A Well-Built Brand

I think we have lived through the full life cycle of the term “Personal Brand”. We’ve seen it go from non-existent to overused to just being a commonplace phrase. Those last two are pretty close, but the difference is that whereas in 2012 everyone was throwing around “Personal Brand” as a buzz word for attention, in 2025 the term has become commonplace in business and marketing used for a specific practice: the practice of monitoring and making a conscious effort on forming your outward, often online, appearance.

What we’ve come to know is that actually everyone has a personal brand. Society has always had this practice of being aware of your outward appearance. It used to be called “reputation”. Personal Brand has just incorporated the online element. Reputation used to spread by word of mouth. Everyone in town would know you as ‘the best mechanic’ or ‘he can fix anything at the house’. Even aspects about your business: ‘they’re a little expensive but their work is quality. Well worth the price!’ If you did a great job, people knew. If you did a bad job, people knew.

There’s much of America that this actually still applies. I spent a few years at a small town in Illinois and people could always recommend good mechanics, trusted real estate agents, good places to eat, bad areas of town, people with a good reputation, and people with a bad one. And the only difference between that and what we talk about in the world of marketing and business is that online you have to be very intentional about sharing that reputation. It’s harder for your reputation to precede you if your reputation doesn’t even exist.

What’s the point of building a brand?

The power of a well-built brand is found in the trust that is formed over time. Think about the online creators that you follow - or even people you know in mainstream media like actors, directors, musicians, celebrities. Once you’ve watched enough content from them, you develop a relationship with this person. We’ve talked about this phenomena before. It’s called a para-social relationship. What is this based in? Trust.

You have spent enough time consuming content from that person that you now have a certain level of trust in them - especially in their main area of expertise. Example: we trust Christopher Nolan to make incredible films. What happens when he begins working on a new one? Actors jump at the opportunity to work with Nolan! They know his work. Not just that, but people flood to the theaters when the movie is released because they know Christopher’s reputation. That’s the power of his brand.

On a much smaller scale than Christopher Nolan, for me, Peter McKinnon has built that level of trust. Peter can release any product and I immediately need it. Not want. Need.

Okay, that list went on a lot longer than I originally thought. I knew I had a lot of his stuff, but my gosh, that’s a lot.

Returning to the main point of all of this. A personal brand, when done well, builds trust with the audience. This then leads to opportunities in the future that would not have existed otherwise.

On a Personal Note

Talk about a brand I trust. Matt D’Avella is a documentary filmmaker and YouTuber most known for his minimalist content. He released a series of videos about a minimalist workout plan and I thought it to be very interesting so I took him up on his offer and have begun the workout plan.

Told you trust opens opportunities. He’s also the reason I only wear gray or black shirts.

I’m only on week 2 of the training program but I’ve really been enjoying working out again. It’s been years since I’ve worked out so this workout plan has been great to get back into the swing of things and not feel overwhelmed. That’s kind of the whole premise. The reason it’s called Minimalift (incredibly clever) is because they have found the point at which the workout goes from optimum stress on the body for increasing health and well-being to the body being overworked and now you have to wait longer in a recovery period before returning to the gym. The entire workout is done in approximately 40 minutes and hits everything that you need to be healthy. I highly recommend watching the video to learn more about the program. And if you’re interested in seeing the plan I follow, I’m doing the 2-day Minimalift Plan.

Watch History

How to Build a Brand

Caleb Ralston has just come onto the scene in many ways. For years, he’s worked behind-the-scenes at major companies working on people’s personal brands. He has worked with Sean Cannell from Think Media, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Alex & Leila Hormozi. Many of the videos I’ve watched over the years have apparently been his work. That’s wild! 

After all of those years and lessons learned, he is venturing out to begin building his very own brand consultation agency. He enters the online space with his first Youtube video explaining his work history - essentially, a 50+ minute resume of his professional career. And then he follows that up with this 6+ hour course on how to build a brand - taking everything he has learned and breaking down each facet for free.

There’s a lot covered in the 6 hour course (I mean, you would hope so, right?), so there’s no way for me to summarize it for you. But I do want to share some of the biggest takeaways I got from the course and maybe some areas that I would say I need to rewatch in order to fully solidify the knowledge.

Brand

Caleb defines Branding as “A pairing of things” and Good Branding as “an intentional pairing of relevant things done consistently.” It’s good for us to start there in order for us to know what we’re building. To go off of the discussion about reputation, think of things this way: In order for people to know that you’re a great handyman, you need to pair your name with your industry/trade. When people look online, they should be able to see your name with work that you’ve done, advice on home renovations, highlights of best practices, and more. All of this pairs the idea of you with quality handyman work.

