Scaling a Profitable Personal Brand

Recently, my personal brand agency ran into a bit of a challenge -- we weren’t receiving responses from a few of our clients when requesting approval for their content. Clients told us they had to pump the brakes to keep up with the amount of new business their personal branding initiatives were creating. I say that not to brag about the success of our campaigns (although, for the record, we’re pretty dang good), but to underscore the challenge I’m covering in this week’s issue, which is smoothly scaling your personal brand.

The challenge when you build a successful brand...

Simply put and very commonly heard, if you’re not defining and building your personal brand, someone else will; this goes for all professionals, not just business owners. Those who intentionally work on their personal brand will enjoy better job opportunities, higher customer loyalty, increased confidence, and ultimately, leverage and ownership of their career and pursuits. (Read 15 Reasons Why Every Executive Should Build Their Personal Brand Right Now to learn more benefits.)

Once you commit to personal branding though, you’ll likely start to experience the conundrum many businesses face: scaling operations to meet market demands and new client requests. It’s as exciting as it is challenging, being in-demand, and it comes with its own set of issues. After all, you’re only one person, how can you possibly keep up with hundreds of clients and potential clients?

For me, it all started with the business model and the processes you create to support that model. 

Defining your business model…

As someone who started building a personal brand on LinkedIn in 2015, the biggest thing that helped me scale was getting clear in my business model. I started as a branding consultant on the platform and quickly realized that unless I built a knowledge/digital product that customers could consume independently, or I built and empowered a team to consult and help clients, my business would likely plateau and I wouldn’t be able to scale. 

Of course, there is always option number three which is to keep raising your rates as a solo consultant, but you’ll inevitably be limited by the great equalizer -- number of hours in the day. And if YOU go away, so too does the business. In this way, I found consulting to be an unviable business model. The aim of any business model is ultimately to exit by having someone buy your business, and that can be tough when YOU are the product.

Two Models Emerge

Model One: The Product Method

When my brand started to become more in-demand and I was bumping up against time constraints, I decided to produce an online course about scaling your personal brand on LinkedIn; I had created a replicable, six-part methodology that I taught my clients to use on the platform to drive business, speaking opportunities, and awareness rather quickly. The results were real and clients kept saying, “You need to open this up to the masses.”

So I developed an online course with about 30 videos, and started selling it. Knowledge products can take place in other forms as well. Many of our clients develop other knowledge products such as books and keynote talks.

What I learned in creating an online course is this though: you have to keep producing and producing content to fuel a steady stream of leads, and product launches can be exhausting. (Sure the product will exist in perpetuity, but the real cash comes in when you launch and create scarcity so people are compelled to buy.)

So, if you choose this method to convert your brand awareness into income, just know you need to remain a content machine to keep the money coming in.

You’ll also want to hire a small support team. For me, I enrolled the help of a virtual assistant and a “community manager.” When you sell to hundreds of people, inevitably FAQ’s come up and you’ll need someone to help with that.

Model Two: Building Out a Team

A few years after I built out the Influence Academy, my LinkedIn personal branding training course, I received inquiries from executives graduating the program who said, “This is such great stuff, but I don’t have time to implement every day. Can you just do it for me?” 

I would brush it off, flattered, but when the tenth one inquired, like any great entrepreneur, I realized there was an opportunity, and to be quite honest, I missed having a team around me. Sure my VA and community manager were great, but ultimately I wanted more partnership and a community of people to create together.

So I created Brandwise Media, our personal branding agency that helps build engaged social followings for authors and executives. 

Of course, there are also challenges with this business model. You need to hire people who share the same values and knowledge as you do, so when you transfer your brand followers over to your team, they are supported with the same level of care and expertise as they would be if you worked with them. In this way, I’m so glad I developed an online course first. To this day, it serves as part of the fundamental training each of our team members goes through, and a patentable process that ensures consistency in the customer experience.

Margins are also lower. Digital products can have a high margin because the cost to produce them is lower. But good people come at good prices, and I highly advise you don’t skimp on good people and compensate them accordingly. This is your brand’s reputation, after all. 

Choosing Your Path

Ultimately, regardless of the direction you pursue, know that if you seriously commit to building a personal brand and do it right, an avalanche of opportunities will come your way. Start thinking about the end game of your personal brand now, which will help better equip you for when that does happen and give you clarity and purpose when doing so.   

Looking to rapidly grow and monetize your personal brand on LinkedIn?

Secure your seat in The Influence Academy, a six-week program to build your LinkedIn following and thought leadership and effectively monetize your expertise.