Speaker 1: You know, as a creator, you are the brand. And so many people think that the brand of a business, of a creator, of an influencer, or like whatever, is your fonts and the colors you use and your logo. And that's actually not true. Your brand is how the outside world perceives you. And a lot of it has nothing to do with your colors and your fonts and what you would traditionally think of as your brand. The fact that I like bubbly water and Gilmore Girls, that's part of my brand. The fact that I don't like coffee, that's part of my brand. And it can get a little bit confusing, especially when you're trying to like narrow in your focus and be like, I wanna be known for X, Y, or Z to understand how all of this plays together so that you can brand yourself as a creator. And that is what we're talking about today. Hello, hi, what is up? If you're new here, my name's Jess, I'm pumped that you are here. If you're old here, welcome back. I have been filming a ton of my videos right here at this desk and I don't love the angle slash the lighting. And so I finally cleaned off, it's not clean, but I like kind of cleaned off my desk over here so that I could put you here so that I could sit here and get this shot. And I'm remembering why I love it so much. Let me go back to what I said in the very beginning of this video. You are the brand. As a creator, as a personal brand in any way, you are the brand. You are what the outside world looks at to say, I like this company, I don't like this company, I like this creator, I like this content, I like this thing, it's you. And that's very different from a brand like Bubbly. Like I have no idea who owns Bubbly, zero, zero percent of an idea. Literally no idea who owns Bubbly. And I don't. I don't care. Because they're a large company that goes by a company name, they do not have to have a face as part of the company. They've done a really good job of bringing themselves as fun and colorful and all the things you might think of when you think of a company called Bubbly. But you can slap all the pretty colors, all the like funky things, all the whatevers on your logo and on your internet presence, unless you show up in that same way, that brand. That brand isn't going to matter to anybody. Actually, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you found a creator, here on YouTube, on Instagram, whatever, and you actually went and looked at their website? You went and looked at what their logo looked like? Name three creators who you actually know what their logo looks like. It's not really a thing. When I first started in the online business world, your logo mattered so much. And I'm not saying it doesn't matter now. And I definitely have a logo I can like submit if somebody needs my logo. Or whatever. But for the most part, I am the brand. And some people might not like this. Some people are like, I don't want to brand as myself because I don't want to be the brand. But if you are a creator in any way and you are putting content on the internet and you are the face of the business, whether the business name is your name or something else, you are the brand. Unless you actively seek to make sure the brand is not just you. My friend Sean Cannell has done a really great job with this. So Think Media, his company, used to just be Sean. That was, it was just Sean. Like Think Media equals Sean. He was the face of the brand. And he is still one of the faces of the brand, but he's done a really great job of bringing in other people to create videos, to be with him on the podcast, to whatever that has enabled him to stretch that definition and have other people also be the face of the brand. So that the brand is not just him. But if you're not at that point yet, you're the brand. If you want to be a personal brand, you are the brand. If you want to be a creator and you just want people to like follow your life and love you and all the things, you are the brand. So for me, for instance, I've had conversations or comments from people who were like, you should build this into something bigger than yourself because you can't sell a personal brand. And you know, that really got to me for a while, but honestly, I don't want to. I like being a personal brand. I like being, hey, Jessica, Jessica Stansberry, like that is me. Now, hey, Jessica came about because at one point I was planning to have different contributors and I actually did have different contributors to the blog and things like that. And I was gonna set it up as like a media site. And I still may do that at some point, but overall my brand is me and I love that. Now that also comes with its own hurdles. Like if somebody else just showed up here on this channel and did a video on my channel, it would be weird, right? If I don't create videos, if I'm not physically able to create videos, videos don't get created and that can be a problem. But my thought process here, my theory here is I enjoy having a personal brand. I enjoy doing that. And I am going to continue to do that and then use the money I make here, the status I have here, the brand I create here, to buy other companies, to start other companies and to do things that aren't as requiring of me as like a face. So where some people are like, I don't ever wanna do that, I see it as a way to make money, to do other things, to diversify my income, to where I'm not the only one who can do content. But honestly, that was like a tangent and not the point of this video. The point of this video is how to brand yourself as a creator. First and foremost, I would recommend the book, Primal Branding. Now my friend Tim Schmoyer recommends this book all the time, but it essentially, it's like an old book. It's a really old book. And it talks about like all of the different aspects of branding a company, a person, et cetera. And it will really help you kind of see the different pieces of the puzzle that you need to put out there to create an overall brand. But we'll talk about a few of them in this video too. If you're trying to create a brand and brand yourself as a creator, you need to share your likes and your dislikes. You need to share your likes and your dislikes. You need to share your likes and your dislikes. Both connected and disconnected from the business, the brand, the content, so that people can bond with you over it. So for instance, again, I love bubbly water. Y'all know that. I used to drink LaCroix like it was going out of style. Gosh, years ago now, because I remember when I like quit LaCroix, I wrote that email from my old office in my old house. So it's been at least four years ago. But basically that was like a big thing. I always had a LaCroix. I was always drinking LaCroix. I talked about LaCroix. I loved LaCroix. And then I ended up having to quit LaCroix because it was killing my stomach. Like I just couldn't drink it anymore. And I sent an email like to my list who was full of business owners and people who wanted to know about sales funnels and passive income and all the things. I sent an email to my list where the subject line was, I quit LaCroix. That is still to this day, the most opened and read email I have ever sent. As far as like percentages go, because I have a much bigger email list now. But as far as like, percentage of opens, that is still the best one I've ever sent. And it honestly had negative, nothing to do with business or strategy or anything. Also, I just realized you can see this in the background. That is my camera bag and a bunch of tissue paper that I just laid on top of it. That rip keeps coming in here and eating. So if you're like, what the heck's behind you? There you go. But people were invested in the fact that I loved LaCroix and they wanted to know why I quit LaCroix, even if they didn't love LaCroix too. And then with Gilmore Girls. Y'all, I love Gilmore Girls and I talk about it all the time and I share that I'm watching it all the time and I share like weird quirks about the show and none of that has anything to do with my business. However, it helps bond you with me. I've had so many people who were like, oh my gosh, if Jessica likes the show, I'm gonna try and watch it and then we're bonded. Or people who also love Gilmore Girls or people who hated Gilmore Girls and they're like, girl, you're crazy. And all of that is good. You can either bond over your love of something or bond, over the fact that one of you loves something and one of you doesn't. It's just like a regular relationship. But I need you to share your likes and your dislikes with your audience. We interrupt your regular TV programming. Y'all, my microphone just died. And so you're gonna probably hear a major difference between what I was just using and this, and I'm so sorry. Because this tends to be echo-y-er. Because my office is really echo-y and I can't really do anything about it. But I tend to wear, like my lavalier mic, so it's not echo-y, and this is gonna be echo-y and I'm sorry. And honestly, I don't know where my mic died there, but you need to repel people. And sometimes it repels people when you don't talk about something. Sometimes it repels people when you do talk about something. Sometimes it repels people that you have a certain opinion, but you need to repel people. Having people not like you can be really hard, especially if you're a people pleaser, but repelling people will make more room for the people who actually wanna be there, to be there. Like, uninviting people. Uninviting people to the table will make more room for the people you want to invite to the table. So it could be that I'm like, I don't love what bro marketers, dude bro marketers teach. Like, I don't wanna teach that and I will never condone it. That's gonna remove some people from the table. Or some people may just like absolutely hate the sound of my voice or my accent or whatever, and they remove themselves. That is removing people from the table, okay? So just repel people and try and figure out ways to repel people, even though that is not always the easiest thing in the world to do. Next is probably what you would traditionally think of as branding, but as a creator, you need to find your style both digitally and physically. How do you want people to think about you? The way you dress changes how people think about you. The way you show up online changes the way people think about you. The way you talk changes the way people think about you. The way you style your Instagram or edit your YouTube videos changes the way people think about you. So you've got to find your style, both digitally and physically, to establish the way you want people to think about you. And hopefully this comes really easily in the physical part because you're just being yourself. Like, I wear a lot of T-shirts, a lot of sweatshirts, add some pops of color, because I love me some color, and that is my actual style. That's how I go out in the world. I am literally going to a meeting in this shirt with a jacket over it later today. I regularly go to my kids' ball games in leggings, and sweatshirts. The fact that I have a nose ring feels so much more like the me that I have always felt like I am, and I feel like helps you kind of grasp who I am as a person. I am the same human on this camera, on this video right now, that you would meet in real life. I cuss a little. That turns people off. But I am physically being the same human that I actually am on the internet, and that helps. So much. Don't try and be something you're not. Be who you want to be. Like, change who you are if you want to. Like, that's fine. You can create a new identity. Like, I wish so much that I would have branded myself under my maiden name, because it's much cooler than my actual last name, my married name. My maiden name was Heart, and like, oh my God, that don't have been so much fun. But also, I wish that I would have went by Jesse at some point in my life, because I just feel like that is more me than Jessica. But like, I'm 36. So I feel like it's a little too late to change that now, but I could have done that. I could have started out on the internet being Jesse Heart, and it would have been a completely different, you know, person than your, not person, but like, you know, brand than you're seeing now. And I could have totally done that. Change it if you want to. That's okay. But be who you want to be and who you want to show up as physically. And then match your digital persona to that too. And what I mean by that is, you know, how do you want your Instagram to look? How do you want to show up on stories? How do you want to edit your YouTube videos? Find your style, and that also helps establish the brand. So we're gonna go back to Bubbly Water, okay? So if these were just in like a silver can, and didn't have like the cool face with the tongue sticking out, you know, and like it wasn't fun, it was just in like a silver can, the brand would be a very different brand than it is, because they're super fun colors with a fun face. I know that's hard to see because of my lights, but with a fun face with like fun whatever and fun branding, like that would be a different brand. And one is not better than the other. It's just, what do you want to be? Those are some things that I really want to encourage you to do to establish your brand as a creator, to show up as the true authentic you as a creator. And so much of this involves sharing things that are not directly connected to the brand. And that's where a lot of people get caught up, is I am a brand who talks about sales funnels. All I'm ever gonna talk about is sales funnels. I'm not gonna show that I'm a real person with kids and a dog and like whatever else. And that's a solid mistake, because people are going to bond with you because of your kids and your dog, or your lack of kids and your lack of dog, like whatever, right? So a lot of this branding is gonna come down to sharing things that you don't think are connected, but actually are. Like I am way more drawn to follow people on the internet in all facets, business, fashion, makeup, like everything, who have kids. The reason is because I learned a long time ago that when I was following, especially business accounts, where the people on the other end did not have children, I was feeling bad about myself because I wasn't able to get everything done that they're able to get done in a day, because holy moly, kids take up so much time. Y'all, I literally have a child home with me right now because he got sick this morning, but like that's not totally abnormal for him. And so he's home from school before I take him to school because he's actually not sick. And he's actually like, he just yelled at me a second ago and was like, I'm taking the dog out because he's totally fine. But I've had to work around a kid being home today. And like people who don't have kids don't have to do that. Or the fact that I have to stop my work day every day before 3 p.m. because I have to pick up my kids from school, like, you know. Or the fact that I can't just spend all weekend grinding, because one, I don't want to ignore my family, but two, we generally have like sports activities and stuff because I have children. So sharing things that seemingly don't matter to the brand, like it doesn't matter to the fact that I'm teaching you about digital products, about affiliate marketing, about being a creator, about passive income, like all of these things, it doesn't matter to that that I'm a mom. However, it's going to leave little breadcrumbs, all these things that I share, the bubbly water, the Gilmore Girls, the having kids, the having a dog, like all of these things that I share, leave little breadcrumbs that allow you to kind of pick up the breadcrumb and follow along with me. So to wrap this up, branding yourself as a creator is actually really easy because all you have to do is be you. That's it. But so many people overthink it and they only want to think about the colors and the font and the logo and the, you know, that kind of thing. But I want to encourage you to brand yourself as you, to be you on the internet, and to share all the pieces of your life that you're comfortable with sharing. It doesn't mean you have to share everything. If you don't want to share your kids, don't share them. Maybe just talk about them. You'll notice that I don't share my kids a lot as far as like their faces or anything like that. I talk about them and I talk about the fact that I have kids. I don't share them. I talk about the fact that I live on a farm, but I don't share that a lot as far as like physically showing you that there's like cows outside my window. So share what you want to share, but be you on the internet. And that alone, will help you brand yourself as a creator. Because remember, you are the brand. If you're still with me, go ahead and comment below and let me know what non-business thing about me that I have shared, like sticks out in your mind. Either it's what made you like me, it's what made you dislike me, it's what made you want to stick around for my content, it's what made you want more, like whatever. I'd love to hear that in the comments below. And I'd also love it if y'all tag me when you do this. Like if you get on Instagram stories and you're sharing about something, tag me. And be like, Jessica told me I had to share stuff that was not business related. Tag me. I'd love to see it. And until next time, bye y'all.