697: The Business of Influence: Creating a Personal Brand That SELLS

28:11You always win. There is nothing but a win. the only reason you wouldn't jump in the game is because you would go, I'm not smart enough. I'm not successful enough. I'm not well known enough. And all of those things are self-centered. Ironically, like fear is a totally self-centered dynamic. We only feel fear when we're thinking about ourself. How am I going to look on camera? Does my breath stink? Right? Like it's so self-centered, But when you're serving someone, the way that we say it is there is no fear once the mission to serve becomes clear. There is no fear once the mission to serve becomes clear.

28:54Like if you're driving down the road and let's say there's like a car, you see a car accident and there's a car flipped over and you hear someone yelling like you're going to help somebody. You're not worried about how does my hair look or like is my outfit cute? Like, you're not thinking about that because there's no room for that. You're just going to help someone. And we can create that moment at any given moment in our life. And that's what the greatest personal brands do. They're relentlessly focused on service. And it's not about chasing the fame and all that sort of stuff. It's just about being helpful to people.

29:30And then you realize, oh my gosh, I can be so helpful to people. And I can make a ton of money in the process, create my own calendar, meet all these amazing people and just make the world a better place. It's almost unfair. And it just gets easier and easier. You know, I know you experience this now, like you're at that point where you go, I would do this for free. Yeah. Now it takes several years to get there, but you know, what an amazing gift and reward if you serve people the right way. Yes. So one thing that I've experienced firsthand in working with you and stuff is that your team has this well-defined six-part process that helps people to find their uniqueness.

30:10One of the things that we notice is like, anytime we have any sort of offer or something, it's like, everyone wants to know, but will it work for me? Right. We all want to think like we are the unicorn. We are the exception of like, but surely this could work for everyone, but me, like, you don't know me. Can you walk me through just a tiny bit of like what that process is to help somebody to be able to say confidently, like, I am unique. I have a unique perspective. I have a point of view. I have the ability to make an impact because I think that people listening are like, oh yeah, this totally makes sense for someone else, but they're already disqualifying themselves from being a candidate.

30:47So what is kind of that process and like, what does it look like? Yeah. So we call it finding your brand DNA and it's really about finding your uniqueness. And It's a six part process. There's six questions that we ask people. And, you know, it's interesting because it's not so much prescriptive that we could just tell someone like, here's the answer, but it's very introspective in that we ask you these six questions and you could try to take yourself through the process. And basically, if you were to brainstorm the answers to all of these six questions at the intersection of all the answers is where your uniqueness lies.

31:22So the first question, which is the genesis of how you build a personal brand, and most people can never really get clarity on this question. And it's so simple. It's just to be able to answer this one question in one word, which is, what problem do you solve? In one word. What problem do you solve? And this is where it starts. And this is a real struggle for people to figure out because they're multifaceted. faceted. They have lots of different passions and stuff, which is all part of it. But if you can't boil it down to one word, you're going to really struggle because of something that we refer to as Sheehan's wall.

32:02Basically, Jenna, the way that this works is in any given industry or market or vertical or whatever, there's basically two groups of people. There are those who are unknown, new to the game. And then there are those who are known, they're well known. And so you got these two groups of people, some living in obscurity, others in notoriety. And in between the group is what we call Sheehan's Wall. We name this after Peter Sheehan, who gave us originally was the inspiration for this concept that we've sort of adapted, but to personal brands specifically. So what the people who are unknown do is they typically look at the people who are well-known, right?

32:40And you go, okay, we look at Oprah and we look at Gary Vaynerchuk and we look at Tony Robbins and we look at Mel Robbins and Tony's a good example because Tony talks about money and he talks about health and he talks about relationships and he, you know, he's got business mastery and all these different things. And so people go, well, I want to be like that. And so they talk about a lot of different topics and then they want to serve a lot of different audiences. It's like, well, I really have a heart for, you know, moms and also for nurses and also for, you know, these other people. And so they have lots of different audiences, lots of different topics.

33:15And then every time you go online, you learn a new business model. Somebody going, man, courses are the way to get rich. No membership sites. That's where it's at. No, you know, retreats or live events or speaking or coaching or consulting or mastermind. So now we have all these different business models. And then there's all these different platforms. We're trying to build an audience like YouTube and podcasts and Instagram and Facebook. So we're trying to reach all these people, all these different types of people with all these different types of message on all these different types of platforms with all these different ways of making money.

33:45And what happens is you bounce off the wall because of a very simple concept, which is, and this is all the way back from my very first take the stairs book. This is like 2012, OG Rory Vaden stuff. If you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. Simple. people. So a big part of what we do is we just help people figure out what should they focus on. You can be successful talking about any topic. You can be successful addressing any audience. You can be successful with lots of different types of business models. The one thing that's not successful is trying to do all of them or several of them.

34:28And Lewis is actually a great example of this. When we first started working with him, he had 17 revenue streams, like 17 different ways he'd making money. I think perhaps maybe the only thing that we really did that was much valuable to Lewis was we said, hey, there's this thing you're doing, which is your podcast, which was just like an ancillary thing. But we said, it looks like there's a lot of natural momentum here. What would happen if you stopped doing all these other things and just went all in on this one thing. What would happen? Well, the way that you break through the wall is by focusing, right?

35:09Like focus is like precision is what creates power. And so you go, what one problem can I solve for the world? Who's the one audience that I can serve in the deepest way? What is the one platform I'm going to focus on to reach more people? And what is the one revenue stream above all others that really matters the most. And those four questions are the four things that we get people crystal clear on in the first two day encounter that we have with them. What problem do I solve in one word? How do I solve it in one sentence? Who do I solve it for? And what one type of person do I solve it for? And what is my one primary revenue stream that matters above all others?

35:50And when you have focus, you break through that wall. And if you think about this as like an actual concrete wall. Like if I took a sledgehammer and I hit all different places on the wall, nothing really happens. But if you hit that same mark on the wall over and over and over and over, eventually it starts to crack and then it starts to chip. And then you start to carve out a little space. And then eventually you break through the wall in that one spot. And then once you break through the wall, then the whole wall comes tumbling down. Right. So Oprah can talk about whatever she wants because she's Oprah.

36:29Gary Vaynerchuk can talk about whatever he wants because he's Gary Vaynerchuk. But how did Gary Vaynerchuk become Gary Vaynerchuk? He talked about one topic, wine, on one platform, YouTube. Yeah. Like, how did Amazon become Amazon? They sold one product, books. That was all they did. And they broke through the wall and now they literally sell everything. So you can't look at what people on the other side of the wall are doing and try to emulate what they're doing now. You have to look at what did they do to get there? And with all of them, in the smaller business you are, the less resources you have.

37:06So the more important focus is, and yet small business owners tend to struggle the most with distraction. And so we're just trying to help them get clear on those things. And if we can just get clear on those things, they're going to take whatever resources they have and concentrate and consolidate them on fewer things. And so of course, they're going to be more successful. They're going to be more successful doing fewer things. Yes. One thing that I absolutely love about this and something I love about you, And this is why I like, so believe in what you do and how you do it is that a lot of times I think we're too close to our own genius to recognize that it's a gift, right?

37:49Like, it's like, surely everyone knows this or like, of course, this is simple for everyone because it's simple for us. And one thing that you've done in my life, and I know you've done it in others is like, you can call out like the one thing, right? Like you can hone people in. And as you're sharing this, I'm just smiling because I myself am multi-passionate. So many people in my audience, it's like squirrel idea, business things, you know, like new platform, like I'm moving in all these directions. And I love this because I can see why having a conversation with someone that keeps pulling you back in, like, what is the one thing?

38:26What is the one thing? Because so many entrepreneurs will be like, no, it's three. No, it's five. No, it's 10. And it's like, no, no, no. And I love these examples too of like, what did these people do as the one thing that broke them free to do all the things? And I think this is so powerful because a lot of times we look at where people are today and we don't reverse engineer. And if I've ever met anyone in my entire life who loves to reverse engineer things, it's you. And so I love that you remind this of like, no, they were really good at this one thing. And I just feel like sometimes it's important that we bring people into this conversation to allow us to express maybe all the things we're curious about or passionate about, but to help us rein it back in.

39:09And I think that that's a gift that you've done for me in my life. Like, you know, there is a time where I was getting ready to go on a stage in front of 13 ,000 people. And I'm like, Rory, and you're like, here's the one thing. This is the one thing. And I think that a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we don't welcome in those conversations because we feel like it might put us in a box. But sometimes that's where we have to begin in order to start making those bigger waves that, you know, kind of ripple on forever and ever and ever. Look, I've become kind of a systems nerd and anything that gives me more space in my day, I'm all in.

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41:53Can you believe that we're already wrapping up 2025? This year was packed with travel and so many new memories. One of my favorite moments was our team retreat in Arizona with the incredible women who helped me keep this business running. I also recently took the kids to Nashville during fall break and somewhere in between I squeezed in a trip to Puerto Rico with friends. We booked some of our most memorable stays this year on Airbnb. There's something special about finding a place that doesn't just look great in the photos, but actually feels welcoming the moment you walk in. That this feels right kind of feeling.

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43:08And I would say, you know, earlier I I said, personal branding, the way that we define it is the digitization of reputation. The other part is that it's the monetization of reputation. Yeah, let's talk about that. Part of what we do is like, how do you turn this into money? Yeah. And one of the things that you hear about, this is one of the things that I think is the stupidest things that we hear online is about multiple streams of income. Yeah. Right. Everyone's like, oh, multiple streams of income. I'm telling you. So we have four clients that are billionaires. we have been around a lot of really successful people.

43:42Ultra wealthy people did not become wealthy by having multiple streams of income. The people who are wealthy did one thing insanely well and they made all their money doing that one thing. And that's how they broke through the wall, right? They did this one thing, they crushed it, they became the world's best at blank. And then once you have money, then you spread it around, right? Then you diversify. Then you invest in multiple things because you have a lot of resources. Yeah. But I love what you were talking about, Jenna, that it's very hard to do this on your own. And that's ultimately why we decided we were going to be a coaching company and like working with people because these are intimate conversations.

44:32And when it comes to the money, for example, there's five ways to make money as a personal brand. You know, high level, when you look at everyone who makes money from having a personal brand, they really make money from one of these five things. So PAIDs is an acronym. So the P stands for products, physical products. So you build a huge personal brand and then you sell people a product, right? If you're The Rock, you might be selling tequila. If you're Sarah Blakely, you're selling Spanx. If you're Elon Musk, you're selling Teslas, right? But they're using their personal brand to sell a widget, something.

45:05The A stands for ads and affiliates. And this is interesting because the way you make money is that you actually don't sell your audience anything. You sell other people access to your audience. And so if you're really good at throwing a party and you're really good at getting a lot of people to show up and you're like really fun and you're just good at getting people there, but even if you don't like love selling or know how to sell, you can still make a ton of money. That ads and affiliates is a really great model for you. Then the I is information, selling information. And so there's obviously been the explosion of courses and membership sites and certifications and assessments.

45:42And if you have a really high intellect or really strong capacity for teaching something, that lends itself to information. The D in paid stands for deals. So those are like brand deals, TV deals, movie deals, book deals, where you get typically a royalty is associated with a deal of some type. And then the S is services. And services are actually the fastest path to cash is to exchange your time for money. And sometimes you'll hear people say, don't trade your time for money. That's not good. Well, actually trading your time for money is the best way to make a lot of money quickly if you need money short term.

46:26So it depends on who you are and where you're at in your journey. Now, so when we have a one-on-one conversation with someone, we're kind of like looking at what are their skill sets? What are their natural strengths? Which people do they have on their team? What do they already have sitting off the shelf to craft their monetization strategy? In the short term, we look at the pades. Now, long-term, we reconcile that against something that we call the D.A.R.E.S. So D.A.R.E.S. is also an acronym. And it says that if there was a perfect business model, it would meet all of these criteria. It would be digital, automated, recurring, evergreen, and scalable.

47:06Love that. I love that. So digital, automated, recurring, evergreen, and scalable. That would be the ultimate business model. There's no physical inventory. It's all digital. It's completely self-serve. You don't have to have anyone show up to like deliver the thing. It's recurring. So people pay over and over again. It's evergreen means it never needs to be updated. And then it's infinitely scalable. You could add a million customers without increasing your overhead at all. So long-term we're weighing or we're reconciling the dares, but short-term, you know, it's like, you got to look at the reality of someone's situation.

47:42Like maybe they have kids, they have young kids and like, they don't have a bunch of money saved up and they can't go six months without earning income. And so that's where personal brand strategy comes into play to go, it has to be a customized solution for each individual person. At least that's the role that we kind of play in the world. I love that too. And I think so many of my audience members can relate to this because they're finding themselves in different seasons, right? Maybe they're wanting to pivot. Maybe they're wanting to start. Maybe they're wanting to press the brakes, but they can't.

48:13And so I do agree that has to be customized. And you also have to really understand like, here's exactly where I am. Here's what I can offer. Here's what I need help solidifying. And here's where I want to go. And, you know, there's so many times in our lives, like there are going to be so many people listening to this episode and they're like, okay, I'm going to do this exercise. I'm going to do it like next week. Right. I'm going to sit down and write down all the questions Rory has. I'm going to answer them all. I'm going to put out the dares. I'm going to figure out the monetization strategy.

48:39I'm going to do all this. How many exercises in our lives have we done that with, right? Like, oh, I heard this Ted talk, or I heard this in a book. I'm going to, I'll get around to that. And how many times do we not follow through on that? Right. But what I think is so powerful is when you can walk through this, like you have personally walked me through so much of this and I just see so much value in having someone confirm things. Like one thing that I love is like, you basically asked me a question, I answer it. And then you repeat back the answer to me, right? Like, is this what you mean when you said this?

49:15And I feel like a lot of times entrepreneurship feels like this one-sided conversation where we're just like, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't need help. I'm white knuckling this. I know what I want. I'm going after it. And there's so much power in pushback in a good way of like the back and forth conversation. Like when you said this, is this what you meant? When you see this person, is this what you're identifying with? When you are talking about this model, does this really fit with your definition of success? And I feel like a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we're so independent that we're like, we'll just work through this exercise on our own.

49:47But there is so much power in the pushback and pushback is not said in a negative way. It's said in a way of like challenging you. Like, is this correct? Is this you? Is this what you want to be known for? Is this the impact you're making? Is this the income level you desire? Is this the freedom you're after? And there's so much power in that conversation. And I just think that's such a missed opportunity for so many entrepreneurs because we're so stubborn, because we're like, I'll just figure it out. I got this fresh journal that I bought two years ago that I know I'm going to write these answers in.

50:21What would you say to that? Well, yeah, I mean, I would say you should talk to someone. And by the way, Jenna, like, you know this, but we do the this is why we do the first call for free with everybody. In fact, if you go to freebrandcall.com slash Jenna Kutcher, freebrandcall.com slash Jenna Kutcher, if you want to talk, you can fill out a little form and we'll connect you with somebody. Because sometimes the only way to know the power of that is to do it and to experience it with somebody. And we actually, on the very first call too, we'll show someone, here's the whole process. If you want to break through the wall, these are the steps.

51:02And we'll just want to go, tell me about your dream. Tell me about what you're struggling with. Tell me what you're doing well and tell me what you feel like you need to do more of. And then we basically create like a custom plan with each person. Sometimes that means we get to continue talking to them. Sometimes it doesn't, but there's so much clarity that comes from that type of a conversation. And the other thing I should mention is like with us, we work with all different levels of people, right? People sometimes assume because of some of our more well-known clients, they're like, oh, it must be outrageously expensive to work with.

51:38And it's not. We have very, very affordable stuff all the way up to very, very like hyper involved stuff. But it's like the power is in talking this out. And if you're not sure, but you feel this calling, you should talk to somebody because that's the only way you're going to learn and really flush it out with somebody. And we will tell you too, like there's a lot of people will say, hey, we're not the right fit to work with you or, hey, I don't think you're ready for this, or you should check out that. That's part of the exploration together, but there's somebody out there that maybe needs you.

52:10And that's, I think, worth listening to. And, you know, it's just having the courage to have the conversation at least. Yeah. I love that. This has been so powerful. And I really think that when I look at my career in total, I'm so grateful. I have a personal brand. I'm so grateful people connect with me as an imperfect human who is always evolving, who is sharing her life. I feel like it has enriched my life. And it's also given me permission to change my mind, to try something else, to experiment. Like if you are listening to this and you're like, I cannot imagine doing what I'm doing today, three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, I will tell you that your one way ticket into the permission slip to pivot is a personal brand.

