Can You Really Earn More Money From A Personal Brand Than From A Corporate Job?

This morning a long-time reader LondonGuy left an excellent comment on a previous article. I hope he won’t mind me quoting it in full here.

(He is, of course, referring to my new online course Personal Brand Mastery) —

Your course looks interesting but to be completely honest I have some reservations.
This industry is smokes and mirrors so sometimes what a guy says and what is actual reality are two different things.
I’ve read quite a few of your articles previously and enjoyed them but you state quite regularly that you used to make six figures in your ‘corporate job’ and have now surpassed that from your personal brand business. I don’t see that being very likely if I’m being upfront. Saying something like that sounds great and has impact but is it really true ?

First off, let me say that I completely understand where LondonGuy is coming from here. I’m also very sceptical when I read these sorts of claims online.

Now, let me address the points that he raises.

First, yes, it’s absolutely true that I have recently surpassed my take-home pay in my six-figure corporate job.

However, there are a few components to that.

For a start, I had a head-start, as even though I went ‘pro’ with this less than a year ago, I had been creating content and building my brand for some time before that.

Also, I have various different revenue streams in place. For example, I now have 10 books out there, which sell well. I also have Personal Brand Mastery, plus another, smaller course on Skillshare. I also do affiliate sales for other product providers, which has been very lucrative. Plus I offer private coaching / training sessions.

So all of those income streams added together nets me more cash than I was taking home from my corporate gig.

But of course, it takes time and work to get to that point.

Taxing Times

Something else important to bear in mind here is tax.

Whereas with a job you pay a set amount upfront, when you are a corporation (as I am) not only is the tax rate lower, but also you can offset expenses against it.

Personally I don’t spend a great deal on entertainments etc for myself, and so most of the money I make goes back into the business in one form or another.

Which means it can be offset for tax purposes.

For example, if I buy a course or go to a seminar then that counts as a business expense since I am furthering my expertise for the company. Which means less taxable income for that month.

Tax, while a relatively dry subject, is another good reason why self-employment can make for superior earning power over corporate work. But, I should stress I’m not an expert – I work with an accountant and I’d encourage others to do the same.

How To Earn $1,000,000’s Before Teatime Without Even Getting Out Of Bed!

What I’m not doing (and will never do) is saying ‘become a millionaire’ or ‘earn 5/6 figures a month’ or whatever. Firstly because I’m not in either of those categories, and so it would be dishonest to do so.

Building a personal brand business is in no way a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Quite the opposite. It’s actually a lot of hard work (fantastic, enjoyable work, but still) and the level of success anyone achieves will depend on a number of factors, not least the quality and consistency of your content.

And even more important is that while, yes, I love the freedom that money brings with it, it’s not my number one priority.

My main ambition is simply to be able to work for myself, and to do work that I love, and which has personal meaning for me.

If I can earn a good living along the way then all the better. But that is the icing on the cake rather than the cake itself.

If you are looking for ‘get rich fast’ advice, along with pictures of Lambos, big houses and swimming pools then I’m not your man.

There are many others who produce excellent content along those lines.

I have always seen myself primarily as an artist, and more specifically, as a writer. And all I’ve ever really wanted is to find a way to pursue that while also making money at the same time.

I tried various different routes to get here, including the more traditional path of approaching mainstream publishers with my books and content ideas. And while I gained some traction, I discovered that the route that offered the most freedom (and yes, potentially more money) was the independent, personal brand route.

Which is why I’ve taken to writing about it a lot on this site and elsewhere, and why I’ve now made a whole course about it.

Time and Sex

The other important aspect to this whole Personal Brand thing is time . . . that is, the fact that having a personal brand enables you to plan your time as you wish. to take trips on the spur of the moment, to take days off, to get up early or late and basically to prioritise things however you want.

Now, many guys reading this will know me principally from me writing about dating and seduction.

How does all this new content about personal brand fit in with all of that, you might be asking.

It’s very simple. Having a personal brand business is the closest thing you can get to having a private income without having been born with a trust fund. 

And if you are a committed seducer—or ‘renegade playboy’—then that should be ringing bells of glory in your ears.

Why?

Because the more time you have to pursue girls, the more success you will achieve.

It’s a pretty simple formula that many forget and overlook.

Yes, you can go to X guru or Y guru for their wonderful, insightful ‘game’ method.

But the real reason they’re getting more girls than you?

It’s because they have more time and freedom and flexibility to put into their game.

This isn’t rocket science.

If you were doing it all the time like they are then your results would be impressive too.

To be clear, I’m not trying to suggest here that you will earn an entirely passive income from having a personal brand—you won’t.

For nearly a year now I’ve been (happily) working more hours than I did in my corporate job to get things going with my brand, to create products while simultaneously doing my marketing work.

BUT—and it’s a big but—when you create a product a book or a course, the beauty of it is that it can keep selling for months, even years after you created it.

My first book The 7 Laws of Seduction came out in 2014. I still get royalties from it to this day, and I’ve barely touched it since.

What this means in practice is that if I decide to take the whole of October off (which I’m considering) then it won’t make an appreciable difference to my earnings, since I’ve already done the groundwork.

And if I want to spend that time in October expanding my ‘dating opportunities’ then, well, who or what is going to stop me?

And as you get more advanced, and your audience grows exponentially, then things just get easier. Your products begin to sell themselves, and you really have to do very little to keep the wheels turning.

Certainly this is the case for many of the big-name personal brand creators that I know personally.

And as I’ve always said, what is more important to me than anything else is freedom.

And a personal brand business, which basically boils down to you doing what you want with your life (travel, sports, writing, skiing or whatever) then creating content about it which you monetise, seems to me the very best model for achieving maximum freedom—along with creative satisfaction—that there is.

A Roadmap

What Personal Brand Mastery offers is a roadmap of the path that I took to get there – because it’s challenging enough making content and marketing your brand without having to work out every little step of the journey.

Is Personal Brand Mastery a guaranteed ‘get rich’ programme? No, absolutely not. As with anything, your mileage will vary depending on the effort you put in, your dedication, consistency and so on.

However, if implemented, what I teach in the course will help you to shave a lot of time off the process and get on the right road a lot more quickly than I did.

Of course, PBM is not for everyone—but then no product ever is. However, it’s already helping a lot of people to create their dream careers. And that’s awesome. Because I can’t tell you how much happier I am working for myself now, and if I can help others along the way then that’s another blessing.

To enrol on Personal Brand Mastery today while it’s still at the introductory price of $197 click here.