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Welcome to Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass. Jon is the founder and CEO of Image Group International, an award-winning image consulting and personal branding pioneer established in 1989. This podcast will bring you old-school wisdom, inspiring ideas, strategies, and hacks for the new tech world. Here, you will learn everything about personal branding: the system, the techniques, and the right mindset to have a successful personal brand, image, and reputation.

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to my show. Today we're discussing how to monetize your authentic personal brand, and this is a natural and imperative progression once you've established your brand and are on your way to building a loyal following. If you've noted, I said, establish your brand now. I don't mean two, five or 10 years by saying that, but I want to explain it to you that in my experience, when people are generally stuck in a sales mode, it's because they don't truly understand or get marketing. And then when they are stuck in marketing mode, they don't understand branding, because building your brand is the foundation of a sustainable business. It's your currency in trust. What that means, of course, is you can sell an unbranded product, if you choose, but then you're selling a commodity, and what I will guarantee you is that you're not maximizing value. So in an ever changing and disruptive world of business, the temptation to prioritize sales and marketing as immediate revenue drivers is strong, and I get it, especially when you have limited funds. Like most startups, however, seasoned business strategists and empire builders understand that the cornerstones of a sustainable long term enterprise lies in building a robust brand first or as soon as possible. And think Richard Branson and Virgin as one example. And of course, one other examples, Elon Musk and Tesla that I'd like to concentrate on for the next couple of moments. In 2023 Tesla was ranked ninth among the world's top 25 valuable brands by Brand Finance. Now this is a significant jump from its previous position of 28 ranking in the previous year. So in, you know, one year, it had an increase by impressive 433% over the past three years, and that reached the value of around $66 billion now despite Elon Musk's Twitter antics, Tesla's brand and reputation still remains strong, and especially it's due to the perception, of course, as an innovative and sustainable company and led by an innovative leader.

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Notably, Tesla's brand value is still relatively low, though compared to its overall business value standing at 16.8% so it's got a lot of room to move up in brand value, but even 16 8% in brand value as opposed to overall business value, is still a high amount. So a well established brand is not merely a logo or a catchy slogan. It is the embodiment of trust, credibility and reputation. And I'll demonstrate now some effective strategies on how to monetize your brand, and that could include your personal business and, of course, your current if you're in a career, working, even for an employee, you could also do that as well. But while you're maintaining authenticity, and yes, maintaining authenticity at times is not easy, I get that as well. So let's get started talking from my 35 years of lived experience, and if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, consider creating and selling your own products or services, and you can also do this as a side deal, if you still want to work for somebody during your full time position, whether it's consulting services, a new book, an online course, or exclusive content via a subscription Offering, something that directly stems from your expertise can be incredibly lucrative when smartly branded. Let's look at the obvious one. Leveraging your expertise, your unique skills and knowledge backed by critical thinking, are valuable assets. A lot of people don't realize how valuable they are, but they are now your personal brand, of course, is obviously part of that whole that's why you're creating a personal brand positioning, so you can actually package a lot of these skills and experiences. And how you do that is, you know, you can tailor your offerings to solve specific problems your audience's space, making your products or service. Is highly sought after, as long as you can differentiate. And because you have to differentiate, because it's a very, very noisy market out there, very crowded. So for example, ways you can differentiate is you look at trends, for instance, the current economic situation. 

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Now, if you're a coach as an example or a consultant, or it buys anywhere on the planet. This is a conversation right now. Yes, there is economic uncertainty out there. You'll notice, with a lot of marketing gurus that don't even talk about that, or they create really, really fear around that. Look, the reality is, as somebody that's been doing this a long time and lives in the real world businesses right now, a lot of individuals are looking for a lot of support in this area. So if you've got the skill set, why not utilize that and create possibilities from that? You got volatile market conditions that are affecting business stability. Wars and economic ups and downs at times will affect business. It might not be at that moment, but it, you know, could be down the track, and that's happening quite frequently at this time, fluctuating consumer confidence and spending. We know that retail spending, for instance, is way down. So there's a lot of opportunities that, depending what market segment you're targeting, to help potential clients in that particular space. If you're in the finance world or accounting world, challenges in financial forecasting and planning, again, because of all the uncertainty, these are also fluctuating to a point where it creates instability. This is where your opportunity comes in if you specialize in that area. And another big one is regulatory and compliance challenges. The governments are constantly bringing in new regulations, right, creating more problems for individuals and businesses to keep on top of, and that's a problem. But if you're a specialist in that area, and you got opportunity, of course, it's what I call an opportunity moment where you can actually go out there and advise clients and individuals on how to do that more effectively. Another one that links with that is navigating the complex and frequently changing regulations, also from a small business perspective, that's a big one as well, you know, including the employment laws and so on. Again, opportunities to help clients in that space. So for further clarity, though, today, what we'll do is we'll focus on my experience, and that is consulting, coaching and advisory service with a holistic and entrepreneurial approach. And when I say holistic, I look at things totally. And it's essential, from my perspective, that you do that, because then you're looking at the whole picture at once, and also an entrepreneurial spirit approach, where, really, as an entrepreneur, you don't take things lying down. You're always going to recreate and operate at times like a guerrilla marketeer. You know that gets you to look at things differently than maybe the average person. So ensuring compliance, though, with industry specific standards and managing the cost of resources needed for a lot of this compliance, again, as I remind you, is an opportunity moment.

