How to Build a 6-Figure Personal Brand in 2022 (STEP-BY-STEP)

Hey guys, it’s Sharon from Digital Nomad Quest and today we’re gonna talk about how to build a six figure personal brand.

Now building a personal brand and making content is honestly not for everyone and I totally understand but I just want to tell you guys about how it’s really changed my life. And if you guys are passionate about something, this is really a way you can make a living off of it. For me, for example, I’ve been passionate about personal finance, side hustles and real estate investing. And now as my personal brand is honestly exceeded my income from my day job. And because of this, I totally could leave my day job if I wanted to. Currently I feel like I’m learning a lot and I’m enjoying it. So I’m staying there. But I do have that choice if I wanted to leave or not. And if you guys create these personal brands that start making passive income, it really frees up the options for you so that if you really feel like you’re stuck in a situation or job you don’t like it allows for a lot more security having a side hustle, especially one that you’re really passionate about building a six figure personal brand has allowed me to be a thought leader in the niche, which honestly allows me to network a lot easier.

For example, when I go to conferences, I feel like I’m actually being heard a lot more people are very interested in what I have to say can with my content, I’m also able to impact people at scale. So by providing this content on my YouTube, on a blog, Tik Tok Instagram, I’m able to provide value at a larger scale. In the past, I used to chase like numeric goals, but I felt like it didn’t fulfill me. And now that I’m building a brand, where it’s really like impacting people and helping people with the struggles that I used to face, it allows me to keep going and I feel very fulfilled and grateful for this personal brand. Now let’s just get right into my tips on how to build a six figure personal brand. But first off, you want to pick a niche that you’re passionate about, you should always be enjoying the process and feeling fulfilled about what you’re talking about.

Again, like I mentioned, I wasn’t fulfilled when I was chasing numeric goals. But when you’re talking about something that you are actually interested in, and you feel like you’re helping people, it allows you to keep going for the long run with content creation, I personally know that it’s very easy to burn out. So picking something that you really care about actually matters, just enjoy the process versus trying to hit different goals all the time. Secondly, you want to stick to your niche in terms of ad revenue on blogs, and YouTube channels. I’m fortunate because I’m in a niche that actually has high CPMs which basically means the cost per 1000 impressions. So advertisers are willing to spend more on the finance, investing and side hustle niches to place ads on your videos. Now going back to my point on sticking to your niche. First of all, it’s important because you want to be a thought leader in your niche.

If you’re talking about a lot of random things, people don’t know what to follow you for right, so they’re less likely to follow you if you’re just talking about different topics all the time. Whereas if you’re always specializing in one type of content, they’re going to start understanding that your brand is all about real estate investing or about fitness or about food, make sure you’re sticking to your niche and it’s going to help you with your CPMs as well as might want to remove a few different types of content. And maybe that will help boost your CPMs and it will help you with your subscriber counts, your view counts and your watch times. So again, if you have too many focuses try to narrow down to one that will help raise your stats and ultimately usually help you with your CPMs. Next you’re gonna want to focus on providing value first. So when I first started my blog, I honestly just wanted an outlet where I can start ranting about the conventional way of living and I just ranted about wanting to break free I also wanted to document my process and teach people how to create side hustles and pursue a different way of living the best businesses and brands stem from passion in providing value, these people will really care about your brand and the money will honestly come secondarily. Now aside from this. This also means that every single piece of content that you put out there must be valuable. For example, if they watch your tic tock, are they going to actually want to stay for the rest of the video? Or are they going to easily scroll past it right?

They say that every piece of content needs to educate, inspire or entertain. So you need to make sure this happens as much as you can. Now to create value you need to ask for things who is your ideal audience? Where are they in their journey? What are their struggles? And what transformation are they looking for. And ultimately, people will usually follow you if they get something out of it. So you want to make sure that you are solving their problems. Next, you want to learn the different ways to make money through your brand. There are actually many different ways you can monetize. So for example, you can provide a service say you’re an expert in health and fitness. Maybe you start a coaching program where you have one on one coaching sessions, where you can talk to people about their diets or about their exercise plans. You can be creating value through your content and then upselling them with your coaching services if people want that one on one attention, and it might surprise you but many people will actually be interested in such a service as they’re watching your content.

