(The Tai Lopez Example) How to Build a ROCK STAR Personal Brand When You Are a Complete NOOB!

Building a personal brand is a great way to get exposure for your business and position yourself as a thought leader. There are thousands of articles that suggest this and I have mentioned it on numerous occasions in my content.

With everyone and their brother trying to build their personal brand, it’s important that you start as soon as possible, even if you are a complete noob in your industry or niche. There is no time to waste if you are serious.

The great thing about a personal brand is that it will follow you for your entire professional career. It doesn’t matter if you switch industries, sell a business and start a new one, or start to work for another company in an employee role. The effort you put into building your personal brand will never go to waste, and the sooner you start, the stronger it will become.

Think about the top tech moguls, like Richard Branson and Mark Cuban. Their personal brand is so strong that anything they are involved with get immediate press and traction. They could start a business that picks up dog poop and it would be touted as the next best thing. Their personal brands are big enough to carry any idea or company on their reputation alone.

That is HUGE.

Even nobody’s have built personal brands that they leveraged to make millions of dollars. Look at Tai Lopez. I am certain you have seen his social media content or YouTube videos. He does such a good job at personal branding that you can’t avoid him and his marketing efforts.

Guess what?

You can do the same. You can be the next Tai Lopez in the sense that he came out of nowhere to be a highly recognizable face on social media and within the entrepreneurial and business world. Love him or hate him, he is doing personal branding right!

Let’s dive right into this..

Personal Branding Defined

So, what is a personal brand?

Let me explain it in a simple way, without technical jargon or fluff. Solid personal branding enables an individual to leverage him or herself in order to create engagement, whether that is through content that they produce themselves, or content that belongs to their company, in which they share to their audience.

To put it simply: A strong personal brand commands attention and creates engagement. I mentioned Tai Lopez above and I’m going to use him as an example to break down how his personal brand works so well and has turned him into a multi-millionaire from virtually nothing.

Tai Lopez built his name through YouTube ads. He spent an insane amount of money, promoting his videos that showed his garage, which featured a bookshelf full of inspirational and business books, and a Lamborghini. A lot of people made fun of these videos and many spoof videos were made. Regardless, it got people talking about him. He started selling an e-course and membership and now he sells a course that helps people start a social media agency.

Sadly, he has no agency experience. He claims to have all kinds of investment and business experience, but I can’t find any supporting evidence. He started with a story about how he was living in a mobile home with $40 or so in his pocket. The typical guru bullshit story.

He faked it until he made it. There are a lot of holes in his story and I don’t suggest making up lies, as the FTC can come down HARD on you. I’m using him as an example because he came out of nowhere and used a story and aggressive marketing to build a large name for himself. His social media accounts have millions of followers and he is making piles of money that his personal brand drives.

 

 

You Must Provide Value

This is where it can get a little tricky. You have to understand that value is in the eye of the receiving end. Tai Lopez is a great example of this as well. Many people say that his words of advice and his content is beginner crap that is just motivational fluff. Things like “you have to take actions” and “push the negative people out of your life” are so basic, but he is playing up to his audience, which is people that have never run a business and are in search of an option to escape the 9 to 5 job and low pay.

A large percentage of his audience are so desperate to be successful. They see his big house and cars and they want a piece of that action. One of the reasons he has built such a strong personal brand is because he knows who his audience is. No CEO or millionaire is going to turn to Tai Lopez for advice. Truthfully, they will probably laugh at him, but why would Lopez care? His sweet spot is the inexperienced, and he plays it up to them beautifully, luring them in with the fancy cars and pictures on private jets.

This “act” he puts on gets him more social media followers and it helps to create a major buzz. You don’t necessarily want to become a guru like Tai, but you want to use him as an example of how to put 100% of your branding focus into appealing to your target following.

 

Start Guest Blogging ASAP

Guest blogging is the easiest way to kick start your personal brand and it won’t cost you anything other than your time. The trick is to get the publications to view you as an expert. You aren’t going to start contributing to Forbes right away without an already established personal brand, so how do you get to that level?

You have to start small.

Look for smaller blogs and websites in your niche that allow guest posts. Start there and build your portfolio of guest posts. Once you have a half dozen posts, reach out to a more popular website and continue this process until you have five or six guest blogging profiles. You will want to make sure your posts have a lot of engagement, both in page views, social shares, and comments.

Once you have a portfolio of content that you are proud of and makes you appear to be an authority, you can start approaching the larger websites. This process takes time and you will have to be very persistent. But, the exposure it gives you is well worth it. Saying you were featured by the biggest names in your niche is massive leverage.

