Why Personal Branding Is The Future of Marketing with AJ Vaden: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down why personal branding is the future of marketing. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought AJ Vaden into EO Fire Studios. AJ is the CEO of the personal brand strategy firm, Brand Builders Group, as well as an eight-figure entrepreneur, international speaker, and co-host of the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. In today's foundation, we'll talk about how it's not about what you do, it's about who you are.

0:36We'll talk about personal branding, how it's truly the future of marketing, and how influencer marketing is not about being an influencer. It's about being trustworthy and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to AJ and our sponsors. Is now the time to grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Again, request life changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.

1:14AJ, say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Oh, I love this question. Uh, I like to be controversial. Um, so I would say something I believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with is that I think you need to own your tax knowledge. I know so many people who think that just hiring a CPA or whatever is what they should be doing to own their financial situation. And I just really believe as an individual, as a business owner, entrepreneur, whatever, that you really need to be just as in the loop into taxes as your CPA is.

1:58Or you can just move to Puerto Rico, Fire Nation, and never pay taxes. So it's like one of the two. Either get really deep in taxes or just move to a place where you don't pay taxes. So as I mentioned, we are talking all about personal branding and why it's the future of marketing. And I want to get the deets right now, AJ, on what Americans, let's get specific on the U.S. population, what do they have to say about influencer marketing? Break that down for us. Yes, I think one of the things that's really fascinating about this whole concept of influencer marketing and personal branding is there's a lot of misconceptions out there about what is an influencer and what is a personal brand.

2:41And I think most people assume that you have to be an influencer or an online celebrity or a TV personality to have a personal brand. And that's just not true. And so, as you know, our company, Brand Builders Group, we launched a huge nationwide study earlier this year. We spent almost six months. We hired an independent research firm, the Center for Generational Kinetics. And we went out and we wanted to know, like, what are the impacts of personal branding? What does that mean to individuals and to companies right now? And one of the biggest things that we wanted to know is, what do you consider a personal brand?

3:17And the majority, more than two-thirds of Americans said that they simply see a personal brand as someone who is recognizable to them. Now, why is that significant when it comes to influencer marketing? It's because really, this is not about being an influencer. This is about being trustworthy. And as we went through this study, there is an underlying currency right now of what it means to have a personal brand. And it means that if you have a personal brand, we are more likely to trust you. And it's got nothing to do with how many likes or follows or subscribers or engagement you have. It's are you trustworthy?

4:02It's just five simple letters, Fire Nation. T-R-U-S-T. But it means so much. Are you trustworthy? What are you doing to be transparent about what you're doing in business, being open, honest, generous? Think about those things and think, you know, with yourself in the shoes of your perfect listener or consumer of your content or purchaser or client or customer, what are they viewing me as? Are they viewing me as trustworthy? Am I doing things that's building up that trust? So AJ, what industries specifically does personal branding seem to have the biggest impact on with all of your studies in this?

4:45Yeah, this was fascinating to us because as we kind of like discovered, there's this underlying currency of trust being at the forefront of why personal branding has become such a hot topic. I would say it's not even trendy. It's a necessity. I really do believe that. And we went through and we said, well, then what industries does it have the most impact on? And by far and large, the most impact that personal branding has are any industry that requires a higher level of trust. And so there was a ton of that that weighted into the professional services categories. But there were two industries specifically.

5:28I would say even just, I would just call them even just positions. But Americans said that the most important roles, the most important people that need to have a personal brand are doctors and lawyers. And the third one was your employer. So doctors, lawyers and employers. And as we really dug into that data, there became a really simple kind of, I would just say, a sum of what all of this really meant. It's like the more that this industry requires trust, the more established your personal brand must become. And when you think about it, it's like you better trust your doctor. Your life is in their hands.

6:14And you better trust your lawyer. Your freedom is in their hands. And equally, you better trust your employer because your livelihood is in their hands. And it's all these front-facing components of do I know you? Do I align with you? Can I trust you? Have a lot to do with, will I spend my money with you? Fire Nation, think about it. I mean, whenever you hear somebody saying, man, I need to go get this incredibly dangerous or potentially life-threatening surgery, they never say, I'm going to the person down the street. They're like, I'm flying cross country. I'm going to this person who's the most world-renowned individual because guess what?

6:53That person has personal brands. They have trust. They have the ingredients that we need to really put our life in individuals' hands, our freedom in individuals' hands. And that's a great takeaway. Now, AJ, we do love examples. So can you share some recent case studies on how companies are actually leveraging personal brands to gain market share in their vertical? Yeah. So I can give a couple of really good examples and then a couple of when you don't have it, what happens. But I think the best case study right now about this is Victoria's Secrets. And so if any of your listeners follow Victoria's Secret, they are doing something really phenomenal right now.

7:37Whether or not you're fans of them or not is not here nor there. But earlier this year, they launched one of the largest corporate rebrands in recent history. And over the last decade, Victoria's Secret has been losing pretty significant market share with the upcoming brands like Third Love and these online brands where they can ship and do it to at home. And there's just been this consensus of Victoria's Secret is really becoming synonymous with a certain look and feel. Right. So earlier this year, they said we are going to eradicate the angels. We no longer want to be synonymous with the Victoria's Secret angels.

8:14and they completely got rid of that. That's a big deal because that had become a part of their iconic brand over the last 10 years. It's a really big deal. And instead, they said, we're not going to keep doing what we've been doing that hasn't been working, which is dumping tons of money into corporate advertising and marketing. Instead, they said, we're going to go out and we're going to hunt for a select few individuals, women, who are known for their accomplishments more than their measurements. And we're going to take these women who have a very trustworthy audience and a very large digital following, and we're going to make them the faces of Victoria's Secret.

8:53And you've got people like Priyanka Chopra. You've got people like Megan Rapinoe. You've got all these really well-known established individuals. But here's the thing is they're all very diverse. You've got famous soccer players. You've got Hollywood actresses. You have tech investors. You have You have photographic journalists. You have activists. You have refugees. And they're doing this intentionally to reach the markets that they're no longer penetrating. So they're taking these established personal brands, making them the face of Victoria's Secrets so they have access to these loyal followings of these individuals.

9:32And if you just take one person, you just take Priyanka Chopra, who is also married to Nick Jonas, and you actually look at her following. and she's got approximately three times the online following of the entire Victoria's Secret brand. Just one person. I mean, that is mind-blowing stuff, Fire Nation, when you can just say today that one person can have such a larger impact, influence, size of an audience than an entire brand that's been around for decades and decades. I mean, that's just something to really ponder on. So AJ, keep on rocking. Yeah, I would say, well, in addition to that, it's like kind of on that same concept.

10:14So Coca-Cola, right? Coca-Cola is a super iconic brand and they haven't been around for decades. They've been around for almost a hundred years, right? A very long time. And earlier this year, I am not a super soccer fan. I am new to soccer. I do peewee soccer with my toddlers. So I know just enough to be dangerous here. But because of this case study, I've become very acquainted with at least one soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo. And Cristiano Ronaldo is the number one Instagram user worldwide. He has more than 500 million followers just on Instagram. Y 'all, there's only 350 million people who live in the United States.

10:59He has 500 million followers. He like it's an entire continent. Right. So he was at a press conference earlier this year for the Euro 2020 match that they were doing in June. And Coca-Cola is one of the sponsors of this match. And he sat down for this press conference and sitting in front of him were two bottles of Coke. Right. Now, backstory, Cristiano Ronaldo is famously known for his strict diet and nutrition regimen. He is incredibly disciplined. It's a huge part of his platform, his personal brand, what he talks about, what he believes in. So when he sits down and he sees these two bottles of Coke, he doesn't say anything.

11:39He puts his hand out and shoves them out of the way and sets down a bottle of Dasani water. Also owned by Coca-Cola, by the way. But he sets it down. By the end of that press conference, Coca-Cola stock prices, their shares, had gone down$4 billion, with a B,$4 billion. dollars. So you see the power of one individual who, this is not just about influencing our purchase decisions or our engagement, right? This is influencing share value and stock prices of a hundred year old iconic global brand. One person did that. And then you've got the examples of people like Elon Musk, right? And this has nothing to do with Tesla, but Elon Musk has also become quite synonymous with Bitcoin, right?

12:34And if you just follow cryptocurrency and the Bitcoin values just in 2021, you can literally trace them back to Elon Musk's tweets, right? It's like in January, 2021, he starts and he changes his handle to hashtag Bitcoin, right? Right. Prices just go skyrocket. Just a few months later, talks about Tesla maybe taking those as a type of currency payment for Tesla's. Then he changes his mind. Then he reverses it. And you can literally see this is fluctuating up, down, up, down, up, down. So you've got people influencing purchase behavior. You've got people influencing markets. And now you have people influencing entire currencies because of this very established personal brand where people go, I trust you because I like you.

13:26I follow you. I align with you. So I'm going to do what you say. This is really interesting stuff, Fire Nation, when you really dive in to everything that AJ is sharing. I mean, when somebody who is running a car company, Tesla, can now go ahead and tweet something about Dogecoin or Bitcoin or fill in the blank, even politics sometimes. I mean, he had a really interesting tweet the other day about politics. It can literally move mountains. I mean, mountains are being moved on tweets, on posts, on actions like Renato's action of just shoving away a couple Coca-Cola cans. Mountains can be moved.

14:04Billions can be made or lost. It is absolutely fascinating. And we're going to be diving into a lot more details when it comes to all of this when we get back from thanking our sponsors. There's a lot to consider when starting your own business. and protecting your identity and privacy are top concerns. With Northwest Registered Agent, you get more privacy, more guidance, and more freedom to run your business from anywhere in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping businesses launch and grow for nearly 30 years. If you want to build your business while keeping your personal information secure, Northwest is the partner you need.

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15:20Is this your year to grow a successful business? Are you looking to learn the proven processes and success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories? See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Yes, it's month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Schedule your free personal 13-point assessment with Clay Clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire because Clay only takes on 160 clients and only allows 300 attendees to each business conference.

16:02You will interact with Clay directly. See thousands of real success stories and learn about attending the Thrive Time Show two-day in-person workshop featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump, today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire. Become the next success story. Schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump, at Clay Clark's next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire. All right, AJ, we are back and this is an audio-only podcast or you would have seen me physically push away Coca-Cola cans as well, because I got to be honest, not to go on a little bit of a rant, but to me, it is mind blowing when you have like real professional athletes or people that promote health and wellness, literally align their brands with something that is so unhealthy for you, like a sugar water or something like that.

16:57So personally, like I applaud when somebody like run all those steps up and says, Hey, like, I'm not going to have this associated with me. They're not going to try to sneak in a brand association with me because I'm in the same camera frame as this, if I can have anything to say about it. So kudos to that. And what does that do, Fire Nation? That builds up what AJ and I were talking about earlier, trust. I trust AJ. I trust AJ, of course, because she's on the show here. But I trust Ronaldo more now because he did something like that. Whereas if I see an athlete promoting some kind of sugary cereal as the breakfast of champions, I'm like, that person's a sellout.

17:32That person sold out. Now, everybody does like a little flex, AJ. Let's be honest. Can you share what titles carry the most credibility in our marketplace today? Yes, this is a huge, interesting, like aha moment for us because we wanted to know two different things when we did this study. And one is we wanted to know what were the most important deciding factors to someone when they were making a decision of whom to purchase from. And then we also wanted to know simultaneously what type of titles, right, positions hold the most credibility in the marketplace. And so this is kind of like a two-part answer here, if that's okay.

18:16The first part is like, okay, when you're making a decision to hire someone, we wanted to know what is most important to you in making that decision. And so in this study, we asked Americans to pick the top three things that were most important to them. And it was a list of like 20 things. And it was anything from having a viral TED talk to a YouTube show to a very large social media following, social media following, lots of engagement. Is it important that they have a podcast or a book or a blog or a nice website? Should they be speaking and consulting and training? All these different things.

18:51Here's what was fascinating. It was none of those things, right? It just completely blew our mind. But 62 % of Americans said the most important factor to them when deciding whom to buy from was whether or not this individual had third-party testimonials. What? It's crazy. And here's why it was so crazy to me is this is the cheapest, fastest, easiest thing that we can do. If anyone is listening to this podcast, you could literally get out of this podcast, get out of your car, stop whatever you're doing. And by the end of today, you could have testimonials, video and writing, right? But you could not launch a well-known podcast.

19:32You could definitely not launch a New York Times bestselling book. You may not even be able to write a blog, but you could get testimonials. And what Americans are saying is like, I want third-party validation from other people who have worked with you or bought from you to confirm that you are who you say you are and you do what you say you're going to do. And so testimonials was far, far and beyond, 62 % said that was the most important. The second thing that I thought was fascinating on this particular data point was that you can have a blog, a self-published book, a traditionally published book, or a New York Times bestselling book.

20:13And those four things held the exact same weight when it comes to credibility and deciding whom to buy from. I'll just pause for a second because I know you know this. How long does it take to write a blog? And then how long does it take to actually write a book? And then how much money, time, and resources would it take to get it out where it would actually be a New York Times bestseller? And Americans are going, eh, kind of like the same thing. It's mind-blowing. And it's like the things that we think are really important aren't so much that important when it comes to actual dollars and cents.

