Your personal brand online is built one piece of content at a time.
It’s a simple lesson, but it’s not necessarily intuitive if you’re new to online business.
All my life, I wanted to work for myself. All my life I wanted to not have a boss, to not have to go into an office. All my life, I wanted to plan my own time, work on projects that I love, and live anywhere in the world I choose.
Now, in my forties, those dreams have come true – because I have my own personal brand online.
The good news is that you can do exactly the same thing.
Big Money
Many people come to self-development sites like this one because they want to improve their dating lives, or feel more confident. But underlying that there is usually a certain dissatisfaction with the way their lives are going.
That was certainly the case for me. When I moved back to London from Manchester full-time in 2004, I sought out websites about dating and sex because I wanted to meet girls and have all kinds of crazy adventures with them. That I accomplished—and very successfully too.
But beneath my desire for novelty in my romantic life was a concomitant desire for unconventionality in my work life. And actually, as time went on and I learned more, both about myself and the way the world works, I came to realise that the main problem in my life—surpassing all others—was the way I earned my living.
You see, I worked a corporate job and in the main I hated it. That’s not to say that no elements pleased me at all, or that I didn’t enjoy working with my colleagues (I met some great people who remain friends to this day). It’s just that overall, corporate work wasn’t for me.
My grandfather, father and mother all have an entrepreneurial tendency which I’ve inherited.
And I knew from an early age that no one ever makes big money unless they are self-employed.
For many years I dreamed of self-employment, or at least for a time when I could support myself selling my writing, rather than the products of companies who paid me enviable salaries, but that I didn’t care a damn about.
For many years I failed to do anything about my desire to work for myself, firstly due to my alcohol addiction, which pretty much ruined my chances of doing anything productive; and then later through a simple lack of confidence.
Then, about five years ago, I started to hear people talk about the ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle. I read The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, and I listened to Pat Flynn’s podcasts. And I came to realise that it as now possible to make a living by working online creating and selling digital information products (which is the core of what I do).
I wrote and published my first book The 7 Laws of Seduction back in 2014. But I was savvy enough to realise that if I just put it up on Amazon without any marketing at all then it would sink without trace.
But I was also learning about ‘content marketing’—that is, marketing oneself and one’s products by releasing a stream of free content on various different platforms—blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Instagram and so on.
So I began writing. I started my own website, where I would post articles like this, while also contributing to other, bigger web brands in the men’s lifestyle niche. These bigger sites brought me traffic, and my audience—small at first—began to grow exponentially.
I have written extensively about dating and relationships. Now, I am going big on this personal brand stuff, because . . . well, it’s partly out of gratitude, to be honest. Having a personal brand has set me free and I want to help other people do the same thing.
But if you’d asked me back in 2014 what the direction of my articles would look like over the next four years I couldn’t possibly have told you.
I barely knew what I was going to write about the following week.
As it would turn out, it didn’t matter.
What Should You Write About?
Often, when I talk about building a personal brand online, people ask me ‘but what do I write about / make videos about / talk about on a podcast?’
The answer is, whatever you like, and don’t worry about it too much.
Because the truth is that a blog, or a YouTube channel, or a Twitter feed, is a living organism. It is born and then it grows and matures over time. All you have to do is keep turning up, creating and pressing publish.
You don’t have to have everything worked out in advance.
When I was about to write my first article for a major website, I asked the editor what he thought I should start with.
‘Write whatever you’re most passionate about today,‘ he said. And so I did, and that advice has stayed with me ever since.
When you put out content consistently (which you must if you are serious about using this as an escape route to a life of freedom) then your output becomes a collage. I can never say everything I want to say about the world, about relationships and about business in a single article. But the beauty of it is that I don’t have to. I can say whatever it is I need to say today, then get up again tomorrow and say something different.
If I have an overarching ‘message’ it is to be found in the aggregate of all the content that I have put out over the last few years.
Of course, there are unifying themes, and for me that main one is freedom. Everything I write is connected in some way with personal freedom and how to achieve it. But it was only after writing for a long time that this became clear to me.
And that’s the other great thing. It is only by doing the work and relentlessly producing that you will start to see patterns emerging. And in the end what you have produced with teach you its own lessons.
Your personal brand is built one piece of content at a time, and the most important thing you can do right now is start relentlessly producing. So do it. Sit down and write an article, or film a video on your phone, or put out a bunch of Tweets.
There is no point in waiting for divine inspiration and there’s no value in trying to map everything out ahead of time or you’ll never start.
Begin. Produce relentlessly. Publish. Let the work and your audience guide you. And know that bit by bit, every single piece of content you create is building your personal brand, and securing your freedom and income for the future.
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