They’re usually going to be interested in you as a person as well as the way you teach. So a lot of people may be interested in that one on one where they can speak with you directly. Another way you can make money is through sponsorships and through this method actually made multiple five figures last year. So basically the idea is companies will reach out to you to do a sponsored video or sponsored blog posts. And basically that means that you create a piece of content for them, and they will pay you actually for posting it on your channel. That’s usually how it goes. You can also reach out to brands directly themselves, especially if you’re a huge fan of certain companies and their products. I’ve done this actually where I’ve reached out to companies, because I’m actually interested in them and really liked their products. So I want to make sponsored content for them. That’s one way you can do it, you can contact them directly create a media kit and propose different rates for them, you can also make money through courses. So if you want to make a course I highly recommend teachable, because it’s easy to create those videos or text files or audio content and put them up into a curriculum onto teachable and I use teachable for my three courses, my se course my real estate course as well as my blogging course. And in that way, when people want that step by step curriculum, you can actually send them over to your courses, and they can decide if they want to sign up or not.

There’s a lot of free content out there that people can learn from. But what I like about courses is that I can go step by step with a whole curriculum supposed to take me from A to B. So I’ve taken a ton of courses, I really personally like learning from them. And my goal right now is not only to build out a YouTube portfolio of content, also a portfolio of courses that people can take step by step, if they want to get from A to B, you can also make money through ads, so on blogs, and on YouTube channels, companies will bid to place their advertisements on your content, and you will make a cut of that. So if you guys want to check out my previous video on how much I make on my YouTube channel through ad revenue, go ahead and check that video out as well. You can actually make a decent amount just through ad revenue alone. Another way is affiliate marketing. If you’re passionate about certain products, and know that your audience will get a lot of value out of it, you might want to try affiliate marketing. The way it works is that you’re going to recommend products that you use or love. And whenever people purchase through your unique referral link, you will get a commission and it’s just a win win for everyone. Because your audience gets value you make a commission and the owner makes money through the sales as well.

You can also sell products for example, you can create your own merch so on YouTube, they actually partnered with Teespring so that you can create your own custom apparel if you wanted to design your own shirts, you can put them up and whenever people purchase it, you won’t even need to buy and ship the products yourself. Other companies you can try are like Printful Zazzle, sidey six red bubble, there’s a bunch of different platforms where you can sell your own custom apparel by just uploading designs without even having to print and fulfill the orders, but not just merch, you can also sell your own ebooks create a unique product in your niche, this is definitely a great way to start monetizing your brand. And then another one I wanted to cover is membership groups. So for example, you can start a Patreon where people pay monthly for exclusive content from you. You could also make it so that the membership group gets access to like a private discord or slack channel where they can talk to other like minded people, as well as maybe get access to q&a is with you monthly or something like that. So if you set up that membership program, you could possibly get monthly recurring revenue. Now hopefully those ideas get your brain going. But in order to actually monetize your brand, you have to create valuable content, like I mentioned before, and you have to figure out the platforms that you’re going to make content on. So that brings me to my next point, figure out the platform that works best for you. I’ve seen a no multiple bloggers that make six figures per month, the same time I’ve seen YouTubers make six figures a month. So you can actually make a lot of money through any of these platforms if you do it right. And I totally understand that it can be overwhelming trying to figure out which platform makes sense for you. But just figure out your passions and your strengths.

For me, I’ve had multiple friends tell me that I’m good at video. So I started going on Tik Tok and on YouTube, and it’s honestly worked out really well for me. But I also have friends who just want to type they don’t want to be the face of the brand. They just want to be able to be in bed and write up articles and things like that. So blogging might make more sense for you. And with a blog, you could even think bigger and outsource your writers in the future. So you could create a team you could create outlines for your writers, and they can start writing up content for you. At the same time,
I do find that tick tock is a great beginners way of getting your foot in the door especially if you’re not afraid of video. It’s just like an easy method to put content out there because you only need to make really 10 seconds to one minute videos right? So you can make them really short and post daily content. For example, for me, my personal brand honestly blew up because of Tik Tok.

Same thing with my husband, Sean, he now has over a million followers on Tiktok. And he started maybe a couple months ago. So it’s never too late on that platform. Now with any of these platforms, in my opinion, quality matters more than quantity. Some of you guys may disagree with me, but I’ve seen it happen with multiple creators where they’re focusing on making the best content possible, but they don’t need a post all the time. They’re just focusing on making the best stuff. Now if you can do both quantity and quality, you’re gonna get exponential results. And you need to make sure that you know when to pivot when things aren’t working out. So if things are growing, make sure to keep doing the same thing over and over again. But if things aren’t working, you need to make sure you pivot it sounds obvious, but I see a lot of people not changing what they’re doing when they really shouldn’t be changing what they’re doing.

