Monetizing Your Personal Brand: Everything they didn't tell me ??????

Dear strange people,

Welcome to my experiment. This is a newsletter where I dive deep into the decisions that I am making (and learnings) when it comes to my personal brand, community, and business.

I have some big news. First off, we are 5 subscribers away from 10k on this newsletter. Which is unbelievable to me. I just posted about how it was my childhood dream to be a writer —momma we made it! ?? In all seriousness though, thank you. Secondly, I made a few changes to my appearance that I will talk about later. This newsletter I want to focus on one thing: monetizing your personal brand. I wrote an article on this a year and some change ago, but I want to dive into a few more things here. ??????

Most People Don't Make Enough to Pay their Bills

It was never really my intention to "monetize my personal brand" — to be frank I just wanted to build a company. In 2017, I really started focusing on LinkedIn. To get you caught up to speed:

• I wasn't making a dime from my company or from personal branding yet.
• I was one of the first to start uploading videos consistently here. Also the first to put any effort into post production consistently. Which helped me stand out.
• I pulled a group of top creators together. I wasn't a fan of traditional pods (like for like) so I had two portions 1). for commenting on each others links. And 2). for conversations. Most time was spent in conversations. Big time CEOs were knocking on my door to help them. Creators came my way to understand how to grow and make money from their content.

Here's what I realized: Most people don't make anything from personal branding. At least not directly. Even on platforms like YouTube or Twitch, most ad revenue goes to the top 1% of creators. So why not just have something to sell instead?

You Need to Have Something to Sell

I'm not going to help you start a business, because you have to pay me for that ??. But I can guide you into turning yourself into a business. Here are some things to think about!????

Speaking Engagements

At the beginning of 2018, I had never been on a stage to speak (at least not without a guitar in my hands). Here is what I did to begin my speakers journey:

1). I was asked to speak during the night of the event. I wanted to get into speaking so I said "yes". It went terribly. I used the photos from that event to talk about my fears associated with speaking & my competitive spirit.

I talked about making my first video and how terrible I performed during that video interview. I then dedicated myself to recording a video everyday for +500 days and I mastered being in front of the camera. "I will do the same thing with speaking" I then told everyone. And that's what I am still doing. To date I've probably done close to 70 events including TEDx, INBOUND, and VidCon.

2). I put together a speakers sheet (Swish Goswami suggested that I do this). This was simply a one page sheet that said:

• Who I am
• What I do
• What I speak about
• Past Speaking Engagements/Highlights
• How much I charge (For-profit, non-profit, Universities, etc.)

I don't use this anymore, but it was a good place to start. Now I have a deck and a media kit.

3). I used videos & photos of my speaking engagements to leverage more speaking engagements. Be sure to get photos, video, and audio at every speaking engagement you do. Create snippets from the portions of your talk that are more likely to go viral (or get your desired result) and post.

4). I asked & applied to speak. The worst that can happen is they say 'no'.

Influencer Deals

I typically shy away from Influencer deals personally — unless it's something that I believe in. But I have partnered with Gillette, Heineken, Wandrd, and a few others over the past few years.

• You need to know the value that you bring to brands. WHY should they partner with you. What is their ROI?
• The trust that you built (or will build) with your community is fragile. Just like any other relationship, everything could be damaged by one wrong action. Constantly promoting the products of others will usually take a toll on that trust. Although there are a few exceptions that do it well, I'm still a believer that you should spend more time building YOU before you start building brand for others.
• Just like in business, I prefer partnerships to one-off-deals. It's predictable income... which is nice ??. But again, it has to be something that I believe in.

Different is Better than Best

Our company is picked over others because we are different (granted sometimes we are not picked because of that as well), but it's something I live my life by — "It's good to be better, but it's better to be different." - Sally Hogshead.

In 2017, I put a lot of thought into brand. Who am I? How do people view me? How do I want to be viewed? Are those two the same thing? What do I stand for? And so on.

And from a brand anchor perspective I came up with a few things after some thought & testing.

• All black attire
• My signature black hat
• Vulcan Salute ????
• Black heart ??
• "Misfit"
• #justQ

It's what people remembered me for — the hat being the most prominent, followed by the black attire, and "misfit" [according to my Instagram following and misfits community]. After about a month of consistently wearing my hat in content and in person events, someone told me "you know you can never get rid of that hat right?"

I like to reference Pink (the musician) when I'm explaining where I want to go. She started with pink hair. Then pink highlights. Then she did whatever she wanted and she was just "pink." The hat is important to me. It's still a part of me and something that I don't plan on phasing out (yet). But I want to be known for more than a hat. I want to be recognized for ME, not because you see my hat peaking around the corner. So I made a change.

The black attire as well, I've recognized as my safety net. I was talking to Dylan Ali about it. I felt like I was hiding. I have all of this energy that only gets released in spurts when I feel comfortable. This is me removing that comfort zone. My way of looking the way that I feel inside.

It might seem silly, but physical appearance affects a lot! I even changed my glasses. Completely taken care of by Wisconsin Vision [influencer status *wink*wink* ????]. In my old glasses I felt like a kid playing business. There were times where I would sit in meetings with a team of executives and crack jokes to make myself comfortable. That's not me. At least that's not me anymore. They're simple changes, but it's my way of becoming more of who I feel that I am.

Note: A huge mistake that I see when it comes to brand anchors is the NEED to have a thing. A brand anchor is not a gimmick. You shouldn't just always do/wear something for the sake of it. It should make sense for you and for your brand. A brand anchor doesn't have to be visual either.

About Me — I'm just Q ??????

I co-founded Urban Misfit Ventures. We are a small startup, team of 8, based out of Milwaukee. We own two companies. 1). A video agency. Our team helps people, companies, and brands tell their story, build influence and make more money through video storytelling. And 2). an events company focused on creating signature experiences for our community.

I was also one of the first video creators to use LinkedIn. Collectively my videos, thoughts, podcasts, and writing have been viewed over 10 million times across platforms. I spend most of my time (outside of my company) speaking, creating, running experiments, learning about everything video games/esports, and petting way too many dogs.

That's me. And thank you for reading this edition of the 'Dear Strange People' newsletter. For those that have already subscribed, welcome to the madness. I'm looking forward to taking this journey with all of you. Smash the subscribe button to keep up with this experiment.

If you made it this far... 1). I have mad love for you. Thank you for the support. 2). What do you want me to cover in a future edition?

Stay Strange,

#justQ ??????