What if you’re just starting? What do you do? You need to find what are the things to pair with. Caleb outlines it as a Brand Journey Framework. It’s actually fairly simple and obvious when you think about it, but how many of us take the time to break it down like this?

1. What do I want to have happen?

2. What do I have to be known for in order for that to happen?

3. What do I have to do in order to be known for that?

4. What do I have to learn in order to do those things?

This framework helps you to put together where you want to go with your brand - what does your brand need to be or what ideas, values, qualities, expertise do you need to be paired with in order to achieve your goals. Honestly, this framework becomes more than just a brand framework, this also helps as a guide for you in life. What do you want to become? What needs to be done for that to happen? What do you need to learn in order to do those things?

Content Production

This was super helpful on a practical level to identify what medium are we focusing on, what platforms do we focus on, how much do we post, and what are the best practices for starting out and for building up from there. I’m not going to go into that here because I’m not sure that level of ‘into the weeds’ applies to everyone. If you’re someone interested in best practices for content production go to the video, timestamp 51:02

Team

It’s crazy because in section 2, we’re a creative director figuring out how to make all the content. In section 3, we’re learning how to form the team around you - almost removing yourself from the content creation other than spearheading the creative.

What stuck out to me about the team section is just how intentional Caleb is about scaling every aspect. He shares the importance of hiring for a specific need. It sounds obvious and yet people will just hire a social media manager and expect them to solve all their problems by themselves. Or hire a video editor when they love the editing process and really need a motion graphics designer. Each team is unique, so there won’t be an one-size-fits-all solution for team building.

Caleb is thorough in this section. Partly because hiring is one of his favorite parts of all of this! He outlines how to put together a process for hiring people, when to hire full-time, contract-basis, or an agency, how to formulate a job description, how to build an onboarding process, and how to establish a strong company culture. I too loved this section. So rich in information, very clearly laid out.

Monetize

This was probably the least interesting part of the whole course - to me at least. Caleb does an excellent job explaining it just like the rest of everything. Here’s the main thing to understand about monetizing: every ask comes at the expense of trust.

Remember how we talked about trust being the main driving force of a personal brand? When you’ve built trust with an audience, it’s often because you have given such incredible value to the audience that, when you do ask for money, the audience can see the return of their investment. They spend hours with you and get such an incredible wealth of knowledge, entertainment, what have you, and so when they spend money with you, it’s small price for what they have received.

Caleb points out that, especially in the education space, you share the knowledge but sell the execution. You can tell people how to do something all day long but, when it comes down to it and they have to execute, it’s much harder than initially expected. So what happens? They call you to execute even when you’ve explained everything to them. Gary Vaynerchuk uses this example: A handyman shares videos online about simple things you can do at your home to make it better. Homeowners watch the content and learn how they can paint and install simple things. However, as soon as a problem occurs and they need more help, who are they calling? The handyman who taught them how to work on their home for free.

The greedier you are and the more you ask, the more trust you spend with your audience. If all you do is ask them to give you money, they won’t trust when you want to say something for free. Heck, they soon won’t even be listening to what you say because they assume it’s all a sales pitch. I can think of a few creators I used to follow but then figured out all their videos just sold their course and I didn’t gain anything from it. I don’t watch anything from them now.

Final Thoughts

There’s a wealth of knowledge in this 6+ hour video and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to expand their online reputation. Caleb provides an extensive workbook available for free on his website! Get the workbook here.

I’ve downloaded the workbook and I will be reviewing the course now with that printed out.

Add to Watch Later:

• Business is now on ‘Easy Mode” in 2025 (here’s why)

• Dude Perfect's $100M Business, Mapped

• The Brutal Truth About Building a Creative Agency in NYC ft. Shortstache & Chelstache

Psst. I made a Playlist on YouTube for the videos I’ve mentioned here so that you can always refer back to it!

Reading List

Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

I have not had a lot of time to read this week. However, the little I did read was on the importance of vulnerability and the myths about it. Namely, any belief that says you don’t have to be vulnerable. The study that Brene has done is very deep and this book begins everything on a personal level before it’s professional. It’s great. So, as I get into it, here’s a video of Brene talking about vulnerability.

The Growth Log Library

I’ve compiled a list of the books that I mention in case you want to pick any of it up. Full disclosure, these are affiliate links. Doesn’t cost anything extra on your end, I just get a kickback if you use my link to make a purchase.