What the Beatles taught me about Personal Branding

Over Christmas and New Year we were fortunate to spend two weeks on a friends property near Byron Bay.?

It is the kind of place dreams are made of, over 60 acres with beach frontage, where you go to sleep to the sound of the waves and wake up with the roosters.?

The property belonged to our dearest friend Chris Murphy, who passed away a year ago and was best known as the Manager of INXS.?

While there I stumbled across a book titled 'The Man who Made the Beatles' and it felt like the perfect thing to read while ensconced in Chris's energy.

Here are just a few of the incredible things I learned and specifically the lessons that relate to personal branding-

1. Brian Epstein, known as the man who made the Beatles, was only 27 when he came across four scruffy teenagers playing in a rock 'n' roll cellar. He had no prior experience managing a band and all his friends and family thought he was crazy.?It was a reminder, sometimes well meaning friends and family get it seriously wrong.?

2. On all accounts, Brian was always impeccably dressed and the first thing he did was change the Beatles image. The effect was immediate as new doors opened and audiences responded to the new look.?This got me thinking about how what sometimes seems like a superficial change can make a huge impact for the better.

3. Though young and inexperienced, Brian made a vow to make the Beatles "bigger than Elvis" and he arguably achieved that.?He made lots of mistakes and some of the deals he brokered reflected his inexperience but looking at the big picture, he succeeded beyond imagination.?A perfect example of the importance of taking a big picture view and not getting caught up in the inevitable mistakes made along the way.

Brian Epstein died at the young age of 32 and after that the Beatles never toured as a band together again. It is hard to imagine a world without the Beatles but there is a chance the world would never have seen the Beatles as we know them had a young Brian not taken a chance on them and more importantly on himself.

I hope this inspires you as much as it inspired me.