The End Of Personal Brands

Personal Brands are dying.

The essence behind content has been lost, look around you:

• Ads are being thrown at you like candy.

• People focus on superficial metrics instead of value.

• Creators box themselves into one topic just to get the sale.

What used to work in the traditional model doesn't work anymore.

This is the best opportunity for anyone online (especially beginners).

When I started on content I was told to niche down, be very specific with my topics, and not document your journey because you're not going to attract "high-ticket" clients.

That felt so empty.

But after studying successful creators like Dan Koe, Justin Welsh, and Iman Gadzhi (to name a few), and starting to test things myself, I've noticed that these people leverage their Personal Brand in a different way.

I myself came across this type of branding by accident.

But how can someone - as a normal person with no audience, no credibility, no authority - leverage this model to get the results they want?

The Importance of Personal Brands (They Aren't Dead Yet)

At the age of 21, I bought a course on how to grow a marketing agency.

I hit the first wall when I was sending cold DMs, pitching my service to coaches who didn't know who I was, leaving me on seen.

So I pivoted to a different business model about faceless YouTube channels, which I also ended up moving away from to let my brother handle it.

With some doubts in mind, I joined The Real World by Andrew Tate, and connected with a guy who was part of a marketing agency located in Canada.

This guy offered me (and other guys) a sales chat gig - basically sending messages on Instagram to get them clients.

I thought it was a good opportunity, because we could leverage their case studies and results, but it didn't work like that: people wanted real proof, the type of proof found on content (something that other creators were doing).

Even though I was able to get 1 client and earned a $450 commission, this thing was harder than I thought.

This agency had no social presence, and we were sending messages from our own Instagram accounts (profiles with no credibility whatsoever).

Ok, at this point I was frustrated.

It has been 1 year and a half and I feel I've made no progress at all, while in the meantime I see other young guys making thousands of dollars online, which just increases the pain of feeling stuck on an endless cycle that seems to have no end.

It's right here where I decided to start analyzing the things that were actually working for other creators.

And I realized that even though these guys were talking about business models like SMMA, drop-shipping, The One-Person business, and others - they were all leveraging the same thing: a Personal Brand.

It was simple: they were entertaining, inspiring, and educating an audience online and, as a result, that audience would potentially buy their service/products.

As I went deeper on this, I realized that not only people with big followings but also small creators were able to do this.

I get it now, this is why personal brands are so important!

I can just grow my brand and attract people to my business, right?

Well, not really, because I hit my second wall: not knowing what the f*ck to talk about on my content.

The Traditional Model - And Why It Doesn't Work Anymore

The way I was able to make my first $10k online, was definitely not by following the traditional advice.

Everyone was talking about Personal Brands, and how having one is the key to attracting people to whatever product or service you have.

But a few questions came to mind:

• How do I start a personal brand?

• What am I going to talk about?

• How will I monetize my audience?

While I could do raw content as vlogs on YouTube, showing my life, I wondered why would someone pay attention and follow an average guy?

I mean that used to work in the past, but not really anymore (unless if you do it for fun, not business, and I wanted business).

Instead, I decided to model after creators who were doing content on funnels, marketing, and content creation in general.

I learned about brand messaging, filmmaking, and video editing (because I couldn't afford a video editor).

My goal was to create content that potentially attracted course sellers and coaches to my service, but my Instagram bio just looked like everyone else's:

"I help info coaches sign their next 5+ clients by leveraging the Educational Operator System"

This wasn't wrong, but my approach to personal branding felt very empty:

• My content was too niched

• I was focused on the numbers, not the value

• I was talking about things I had no real results with (funnels, marketing…)

Cool, let me bring up the third wall I faced: not having credibility on the advice I was giving (another approach of the traditional model).

This one was hard, because I knew I didn't have results to back up what I was saying, and at the same time, I didn't want to get back on sending cold DMs on Instagram to get clients!

Aagh, is this a joke?

Two years into this game and I have no idea of what to do, seriously???

Well, things were not that bad actually.

Something really interesting happened at this point…

While I didn't get clients for the agency offer, some creators messaged me saying that they liked my video editing style and asked if I could do video editing for them…

Well, even though I didn't have that offer, I still wanted to make money online, so I decided to help these guys with video editing.

And that's how I made my first $1k online and more, in a very natural way, and it felt so good!

For the first time, I experienced the feeling of attracting, not chasing.

And I realized that this game of content is not about what you say, it's about how you show your perspective.

