The Truth About You, Inc. *Warning: This May Ruffle Some Feathers*

Since I’m an attorney (in addition to being an internet network marketer), I’m pretty used to taking stands on controversial topics, and from what I’ve seen recently, discussing You, Inc. is one such topic.  It seems everyone and their uncle has an opinion about this! (Me included!)

• -  Should a beginner bill themselves as an “Expert” when they begin building their business?
• -  Is it appropriate to call yourself an “Expert”?
• -  Should you brand yourself?
• -  Should you promote yourself?
• -  If so, how can you even do that when you’re a total newbie?

Some say beginners can’t build You, Inc. because they haven’t “earned” that right (i.e, they don’t have a massive downline, haven’t made X amount of money, don’t have a list of 20,000,etc.).

I think that all of those pre-requisites are a bunch of bologna espoused by people trying to build themselves up as part of some elitist echelon of “gurus” or “wannabe gurus” while keeping others down.  It's very discouraging to people who are trying to make an honest “go” at achieving success after realizing the wisdom in building “You, Inc.” instead of their company/product.

And after all, isn’t the whole purpose of being a leader in this industry to help as many people as possible achieve their dreams?

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how telling someone they haven’t “earned” the right to brand themselves or call themselves an ”expert” on a particular subject or build You, Inc. is helping ANYONE achieve their dreams!

It would be like me, sitting in my office, thinking to myself “I’m an attorney, so therefore anyone who has fewer undergraduate/graduate degrees, can't possibly have anything of value to offer me…” Holy Moley- that’s absurd!

Not surprisingly, I get pretty annoyed when I read things in the forums that insinuate that people don't have or can't have value if they don’t have X number of people in their downline or $X in residual income! How disappointed am I that these folks feel the need to minimize a person’s value?!?!

I firmly believe that people bring value to the marketplace in all shapes and sizes. What’s valuable to one person isn’t necessarily valuable to the next.

To the beginners here- YOU absolutely and 100% have VALUE to offer to people.  Ignore anyone who says otherwise! They key is cultivating and appropriately marketing your unique value to your target market.

Sorry! Like I said, I’m not afraid to speak my mind when I believe passionately in something!

In fact, I believe SO strongly in the importance of building your brand from the very beginning due to the massive mistake that caused me to go underground for a while (article HERE), that I’ve decided to make this my primary mission. I'm now laser focused on helping beginners discover their online identity and assist them in branding themselves, so that they can thrive online in whatever venture they are pursuing- direct sales, MLM, their own product/service...

I’ll be providing insight on the personal development skills necessary to determine what your “identity” is, along with the marketing skills of HOW to go about actually branding yourself (and how not to brand yourself)

So, having addressed the big debate, here are 5 quick tips on how a beginner can brand themselves.

1. Reflect on Skills You’ve Acquired Before Coming Online. Everyone's experienced some form of success or achieved a goal in their life. Think about how you achieved that goal.

• What skills did you use?
• What mindset did you have?
• Can you utilize those skills online to help others achieve their goals?

For example, back in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit, a college friend and I decided to collect 10,000 stuffed animals for the youngest victims of the Hurricane. Long story short (the whole one is here), while working full-time at our jobs, we created an International stuffed animal drive, were able to collect and deliver 10,000 stuffed animals to the Coast victims and garner attention from the Washington Post and National Geographic for Kids in a matter of a few months!

How?

I branded myself appropriately, and through that, I was able to earn the confidence of large and small businesses, non-profits, churches and schools from around the county (and even some folks overseas!). In fact, while at No Excuses in Las Vegas, I had the epiphany that that’s the unique skill that I had before I came online- and that’s why I’ve decided to use that skill to help others achieve their goals through personal branding. So, enough about me! 

• What’s your unique skill?
• What’s your X Factor that sets you apart from others?
• Or, to get uber-marketing technical- what’s your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?

2. Pick an area and read up on it like crazy!

Mike Dillard spoke about this at the No Excuses and on several other occasions over the years- and he’s got a great point! Pick an area (it can either be a skill from #1 OR something totally different) and read up on it. Then, implement what you learn.

For example, let’s say that you decide that you love Facebook. Purchase some products on the topic and then share what you’ve learned. If you read several books on any given topic- you’ll know more than the majority of other folks. If you implement what you learn, and start generating some results (5 leads/ 50,000 leads it doesn’t matter) share it with others! In my opinion, I think that qualifies you as an expert.

3. Celebrate and Promote Small Successes.

You don’t need to make $20 Grand a month or generate 2000 leads in a day to promote your successes. If you’ve generated 5 leads online or personally sponsored 1 person online- you’ve done more than probably 75% of the people in the online network marketing community.

I can pretty much guarantee you, someone will  be interested in reading about how you sponsored someone in the business using online tactics. The secret is in how you promote that small success while keeping in mind #4 below.  I’ll be getting into how to do this in upcoming articles!

In my experience, by promoting a small success, you’ll garner another small success. Lump those together, and you’ll get another success. It’s the “Success Snowball” as I like to call it.

4. Be Authentic.

I can’t stress the importance of being authentic. People can smell a phony a mile away.

Be YOURSELF and for the love of Pete DON’T USE HYPE.

Like I said, you seriously don’t need 2000 leads or make 6 figures to attract people’s interest. I attracted plenty of people with far less success under my belt without ever using ANY hype.  Your reputation is everything in this industry. Tarnish it out of the gate by being a hype monger, and you’re going to have a tough row to hoe!  Being honest goes a LONG way in building rapport with your readers, prospects and team members. In the end- that's what'll help you sell whatever it is that you're selling!

5. Quit Trying to Be Perfect.

Look, you don’t have to have the perfect fully-coordinated website/YouTube/Facebook page to start branding yourself. That’s icing on the cake. It’s far more important to get out there and start sharing your skill or techniques with others through forums, blog posts, videos, a free ebook- whatever method you choose.

So, those are my thoughts in a nutshell. I’m going to be going into much more detail on these topics and others related to personal branding in the future.

Sorry if I ruffled any feathers, but I believe with all of my heart that it’s never too early for people to start thinking about and beginning to build their unique brand. I believe in the power of personal branding.  I’ve personally experienced just how powerful it can be and how it can literally change lives (yours and those around you).

And besides-I think it’s the only way that you can withstand the fallout when your company changes its comp plan, your upline heads for greener pastures, or you get an incurable rash from your company’s magic juice and decide to find a new opp!

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