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SOLO | Make Money by Building Attention, Credibility, and Trust

Travis Makes Money

Mon Apr 06 2026

Summary

Travis Makes Money: SOLO | Make Money by Building Attention, Credibility, and Trust

Host: Travis Chappell
Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Episode Overview

In this solo episode, Travis Chappell dives into the practical how-to of building a personal brand that makes money. Emphasizing the importance of attention, credibility, and trust—which he distills as the "ACT Method"—Travis shares hard-earned insights and actionable tactics. He debunks common misconceptions around personal branding, discusses the balance between authenticity and strategy, and highlights why podcasting is his medium of choice for accelerating growth through these pillars.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The ACT Method Explained (00:42)

A = Attention: Get on people’s radar. You can’t make money if no one knows you.
C = Credibility: Give people a reason to believe you’re the real deal.
T = Trust: Build the rapport that leads to action—subs, sales, referrals, etc.

"It’s like a funnel. You get attention, you get credibility, you get trust." — Travis (01:05)

The ACT method is most effective when all three elements are cultivated simultaneously, not sequentially.

2. The Critical Importance of Attention (01:54)

Most people fail because nobody knows they exist, not because of lack of skill or value.
Travis warns against "attention at any cost," especially attention gained through dishonest or harmful takes.

"If nobody knows who you are, then they can't buy your stuff. I mean, it's groundbreaking stuff here, frankly. It's riveting, riveting information, I know, but the volume of people that ignore it, it still amazes me." — Travis (02:47)

There’s a spectrum: from exaggerating your personality for the brand (okay) to saying things you don't believe just for controversy (not okay).

"I'm not going to breach morality and I'm not going to lie to an of people just to get attention from other people." — Travis (03:56)

Notable Example:

Travis references Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary on “alpha bro” online culture, critiquing those who deliberately provoke outrage for viral clips.

3. The Perils of Divisiveness for Attention’s Sake (09:08)

Some pursue viral growth by shifting topics (e.g., from business to politics) just to boost follower counts, but the result is often a misaligned or disconnected audience.

"They're not following you for the reason that you want them to follow you for, which is like to convert into your business or whatever." — Travis (10:02)

Context matters: Sometimes a little controversy is strategic (e.g., local business aligning with community values), but for most, attention should align with your core mission.

4. “Best Known Beats Best” (11:43)

Skill alone doesn’t win; visibility does.
If someone less skilled is out-earning you, it's likely due to greater awareness—not higher quality.

"Best known beats best every day of the week. There's probably somebody out there getting paid way more money than you get paid to do the thing that you do, even though you're better at doing that thing. And the only difference ... is the fact that more people know that this person exists." — Travis (12:40)

5. Building Credibility—Plug the Leaks (13:29)

Getting attention without credibility means you “leak” leads—people bounce the second they research you and find little or nothing.
Travis uses podcasting to fill Google with reputable appearances, articles, and interviews (Forbes, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, etc.).

"It's like having holes in the bucket. ... If people search you up, you want them to find a bunch of stuff about you." — Travis (13:31)

6. Trust Is the Ultimate Currency (15:40)

Trust is won through repeated, valuable interaction—ideally longer, deeper content (e.g., podcast episodes).
Citing his sales background, Travis notes how familiarity dramatically increases conversion.

"Your job is to move people down to the trust phase as quickly as you can." — Travis (15:40)

Trust forms through "volume of time" spent: the more a person engages with your content over multiple sessions and contexts, the stronger the bond.

"It’s about six to seven hours of time they need to spend with you. ... It’s more of a trustworthy relationship when that’s done over time." — Travis (21:01)

7. Why Podcasting Reigns Supreme (20:24; 22:02)

Podcasts accelerate relationship building: Listeners spend hours with you, not seconds.
Each episode can be repurposed into dozens of social media clips, creating omni-channel presence without extra recording effort.
Other platforms (events, speaking, meetups) can layer onto podcasting for even broader impact.

"All of the viral videos that we have, I think every single one of them has been a clip from the podcast. ... Create the full-length episode, and then ... cut clips, cut clips, cut clips, and then post all of them." — Travis (22:02)

Additional Notable Quotes

On Brand Authenticity:
"I have a brand about making friends and bringing people together rather than divide people and cause more division. ... I just want to do the things that resonate with my audience." (11:43)
On Platform Choice:
"You have to pick some sort of platform in order to be able to do that. And again, podcasting is the poison that I pick because of all the reasons that I just mentioned." (23:38)

Actionable Takeaways

Focus first on being known, then on proving you’re credible and earning trust—and look for activities that can build all three at once.
Don’t chase attention in ways that contradict your values; integrity beats virality for meaningful business.
Podcasting enables deeper, trust-based relationships and can be a content engine for all your channels.
Choose your controversy wisely: If you must stand out, make sure it aligns with your core purpose, not just for clicks.
Consistency and long-term effort matter—boosting both the amount and quality of time your audience spends with you will ultimately build a personal brand that works.

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:42 – 04:45: The ACT Method (Attention, Credibility, Trust)
09:08 – 11:09: Attention tactics & pitfalls; divisiveness and authenticity
13:29 – 14:30: Building Credibility—making an impression online
15:40 – 16:50: The power of trust and long-term relationship building
20:24 – 22:02: Podcasting vs. social media for trust and content leverage
22:02 – 24:32: Platform selection, scaling impact, and closing thoughts

Memorable Moment

"Best known beats best every day of the week." (12:40)

Closing

Travis invites listeners to reach out with questions for future shows and reminds them that building a personal brand is about authentically getting seen, proving your worth, and turning that relationship into real-world opportunity—without compromising character or mission.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis.

B (0:13)

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the show where it's

A (0:17)

just me, you and the mic.

B (0:19)

Today we are talking about how to build a personal brand. Maybe you listened to the recent episode where we talked about why you should have a personal brand, or is it still worth building a personal brand? If you did not listen to that one and you're still unconvinced, then go back and listen to that one first. Because on this one we're taking a little talking, a little bit more tactics here. What you should be thinking about, what you'd be doing when it comes to building your personal brand.

A (0:40)

I tried to simplify this as much

B (0:42)

as I can because there's a lot of schools of thought about this and frankly, there's just too many things you can get bogged down thinking about. But ultimately, this is. This is what my personal method looks like. I call it the ACT method. The ACT method to building a personal brand. First off, the A is attention, the C is credibility, the T is trust.

A (1:04)

Okay?

B (1:05)

So think of it sort of like this funnel. You get attention, you get credibility, and you get trust. And the theory would be that if you just focus on getting attention, then you can bring in credibility and then you can make people trust you. But the thing is that I try to do is I try to do engage in activities more often that bring in all three of those things at the same time. Which is why I'm such a big fan of podcasting for your personal brand. Because it's sort of does that. It brings in attention, it brings in credibility, and it brings in trust all in one activity versus versus the old school. Sort of like, here's a lead magnet and then people opt in and that gets you the attention. And then through two months of credibility building in their inbox, then they finally trust you enough to eventually buy something from you. Whereas you can do all of that same relationship building in a single podcast episode. Especially if you are doing it on somebody else's podcast. Like if you're a guest on somebody else's podcast, it is. It immediately funnels people down to the trust part after you've just made them aware that you exist and then earned credibility because this person lended you their credibility. And then you just move directly into the trust phase. So there's a Couple things you can do to do all of those things at the same time. But the very first one is probably the most important one because if nobody knows who you are, then they can't buy your stuff. I mean, it's groundbreaking stuff here, frankly. It's riveting, riveting information, I know, but the volume of people that ignore it, it still amazes me. It's like you're, you're, you're focusing on all these other things, but nobody still is even aware that you exist. So you gotta go get awareness, you gotta go build, you know, draw attention from something. And the only caveat that I would give here because I think, I think that there's some people who do this because they've turned it into the ultimate goal is to get attention. And while it sort of is they are willing to do things that I would never be willing to do to get that attention. And it's not necessarily, I'm not talking about like doing a silly TikTok dance that makes you look like a goofball. I'm not talking about that because that can actually be, I think, helpful. But I'm talking about saying polarizing things for the sake of being polarizing, even if you don't believe in the things that you're saying. Right. So I watched the Inside the Manosphere documentary that Louis Theroux just did where he goes and spends time with some of these, the, you know, alpha bro culture. And there's several people on there who are the perfect example of what I'm talking about right now, where they'll say the most outlandish, crazy bullshit things publicly tell live streams or post it on, you know, social media. And then when you get someone like Luther in there who's like, hey, I

A (4:45)

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 gonna work out and 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? 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. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US is using Shopify. Like this is the place that hosts all of your favorite products and services. So if you are considering this, then Shopify is a must. Especially, especially especially if you're going to launch some sort of an E. Comm product. So get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that actually matches your brand's style. But Travis, what if I get stuck? Well, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24. 7 customer support. Which is very very important to people like me who are still some for some reason like caught in the 1980s and I want to talk to somebody when I actually have a problem and instead of just relying on an AI system. And did I mention that the iconic purple Shop pay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world, that's from Shop. It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. Helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for you. So it's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com TMM go to shopify.com TMM that's shopify.com TMM M. This episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. It's Wayday at Wayfair from April 25th through the 27th, you can score the best deals in home, like up to 80% off. With free shipping on everything. Wayfair makes it easy to find exactly what fits your style and needs, from furniture and decor to home improvement and outdoor essentials. And it's all on sale during Wayday. Best part, everything ships fast and free during Wayday. Plus you can shop with Wayfair Verified, AKA your shortcut to the good stuff. So their team of product specialists vets everything by hand using a 10 point quality inspection so you know that you're actually getting a quality piece no matter what your budget is. Look, I we basically have redecorated our home with Wayfair in the last few months and at every time we use a site I'm always blown away by

B (9:08)

Because there are some people who I would say are also doing things that I personally would not do, but that I don't really have like a moral problem with essentially. And maybe they just have more of a verbose brand or they basically play, they play an exaggerated character of themselves online that is basically them but just a little bit more energetic or a little bit more, yeah, exaggerated. It's that they, they almost perform like this caricature of themselves in order to be able to get attention or say divisive things. And that, that's a little bit different to me. I think, I think that's under the category of like, ah, probably something that I wouldn't do personally, but also probably one reason why I don't have a massive personal brand like some of the people that I'm talking about do. So ultimately you gotta figure out what works for you, but some way you gotta go get attention. And so you gotta be willing to say polarizing stuff. You gotta be willing to say controversial things, but only context of the things that you talk about. Okay? This does not mean to just go out there and talk. You know, I see this arc happen all the time in the business world where people will talk about business for a long time, they never get any traction. So. And then they say like they, they do like three political posts and then those get way more traction than everything that they've ever done on, you know, the business side. So they just start talking politics and it's like, I guess that's cool if you want to become a political commentator, but if you're not trying to become a political commentator, then why are you just saying all these crazy divisive things? Just because it's going to, you know, increase your follower count. It's like you're, you're basically only increasing your follower count with a bunch of people who want to follow you for the fact that you say divisive things. They're not following you for the reason that you want them to follow you for, which is like to convert into your business or whatever. And you're probably turning off a lot of people that could have been great partners or potential people that, that you could have worked with in the, in the business because you're saying these things. So like some of that, again, some of that stuff doesn't make sense to me if you are going to venture

B (11:43)

It's not a hard and fast rule. For me personally, I stay away from that stuff for the most part because I have a brand about making friends and seems indirect. I was talking to a buddy of mine who's got a big podcast, and he was talking about how he hosted a couple debates recently, and I was like, yeah, I've thought about doing that. I just feel like it'd be diametrically opposed to the purpose of my brand, which is to make friends and bring people together rather than divide people and cause more division. So it's like I'm just going to do the things that resonate with my audience. Makes it a little bit more difficult because the idea of making friends is not something that's controversial and not something that is polarizing in and of itself and not something that's divided of it all. So I have to kind of figure out ways to be like, okay, well, how can I. How can I say something that's like a hard and fast rule that doesn't require a ton of explanation, that's a personal opinion of mine, without completely isolating, without completely destroying the brand that I'm trying to build, which is all about friendship and connection and bringing people together. So you might have to do a little bit of work to think through what that might be for you. But the bottom line is best known beats best every day of the week. So there's probably somebody out there getting paid way more money than you get paid to do the thing that you do, even though you're better at doing that thing. And the only difference between you two is the fact that more people know that this person exists. That's it. So you should look at it as your calling to go get attention. As long as you're not breaching any sort of morality lines, any sort of ethical lines, or, you know, legality obviously is a big part of it, too. So barring anything illegal, unethical, or immoral, you should be willing to go get attention however you can get attention. That means sometimes you might have to try. You might try that trendy dance thing. You know what I Mean, you might do something outland, you might do some interviews on the street, or you might buy a billboard just so you can record the billboard board and run some ads against it or post it on social or something like that. But the bottom line is you need attention or you won't have a brand. People need to know that you exist.

B (22:02)

you is ultimately going to lead them down the path of trust much sooner than like just doing quick clips every once in a while. So when you're thinking about attention, credibility, trust, it's really coming through the platforms that you decide to create on. Which again, was why I'm a big fan of podcasting, because podcasting does all of these things, podcast guesting does all of these things, and not every platform does all of these things. Now, the beautiful thing again about podcasting to me is that it allows you to be omnipresent without taking any additional time to create for any of those specific platforms. So all of the viral videos that we have, I think every single one of them has been a clip from the podcast. So we just create the full length, hour to hour and a half episode or some of these, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time. And then my producer goes through, cuts clips, cuts clips, cuts clips, and then posts all of them. And then some of them do well and some of them don't do well, and some of them do fantastic, and then some of them do abysmally. So you, you have to be on some sort of a platform here and you have to create that platform for yourself. And I choose podcasting because of the reasons that I mentioned. It gives people a way to spend a lot of time with me in a, in, in a shorter period of time, rather than watching 30 seconds at a time on TikTok. But it also allows me to cut, clip and distribute to all the social platforms without spending any additional time creating rather, you know, in addition to the time that I'm taking to create the podcast episodes themselves. But then also platform is, could be stages, could be speaking on other people's stages, it could be making your own event, or it could be hosting your own meetup. You know, like, there's scale to all of these things and there's also minimum to all of these things. So, like, if you want to do live events, you're probably not going to put on a 2,000 person live event that's going to cost you $1.8 million to produce, because your speaker lineup and your fees and your AV and all that kind of stuff. You might start with 12 people at a meetup at a local pizza shop, and then you do that for two years and it turns into 300 people. And then you made enough money from admission fees to save up a little bit. And then you can put on your first event that cost you a hundred grand and you can get 500 people there and like, it just stacks and builds over time. But you have to pick some sort of a platform in order to be able to do that. And again, podcasting is the poison that I pick because of all the reasons that I just mentioned. So these are some thoughts on how to build your personal brand this year. Again, reach out to me at Travis Chappell on instagram or travis travischappell.com Shoot me an email. Love to hear what you guys are thinking. If you have any questions for me that I can tackle here on a future episode of the show, please let me know. Other than that, thanks for tuning in.