Next, I want you to understand the fundamentals of each content creation platform and learn the strategies behind it. This means you’re going to study successful creators, you’re going to network with people in your niche, you’re going to watch videos on how to get better as certain platform. And you’re also going to take courses if you need to, if you’re going to pursue content creation, you need to be serious about it. Like anything else you do. If you want to build a start up, you have to really put your attention all around that if you want to start a YouTube channel, you have to put your attention into it. You can’t just be putting out videos just to put out videos, you have to actually like outline it scripted out. Same thing with your blogs, don’t be just putting up 100 word articles, for example, with blog posts is usually better to do 2000 words or more make comprehensive quality articles. So study the right strategy and actually put your time and focus into it. Next, you want to make more top content. For example, maybe your blog or your YouTube channel is averaging X amount of views. But suddenly, one viral content blows it out of the water. I’ve seen that happen to my channel. And when that happens, you need to make more of that type of video for me my video on 30k a year to millionaire by 30 has really blown up a lot. And I’m trying to figure out how I can make more of those types of videos, it seems like you guys care about my financial journey. So I want to try to make more of that type of content. The reason why you want to make more of that type of content is that you know that it’s going to do well with your audience. They’ve already been watching it a lot. They’re commenting and liking the video, you want to make more of that because you know those people will want to watch that next one you’re making, especially if it’s similar or related, or can bring something new to the table, which is make more of that good stuff that’s actually popping off.

Next you need to connect with your audience and find your superfans. It seems like a lot of people are focused on growing their follower accounts when in reality, I feel they need to kind of connect with the current community they’ve already built. Plus your free content should be way more often than the promotional content. You can’t just be selling all the time. If you follow my previous steps, you should be creating this brand out of enjoyment and passion. It shouldn’t be fun providing value rather than just telling people to buy your products. Your authenticity matters. Your engagement with your audience really matters. So make sure you’re developing that trust with your audience and really trying to help them you got to connect with people and find your super fans who will always support you no matter what and believe in your mission. Next tip is create a free offering and actually direct them to your website and your email list. Here’s the thing about building on these platforms, you don’t own YouTube or Tik Tok or Instagram or any of these social media channels, nothing could happen to them. You never know I’ve seen big content creators lose their Tik Tok accounts or lose their Instagram account. It’s actually kind of common and really scary. Since you never know what’s going to happen. It is very important to build your email list.

If anything happens, you can still speak with your audience that way. And with creating that free offering and redirecting them, I honestly feel like it’s a good idea to create your own website and on your website, you’re going to be able to offer your own products and services. Yes, you can be a six figure content creator without creating your own website. But again, it’s safer to own your email list and bring them over to something you actually own. And I strongly recommend hosting things on your own website if possible. For example, with teachable, I’m able to host my courses on my own domains because teachable allows you to do that if you’re trying to make your own website, I highly encourage you to use HostGator create your own WordPress site. And if you need help with that, I made a ton of videos on blogging and creating your own website. So go ahead and check them out on my YouTube channel. Now when I mentioned the free offerings, things you can provide are like free ebooks or free PDFs on different information that will benefit your audience. I’ve even made free crash courses, you guys can see them on my website, I think I have about six different offerings. And these are really tailored to helping people get started if they want a little bit more information. And after they get that free piece of information. I also let them know about some of my courses in case they want even more step by step hand holding around certain topics that I have courses on. So to reiterate, create your own website through hostgator link below if you want to try it out if you want to try out teachable, for example link below as well. And so if you want to create offerings and host them on your site, you can also use ConvertKit, which allows you to grow your email list and host those email opt ins. And you can also make those free offerings through PowerPoint like I’ve done it through PowerPoint and exported them as PDFs or you can even just do it through word or spreadsheets and just exporting them. And whenever people sign up with their email address, they’ll get that free offering if you use ConvertKit and if you guys want to track ConvertKit I do have a link below. I also have a full tutorial on ConvertKit on my channel. So go ahead and check that out as well.

Alright, the last tip I’m gonna give you guys is being every word can honestly change the game I mentioned picking a platform right and you want a master one but after you’ve mastered one it could be helpful to go on other platforms as well. So I’ve expanded aside from Tik Tok to also Instagram and YouTube. I’m trying to get on Twitter as well. And I’m also trying to grow my Facebook group so you can really reach a wider audience because some people don’t use tick tock some people don’t use instant Bam, right so if you can be everywhere, then you can really build a long lasting brand that people know you from all on different platforms. Alright, this was kind of a long episode. So I hope you guys got a lot of value out of this. These were kind of my lessons on how I was able to build a six figure personal brand and I hope this really helps you guys again, it’s been a really fulfilling journey. For me, I’m excited for where the brand is going. I’m super happy when I get those messages saying that the content has helped them or inspire them or help them pursue a specific income stream that they wouldn’t have thought of without seeing my content. So it’s really cool to be able to talk about something I’m passionate about.

Now if you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure to smash the like button and let me know in the comments below which tip really resonated with you, and I’ll see you guys in the next one.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai