5 quick steps to build your brand, keep your job, and earn more

Jan 13, 2024 9:30 am

Personal Updates

Hey ,

Welcome to another edition of 'The Dayo Samuel Report'.

Happy New Year to you!

How was your holiday and celebration?

Mehn! It's been a challenging holiday for me. I spent most of the holidays in bed. I was ill from the 27th and could not even walk.

But I summoned the powers that be to give me the strength to facilitate the 'Design Your Year' workshop, which went well. Thanks to the attendees. Looking forward to a 2024 you will all be proud of.

I'm well now; I just resumed active work too.

I keep working and tweaking this newsletter so I can have a system that works.

I hope I can share with you how everything is fitting together soon.

Quick Summary

Personal Branding Steps: Focus on clarity and understanding your unique value ('WHY', 'WOW', 'WISDOM', 'WIT'); establish a digital presence emphasising your point of view over visual identity; communicate consistently to shape perception; monetize your brand by thinking beyond time-for-money exchanges; and build a team to expand your reach.
Key Actions: Secure a personal domain name; define and consistently use your unique voice in communications; develop a product/service ecosystem; leverage others' time to grow your brand while maintaining your job.
Reading time: 4 minutes

5 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand, While Excelling in Your Day Job

Since 2014, I've been helping professionals at various stages in their careers craft personal brands that open doors to more opportunities in life and business.

Over the years, I've distilled my approach and experience into five critical steps for building a personal brand while maintaining a full-time job.

To me, personal branding is more than a buzzword; it's the art of influencing perception through what you do, whether at work or outside. If done well, it actually shapes your professional narrative and invites more opportunities and income.

1. CLARIFY

Clarity in personal branding means understanding your 'WHY,' your 'WOW,' your 'WISDOM,' and your 'WIT' — all the elements that make you stand out.

The initial step in gaining clarity on your personal brand is understanding your motivation for building one.

From there, you build a CORE MESSAGE that

It's a common misconception that starting a side business or personal brand arises from job dissatisfaction.

However, my research suggests that the reasons are often more profound.

Whether you love your job or seek creative outlets, a personal brand can provide inbound opportunities, creating leverage and making you an irreplaceable asset in your job.

This step is the most important part, so it requires a bit of thinking time.

I made this sketch to help you visualise what I mean. Feel free to share with others.

2. CREATE

The second step is to focus on establishing your digital presence if you don't already have one or two.

Rather than worrying about visual identity like logos, colors and the like, your Point of View (POV) is more critical.

So work more on defining that.

Key Actions:

Secure your name as a domain if possible. Have a www.yourname.com (click to get on Namecheap).
Choose your primary 1 or 2 platforms. This year, my focus is on X (Twitter) and YouTube. All others are on hold.

3. COMMUNICATE

Short story.

My mother-in-law’s WhatsApp was hacked a couple of days ago, and the hacker decided to ask for money from all the contacts that she’s recently had a chat with, including me (like, seriously?)

Unfortunately, my mother-in-law has a very unique communication style that 100% of the people the hacker asked for money from, knew she was not the one that sent the message.

This is exactly what personal brand is.

The influence you gain in people’s minds over time.

My mother-in-law does not have a logo or a color palette, or 5000 followers on Twitter/X.

But she has a well-recognised personal brand even down to how she types.

Your personal brand is the consistent experience people have as they interact with you, which shapes your perception and influence.

A lot of the time, you already have this; you just may not be aware of it.

All the things you intentionally do about how you’re perceived and talked about is what personal branding is.

Once in a while, ask people who know you and may be close to you, “Who do you think I am?”

If you can figure out how to do this online, great!

Their feedback will help you understand what perceptions you’ve been creating and how you can redesign that if you so wish.

Key Action:

Define your voice; don't worry about finding it. Focus on how you say what you say, not just how it looks. Your story and message are your true colors.

4. COMMERCIALISE

Think about how you can start monetizing your brand from the beginning.

You don't need a large audience to begin thinking about the products or services that you can offer.

In my work with clients over the last 10 years, this stage is where people's fears show up the most.

All the worries and anxieties they have about money become apparent here—well, because money has a huge influence over many of us. And it's understandable.

Key Actions:

Think beyond time-for-money exchanges and develop a broader ecosystem of products or services. How can what you do be sequenced to lead to a deeper experience?
If you need help with this step, reach out at any time and we can sort it on a call.

5. CONSOLIDATE

Start Micro, Go Multi.

This is the stage where you begin to build out a tiny team that can take things forward when you're at your job.

It is totally fine if you want to go solo, but when you have limited time due to a job commitment, you have to leverage other people's time.

This is also the stage where you become what I have begun to call a "Micropreneur" on the way to becoming a "Multipreneur." (talk more about this in a future newsletter.)

No matter the stage you're at, I hope these steps provide you with a roadmap.

And help you know you're where you need to be right now.

Every week, I come across new resources. Today, here are 2 recommendations:

GummySearch : An audience research tool based on Reddit. It helps you discover pain points, solutions people are exploring, and content ideas for your side business. What I love about the business model behind this app is the Pro Day Pass, which gives you a 24-hour access to paid features without a monthly commitment. That's genius pricing, if you ask me! Feel free to check it out.
The Art and Business of Online Writing : What are the secrets to writing online? Why do some writers accumulate hundreds of thousands, even millions of views on their content—and others write and write, only to go unnoticed? I started reading this book, and you can notice how I'm improving with my newsletter. I just got back on Twitter and I'm applying what I'm learning there.

I'd love to get your response to today's newsletter. Reply and tell me your favourite part.