Build your personal brand before its too late...

Quick overview of what's in this edition.

1. Life update.

2. Why do service providers (freelancers, agency owners, coaches, etc.) need a personal brand?

3. Creating a Personal Brand from Zero.

4. Resources of the week. 

Life update:

The past week has been mad. It was my 26th birthday on 27th July. I was mainly working on my product “Expert Creator Blueprint”. 

Agency life took a slight hit, July was slow for the agency, with no new clients. No real growth there. 

However, I spent that time building my content, building in different directions, starting this newsletter and my product. 

Last week I spent a LOT of time and energy on jiu-jitsu training. We had the head coach of Warriors Cove MMA, Ashwin sir, taking a 2-day seminar. 

Trained 3 times, about 7 hours in those 2 days. Gi and No-gi both. And, the biggest and best moment in recent times happened. 

I got promoted to blue belt in Jiu Jitsu by our professor Jonathan Roberts. I would not have wanted this from anybody else. 2 of my close friends got promoted too. 

I had no expectations for this to happen, and I couldn’t be more grateful. 

Work-wise, even though the agency took a hit, once this product launches I’ll go all in again. 

Now going into the meaty part of the newsletter…

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Why do service providers (freelancers, agency owners, coaches, etc.) need a personal brand?

I started my freelance video editing journey in 2020. After picking up Jason Capital’s Social Media Boss course. 

Used to practice editing in college, and got my college roommate Kirtitaj into it too. 

When I got my first free trial client and converted that into a $200ish per month client, I got Kirti to work with me. (Sort of an agency model)

Made about $1200 something in profit after a few months, and I put it all again into an 8-week sales mentorship through which I landed a remote closing gig for an American Linkedin Agency (Early 2021). 

Now, in that timeframe, I used to create content, basic stuff like what I learned in a book, or 3 tips to get more sales, etc. Even created a tutorial explaining what USP is lol, I cringe looking back at that video (2020). 

In 2021, after graduating, I started creating content for a couple of months, similar stuff but I became a bit more confident. Long-haired Saksham telling people what he learned, how he records his videos, and giving sales tips lol. 

All those videos are archived now.

Even though, in that period of 2020-2021, I grew about 800 followers, mostly people from communities and friends and family. 

(Although all those videos are archived now). 

During mid-2021, I met a friend and through him got into DM closing where I was closing deals for Walmart DFY stores, life coaching, business coaching, etc. 

So later in 2021, through that friend, I got to know that I was closing deals for clients of this company called AOS Media. He referred to me as a content creator because I was creating my videos. 

Somehow landed a content creation gig (6 days a week, 4-5 hours per day for $1000 per month). I was managing about 10-15 clients alone. 

Learned a lot about content and got promoted as the head of content there. Spent my entire 2022 working in AOS media. I always told Gilad (CEO), who’s still a good friend, that I’d go all in on my brand, which I did. 

Once I quit AOS in early 2023, I started thinking about creating my agency again. Which then started in July 2023.

During all these times, posting content has helped me in some way or the other. I have some of my best friends that I have never met. People I have worked with virtually. 

The entire journey of freelancing to a job for my brand and agency was fuelled by content creation.

I’ll be honest, without this brand I would have genuinely struggled to land high-paying clients, and the time taken to grow my income and presence would be way longer. 

Top founders are all pivoting into building their brands. They see exponential results because their experience commands attention. 

They've built credibility with multimillion-dollar companies. When they speak about business, life, and value, people listen. They use their influence to connect globally and gain traction for new ventures. If they're doing it, you should too.

As a freelancer, coach, or agency owner, you have an unfair advantage. Talk about your business, ideas, clients, and their problems. This will help you attract like-minded people, establish industry competence, and build credibility through experience.

Know your Why

Creating your personal brand is an ongoing process. 

You'll improve over time. Knowing your "why" is the strongest pillar of your personal brand. 

Things won't always go as planned. You might get stuck for months, miss your goals, lose money, or have clients ghost you. Uncertainty is part of life, and you'll face these challenges alone.

Your reason must be stronger than daily obstacles. It keeps you focused and helps you recover when you hit rock bottom. Your "why" will face daily tests. You need to overcome them each time until you succeed.

The Foundation of Your Brand

Every personal brand is built on a “solid foundation”. This foundation is your anchor and remains constant. Let's look at some examples:

• Dan Koe: Building a one-person business.

• Matt Gray: The systems guy.

• Sahil Bloom: Building and partnering in several online businesses (with people you had no clue about)

• Zach: Obsession.

What do they have in common? They built their entire brand on one core foundation. This doesn't mean they only talk about these topics. They also share personal life, interests, and more. Most people do the opposite—talk about random things and call it branding.

Here’s how to establish your foundation:

1. Find Your Core Values: Identify the core value you want to build your brand on. It could be fashion, dancing, art, fitness, sales, or even documenting daily life as an office worker.

2. Stay Within Your Industry: For example, I do MMA, and talk about personal branding books, self-improvement, productivity, and habits. Keep your content within a realm to push a clear narrative.

If you have more than one foundation, ensure they're related. For instance, fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle, or business, books, and networking. Things will come naturally because your interests are interconnected. 

Don't overthink it; the beauty of a personal brand is that you can do whatever you want as long as it aligns with your foundation.

Content Creation

Creating content is the best part of building a personal brand. 

Instead of starting from scratch, take inspiration from others. Whatever you're trying to create has likely been done before or is in progress.

Once you've sorted your foundation, research is your next step. 

Look at the best people in every space. List 10-20 big creators and content pieces you like. 

Break down everything they do from your perspective as a creator. 

Analyze their foundation, their best content pieces, and why they stand out.

Is it their storytelling, editing, delivery, or something else?

Break everything down thoroughly.

From this analysis, create content inspired by what you've learned. You now have content ideas. 

Post them without expecting results for at least six months and collect lots of data. Iterate and refine each piece of content.

(If you create to get better at this, you’ll grow for sure).

Monetization

The monetization benefits of building a personal brand in the long term are mental. 

Although I haven’t monetized a lot directly, I am on the path to starting. 

I read this tweet from J.K Molina about not delivering so much that your audience never buys from you. 

And that’s a real problem. People’s sophistication is higher for sure, yet, selling info products and making money directly from a personal brand is vilified more than it should be. 

I am a big believer in investing in good courses. I even got Tom Noske’s recent cohort ($2k) and I enjoyed every single bit of it. 

People should be grateful that these courses exist because they fast-track the growth of students and consumers. 

I’ll for sure do my part to improve its reputation soon. We’ll blow out the bad stuff, get rid of the BS, and work on real value. 

So, based on my experience, if you’re starting, or you’ve built your presence to 10k, 50k, or 100k followers. 

You can monetize in these ways (without sacrificing your brand value too much).

1. Digital Products: Package your expertise into eBooks, guides, templates, & courses. The only prerequisite is, to deliver actual good value.

2. Workshops: Host live workshops to share your knowledge. This generates revenue and builds community. However, these don’t make much money since the target is getting more people on less ticket size. 

3. Cohort-Based Courses: Engage with people in a structured, interactive course. Do this only if you have a proven record of getting people results and you know how to run communities, so people don’t feel out of place. You should do cohorts once you have gotten results from your service, digital products, or workshops. 

4. Brand deals: I don’t like making this my main source of income, as you’re giving control to someone else. However, you can make some nice cash here and there. 

5. Sell your services: Hands down the best if you’re a beginner or building your way through. If you have a newer audience, they won’t mind. You probably won’t sell much directly to them unless you build that way. You can have your brand, and outreach to prospects to get those juicy clients. 

There are other ways to build cash flow through your personal brands, but I’d recommend doing those later in the process. 

Everything depends on “proof of work”, if you have a genuine track record of getting results you can build new companies, paid communities, etc.

Resources of the week. 

1. The book I’m reading: The Science Of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. Decent read so far, I’m 30% into it. 

2. Continuing on my way through Tom Noske’s cohort. If you can, I'd say you can go for it, really good. It’s gonna set you back $2000 though. 

3. Going through John Danaher’s instructions for my Jiu-Jitsu training. If you are into it, you know lol. 

I’ll see you next week. 

When you are ready this is how I can help you:

• I have a product launching soon, called “Expert Creator Blueprint”. It will help you build a personal brand that gets you clients and makes money without spamming DMs.

• Follow me on Youtube and X @whysaksham where I share my insights on everything.