52:56That is the only way because people care more about you than the product or service you're offering. And so they will follow you. And so like, I believe in this so wholeheartedly that like the reason why I have been able to explore and try and be imperfect and fail and do all of these things publicly is because people care more about the person than the product. And that is what a personal brand can do in terms of transforming your life, your business, your ethos, your impact. And so I just like, I love this. I love what you do. I love your team. I think it's so powerful. I think these exercises, these questions you've given us have given us the perfect launch pad, but man, I cannot tell you if you are someone who's on here and you're like, I hate phone calls.

53:41Guess what? I hate phone calls too. Do you know how many times I've had to call Rory up? It is worth it to have somebody guide you through a process and to push back and to ask you these questions and to identify these spaces where you might not go on your own. Yeah. And part of what we believe, Jenna, too, is that like, if you're listening right now and you have this calling on your heart, right, and you don't really know where it came from, but you feel something saying, you're supposed to start this business. You're supposed to go to another level. You're supposed to write a book. Look, you're supposed to share your story with more people like any of that inclination or intuition that is calling to you.

54:31We actually believe that the calling you feel on your heart to share that message is the result of a signal that's being sent out to you from someone else. And that person needs you way more than you need them. If you just think about this for a second, no matter what it is that you've been through, there are people out there right now who are hurting and struggling and wrestling with something. They're searching for answers to questions that you already know, like the back of your hand. They are looking to solve problems that you've already moved past. They literally, quite literally could be on their hands and knees praying for a path that you've already been down.

55:24And so we just feel like it's sort of your obligation to serve, like it's your obligation to go. How do you reach out to that person? How do we and that's what our role is, is how do we facilitate that transference? Because you're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. and there's people all over the world right now that can benefit from what you've been through. And ultimately, I think that's what it's about. Rory, where can everybody find out more about you, what you guys do, connect with your team, get a call, give me the place to connect. Yeah, totally. So I mentioned it earlier and I would just say, if you're interested in learning more, the one thing I would do is just go to freebrandcall.com forward slash Jenna Kutcher and just take a look at that page.

56:13And then if you want to talk to us, you can just request a call right there. And we would just love to talk to you. We just want to hear your dream. We want to hear your story. Like we're kind of old school in that way. Like we love to connect with people one-on-one. We just want to hear about you. So yeah, so freebrandcall.com slash Jenna Kutcher. Other than that, I'm out there on the interwebs to be found. Thank you so much for being you and being in my life. I'm so glad that we got connected. and I absolutely love learning from you. And this was such a treat. Well, thank you, my friend. It's a pleasure and a gift to know you and to get to be in your life a little bit.

56:49I'm so proud of you. I'm proud of what you do and I'm proud of the way you do what you do. It really inspires me. So thanks for the gift of being here. This episode was so powerful. I loved getting to talk to my friend, Rory. It's crazy. Over the last year, Rory has really spoken into my life and business in so many ways. and with so many different avenues from my book to speaking to the way I show up online. It has been absolutely powerful. And I just can't stress enough how important it is to invite in mentors and experts to speak into our lives. Because let me tell you, you are sitting so close to your own genius, your own transformative story, your own ability to make impact that you likely don't even see it.

57:35I sincerely hope you book a free brand call at freebrandcall.com forward slash Jenna Kutcher. That's freebrandcall.com forward slash Jenna Kutcher and walk through these exercises and these questions with somebody trained to guide you on the path. I cannot wait to see what you do with your brand and the impact you are about to make. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. Until next time, keep on digging your biggest goals. I'm over here giving you a virtual high five because you just finished another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. Did that go by way too fast for anyone else?

58:14If you want more, head over to golddiggerpodcast.com for show notes and all the discount codes from today's sponsors. And if you're looking for a new crew of movers and shakers like you to bounce ideas and ask questions, be sure to join my exclusive community for Gold Diggers on Facebook. The link's waiting for you at golddiggerpodcast.com.