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So if you specialize in any of these areas, you can show clients how to do that effectively and also save them money. So you can also offer personal advice and strategies based on, again, your lived experience, and establish yourself as an authority in your field from what you've already done in your career. So by building long term relationships, you with clients who value your insights, you can then expand into other revenue models, and that's the great thing there is because when people feel safe with you and they trust you, then they are open to new possibilities, and that's certainly been my experience, then you can write comprehensive guides and memorable Thought Leadership papers that cements their expertise or your expertise. In this case, you're doing this for yourself, provide actionable insights, tips, strategies that inspire people into action and generate passive income through sales on your website or platforms like Amazon. You can then develop courses that teach valuable skills or knowledge on platforms like Udemy or teachable or your own website, and why not create a scalable product that can reach a global audience, like an exclusive subscription content model, and then use affiliates to promote your product? So imagine offering a premium, original content that subscribers can get elsewhere, not even on an AI platform, and on this idea, of course, and this is not brand new, you can also include webinars, in depth, articles, videos, or behind the scenes insights by building a loyal community willing to pay for. Your exclusive expertise. Now the interesting thing here is this, I'm not just talking about creating content for content sake. I'm also talking about getting paid. There has to be a moment where you get paid. Otherwise, you know, please explain to me how you actually create all this content. If you're not going to get paid. You can't just keep on producing free things that social media uses and uses you as the product. In this case, you're going to be thinking as an entrepreneur, of course, how do I also create revenue from this? Otherwise, you're going to get yourself into trouble. Next, think about speaking engagement, podcasts and, of course, workshops, if you're an expert in your field, people will pay to hear you or attend your workshops where they can learn directly from you. This not only generates income, but also enhances your credibility and authority in your niche. Some speakers only do this, of course, others might also sell their books or other products and workshops and seminars also leverage opportunities beyond one on one, and can be conducted globally. And again, I'm talking from my lived experience here, having done this for a long time. If you love to connect with people and leverage your opportunities, it's also an idea that just doesn't get better, even if you're nervous a little bit about public speaking, and a lot of these things that we're talking about are already out there and working very well for a lot of different businesses. This model can provide a steady stream of income and fosters a close knit community of followers. You know, what I would say is your most dedicated, loyal followers over time. 

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Additionally, consider writing a hard book. And of course, we've had many clients that we've helped in that specific arena. So well written book and established you also as a thought leader in your industry. It's also actually a great tool for attracting speaking engagements and, of course, media opportunities, because you have something really, really to share. So basically, the big takeaway from today's session is that your personal brand is about offering genuine value. If you're doing just a current pace job and you're, you know, pretending that that's all original, that's not going to build trust. So we know that genuine value will build trust. Maintaining authenticity is essential. What is authenticity? Again, it's about trust and delivering on your promise. What is delivering on your promise? It's again, about trust. What I make a big issue of the concept called trust, because in the digital world today, trust is in the proverbial it's gone down dramatically, and it's going down by the moment. So this is very important. So what that creates is problems for people when they are buying things online, they're a little bit suspicious. Can you see where brand comes into play. People trust brands. Okay? So this is where it comes into play, especially if you've got premium products, if you're going to be offering commodities like the $2 shop, for instance, different story. That's not my market. We're talking about premium value here. And how do you do that is by building brands. So by leveraging your experience, your expertise and building strong trust based relationships with the audience, you can create multiple streams of income that enhance your brand and generate significant recurring model and you know, and that's important as well. This way you don't have to keep on doing the same thing all the time. Recurring is very important part of mindset. So I've come to that point of the podcast. I trust you gain value in today's episode. Before we finish our chat, I kindly ask you to connect with me on social media. My Twitter Twitter/X as Jon_Michail, my LinkedIn is Jon Michail. And you can find his image Group International on Facebook. If you enjoyed our chat, please rate us on Apple podcasts and subscribe for more valuable content. If you need our help in elevating your personal and business brands on Instagram and beyond, please contact patricia.bosa@imagegroup.com.au - until next time, I wish you a big Cheerio.

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Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass Podcast is sponsored by Image Group International, a global team of practical, digitally savvy personal brand and image strategists based in Australia, committed to maximizing your impact, influence, and authority in the business world. To learn more and apply for personal coaching, seminars, and group workshops, please visit imagegroup.com.au or call 1800 631 311.