Now, Tai Lopez doesn’t guest blog anywhere because he had a lot of money to start with and he kept rolling his revenue into brand building. His YouTube subscribers grew fast and then he pushed them to all of his social media profiles. He then upped his content game on social and started posting more cars and luxury. Then he started giving away cars, requiring people to follow him and tag their friends to qualify.

If you could mirror any “from nobody to somebody” social media growth strategy, it would be his. It is solid.

 

Cover All the Bases and Be Seen

The only way you are going to build a strong personal brand and stand out in any industry is by being active on several discovery platforms. For example, if you are guest blogging you aren’t going to be put in front of the entire audience you are going after. Some of that audience might also be on social media or on YouTube. You might have to start a podcast to get a larger reach. Every person is going to have a different approach.

Just like in any business growth strategy, you want to diversify your campaigns, and personal brand building is no different. Tai Lopez has done this well, as he started producing video content on YouTube and then pushed that target to his products, and then got very active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Then as Snapchat took off he was already established there because he started to push people to that as soon as it launched. His personal brand was built on images. The big house, the fancy cars and the luxury life. So, anything visual, like social media and YouTube was the right play for him.

Guest blogging wouldn’t have had the same impact, because visual content is what he was leveraging to grow his name. If he was just Tai Lopez the motivational blogger he would never be where he is today.

 

Constantly Seek Out Media Exposure

Unless you have Tai Lopez’s budget and can hire a PR firm, you will need to hit the streets and grind in order to secure media exposure for yourself. If you do a Google search, you will see that Tai Lopez is a frequent topic on some of the largest websites.

I can promise you he isn’t sitting there sending in pitches or seeking out press. He has a full time Public Relations firm that secures press for him. When you are on that level you can afford to hire the best in the business, which just amplifies your brand even more.

I can’t say enough good things about HARO (Help a Reporter Out). It is free to use and you can land interviews and get mentions from the best websites in the world. You will have to act as your own PR rep in the beginning, but as you build your personal brand securing that interview or that quote will become much easier.

If Tai Lopez’s firm is responding to HARO inquiries, don’t you think the media outlets will want to feature him? Of course, because they know people know who he is and he will share the story on his social media, which reaches millions. Once you build your personal brand, everything becomes much easier and your growth snowballs.

 

 

Always Test New Platforms to Reach Your Audience

As you grow your personal brand and your following, you will have to constantly be on the lookout for new places to engage with followers and attract new ones. Tai Lopez is huge on Snapchat and one of the reasons for this was because he started being active on there from the beginning. He saw the potential and got in early.

Look for opportunities to not only continue engaging with your old (and loyal) followers, but to also attract new ones. No matter how big you get, you can never stop growing. This is why Lopez has a full time PR firm and people working for him around the clock growing his personal brand. He will never ease up or slow down, which will only help the snowball effect more.

If you think there is a way to reach more people and get your name out there, go for it. You will never know its potential until you try. Worst case, you stop and go in a different direction if it doesn’t work.

Never be afraid to try new platforms.

 

Final Thoughts

Focusing on building your personal brand doesn’t have to be difficult, and your level of experience has no impact on how aggressive and effective it can become. While it can be a bit overwhelming, as long as you know what steps to take, it can be accomplished with very little to no experience.

Fake it until you make it, as they say! And this is a strategy some of the most wildly successful business owners have used. If you wait until you have “made it” to start building a personal brand you are going to be left behind.

In most cases, you have to leverage a strong personal brand in order to “make it,” so you have to put the cart before the horse in a sense.

Think of building your personal brand like building a house. You have to establish a solid foundation first. If you try to build without that foundation your hard work will eventually collapse and crumble. If you have the foundation in place you can then build to create something big.

The work you put into your personal brand is the most crucial, because as your name becomes stronger and bigger, it becomes much easier to get more attention and media coverage. If you are interested in guest blogging it will be easier as your brand grows, because publications will reach out to YOU wanting you to write for them. A strong personal brand commands attention.

Spending the time and putting in the effort to build your personal brand will pay off in terms of new opportunities and the ability to leverage your name in every venture, present and future throughout the rest of your career.

If you have any questions about how to build an effective personal brand in your particular niche, leave them below in the comments section. I’ll do my best to help you out. If you have any additional personal branding tips I would love to hear what has worked well for you, and I’m sure the readers would enjoy it as well.