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And it's sort of just like this, okay, is it really worth it? Should you spend time doing this? Is is this something that actually, that actually is worth your time or is it just about vanity metrics and stats and status? And so today I want to talk about a couple of things, why I think it's still worth doing and that it should demand some of your attention, at least as long as it's something that resonates with you. I recently talked to a friend of mine who, who actually we had to set up a re recording because the audio on his side ended up not coming through clearly. So I won't give it away, but he's a of mine had a multiple eight figure marketing agencies and he was doing like stages and he was doing his own podcast and he was being a guest on podcast and then basically what he told me was for over the last three years he basically said no to all of those things. He shut down his podcast, he shut down one of his marketing agencies, he said no to every podcast that asked for three years, said no to all the speaking gigs and just basically arrived at a point of clarity where he was like, this stuff does not matter to me. I'd rather just focus on building my business and was like, great, do that. It seems to be working pretty well for you. And if protecting your, and if this allows you to protect your mental health and it doesn't give you all the other benefits that I find doing these things, then nothing says you have to do it. That Being said, is it a good idea and is it helpful? I believe that it is. So the first reason, and then I'm going to read through some, some different stats and stuff that I found, first reason that I think that it's worth building is that audience and community I believe is going to be a significant hedge against the AI disruption that will be experienced over the next decade. Community growth and audiences will drive the next layer of entrepreneurship, in my opinion, the next generation of entrepreneurship. And I've been talking about this ad nauseam for quite some time, but you look at some of the most successful launches of companies that have happened in the last five years, a lot of them are creator led businesses or at least creator inspired businesses. So even if it's not a wild example example like feastables from Mr. Beast, the chocolate company, or it's not prime that Logan Paul and KSI did, which is a multi billion dollar brand at this point, or you know, you look at the Rock with Teremana Tequila, the single most successful launch of any spirits company in history was the Rock with Teremana. They sold more cases of tequila their first year in business than Casamigos did, which was George Clooney's tequila brand the year that they sold for over a billion. So the year that Cosmigo sold for over a billion, they did less volume than the Rock's tequila company. Teremana did its first year in business as a launch, which will tell you exactly how much that company's worth and basically understand that everything the Rock has ever done will pale in comparison to the amount of money that he will make if and when he decides to exit Teremana or take it public. I mean, at this point, sheesh. There's so much, so much room on the table and so many decisions to make with that. And then he started an energy drink company called Zoa that did really well. And then you know, you have Ryan Reynolds with Mint Mobile and Aviation Gin and. And then you have sort of even smaller examples like the, the Caleb, Caleb Priestley from Barstool. I don't think he's with Barstool anymore, but he has his own podcast and him and his partner in that, Glenny Balls, they released their own like a peanut butter tequila company or something like that. It's like there, there's so many of these creator and it's because you have immediate distribution to a certain extent. Now the danger here is that you end up launching a product that is just not good. Like it's just not a good product. And then you have a bad customer experience and it hurts the brand, your personal brand as well as does not allow the company to continue to grow. But you get the first purchases on board and then you also have the increased loyalty from the people who know, like and trust you already. And that now goes into the decision to buy something from you versus buying from a brand that, that is faceless, nameless and has no community or audience and means nothing to them personally. So they just end up switching to this other brand. In fact, I think Jake Paul's like skincare is skincare line or like it's like body wash and, and body spray and lotion and things like that for dudes. Like essentially the next generation of acts of what it, what it was when what I remember from growing up and even he came out recently and basically said like, hey, we did this thing, but it's 100% on me. This episode of the show is brought to you by Factor. Look, everybody who's listening to the show is busy. I get it. There's kids, there's distractions, there's businesses, there's side hustles, there's podcasts, there's everything to prevent you from eating good quality food all the time. So for me, eating healthy isn't necessarily a willpower problem. It's just more of a setup problem. It's just easier to pick the processed food because I know I can just grab it and eat it really quick. Well, enter Factor with Factor. I'm hitting my nutrition goals this season. Without the planning, the grocery runs or even the cooking, they have meals built around your goals, whether that's weight loss, overall nutrition, more protein or GLP1 support for strength and workout recovery. 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So a lot of cards like this, they require you to put some sort of money down and then they will give you a credit card based on the money that you put down. But when they do that, because it basically is working off of the cash that you have down as collateral for the credit line, you don't get rewards on it. Well, Chime changed the game with their new credit card as well. There's no annual fees, there's no interest, no strings attached. And when you get qualifying direct deposits, you get 1.5% cash back on eligible Chime card purchases. Chime is not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. So join the millions who are already banking fee free today. My younger self would have benefited from this and I know you will too. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.com travis that is chime.com Travis products were not up to snuff. So we took the last two years to develop to really go deep on the product side. And now we've launched stuff that is very, very good. And because he has so much brand equity, he will easily be able to recover from the first, you know, shipment of the subpar products that they made originally. And you if you're just starting a company from scratch, you don't have that because a large line item in your first year P L is going to go into marketing and branding expenses. And someone like Logan Paul heard him say this on a podcast. They spent a total, a grand total of $0 on marketing their first year with prime and still did a quarter of a billion dollars in sales with a hyper competitive hydration beverage and then obviously moved into energy drinks and things like that as well along the way. But they spent $0 in marketing and advertising to sell that much, which is crazy for a first year company, but also makes sense because he didn't have to spend anything because he could just continue making content like he always does and just have prime sitting there in the background and it gets a bunch of people to buy his stuff. And then what they end was basically taking the lion's share of the money that they would have spent on marketing and advertising and they started buying up more brand. So they actually started sponsoring athletes and they sponsored, I think they, I think they got the deal with the ufc. So I think they, they, they're like the official brand partner hydration drink of the UFC and then their official hydration partner of a few different soccer teams over in Europe because his partner's KSI who's, who's basically the Logan Paul of the uk so then I think they also did deal with the Lakers and these other like. So they were able to put all of the money that they saved from not having to market into just buying up more brand so that they continue to be a trusted partner in the space that they're operating in. These are all creator led businesses. And so I think this, this having an audience, having a community of people who already know, like and trust you is, it's just a, it's a cheat code. It's a cheat code. It doesn't necessarily guarantee long term success of a business because like I said, the still has to be good, but it does guarantee the immediate success which a lot of times is the part where most businesses just can't make it through. They don't have enough revenue, they don't have enough profit to continue to scale beyond a certain point and just, it chokes them out before they can ever reach this, this, you know, point of scaling the business. So the, the, I think that just the personal brand, the, the community and audience you can build around a personal brand will allow you to at some point in the future be able to essentially create whatever you want and have it be immediately successful and at least to a certain degree, which will give you enough data if you Take it seriously on the back end, to continue to learn, to experiment. Not to mention, not to mention to be able to attract talent that's really good at doing those things. So if you're not a product developer, well, it's, it's easier for somebody like that who has a recognizable name and a brand already to go recruit and, and poach the best talent from the best companies around. Because people want to go work on the Rocks Tequila Company instead of working for, you know, Conglomerate Tequila Company or, you know, being at Patron or working for some or working for Grey Goose or something like that. They're like, ooh, that's exciting to go to, to push the Rocks brand forward. Now I, now I don't have to explain what this random no name brand is to people. I can just say like, yeah, I'm repping this company now. And they go, oh, which one is that? And you go, oh, it's the Rocks Tequila Company. And they go, oh, nice. Cool, that's awesome. And then it makes, it makes it easier to go attract the talent that allows you to be able to develop products that are better and then you retain the talent better and then you have customers and you can retain the customers better. So there's just so many reasons to have that community. And by the way, this does not mean that you have to have 30 million followers to be able to pull this off. There's plenty of examples. I just had a guy on my show recently, a friend of mine named Mike Kim. And Mike teaches a lot of personal branding stuff and he wrote a book on personal branding, I think it's called you are the Brand. And it's enabled him to speak at south, south by Southwest and Podcast Movement and all these other big conferences. And you know, he's not, he's not somebody who built a, you know, hundred million dollar direct to consumer e commerce product, but he has built a seven figure a year business that allows him to live the lifestyle that he wants off of an audience of a few hundred loyal followers and you know, a few thousand total Instagram followers. And I don't know how big his email list is, but I assume bigger than his Instagram audience. But my point is like, it doesn't