The Rise of New Creators - 3 Steps to Build An Authentic Brand

Boxing yourself into an industry, shifting focus from value to numbers, and looking like everyone else is what we call saturation.

Think about most of the Instagram profiles you see with 300 to 1k followers stating the following bio:

"Social Media Growth Specialist

• Growing your brand/business online

• Digital Marketing services

• Creating funnels, websites, and systems

DM me "WORK" to get started"

Most of these people are just getting started, and yet they want to position themselves as "experts".

These guys aren't wrong, they just want to improve their situation in life, which is good.

What's wrong is the approach to how they want to improve their situation, or in other words, hiding their current situation and trying to improve it with something external.

But it's about becoming first and attracting second.

1) Identify Your Situation & Document How You Will Improve It

If you are a beginner:

• Identify the resources you have (phone, laptop, good or bad setup?)

• Choose a skill that makes sense to those resources.

• Gather resources and start learning (I created a free Video Editing Roadmap in case you want to see how video editing can benefit your life)

• Document how you are learning, the challenges you face, and how you overcome those challenges (this is about showing your perspectives)

I created content on funnels but ended up attracting video editing clients because - in my direct experience with reality - I only had expertise in video editing, not funnels.

Note: If you want, you can check my first Instagram account and see the type of content I was creating.

After working with several clients, I created a 1-hour video editing tutorial (showing what I knew) and that video went viral (499k views as I'm writing this)

I created it without expecting anything in return, and I was able to naturally monetize my first info product (generated around $10k in 5 months, plus a couple of clients it brought me).

Dan Koe and Iman are such good examples of this, they started learning a skill and documenting it on socials (Dan on Twitter and Iman on YouTube), and not only did they grow an audience but potential clients saw what they were doing and decided to work/buy from them.

That is exactly how you attract what you deserve in your current situation - because your efforts won't go unnoticed if you show what you're doing (and why you're doing it in the first place).

2) Take the Risk of Not Doing What Everyone Does

Please, create your own path.

When I invested in a $2k program on how to grow a content agency, my mentors told me to do the things that worked for them:

• Instagram reels talking about "client avatar" pain points

• YouTube videos breaking down my service systems (don't document)

• Run Ads that call out your "dream clients"

• Send cold DMs as you grow the brand (I can't explain the hate I feel for the word "cold DMs")

I bought that program looking for a secret, just to realize (after going through the modules) that there's no one.

The funny thing is that I didn't follow their advice and ended up having more success by following my intuition (documenting what I knew about editing).

I learned from the lesson and used the money I made with my info product to fund new resources like courses, lighting, a new phone, a pro mic, an Adobe subscription, and a new MacBook - this is how I improved my situation to be able to keep investing in myself and help others at the same time.

My point: even when people seem more successful than you, they won't always know what's best for you (you are the only one who knows this best).

Yes, you can:

• Test the things that have worked for other people

• Model after successful ideas from other creators

• Study successful structures and frameworks that others use

But please frame and relate everything you do with your current situation in mind.

Don't be afraid to ignore the noise and craft your own path (even if this path means not having quick results).

3) Post Less, But Better.

2 reels a day, 1 thread a day, 1 Youtube video a day, 1 email every single day.

Volume, volume, volume.

This is an approach of the traditional model, but people noticed that creators who were posting every single day started to get repetitive and often lacked essence in their content - resulting in "what would I follow this account?".

And while volume is a smart approach for big creators - creators with big teams behind them - it's not a smart approach for beginners.

As a beginner without much proof, your best approach is essence (that's why we document).

Don't get me wrong, speed is essential, and you want to practice as much as you can by being consistent, but don't sacrifice quality.

Quality is what makes others stop for a second and think: "Hm, this person is actually good at what they say they're good at, let me reach out to them".

For example, I practice and work every single day on my reels, but I don't post them every day because that wouldn't show the potential of my edits.

If I have good momentum, I end up posting 2-3 reels a week knowing that those reels can attract potential clients to my work because I choose quality over volume.

The same can be applied to Threads, Newsletters, and YouTube videos - you can aim to post 1 of these a week but work on them every single day, that's the difference.

You can get creative with this approach in any way you want, I'm just giving an example here!

I could go into more things in this letter but I will leave it here.

I'm going to do more letters on this and more topics in the future, this is my first newsletter and I had an amazing time writing it, so I hope you found some good insights as well!

Have a good one players,

Your boy Pablo.