How To Use Your Personal Brand To Generate Wealth

In February of 2020, I invited Jonny Nastor onto my podcast.

Jonny hosted a podcast called Hack The Entrepreneur, and it was published every week on Rainmaker.fm, which was part of the Copyblogger Podcast Network.

When I lived in Boca, I would to listen to his show every week on my drive to the office. It inspired me and made me feel like success was possible for me.

So when Jonny accepted the invitation to be a guest on my podcast, I was thrilled. I now had a chance to meet one of my heroes and talk with one of the people who inspired me to go all in on my online business.

At the time, Jonny was running a small (but very profitable) boutique SEO agency.

In the episode, he told me his plan was to use the profits he generated from his agency and invest it into building other affiliate businesses.

I could relate, because the concept of starting with a marketing agency and then using the cashflow to build other media sites is something I spoke about (and still speak about) often. It's the entire infrastructure behind what we do at Stodzy, and how we have continued to build out Recovery Local.

I loved his ideas and I loved what he had to say.

After recording with Jonny, I thought about our conversation for days. I wanted to be partners with Jonny. I don't know why I felt that way, but it felt like we had been friends for years and I knew our personalities would work well together.

One day, while I was on the leg press machine, I built up the courage to send Jonny an email and ask if he would be willing to allow me to fund one of his projects and bring me in as a 50/50 partner..

He agreed. We worked out terms and that's how LSATclarity.com was born.

What started as a simple podcast episode turned into a partnership.

What Relationships Become

It wasn't long until I was making passive income from LSATclarity.com.

The business monetized by inking affiliate deals in the test prep industry. We made guides, recourses, and reviews for different LSAT test prep products, and it grew quickly.

Jonny and I learned to work with each other and I learned to believe in his process. I would earn anywhere from $400 - $700 a month in profits and slowly but surely, the site became a great investment for me.

But what happened next is more important.

It was around this time that I bought the majority share of Copyblogger.

Understand, when I bought Copyblogger, there was no revenue attached to it. The media asset was (and is) extremally powerful, but that doesn't mean the website was making any money.

The first order of business was to generate cash flow. How was I going to make money?

Digital Commerce Partners

I spoke to Jonny and we threw around the idea of expanding our partnership. Since Jonny already had the infrastructure for an SEO agency, I thought I could use Copyblogger as a lead generation asset that would help us close SEO contracts for his agency, and I would get a cut of the sale.

Brian had the brilliant idea to take digitalcommerce.com (a Copyblogger Media asset) and turn that into a full fledge SEO agency with Jonny as CEO.

This way, our partnership could be formalized and we could use the strength of the DigitalCommerce.com domain to build a legit company and a website that could generate leads within itself.

We put up a simple one page website and booked the deal. Below is version 1 of the website. There was nothing to it.

Sidenote*** - This is proof that you don't need to be "ready" to get started. If you have an idea, put up a one page site together and improve alone the way. Don't hesitate and don't get bogged down by paralysis of analysis.

Before I knew it, I was the majority owner of Copyblogger and partner in Digital Commerce Partners. At the time, that still didn't mean much, but at least I had a plan.

This Simple Idea Turned Into Millions

Within a year of being in business, we surpassed $1,000,000 a year in revenue. The business is thriving and my partnership with Jonny is one of the strongest partnerships I have and now Copyblogger / Digital Commerce is one of the most lucrative companies in my portfolio.

As you know I am now the 100% owner of Copyblogger Media, which means my equity in Digital Commerce partners has also increased dramatically.

Okay, so here's the kicker. This entire business venture was only made possible because of my personal brand!.

I had spent years growing my podcast audience. That audience made it possible to book Jonny as a guest. By booking Jonny as a guest, I made a new relationship and started a new company. That relationship made it possible for me to expand further, and create a revenue stream for Copybloger. Now, we have built an entire business that can manage itself.

If it weren't for my podcast, my reputation, and for the episode I recorded with Jonny, none of this would have happened.

I owe it all to my personal brand.

The Power Of A Personal Brand

Yes, your personal brand has power. In many ways, it is the single most important asset you own. But the mistake you probably make is you try to make a business out of your personal brand.

Your personal brand can be turned into a business. For many people this is the goal. You may want to name your company after yourself or use your personal website as the face of your digital agency / freelance business.

This is fine.

My argument is that this strategy is a huge waste of the future potential of your personal brand.

Look At Your Personal Brand as an "Opportunity Machine."

One of the most widely known personal brands is Gary Vaynerchuk. His personal media machine is the crown of his empire.

If you notice, his personal brand HARDLY EVER monetizes. In fact, it's probably the opposite. The money he spends promoting himself personally is probably a net loss. But that's okay, because Gary understands the value of his personal brand. He uses his reputation to build other businesses.

Vayner Media - This is Gary's social media agency. Last I heard he had hundreds of employees and generates hundreds of millions in revenue.

Vee Friends - Gary's crypto project, which is morphing itself into an entire story line of characters, toys, movies, and more. This entire project was launched off the back of Gary's personal brand.

Gary's entire portfolio - Notice all of these companies are real businesses. Everything he does personally is a proxy to grow his credibility and open opportunities for new partnerships.

At most, Gary uses his personal brand to grow his speaking career. At the same time, Gary's speaking career is more of a marketing play to grow his portfolio than it is a business.

Here is another example ...

Kylie Jenner was the least famous of all the Kardashian's.

But, she realized that her personal brand was best suited as a launching pad to build a business. Kylie Cosmetics was born and has made Kylie Jenner a billionaire.

There are countless examples ..

• Ryan Reynolds used his personal brand to build Mint Mobile and Aviation Gin.

• Connor McGreggor used his personal fame to launch Proper 12 Irish Whiskey.

• Sahil Bloom used his massive Twitter following to build an email newsletter which ultimately lead to his replica rolex $10,000 investment fund.

Your Personal Brand Gives You One Thing ... Leverage

When you have an audience, you have options. When people voluntarily enlist themselves to follow you, it means that you have built leverage in the market place. You can do more with less, because each article, post, Tweet, or idea you put out has more power behind it.

So what you need to do is use that leverage to create opportunities for yourself.

Let's imagine the opposite perspective.

Let's imagine you use your personal brand to create a consulting company. If jacksmith.com is the name of your consulting company, that means that your name can only ever be leveraged to the extent that you are able to generate clients.

But what if jacksmith.com turned into a media site that was able to promote your consulting agency AND promote a new investment you made AND promote a side product you created to help city dwellers create rooftop garders.

Well, now you have options.

Patience Is Your Limiting Factor

The hardest part in this ordeal is remaining patient. As your personal brand grows, it is tempting to want to monetize it. You will start thinking of selling products or maybe even attaching a membership site to your name.

Don't do it.

Keep your business brands separate from your personal brand. As soon as you label yourself as one thing, then you have limited your options in the future.

Gary Vee is known as a business mogul in the world of social media, web 3, wine and even sports. Imagine if GaryVaynerchuk.com was his business. Imagine all the money and success he would have missed out on.

That's the genius of personal brand.

Media + patience = opportunity.