Attract Clients by Creating a Personal Brand

January 20, 2024

Read Time — 11 minutes

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Hey bud,

This month I’ve had a few small wins from my little one-person business.

I finished facilitating a couple of workshops and got paid for it already (yay!).

I’m starting to find even more clarity in my coaching offer for my clients.

And what I’m most proud of is that more and more people are reaching out to potentially avail of my services! (Thank you, Lord)

In fact I had 4 opportunities that opened up just in the past few weeks:

Now, you might be wondering: “Zach, why are you telling me this? Are you just bragging here?”

And my answer is, not really. I’m sharing this with you because I know many of you reading are either in sales, run your own businesses, or aspire to one day.

And clients and customers are the lifeblood of any business.

In this week’s letter, I’d like to share with you a marketing idea I’ve been implementing that will help you gain interested customers.

By implementing this idea, you’ll become top of mind for potential clients and they will be the ones reaching out to you.

And it’s all about creating a personal brand.

Now before we begin, I want to make something clear.

I am not in any way or form an expert on personal branding.

I am not a brand strategist.

Nor am I an authority figure in marketing.

I’m just a dude who started learning about personal branding, implemented it in building my small business, and am starting to see a tiny bit of results from it (which got me excited enough to want to share about this idea with you).

But I do know an authority figure that’s running an upcoming event around content creation!

My friend, Alec Cuenca, is running a workshop around personal branding and content creation:

My mentor and coach, Russ Juson, will also be there as a speaker.

Here is the program schedule in case you are interested to join:

> > > Register Here < < <

It is an event where you need to buy tickets, but I’m not paid to promote this. I’m just helping out a friend and I feel this is something that can help you also.

With that, let’s get into it.

What is a Personal Brand?

A personal brand is, in essence, what you are known for by others.

“Ah, so it’s my reputation then!”

Well… not quite.

Your reputation is made up of other people’s opinions of you based on your collective actions and behaviors.

Your personal brand is something that’s more intentionally done.

It’s how you want to be known for by others.

Your personal brand is how you define and promote who you are, what you stand for, and how you’re able to help your target customers.

And the more known, liked, and trusted you are, the more people will want to do business with you.

Here’s the thing though. Personal branding is different from corporate branding.

You don’t want to brand yourself like a corporation does (Nike, Coca Cola, Apple).

While their branding is really good from a corporate perspective, at the back of our minds, we all know what they’re trying to do — to sell us their products.

And people don’t like being sold to — they like buying.

So if you think you posting photos or content about your product or services attracts customers… it doesn’t. It screams corporate advertising which doesn’t connect with people.

And ultimately that’s the point of creating a personal brand — so that people can connect to you.

The more people connect to you, the more they trust you.

Why Create A Personal Brand?

Now, more than ever, people are craving human connection and authenticity.

Having a proper personal brand is a way to create that human connection and authenticity for your audience (which is where your potential customers will be).

This creates a win-win situation.

Your audience gets value from the content you put out (especially if it’s informative, entertaining, or inspiring).

You are able to create customers from your audience by raising their levels of awareness to the point where they want to buy your product or avail of your services.

In today’s economic climate, building a personal brand is becoming a crucial part of growing a business (if you want to be long term profitable). Especially if you’re like me and starting from scratch.

Here are 5 reasons to create a personal brand:

1. It sets you apart from competitors

YOU are your USP (unique selling proposition) when you have a personal brand.

You create intimacy, depth, and personality in the eyes of your audience.

This gives you a competitive edge and why they would buy from you vs the hundreds of other options they have.

I asked one of the people that reached out to me why they wanted to get coached by me vs the tens of other coaches that they knew.

Their answer?

“Because I feel like I relate to you the most.”

This is what happens when you create a personal brand.

2. It builds your credibility

Part of building a personal brand is talking about your knowledge and expertise and posting it online (similar to what I do here in these weekly letters).

When you do this on a consistent basis coupled with a few testimonials here and there, you are able to build credibility in the eyes of potential customers and they will be more willing to avail of your services (or buy your products).

3. It helps you attract clients

When you build your personal brand well, you will reach a point where you don’t even have to look for clients anymore because they find you.

Personally, I’m not at that point yet. But that is the goal.

It will take time, effort, and consistency to reach that point, just so you are aware of that.