require you to have a massive, massive reach and super engaged, crazy super fans who, you know, who are blowing up your comments. And you have 34,000 shares on every post that you put on Instagram. It does not require that. It's just if you are just really thoughtful and careful and talk to a specific problem for a specific group of people that you actually help solve those problems, then you can build something off of the back end of that by simply just, just being okay at the thing that it is that you do and actually delivering on the things that you say you can do. So I asked, I was doing a little bit of research before this and I wanted to see like, what does it mean for ltv, which is lifetime value of a customer? What does community building and brand mean for the lifetime value of a customer? So first off, trust compresses decision making time. So on average it, it allows the first purchases to be significantly easier than it would be from starting a brand from scratch, with no brand behind, with no recognizable name behind the brand. Something that we've already kind of talked about. So you have faster conversions, less hesitation, fewer abandoned carts, things like that. More willingness to try your first iteration of a product because people already trust you. So they're just like, okay, sure. And some people will buy from you even if they don't even want the product that much, just because you've helped them so much. You know, Like Gary Vee's a great example of this. Like people buy his books. I would be curious to know what percentage of Gary Vee's audience bought his books just because they were eagerly looking for something to give him. They wanted to spend money with them because some free advice he gave them online changed their life and they took action against it. And now they're in a wildly different position than they were before. So they're like, yeah, sure, I'll support Gary Vee's book launch. I'll buy a thousand books. How much are a thousand books? Let me buy a thousand books. And they give them out to a bunch of people or something like that. But I bet a good portion of those people never even read the book. They just want to support him because of the value that he's brought into their lives. So retention also goes up. So first time buyers goes up, but retention also goes up because there's already an emotional connection. There's identity alignment, there's this narrative loyalty. Like people want to follow the story of the brand, not just buy the product. They want to feel like they're a part of this thing that this creator has, has made from scratch. People don't, people don't churn as easily as they do from a regular product because it feels like they're unsubscribing from one of their favorite creators, which almost feels, that almost makes them feel disloyal. So it increases the retention, which obviously directly impacts customer lifetime value, which is one of the most important parts of having a sense Pricing power increases. A known trusted leader can charge more for the same thing. Perceived expertise is higher, risk feels lower. Customers believe that the outcomes are more likely. This is the part if you follow Alex Ramosi's offer equation, this is the perceived likelihood of achievement portion of the equation. What is the perceived likelihood of achievement? It's not the actual likelihood of achievement, it's the perceived likelihood of achievement. So the perception is increased because they already know like and trust the person who is suggesting that this product is actually going to solve the problem that they are experiencing. So that directly increases your initial your initial orders like we already talked about. It increases retention, but it also increases the average order value and it increases the upsell conversion rates because they're more likely to take other products from that person in order to support the launch and because they already trust that that person's going to put out a good quality product, which again equates to a higher lifetime value. Cross selling and ecosystem expansion becomes easier when people trust the person. They're open to new products in that line. They're open to new verticals this episode of the show is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard, it is terrifying. So much work goes into this thing that you're just not entirely sure that's going to work out. It can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know. When I started this podcast, when I've started several of my businesses, I just wasn't even sure what I was doing. Like, what if nobody listens to the show? Go. What if I make a fool of myself? What if I embarrass myself? Nobody buys my stuff. Now I know that I was right in believing in myself and launching my podcast and several of my businesses despite all the fears and hesitations. But it also helps when you have an amazing partner like Shopify on your side to help. 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Meaning like you see somebody like Mr. Beast, he tried Beast, Beast Burger, Mr. Beast Burger, Beast Burger, something like that. It basically was like ghost kitchens. Yeah, they weren't actual restaurants from what I understand. It was basically just ghost kitchens. And then they, so they only sold through the delivery, through delivery apps. But apparently they had some sort of a problem with quality control or something. And I think he shut that business down but it was successful to again as, to a certain degree during that time. And then he basically just figured out, ah, this is probably not going to be something that works long term. So let's shut this one down. So he shuts that one down and then, but, but now he has Feastables and now he has Jack Links. He has a partnership with Jack Links Jerky and they have their own jerky line with Jack Links. And so you know, it just gives you, it gives you the flexibility and the, and the, the, the ability to be nimble and start something up, shut it down if it doesn't work the way that you wanted it to work. Not to mention the word of mouth, people don't just say the product is good. They go, you gotta check out this person's stuff. It's like a reminder. Like you, you open up that bottle of prime, it reminds you to go check in with Logan Paul's content. It's like another touch point that, to remind you of the fact that he's also continuously out there putting out more content or setting up another fight or whatever he's up to. So it turns customers into advocates which helps increase the virality of the product or service that you're offering. The viral coefficient, if you will, of the service that you're offering so more people will share it because they feel tied to the brand to some degree. So the only catch here is, sort of what we kind of touched on earlier, is that if the brand overshadows the product, meaning the product is, is actually not that good and people are only buying it because they like this person, then they're going to buy it maybe once, maybe twice. And then if it's not good, they're not going to continue to repurchase it. And it actually might hurt the personal brand side if the product sucks too, too hard. So it could potentially, the brand could potentially overshadow the product. If the leader of that brand, the personal brand, loses trust publicly, you know, you get canceled or whatever, then obviously that's going to affect the sales of the brand because it's largely dependent on the personal brand of that person. And then the business overall becomes too dependent on one person. So that's what I, that's what I really like about what Logan Paul and KSI did with prime is that they did not just rely on themselves and their content to sell it. They. They started doing all these other brand partnerships, all these other major sports brands and sports teams and sports leagues and stuff like that. They started buying more trust with their ideal audience by, by spreading out the, the total brand equity that's coming into the business. So it was just them first, first, but then now it's like, well, they're the official drink of the Lakers. So if you didn't even really know who Logan Paul and KSI were, but you love the Lakers now you know something about their product. So it sort of. It sort of puts the brand, it spreads out the brand equity across multiple figureheads and other trusted brands that are already existing, which makes it a little bit more of a scalable, sellable type of a business. The LTV of your customers is absolutely affected by the, by the personal brand that you build and the audience that you build, the community that you build. Those things can really affect your ability to scale a large brand these days. So that's why I always say, like, it's worth it just to continue putting out content. You just never know. Every piece of content's a lottery ticket. It could be the thing that takes off and puts you in the stratosphere, or it could be the thing that just brings in one more person and. Or maybe, maybe every 10 posts, you bring in one more person. Okay, great. But you look at that over the course of 10 years, 15 years, it's like at some point in the future, you have an audience of enough people, you'll be able to launch stuff like this and see some immediate success and go back to the drawing board and retain better talent. It's just a better way to build businesses over the long haul, I think, and will continue to be that way. Now, again, like my buddy that I was talking about at the beginning of this, if it feels like I hate doing this, I have no desire to do this, then don't do it. Everybody's gonna shout at you that you should be doing Instagram, you should be doing TikTok, you should be doing podcasts, you should be doing email, you should be doing this, you should be doing that. You don't have to do any of this. But if it's something that is something that you're curious about, or you like the idea of the fact that you could build a personal brand alongside of this current brand that you're building, and then when you exit that one, but you still have a bunch of people following your personal brand. So that way when you launch the next business, you're not starting completely from scratch. Again, like, if that type of thing interests you, then there's just no way around it. You should get out there and create more content. You should get on more platforms, get on more podcasts, get on more stages, write the book that you've been thinking about, do the TED Talk, all the things that you've been thinking about out. Just go. Just go do it and you'll figure out pretty quickly if you enjoy it or not. That's the main reason that I've continued doing my podcast over the years when it has been hard or when there's been reasons not to. It's just that at the end of the day, I would do it for free, man. And I did do it for free for quite some time. So I found that I really enjoyed it and I think that a lot of you might find the same thing. So, yes, the answer is yes, I do think it's still worth building a personal brand, as long as it's something that you are actively okay with continuing to engage in over a long period of time. Because it will take time. Time to build an effective one. So that is it for this episode of the show. Travis. Travischapel.com Shoot me an email. Or at Travis Chapel on Instagram, shoot me a dm. Whatever questions I can help answer here on the show. I'd love to hear from you all over there. But that's it for this episode. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace. 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