's it going? It's good, but I just. Yeah, it's not how I was thinking about personal brand.
- [40:53]
A
That's not.
- [40:55]
B
Which is interesting. What an idea that's coming up for me is something I actually heard from someone we both know, Tacky Moore, which is this idea of give in public and ask in private. And I think there's a potential solution to those both running those things simultaneously. Like your personal brand is like give. And then people are like, oh, this person's interesting. I wonder what else they've got. And there's some free stuff. And then once they're on your email list or once you have their details, you, there's more of an ask. Or even you could go a layer deeper where it's like there's still free stuff and you invite someone to a call or a conversation. And then only there's an ask where there's a clear value proposition. For example, so it's 80% give and then 20% ask. But the ask is always done in private.
- [41:38]
A
Yeah, I think that's a model.
- [41:40]
C
Yeah.
- [41:40]
A
But he's removing the agenda from the content. He's not gatekeeping anything. And I think the way this works is if we give so much, the level of appreciation and trust that's being built leads us to something else. A genuine curiosity to be able to repay the person back. If this is the free stuff, what does the paid stuff look like? Or more conversationally, how do you make money? Oh, by the way, I do help people do X, Y and Z. So if your content is so good, you no longer have to ask, they'll ask how to buy. And there's a Marty Neumar quote in here somewhere, which is, people hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. And so if you look at the vast amount, the majority of, quote unquote, personal marketing thought leadership, it's asking in the piece of content itself. And we're not that stupid that we can't see an advertisement when we see it. We're not that dumb. And the real question is, if you had no business, would you still be making content? And that's the truest test of are you doing this for the right reasons? And I think the old media, legacy media is to write books, but we're just writing a page or a chapter at a time in public. I'm thinking about things that might help you. I've organized my thoughts. I'm going to distill it down into ways that are very snackable. It's not a full course meal, just have a bunch. You're in between things. You're waiting for the kids to pick up the kids from school, or you're between meetings and someone's delayed. You would just read this thing or you would consume it and then you start to build this relationship. I just wrote this thing down. I think this conversation is not where I thought it was going to go either. But I've. I'm starting to like, understand myself better too, by the way, which is, I think in a way, personal branding is the art of making strangers fall in love with you. And you don't get people to fall in love with you by asking them from stuff all the time. So when their feelings of love, this is platonic love, by the way, is they want to repay you. And this is where all the opportunities come from.
- [43:41]
B
That's pretty powerful. And it reminds me of the synergy of. In a romantic relationship where you, you give value, you impress someone, you take them on dates, you plan nice things.
- [43:50]
A
For them, there's a courtship Isn't there?
- [43:52]
C
Yeah.
- [43:52]
B
You have this period of getting to know each other and figuring out whether you have the same values and the same goals in life. And you only ask them once. You ask them to marry you, or you ask them to move in with you, or you ask them to be your boyfriend or whatever.
- [44:05]
C
Right.
- [44:06]
B
You ask them that once you've got to know them, once you feel like they're sincere, they're the kind of person that you want to be around. So it's a pretty powerful idea.
- [44:14]
A
I think, in a world now where we're just bombarded with negative imagery, just take us back to the core of, like, our human existence, and I think that's wonderful. And so when we give to people without any expectations, without an agenda, I have to imagine the other side is a person who's feeling something like the way I feel, because I cannot be the single person. And in fact, I know this is true because the waves of messages that I get online, either on YouTube or in my DMs or LinkedIn, somebody saying, man, this thing really broke it through for me, or you helped me do X, Y and Z. I have this life because of you. And so far, I've not figured out how to ask for it back yet, because I'm not the marketing genius that Mr. Hormozi is. But there will be an ask, because I do need to make money, and I want to do this at a much, much bigger scale. That's all.
- [45:02]
B
And so would you say to somebody who hasn't met their financial needs that they should forget personal branding?
- [45:08]
A
I think they should do it in parallel, because the minute you start doing it is not the minute it works. It takes a long time to figure stuff out.
- [45:15]
B
How do you do that in parallel, though? Like, from a really practical perspective, like, how do you show up and give value online through content without asking if you're also trying to pay the bills?
- [45:27]
A
Okay, I want to talk about that. Maybe we'll talk about you specifically. What is a service that you want to provide to people that you'd be thrilled if you got more opportunities to do that?
- [45:37]
B
I would say something like being paid a reasonable amount to run a workshop or a talk or something somewhere in a place that I would quite like to go with people that I would quite like to hang out with?
- [45:51]
A
This is perfect. Let's narrow it down. You wanted to do a workshop or you want to do public speaking? They're a little bit different animals.
- [45:59]
B
Okay, okay, let's go with public speaking.
- [46:01]
A
Okay, so you want to be Paid a reasonable amount. Let's put a number on the reasonable amount.
- [46:07]
B
I want to be paid at least.
- [46:09]
A
£5,000 and I'll convert that to the US dollars. Is that like 7,500?
- [46:15]
B
Yeah, let's say. Let's say 7,500.
- [46:18]
A
Okay, that's good. It's good number.
- [46:19]
B
And I want my travel expenses and everything to be covered.
- [46:22]
A
Of course.
- [46:23]
C
Yeah.
- [46:24]
A
Okay. All right. This is perfect. And you'd be mostly making the selection based on the city you get to go to, because you want to be like, living in this fully digital, nomad style.
- [46:34]
B
Yeah, I would want to like it's good life. Yeah. Go there and spend some time there and hang out with some cool, interesting people and do some stuff while I was there. So I would probably. I would get the flights paid, but I would probably do something so that I could be there for a month or a few weeks or something.
- [46:49]
A
Yeah. And depending on how you lived, how economic you live, that's how you.500 can go a long way. So it could just. Okay, you put me in a nice hotel, but I'm going to go get an Airbnb or something and I'll live the rest of the thing on a couple hundred bucks a day and you'll be great.
- [47:02]
C
Yeah.
- [47:02]
A
Until your next gig. So you want to develop a lifestyle business around sharing your knowledge and someone being able to pay you this amount. This is perfect. I know how to do this. Now, rather than me give you advice, I would love if you asked me a question, and then I will give you an answer to, and then I'll start to figure out, like, where your head's at. We have a clear objective now.
- [47:23]
B
I like the business I currently have and I want to continue building it. What I want is basically what I have. But the idea of you said, what service do you want to sell that you'd be really excited to do? Like, the idea of somebody paying me to come and do that and doing it to somebody else's audience is quite exciting. So my question is, do you think I can do both, or am I building a public speaking business rather than building a coaching or consulting business?
- [47:49]
A
I think they can work in parallel and they're compounding. So we're not trying to build two different lives.
- [47:54]
B
Okay.
- [47:55]
A
Because my assumption would be the thing that people are paying you to do public speaking around is related to your area of expertise. Yeah, naturally. So the more that you do consulting and coaching, the more expertise you develop, the more case studies, the more stories you have to share. So generally speaking, if we look at through the lens of an event producer and they have a selection of people that they're going to book for their event and we're talking about roughly about $10,000 of value here because a flight, a hotel or something, give or take.
- [48:28]
C
Yeah.
- [48:29]
A
So we're just asking them to part with $10,000. So what you have to do is you have to be able to deliver in their mind more than $10,000 of value and that's an easy booking.
- [48:38]
C
Yeah.
- [48:39]
A
So if you were putting yourself in their shoes and being super empathetic, what do they want to happen when they're considering who to book?
- [48:46]
B
They want to sell more tickets.
- [48:47]
A
They. That would be the number one criteria, I believe.
- [48:50]
C
Yeah.
- [48:51]
A
What's another thing that you think they.
- [48:53]
B
Want people leaving that event, talking about the event so that the brand reputation compounds.
- [49:00]
A
They want positive reviews.
- [49:02]
B
They want positive reviews. They want people to have a really good experience.
- [49:05]
A
Yeah. You know how I was translating everything you're saying into a much more tangible things like they want to just sell tickets. We don't know how people have an experience until they leave a positive review.
- [49:15]
C
Yeah.
- [49:16]
A
Or testimonials. Anything else you can think of.
- [49:19]
B
So they want. They want to make a profit. They probably want to get some press coverage. They probably want to see their event in some magazines or some online articles or some blogs or. They want to see people talking about it.
- [49:32]
A
Yeah. Social impression, something like that.
- [49:35]
C
Yeah.
- [49:36]
A
Anything else?
- [49:37]
B
Not I can think of right now.
- [49:39]
A
So we understand this now. And when people post content and their energy isn't great, and I don't mean energy like exploding on the screen, but just their overall energy, their vibe isn't in alignment with what the event organizer is looking for. They pass them. They pass on them all the time.
- [49:55]
C
Yeah.
- [49:57]
A
So your primary concern is to create content that builds an audience that shows up and your numbers grow and to do it in a way that's energetically aligned with the market that you're going to ultimately serve.
- [50:12]
B
Yeah.
- [50:12]
A
So that's how you would do this. You need to create content that builds a community and audience foaming at the mouth for you. So much so that the audience starts to demand the event organizer book you.
- [50:25]
B
The thing that's coming up for me is how to know what content to really create.
- [50:32]
A
There's a lot we have to unpack there.
- [50:34]
C
Okay.
- [50:35]
B
So I sometimes struggle because I feel like the content that people want is around getting more clients, sales, marketing, etc. The content that's most aligned with me maybe a little bit. Woo and mindset. And stuff that. Yeah, I just feel when I've tried to talk about that stuff in the past, it hasn't got that much traction.
- [50:57]
A
That's why we have to segment our two energies here. Our energy to make money and our energy to figure out who the heck we are in this lifetime. And every time we bring those two back together, then conflict once again. Okay, I just sketched this out to not premeditated, so I don't know. But I generally think there's three things that determine whether or not a piece of content gets a lot of views or not.
- [51:18]
C
Okay.
- [51:19]
A
Number one is the format. Is it one light, two chairs? Is it man on the street? Number two is the subject of what you're talking about. And number three is the delivery of this. So if the subject is mindset and a little wound to spirituality, but the format is incorrect and your delivery is incorrect, it's not that the world doesn't want to see that. You just got to solve the other two things. Now if you talk about marketing with the mindset or woo, that becomes a niche. And niches are quite powerful. You double up on something. And so we have to play with these three things because this is why it's like a combination. You have to get all the digits in alignment, otherwise the lock won't open. What is your quick reflection based on our conversation? Because you had already commented that this did not go the way I thought it was going to go.
- [52:08]
B
Yeah. I think my reflection is the personal brand is not about just being in the spotlight and being famous. It's about getting to know who you really are, accepting yourself and deciding what message you want to leave in the world or what legacy you want to leave in the world.
- [52:32]
A
And this is what I try to help people with. Okay? So at the end of the day, we don't really care about what anybody else wants you to talk about because it will be impossible for you long term, even short term, if you don't love the subject that you're talking. This is what I'm deeply passionate about. This is where I think I can provide a different point of view to the world, or slightly different, or at least deliver in a way that's different. And if you start doing that more and you stay out of what the results are, and you just keep honing that and going deeper and deeper into that, eventually if you do it long enough, you'll have a whole different impact. So it's not about changing you, but it's about tweaking very small things that can ultimately have a very big impact on how it's being delivered.
- [53:17]
C
Yeah, love that.
- [53:18]
B
Okay, so what's my homework, Coach?
- [53:21]
A
Your homework is to figure out what subject you really want to talk about and that you can see yourself doing long term. And that ultimately is broad enough that people would want to hear more from you in a paid environment. It.