Best Steps to Build an In-Demand Brand (without becoming an “influencer”) | 164

In this episode, I explain how to build a brand that pays you to be yourself and debunk a few popular myths about personal branding. 

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ABOUT ME
Hey! I'm Clee, the founder/CVO of Build Your Vision LLC, a media & coaching company that trains busy, growth-minded visionaries in self-leadership and personal growth.

My mission is to eradicate internal confusion in my generation and to build the "Vision Economy". A balanced supply and demand ecosystem in which each individual's accomplished vision is the platform for another vision to be actualized.

I post content like skits, videos, interviews, and blog articles to accomplish the goal of creating a world of more visionaries taking action and less dreamers sitting on the sidelines.

Transcript

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What's up, what's up? This is the build your vision podcast. I am clean, the visionary. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about something that I'm sure. You are familiar with to some degree, if you're listening to this show and that is building a brand, you already read it in the title when you clicked on this episode, and I would assume most of us know that building a brand is important, but also many can be intimidated or. Overwhelmed with the fact that they need to build a brand because they feel like they are now obligated to become some kind of tick talking, Instagram, living Twitch, streaming, YouTubing, influencer who lives their life through their phone. And that simply is not the case. And in this episode, I'm actually going to be sharing with you part one of a three part class I created called Build your brand. And I will dispel some myths. You probably heard when it comes to branding and give you some practical steps that have worked for me and that I've observed to be successful for others I have studied or been mentored by. And I think the one that's going to surprise you most is actually straight from the Bible. Let's get into it.

1:39

What's up. Welcome to the build your brand class. I'm excited to do this class with you because I think it is key and critical for you becoming the vision per newer that you are supposed to be. Now I've broken up this class into three parts. The first one is stop the cap. That's what you're watching right now. The next two will be content creation explained and social media explained. Now why am I starting with stop the cat? Because most people want to just jump straight to the second two parts of this class. Need to understand content creation, building a brand, social media, building a brand. There are so many misconceptions, lies, fibs, and just. exaggerated, whatever, that go into building a brand that is stopping visionpreneurs and visionaries from doing what God has actually called them to do. And we need to stop the cat. So I'm going to dispel some myths that you've probably heard about branding and social media in this class. You have been forewarned. Let's get straight to work. So here's the first thing I need you to know about your brand. Your brand is the latch The latch to a gate or a door. So you have a door or a gate or a fence or something, right? That's keeping you from getting in or out of somewhere. It's the latch. it will either keep you in. Or let you get out like it is the thing that will open doors for you or slam them shut in your face. Your brand is the latch to these gate or door. Why? Three things. Your brand arrives before you get there. That's number one. That means that your reputation precedes you. Your reputation precedes you. It gets to the place that you're going before you even get there. In fact, it might get there, whether you get there or not, right? Anything can, can promote your brand. It could be something online. It could be somebody that's something that somebody says, but when you walk into a room, most likely. Most likely, somebody has heard something about you, and you have to be in control of what that thing is. Why? That gets to point number two. Your brand sets expectations for those you come in contact with. Just think about it. If you're having a meeting, right, and you have a guest speaker, and everybody talks about how scary and treacherous and mean this guy is, you're already going to have a frame of how you view this individual before they even walk into the room. Right? Or let's just say you hear about some guy that is brilliant and is the most innovative person ever, and he could start off talking about like the most basic thing of how Doritos is not healthy. And you're like, I already knew that, but you're going to be on the edge of your seat because you've already been framed that this guy is going to blow my mind with some type of innovative Insight, right? But he could really be saying the most basic things. The point is the framing matters, right? Your brand is what speaks for you while you're not speaking. It is what talks for you while you're not in the room. So your brand arrives before you get there. It sets the expectations for the people you come in contact with. And lastly, it stays wherever you left it last. Your brand stays once you leave. So this is why the, the term or the phrase or the axiom, uh, first impressions matter, right? They do, right? Because it lingers. So you may never see somebody again, but your brand will see them over and over again. That's how they will re remember you. And that kind of gets to where I want to define what a brand is, right? What is a brand? Because most people misunderstand this. They think a brand is one thing that, but it's not that at all. Here's a simple definition of what a brand is. A brand is a name that reminds you of the impact, influence or income of a person, place or thing. I'll say that one more time and you can read it on your screen. A brand is a name that reminds you of the impact, influence or income of a person, place or thing. To make this even more simple, right? In short, I said, I'm going to stop saying right in videos. So if I'm saying right too much, call me out in the community. I've noticed that when I look back at my footage, I'm like, why do you keep saying right? In short, a brand is a reputation. This is why what I said prior makes sense, right? It is, it sets expectations. It arrives before you get there and it stays after you leave. That's what a reputation does. That is what a brand is. A brand is not, a brand is not a logo, your colors, your aesthetic, your social media handles. Logos, colors, fonts, names, handles are all simply stimuli that trigger thoughts and emotions. That's all those things are. That's, that's all language is, right? You see a word, you're not actually reading the word V I S V I G. You just, you see the word vision and you automatically have a picture or idea of what that word means in your head. That's how we learn language. It is the same thing with brands. When you see that name, when you see that shape, when you see that image, it triggers thoughts and emotions in the psyche of the viewer. The thoughts and emotions behind those images are the brand. Am I making sense? The thoughts and the emotions behind the image are the brand. Let's look through some examples, right? Some brands we're probably all familiar with. What do you think of when you see these names? Nike. And I have some suggestions on here of what might come to mind, but I'm sure it's within this ballpark, right? Sports, Superstar Athletes, Inspiration, Apple, Innovative, Creative, Quality Maybe, Saturday Night Live, Comical, Irreverent, New York City, Spirit Airlines, Affordable, Risky, or whoever used it is probably broke or cheap, one or the other. Rolls Royce. Uh, expensive, luxury. No one walks into a Rolls Royce dealership looking to get a good deal, right? No one's looking for an affordable vehicle. The expectations are already set. Toyota, affordable, durable, long lasting. Hitler, evil, depending on what your view of Hitler is, but Evil, racist, a leader of Jesus Christ, kindness, love, sacrifice. These are all pictorial stories, narratives that come into our heads, thoughts, and emotions when we see or hear these names. These are brands. I hope we're on the same page here. But in the title of this class, it's probably a little misleading, but it went with the theme and I'm sure it would have made sense to those who were reading it. But it's a little misleading because the name of the class is build your brand. At least it is at the time of this recording, but you already have a brand actually. You don't need to build anything. You already have a brain. Your brand has already been built. The question is actually whether you built it by intention. Or by neglect, either way, it has been built and unfortunately, most people build their brands by accident. Your brand is being built 24, 7, 3 65. It is not something that you can just order all of a sudden manufacture because you have a logo, a color palette, and a, and a title. It does not work like that. That is not how branding happens. Your brand is being built by you all the time, especially in the world that we live in, where we associate faces with brands and not corporations or names, right? The biggest brands that exist have faces attached to them. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, um, all these different companies, Facebook, Meta. They have facial recognition brands recognized with them. So when it comes to you building your brand, your face or your presence or your essence is most likely in some form or fashion going to be connected to whatever you are building as a visionary is going to happen. So literally every single thing you do is going into your brand is not this compartmentalized. Part of your life or business, and unfortunately, most people build their brains by accident because they're not intentional about it. This is this is why I love the Bible because it's just so much wisdom like the stuff that we think is just like groundbreaking that we learn in the world. It's just like that was that's if you if you just read the scriptures. Is this is not new. Like this is, this is old information. They been said that anyway, Colossians 3 23 work willingly at whatever you do as though working for the Lord rather than for people. This is this is honestly probably one of the best ways to build a amazing brand. If you do this one thing, if you stop, if you cut this off right now and you just do that. Your brand will flourish. Your brand will flourish. Work willingly at whatever you do, everything that you do, as though you're working for the Lord rather than for people. That adds a whole new level to how you show up in. This will make more sense as we go through the rest of this part of the stop, the cat portion of this class. So I want you to ask yourself this question right now, when someone hears my name, Are the words that come to their minds, the words I desire to be known for? Oh, yeah, let's sit with that one for a little bit. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good morning. If you know, you know, um, that's a, that's a, that's a legit question, right? When someone hears my name, are the words that come to their minds, the words I desire to be known for? I'm not, I'm not saying are the words good. They could be good. And not the words you desire to be known for. Are they the words that you desire to be known for? And if not, if you haven't been already, starting today, you must be, I repeat, you must be intentional about building your brand. You see me wear this hat in all these videos, you know, you think I just think, I think it just looks nice. I do, but it's a symbolist, it's, it's recognition of my brand. If you see somebody else wearing this hat. You're probably going to think of me, right? I'm intentional about these things. Now that I do this perfectly all the time, absolutely not. I am, I am growing in this area, but there's some key principles. that I have found out through my process of building a brand over the, over these years that are key and critical, that will apply for eternity and in perpetuity, they will not change. And literally, if not all, most of the opportunities I've been afforded in life has been, has been because my brand spoke for me when I wasn't in the room, 100%. My brand spoke for me like I was not there to promote myself. And even if I was there to promote myself, my brand would talk for me anyway. Because anybody can say anything out their mouth, right? Any product can be posted on Amazon, but what do you do? You look at the ratings and reviews. That's brand. All right, so let's move on. I want you from this point on to think about this this way. And I did a whole podcast series on this called you Inc. You could go find it on the build your vision podcast. If you want, I forgot what episode numbers they are, but 100s and something. I need you from this point on to realize that you are in the business of you. You are in the business of you. Think of yourself as you incorporated. You are a walking, breathing, living business and everything you do either adds or subtracts from how profitable you are. And I mean that metaphorically and literally. Literally and metaphorically. Like, how much money you can make in life. It's directly determined by how you operate as the business of you, every single action you take, every single decision you make, everything you do either adds or subtracts from how profitable you are. So here's the question. All right, Cleve, I realized I may not have been as intentional as I think I should be about building a brand. So how do I build a brand that I am proud of? That is the point. This is the purpose of what Vision for Newer School is, it's supposed to help you build a clear. Life, a life that you are proud of, a life abundant in clarity, leverage, enthusiasm, authenticity, resources, and revenue. A life that you are proud of. That's why the company is called build your vision. So how do we do this? How do we do this? Well, each of us is going to be in a different state. Right of our brands. Each of us is in a different present state of where our brand is right now. Some of us, we need brand expansion, brand expansion. That's additions, right? Let's just think of like we're building a structure or building a house, right? You could do add ons to your house to make it better, to make it bigger, to make it more enjoyable to stay in. Right. You could be more proud of it. Some nice updates, new additions to the house. Some of us will need brand expansion. Growing from where we're comfortable to where we're supposed to be. Some of us will need brand remodeling. This is upgrades, right? You can remodel a space, same space, but you move some things around, maximize the space you have, make some updates and upgrades to what's already in the room. Some of us will need that for our brands. And some of us would need complete brand renovation. That means there's a demolition process. You got to just, all right, I built my brand by neglect. It is nowhere close to what I want people to think. Think of me when they hear my name. Um, and this could happen for a number of reasons. Could have been a season of life you went through where you were despondent or, or, or weren't reactive to certain things or certain mistakes that you have made in the past that were very public, whatever it is, you realize I need a brand renovation, or you got really known for something that is no longer the season of life that you're in. And you need to just knock that down. And start over. Some people need to build on top of it. Some people need to just renovate it. Some people, I mean, some people need to remodel it, but some people need to completely renovate demolish and reconstruct. So wherever you are in that process, identify yourself. And all of these approaches can be accomplished with one solution, all of them, and that is content. And, uh, I think that's why I named this topic tap because like I need to get that, the misnomers about brand out there, but also there's a lot of things about content that are keeping visionaries stuck that I'm going to redeem in the next part. Go ahead and click the next lesson. I'll see you there.

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So I hope that gave you some more clarity when it comes to building an impactful in demand brand. And that was just part one of a three part mini series that I created on branding. And if you want to finish the series, you can by enrolling in my free school for aspiring visionary podcasters called vision for newer school. You can get there by going to school. com forward slash vision for newer school. That's school. com S K O O L. com forward slash vision for newer school. And I know that URL can be challenging to spell. So of course the link is in the description. you have any questions, feel free to go to build your vision podcast. com And just click the little blue tab that's on the right side of the screen. And you can leave me a voice message and I will get back to you. I hope you enjoy this. I'll see you in the next episode, guys, as always keep building your vision every single day. Peace.