4. It creates value for people looking for solutions

One of the pillars of creating a personal brand is content.

Specifically regularly posting content online.

When majority of your content centers on helping people become aware of problems they didn’t even have in the first place, you’re providing them value (because now they can start to look for solutions).

You can even help solve some of your audiences’ problems by educating them on solutions that has worked for you in the past.

So by building your personal brand, you’re able to help more people.

Cool isn’t it?

5. It is a way to pursue your curiosities and interests

When you build a personal brand, you need to talk about other things outside of your products and services (or else you’ll end up like a corporate brand that’s mainly focused on just selling a product or service).

Here you have the opportunity to pursue your genuine curiosities and interests.

Personally? I’m interested in online business, personal development, and marketing. So I talk about those things apart from my main service — which is performance coaching.

Typically when building a personal brand, your content will revolve around 3 interests:

• One that makes you money

• One that excites you

• One that you are curious about

So you mainly want to talk about things related to your product or service, but you also want to talk about things that excite you and things you are curious about.

Personally I’ve been learning and studying about personal branding for the past 6-12 months to pursue my happy hustle — my own one-person business.

The goal of these branding efforts is to one day have a handful of inquiries coming in for business every day, so it’s very much a delayed gratification effort.

Personal branding isn’t a quick fix that will get clients flowing in a month after you start.

So if you pursue this path, start thinking on a longer time scale.

If You want to Pursue Happy Hustle, Create A Personal Brand

Think of building a personal brand as the start of your life’s work.

If you want to pursue work that makes you happy and fulfilled, you need to create a personal brand.

The beauty of a personal brand is that you can create your own customers by building an audience online, sharing your curiosities and interests, solving your own problems, and sharing the solutions you found to your audience.

Personal development is you solving your own problems.

Leadership is you helping other people solve their problems using your solutions.

Business is you getting paid for helping others with the application of those solutions.

So build your personal brand by giving away the information for free through your content.

Build your happy hustle by charging the implementation process.

Coaching Spotlight

Before I conclude this letter I wanted to highlight one of the coaching conversations I had this week.

Mhykl is one of my good friends from the insurance industry and he was one of the people that reached out to me for coaching.

We hopped on a call because he wanted help on finding clarity on what to prioritize working on — his health, his relationships, or his career.

Of course, he wanted to work on improving all of those areas but was getting overwhelmed at all the things he had to do.

He ends up feeling like there is so little time in the day to accomplish what he needs to.

So I helped him uncover what was truly important for him and what he needed to work on as the first domino that will create momentum.

He was also able to find clarity on what his most important next steps needs to be.

Here’s what he told me after our conversation:

If you also want to find further clarity in your life, book a free kick-off conversation with me through my website here.

In Conclusion

So in this letter we talked about what a personal brand is, why create or develop yours, and how it can lead to pursuing your own Happy Hustle.

I talk more about that concept in one of my previous letters, The Anti-Hustle Culture.

In essence, Happy Hustle is work that can feel like play.

If you want to pursue that one day, then building a personal brand is a non-negotiable in today’s business environment.

It will take a while to build, but I know it will be worth it.

This is the future of business. Work that feels like play. Work-life integration.

For those that want to learn more about the future of personal branding and creating content, you can sign up for Alec Cuenca’s Creator Summit happening on the 21st of January from 9AM - 6PM (GMT+8).

If you can’t attend the physical event, you can join as a virtual attendee.

More information on that here.

I’m looking forward to having more Happy Hustlers in the workforce in the near future.

I’ll end with this quote by Naval:

All the love,
All the power,

— Zach Marañon

P.S. Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways that I can be of help to you:

1. Follow me on Instagram here if you want a source of bite-sized ideas and content that can help you reach your next level in life.

2. Book a free kick-off conversation for one-on-one coaching here if you are an entrepreneur or sales professional currently looking to create solutions to a problem or challenge in your life but you seem to be stuck.

3. Download my goal setting guide here if you are wanting to create clarity on your desired outcomes (Free until 100 downloads — and then I convert it to a paid resource).

P.P.S. If you are from the Philippines and are looking for a personal mastery workshop to help you experience growth and transformation, check out Discovery by I Am Plus Coaching and Training Systems. It’s where my journey of self evolution personally got fast-tracked.