1. Should you have quality or quantity? Both — but only about things you are passionate Barbour. You have to decide if you can do both. We all don’t get to be a famous “personal brand”. But unlike our parents, we get a chance. That’s what is special — we now have the tools and ability to do great things.
2. Finding your passion: Kind of zen — Ask this question: What would you like to do for the rest of your life? We’re suffocating with options. Finding the only thing helps you find focus. But don’t make your decision on what makes you more money.
3. Understanding your DNA: The key to being successful is recognizing your strengths and weaknesses. We have to accept what we have been given and go out and succeed. And what we aren’t strong at, we should have the courage to outsource. Gary is OK if you go after 80% of your passion and learn 20% of what you don’t like to do (like left-brain stuff like accounting for example)
4. Going all in on your strengths: 1. Bet on your strengths. 2. Look at what you do best and go all in 100%. 3. Hire someone if needed.
Practice Exercise: Find five people close to you who will honestly tell you your strengths and weaknesses. That will help you narrow down what your passion is.
5. Deciding Between Passions: If you have two passions combine them! That makes them even more niche. The more nice, the more engaged your audience. And consider your happiness more than money.
6. Four ways to find out what your strengths are: 1. Key to loving your job is to ask yourself, what’s my biggest strength? Many are in jobs they hate because they haven’t found that one true passion. Stop doing $#%^ you hate. 2. What are my strengths. You can’t take a romantic view of the skills that have made you successful so far in life. You might be good at something but have no passion for it. But use it as a blueprint for discovering talents you may not have understood before. List all the things that that skill requires you do do. Don’t take anything for granted. 3. Read everything. Take a vacation and then sit down and ponder the pros and the cons. Look at old letters, notes, e-mails — anything that someone has written you. See what you are good at. And admit what you are bad at. 4. As strangers, too. Inquire on Social Media. Make a video or a post and ask everyone who follows you the very question, “What are my personal strengths.”
7.Self-Awareness Part 1: 1 Be at peace with your skill set. 2. Understand yourself. 3. Understand and admit your shortcomings.
8.Self-Awareness Part 2: 1. Self-Awareness is the conscious knowledge of one own’s character, feelings, motive and desires. 2. Make people feel safe — when you do, they will tell you the truth. 3. What holds people back is the romantic version of how they see themselves. 4. Ideas are the $%^&. Execution is the game.
9. Practice Exercise. Do something around your strengths. Do something based around your weaknesses. How does each one make you feel.
10. Telling your story: Telling your story — How will you talk to the world. 2. Is it a daily blog, instagram? 3. Video is the killer.
11. Repurpose your content. 2014 Started AskGaryVee — a lot of content is variable for your success. Make work fit all mediums.
12. Everybody is a media company. 1. Determine which platforms your brand should be on. Consider two things a. Where is your audience b. How do you talk to them there? Reverse engineer the demographic you’re selling to. Respect the platform and the audience. a. Respect your platforms — and respect the psychology of what people are doing when they’re on the platform. (Pinterest is different than Facebook for instance.) b. Respect your audience. It’s about content. Write content they will like as opposed to content you like. C. Understand what is doable. Use platforms — join them early early and quickly. (Medium and Meercat) D. Evaluate content for effectiveness. A. Look for raw engagement numbers. How many people are sharing. How many people are leaving comments. B. Big picture. How many people are buying. If you’re not getting, what you want, it’s not effective content. What’s do you want from making this content.
13. Get familiar with nuances with each Platform. Context warfare. You have no chance if you understand the channel. When posting, you have to create as little friction as possible for for the consumer. Make it easy.
14. Facebook. Best all-around advertising vehicle — targeted stories are amazing. It is now more pay-to-play but the costs aren’t prohibited. $20 to $30.
15. Twitter. It is a listening platform. Powerful search took. #1 place you can fish around. Best organic execution.
16. Pinterest. Powerful Visual search engine. Respect the demographic. Viewers want to shop and consume.
17. Instagram. A powerful platform. Users pay attention to small group of followers.
18. YouTube. If producing video – you halve to take it very serious. Follow other YouTube celebrities.
19. Snapchat. It’s the best place to find 25-and-under. Creating stories. Not much discovery — must be promoted from other platforms. Content disappears — just like real like life. Makes it very engaging.
20. Be first on emerging platforms. Be an early adopters. You quickly amass a following of first responder. You will kiss a few frogs but will also find a few princes.
21.Choosing the right platform for you brand — consider two things. Where’s your audience and how you talk to them there. The bottom line is — you need to be in the right place, regardless of the platform’s size.
22. Engage with your audience. Thank people. Reply to people. It’s the backbone to your personal brand. Following up on the content.
Content vs. Context. It is everything. Make your posts fit the different platforms. Hashtag culture. Twitter and Instagram. Reverse engineer your content.
23. Your phone is the #1 storytelling device in the world.
24. Building brand awareness. 1. Sell advertising. 2. Spend it back on Google ad words or Facebook.
25. Business Development. 1. PR. If I can bring you any value. Write and offer collaboration with other blogs, etc.
26.Working for Free to gain exposure. 1. Spend time not money for cost of acquisition if you have no leverage. 2. Become guest blogger. 3. Speak for free to build an audience.
27. One is greater than zero. Even if it is a small viewership, if you engage, you go deep onto the community. Remember, one viewer can change your life. So number doesn’t always matter. It’s quality over quantity.
28. Providing value. Depth vs. width. This is a problem with clients who are focused on metrics than actually selling products.
29. Why you shouldn’t charge for your best work. 1. Be about putting out content. Be a media company who provides value to your customer. Free content builds up fan base. Any time you are deciding what content to distribute free of cost, it needs to be a strategic decision. You need to be thinking three steps ahead. You’re looking to create leverage. Everything you give away has to have strategic purpose.
30. Grow your brand by leveraging someone else’s brand. 1. Ask. 2. Find blogs and websites that are similar.
31. Your follower count is irrelevant. What do followers in general get you? Nothing. All you need is one follower of the 10,000 to really change the course of your business or personal life. Wrong question: What do followers get me. Right question: What am I trying to achieve.
32. Traditional advertising . 1.Radio. 2. Print.
33. Sponsorships. Integrated products. Ads.
34. Book deals. Great marketing device.
35. Swag. Make stuff with you logo on it.
36. Your legacy is EVERYTHING. Your children and grandchildren. Put heart into the world.
37. Time is your greatest asset (after health). Be strategic about how you spend it.
38. Being a practitioner vs. a headline reader. Go in depth past the headlines. Nothing trumps hard work. Try new platforms and understand each different one’s context.
39. It takes hard work. There is no substitute for honest, hard work. You have to earn the privilege of building a brand and the only way to execute it is to work hard.
39. Tips for getting your brand out there. A. Decide if you’re ready to put yourself out there. B. Use e-mail marketing to its full advantage. C. Make video content (the right way) D. Create as much content as possible. E. NEVER automate. F. Keep scaling your content. 7 HUSTLE.
40. How to become an influencer. A. Talent. B. Put in a ton of work. 3. Speed of adoption within a new environment.
It all takes hard work and patience.