20:51And then we said, okay, well, those are the factors. Well, when we think about ourselves as individuals, as professionals, right? Well, then what titles hold the most importance to you? Like what titles have the most credibility? And so again, there were all different types of titles. There were probably like 15 different types of titles that we gave people the option to choose from. We said, pick the number one, but here were the top three. It was CEO, founder, and expert. And then at the bottom of the barrel, at the very bottom of the list, there were things like coach, trainer, and host. But expert, founder, and CEO were the three most credible titles of Americans going, hey, if you want me to see you as a credible resource, of a credible individual, this is what holds a lot of weight to me.

21:42I just want to say after hearing everything that you've been sharing, AJ, to me, it kind of just continues to come around to this theme that we're talking about, which is trust. It all comes back to trust. Like what can we do as business owners to build trust? Testimonials, video, written. I mean, you know, these kind of things that most people don't even understand, like what a New York Times bestselling book, like what it entails. They don't really get it. So they just don't necessarily put a ton of trust into it. So think about this, like trust is key and you can be going after the low hanging fruits that can build you almost immediate trust.

22:20Cause like AJ was sharing, you could potentially have some of this today done today. Now let's talk about some marketing tactics that we should be focusing on to get the most impact for our business. A huge part of this study was determining what are the impacts of personal branding, right? And what we found is that 74 % of Americans said they are more likely to trust you if you have an established personal brand. An established personal brand to most Americans is someone who is simply recognizable. And so we really found that this entire study really boiled down into three really important things for all of us.

22:59One, we believe that personal branding truly is the future of marketing. Gen Z says that personal branding to them is not a thing of popularity and vanity, but it is a critical and essential part of doing business, not in the future, but today. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that personal branding is highly profitable. In fact, 82%, this was the largest majority statistic of the entire research study, 82 % of Americans say that companies are more influential and effective if the founders or leaders have an established personal brand. In other words, someone that we can see, know, and learn from.

23:46And then last but not least is that personal branding is a trust accelerator. So I'll take that to kind of answer this question. And a huge marketing tactic is how can you become more well known for what you want to be known for? Because at its core, that is a personal brand. It's a proactive approach to building your reputation of becoming known for what you want to be known for. And in order to do that, you have to be able to be seen, heard, and you have to provide value to people way before they ever want to transact with you. It's like we are seeing that, you know, trust is the new currency.

24:28And people are going, no, I need information. I need value from you before I'm willing to give you my money. Before I'm willing to commit myself to you, I want you to be giving me stuff way in advance. In other words, I want to be able to get to know you and learn from you way before I ever meet you. And so we wanted to do some digging into, well, what does that really mean then? And we think one of the most important things that we learned through this entire study is, what does it mean for someone to be able to see you, know you, and learn from you? And so I'll break each of those down in really quick highlight moments.

25:04So to be seen, right, there are two different ways you can build a personal brand, i.e. a reputation. There is an online personal brand. So that's, you know, you've got podcasting, blogging, you've got your website, you've got social media. I think those things are important. There is also another component to this, though. It's your offline personal brand. It's do you even know what you stand for? And do the people around you also know what you stand for? So it's your employees or your employers, right? It is the local chamber of commerce in your community. It's the nonprofit that you volunteer at.

25:41It's the networking group that you go to. It's your local church. It's whatever. But there's an offline component of this, of getting really clear of this is what I want to be known for. And I'm going to make sure other people know me for this. And there is an online part where there's social media and there's content and there's all that. But there's an offline part that costs no money. It just takes some time and some strategy to get clear on what do I want to be known for? And what do I want to be synonymous with? Right? So there's this, you have to be seen part, but then people have to know you, right?

26:18And here's what I think is really important as you think about where you're investing time and money and resources on the online part. One of the things that we found is that the majority of all millennials, right? And millennials, you may not think you're a millennial out there, and you probably are, because we define as millennials are age 26 to 44. That's right. That's four, four, 44. You are probably a millennial and you didn't even know that you were. Surprise. You're welcome. Congratulations. You just bounced back a generation. So that's good. But here's one of the things I think is really fascinating is that they said that you are way more influential if you promote content and ideas more than products and services.

27:03And so you got to pause for a second and go, okay, like when it comes to content and ideas, how am I giving value that isn't just directly connected to my product or my service? Because we're looking for value, not just stuff to buy, right? So what can you educate me on? And then simultaneously, they also said, and this wasn't just specific to millennials, this was across all generations, that as much as I want to learn about what you do, I want to learn about who you are. And this was the part where I think is really important for us. If you don't take anything else away from my time on here today, it's take this.