Mindset
Last year I began to research what it would take to build my own personal brand. Near the end of 2016 I left a full-time job because I had enough opportunity in my local cover band scene to sustain my income, and frankly, a retail store schedule was always at conflict with my performance schedule. It was starting to become very difficult to maintain both jobs, so I had to make a choice.
Deep down, I don’t feel like that’s the reason that I left the job. There were many things going on there that worked against my principles, and the nature of the business had shifted into an uncomfortable space for me. My position that I was proud to hold for years became devalued by the company, and its reputation and stature was diminished. But this is still not the reason that I was thinking about leaving.
My decision was affected by many factors, but truth be told, I felt like I had something else incredibly unique to offer the world. Often I would sit on a lunch break at the former job and ask myself the same question over and over:
Why am I sitting here wasting my life away at a job where my talents are undervalued, where my personal time is constrained, and where I’m involved in work that in no way allows me to contribute who I am to the world?
The last part of that question is where I really started to focus my thoughts and energy. It’s not that I was or am self-centered. I’m not narcissistic. I began the process of thinking about the things that I’ve learned in this life. I started to think about the talents that I have, and how they’ve been influenced and cultivated over the years. I started to realize that I had a voice within my area of interest, and when I properly applied myself, I might have an opportunity to influence and inspire others that were dabbling in my niche and coming up behind me in that space.
As the pieces of the puzzle were all coming together, and the plan to leave my job to pursue this new path was forming, I started to learn about the concept of creating a Personal Brand.
What Is A Personal Brand?
Nicolas Cole talks about branding and business a lot on Medium. He is someone I enjoy following and paying attention to in this space. In an article from Inc.com, he describes a personal brand as:
Building a personal brand means providing so much value in one (or multiple) niche(s) that people begin to associate your name with the idea of what it means to be successful in that industry.
Panic
When I first found my independent freedom away from a full-time job, even though I had done all the research and understood the path that I wanted to travel, the first thing I did was freak out a bit.
What did I just do?
Should I have built up a side-hustle before leaving full-time work?
Will I be able to support my family?
My first couple of months into the new year (now 2017) I took stock of what was the best income producer in my life, namely my performance gigs. I had to make an immediate plan for increasing those opportunities. I wanted to begin to build my business, but I didn’t want to fall flat on my face and not be able to support my family.
Looking back, I probably should have stayed with the full-time job a little longer while building up my side-hustle (and I would recommend that to anyone on the fence now). However, at the time, retail sales hours were clobbering me. My schedule was all over the place, opening some days, closing others, mid-shifts that are just the right amount of annoying (where you lose your morning and evening personal hours). It was hard to just get the clothes washed or the dishes cleaned, let alone have time for anything else in life.
So within about 8 months of my independence, I still really hadn’t gotten started at anything substantial. I got frustrated quick. I was still performing and happy to be on stage in front of fans, but now more than ever was the time I needed to create my brand. I had to get going!
Where Do You Start?
I ran into what I imagine lots of entrepreneurs face right out of the gate:
Should I create a website? Should I build up my social profiles first?
I pondered the online presence questions for months. I researched what influencers do. I watched my favorite influencers that are killing it on YouTube and I followed their trail of contributions across all the social platforms. What I started to realize was that many thought leaders in the space that I’m headed don’t have overly-involved websites.
Many of them have a decent landing page that serves some sort of purpose: like funneling readers into a mailing list, or exposing readers to more aspects of their brand or business. Many influencers sell products from their website which is the obvious choice. I thought to myself: ‘I don’t have anything that I’m necessarily selling to the public yet, besides my influence maybe, so how do I position myself?’
I’ve learned that many influencers deliver unbelievable value across social media platforms first in order to build an audience. Then as their audience becomes more savvy to their contributions, they draw their audience in closer with personalized products or services that give their customers the ultimate value.
My First Steps
My wife and I were talking about my influence. We were joking about how loud my voice can get when I’m really passionate about something. She said “Your Tom blaring out loud”.. referring to “blaring the horn out loud to get attention”. “Get it, you’re Tom BlairOutLoud”.
At first I thought that was a bit cheesy, but as I thought about it, it started to stick. I had something to finally work with to create an outline of what my brand could build up from.
I created a BlairOutLoud FB Band Business Page. I put it together in June/July timeframe of 2017. My plan was to share news of my musical events on the local scene and then use it as a platform to put value into my follower’s feeds everyday of inspiring music related content.
Learning and Gathering My Socials
I decided to get my Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn platforms all aligned under the brand name, allowing me to build audiences across social in a uniform, albeit unique way to each platform.
I was attracted to video, especially live video. I’m no stranger to being in front of an audience during my live performance, and I started to take this a step further by turning on a Facebook Live feed at each of my musical events. I also started recording sessions, interviews, and promotional videos live from my home music studio.
This effort was getting me comfortable in front of the camera. If I am ever to become a strong influencer in the studio and music performance niche, I need to be comfortable filming myself talking about music related products and recording processes. But FB Live video only got me even more interested in YouTube.
So in February of this year, I finally launched a YouTube Channel! Live Facebook video could be used to capture a show, or help promote live for an event, and then YouTube could host a series of videos that I could edit and deliver a message about my methods, the products I’m passionate about, and allow for me to cultivate and inspire those that were interested in my take on things.
In March, I officially became a member of the Medium Partner Program. I love to write and of all the socials, I started to learn that this platform would give me a way to express my opinions and influence in a long-form writing format that I didn’t have anywhere else. Its unique ad-free clean environment was a great place to talk about my discoveries, and share my trials, opportunities, failures, and successes with others. In many ways I think Medium completed the overall strategy that I needed to move my brand forward in so many different unique ways.
I spoke of my small win on this platform in a previous post here:
Next Steps
Referring back to an article that I mentioned at the top that Nicolas Cole wrote for Inc.com: I believe my next step should be collaboration!
As I build my own influence I admire others in my niche. I’m proud of their accomplishments and it gives me hope that I can also have a voice if I’m smart and can build the right type of presence.
I see this all the time all over YouTube. Influencers collaborate like crazy with each other. Yesterday I just watched a video with Sean Cannell and Sunny Lenarduzzi collaborating around what it takes to Grow Your Business on YouTube. They each are massive influencers in that space and create videos on their own discussing these topics, but they chose to collaborate in order to help each other grow by cross-exposing their audiences! Here is the video:
Continued Efforts
After inspiring others with great content, collaborating with other influencers and strong voices in my niche, and even building my readership here on Medium, I believe my efforts should then be centered around building a mailing list and creating a value driven website.
I’m not there yet, and although I’d like to be there, I’m okay in the position that I’m in. I’m comfortable learning and utilizing the tools that are available at my disposal, and I know that if I master them, the audience and my influence will be strong enough that my voice will matter, and at that time it will be ripe for me to capitalize on next steps.
What can you take away from my experience so far?
I’m grateful for the experiences that molded me, cultivated my talents, and ultimately delivered me to this stage in life. But the moment that I realized that I had all of this “stuff” in my hands, yet I was setting it aside everyday to complete a task that just served as a distraction, that’s when I realized that things were going to have to change.
Are you following a path in life that you were taught: like find a good job, do your best to stick with it, and hope for a raise? Do you have much more in life to contribute than just a 9 to 5? Do you have this feeling within you that if you could just break out of that shell, people would get a chance to see the real you?
I felt all of these things for years.. and now I’m finally getting a chance to break free and give back to the world. It’s awesome folks.. and the more that we take advantage of the time we still have, and the more we capitalize on the opportunities to inspire others, this is the world that we get to build. On our terms we make it better, more fun, more enriching, more worth living.
Thanks for reading my stories! If you enjoyed this, slam that Clap button, even up to 50 times if you like!
I would love to hear from you if you are an entrepreneur, or aspiring influencer, and you are walking down this path with me! Where are you in your journey?
Follow me around the web on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and read more from me here on Medium! Thanks!!
Here are a few other posts of mine that have gotten good traction lately:
