The Brand ED Podcast

The Brand ED Podcast EP 60
7 Deadly Dangers of Building a Personal Brand Business, Danger #5
by Robby Fowler
robbyf.com
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Welcome to this episode of the podcast. We're continuing in our series on the seven deadly dangers of building a personal brand business. And I don't know about you. I don't know if you sense this, being in the space, I, since there's something in the air around building a personal brand, now. It's like, there's a big, huge wave that's picking up momentum or picking up steam. It's not crested yet, but it is on the way ready to crest. And those of us, I think, in this personal brand space, we can feel that momentum. With that momentum, with that excitement, with that anticipation around--and even popularity--around building a personal brand business, those of us caught up in this, we can feel both the burden and the freedom that comes with being a part of this movement to create something that's better for ourselves and for our lives to hurt; to create something that's more beautiful than the career or life we were going to be stuck with.

It's the ability to really create something that embodies our ideas and our values more directly. I think that's why there is excitement around building a personal brand business.

But this series is here to say, with all of that excitement, there's also a danger. And the danger is that you can start, grow and expand this kind of personal brand business faster than almost any other kind of business ever before in the history of the world.

You can start, grow and expand a personal brand business faster than other types of business, almost faster than anything before. All you're worried about is you, when you start one out with the internet with social media, with the platform that you can create, the reach, you can have.

There's an ability to start, grow and expand at faster than any other opportunity that has been available to many of us before. And with that kind of speed comes danger. *So with all of the promise, the inherent dangers that come with building a personal brand business, which dangers do we need to be aware of?*

What dangers that just come with the space -- that aren't getting our attention -- need to get some attention? The warning light needs to go off just so we're aware that potential danger is ahead.

That's what the series is about. I love personal brands. I love helping others build a personal brand. I want us to have a clear, full holistic picture of the good and the bad. Of the positives and the negatives. Of the beauty and the blessing and the dangers that come inherent with tackling this idea of building a personal brand business.

[00:02:58] Recap
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So let's recap where we've been. *Deadly danger number one was personal brands have little to no accountability, and that can be dangerous.*

*Personal brand, deadly danger number two, we said personal brands play on a dangerous field.* That field is the internet with all of its strengths.

It's fast. Sometimes fast can be dangerous. It's far reaching. Sometimes it overreaches. The internet is a great place also, unfortunately, to be fake. So personal brands play in a dangerous field.

*Deadly danger number three, we said the personal brand movement as a movement, it's still very young.* It has not been around all that long. And there is a fair amount of use kind of setting some of the trends and leading the way. And we just need to know with all of that youth, like turning a car over to a young driver. There's great potential and there's great potential for danger.

*Personal brand deadly danger number four: we said personal brands promise freedom.*

That's the promise that gets dangled out in front of us. Finally, if you build a personal brand business, you're going to have the freedom to build the kind of life and business that you want to build. But we all know. Freedom unchecked can be very dangerous.

[00:04:17] Personal Brand Deadly Danger #5
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So those are the four deadly dangers, which brings us to deadly danger number five of building a personal brand business. And here it is.

_*Personal brands place a premium value on producing, not reproducing.*_ Personal brands place a premium value on just producing, producing, producing, not necessarily on reproducing.

[00:04:43] Preview
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So here's where we're going to head in today's episode. *First, we're going to talk about, well, what is the difference between producing and reproducing* as I'm using that language.

*Then *we're going to look three why's three reasons. I think while there is an unhealthy focus sometimes on producing when it comes to being a personal brand.

*And then the last thing* we're going to look at together is * * three things it can do to you that I don't think you and I want to have happen to us.

[00:05:12] Producing vs Reproducing: What's the Difference?
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So let's start at the top. What's really the difference. When I say there's this premium value placed on producing, not reproducing. What's the difference between those two?

I'll tell you a little story from my own background, in my own experience, coming from the ministry space. So coming out of several years, over a decade in side of church ministry.

This really gets highlighted. You see this a lot in the ministry space. It's the difference between being really, really good at doing something. Probably the clearest example would be teaching or communicating or speaking.

_The difference between being really good at doing that and being good at equipping others and building others up so they are good at doing that._

You see this in the ministry space all over the place. Super talented speaker gets a massive platform. Spotlight is on that person. They're great at doing it. We can fail to ask. Have they ever made someone else? Also under their leadership, has anyone else grown in their ability to also be an amazing communicator?

That's the difference. *Doing versus equipping.* *Producing versus reproducing.*

Another way to think about it is producing in the personal brand space. This will happen a lot.

A successful personal brand. We look at them almost like they've summited the mountain that we want to also go summit as we try to build our personal brands.

And I'm all for learning from others. I'm all for following the example of others. I am all for that. But if we take that picture of them, summiting the mountain at producing framework or mindset or attitude would be the personal brand guru up there that's summited the mountain, looks back down to the rest of us and says, like tosses, some sheets of paper over the side of the mountain and from the summit and says, well, here's what I did.

_Here's what I did to get up here._

That's producing.

" There you go. I threw this leaflet down to you. I charted out the steps. Here's what I did to get to the top. There you go."

There is value there. That's not that that's not valuable.

But reproducing is where that person comes back down the mountain, meets with me, and says, "Let's take a look at what's in your backpack. Let's take a look. Tell me about your experience level mountain climbing."

And then he looks up the mountain. She looks up the mountain knowing me, knowing what's in my backpack. What's available to me, et cetera, says, "Hey, here's what I think you could do." They're going to turn me into a better mountain climber.

They're going to help me be a better climber to get up to the top. That's the difference between producing and reproducing. Here's what I did reproducing a knowing you, now that I've gotten to know you, here's what you could do and how I can help.

Personal brands often place a premium value on just producing, just being a really good doer of filling the blank.

You're a great speaker. If you're in the speaking business, you're a great writer. If you're an author, you're a great writer. If you're a copywriter, you're, a great performance coach. If you're a great performer, et cetera. There's a difference between doing and equipping. Between producing stuff and reproducing what you're good at, in and through somebody else.

[00:08:43] 3 Reasons Why PBs Over-Focus on Producing
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So let's ask, well, why would that be the case? Why is there an unhealthy focus at times in the personal brand space on just producing? Why can we get lured into that unhealthy focus on producing?

Here are three reasons. Number one. *Reason number one*, why I think we can subtly get lured over into producing is *producing takes less time and responsibility than reproducing.*

Producing takes less time and responsibility than reproducing.

To produce a course or whatever. Yes. I'm not saying that doesn't take work, but you do it. You hit publish, you fling it out to the world. You start selling it like hotcakes and you don't worry about, is it actually helping. Is this over time, five years from now, I'm going to make someone better at whatever my course was aimed at making them better at.

Producing takes less time and responsibility then reproducing.

This is true in families. Reproducing yourself as a parent in the life of a child is it's a lot more work. It's a lot more work than just being an adult myself.

Number two, why do we get lured into this unhealthy focus? Because not only does producing take less time and responsibility *producing is far less messy than reproducing.*

I had the luxury of saying, Hey, I charted the course for you. There you go. And then I'm done. Producing is far less messy. They're movie producing. The minute I get involved in somebody's life and trying to make sure that this is actually being implemented and being reproduced in them, I've got to backtrack how I do things.

Producing as far less messy and reproducing. That's a lesson I learned a ton in the ministry space. I could just go teach a bunch of people, but could I show others how to do that? So it's two very different things, very different skills.

Number three, why do we get lured into this unhealthy focus on producing, producing takes less time.

It's less messy. And let's be honest. *It is far less risky* than getting again involved in someone's life. And now my success starts to get tied to their success. What if they fail? Am I a failure? *Producing is far less risky than reproducing.*

I'm not suggesting all you should be out there focused on is reproducing or that producing is terrible or unhealthy.

I'm just want us to be aware. I don't want you to look back on your personal brand business, three years down the road, five years down the road, getting really excited about all of you produced content courses, whatever. All this stuff you sold, all the revenues produced and then look back and go. Yeah, but I'm not sure if that actually reproduced others, reproduce what I can do in someone else.

I sold a lot of stuff. I produced a lot of stuff, but I didn't reproduce what I can do and somebody else.

I Don't want that to happen to us. So we need to be aware of this danger.

So those are three reasons why we can be lured to an unhealthy focus on just do produce, produce, produce.

[00:11:56] 3 Ways a Focus on "Producing" Negatively Impacts Us as Personal Brands
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Now let's look at three things that can happen to you and me as personal brands when we have a hyper focus on producing.

Here's what that can do to you. Here's what that can do to me.

*The first thing that happens* is producing and then producing again and producing again, that turns into a dangerous game. It would, it would show up like this. _Hey, this launch, when I launched this thing, it's gotta be bigger than the last time I launched it._

_And the next one I launch, it's gotta be bigger than this launch._ And this cycle starts to build.

It becomes a dangerous game when you get caught in this, _I gotta produce more. I gotta produce more_ --game.

You are going to get worn out and your clients or your customers or your audience gets worn out.

So that's one thing that can happen to you and to me, when we get into this hyper focus on producing, producing, producing.

We'll get worn out and we'll wear others out.

*Number two*, producing without a focus or intention on reproducing, it can subtly begin to invite dependency. We build an audience of clients, customers.

We build an audience that, that becomes dependent on us. And we feel good. It can get it's real. It starts to get really tricky when we wind up there, because we feel like we're helping. They tell us we're helping. Yeah. That's because they’re dependent. And that's never, we don't ever want to turn into that. That's not our intention of being someone's like drug pusher where they've constantly got to come back to us for another hit for another fix.

When we only focus on producing that can often- times be inevitable. We're going to create a dependent or even codependent relationship with those that we're actually trying to help.

*Number three*, what happens to us? So the first thing that happens to us is it begins it to be a dangerous game where I got it to produce more and more and more, and everybody gets worn out.

Number two, we said, without an idea on reproducing, when we just focus on producing, we can build a business that creates people that are dependent on us. And we don't want dependency.

Back to the parent child analogy. Your job as a parent is not to raise a 30 year old dependent it's to raise someone who now can be an independent contributor to the world. Make the world a better place.

Okay. Same here. We want to avoid building a personal brand business where we make others just dependent on us. So that's number two.

*Number three.* What happens to us when we have a hyper focus on producing in this personal brand space, *we produce without a commitment to reproduce, and then we start to get puffed up*.

Believe it or not. None of us ever says I want to build a personal brand business so I can more arrogant. More of a jerk. More full of myself. No we don't.

But what happens is when we focus on producing and then we turn around and we look and we say, well, I've produced this for you. You customer or client you're, you're not where I am.

I'm still four laps ahead of you. And I was two laps ahead of you when I was where you were. Understandably, we start to believe our own hype. That, well, clearly I'm the only one that gets it. Or I'm the only one that can do it with this level of success. I've given you the same tools I used. I crushed it. You haven't managed to crush it.

So I must be a pretty big deal. I can get results out of this same kind of game plan that I just gave you the same game plan. How come you can't get this level of results? We start to very subtly believe our own hype and we start to get puffed up.

That's the last thing we need in the world, is more puffed up personal brands that think they hung the moon.

So that's the difference between producing and reproducing? It's the difference between doing something great. I'm glad that you're great at doing it versus equipping someone. We get lured into that.

The three reasons: it takes less time to just produce than reproducing.

Producing something as far less messy and producing as far less risky than getting involved in other people's lives and saying, I'm going to make you, I'm going to take the journey with you and we're going to make sure you're a better copywriter, better marketer, better, whatever it is that you do in your personal brand space.

And what happens to us is we get worn out because I got to produce more. This launch has to be bigger than, than the last one. I get the, into this dependent relationship where I'm making people dependent on me. And then I start to believe my own hype.

That's why building a personal brand business that only has an eye for producing more... and doesn't stop to think about how much of my time and attention do I want to commit to reproducing this in other people's lives. We want to be aware of that.

[00:16:51] Reflection
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So here are some questions to close us off for reflection.

*Question number one.* _Why is it you and I and the personal brand space, why are we so enamored and drawn to other personal brands that have achieved this high level of production?_

Of success from producing stuff... how come we're so enamored and drawn to them? And we fail to ask, "Have they actually reproduced that in others?

We're so drawn to high-level of production --doing-- we fail, even ask have they reproduced that and others. So if they're fantastic at marketing, are there five people underneath them that they have really worked with those five people and reproduced in them?

Now those five are even far better marketers than they were before.

To go along with that, *another question to ask ourselves.*

_Why do we evaluate personal brands-- almost exclusively, not all the time, but almost exclusively-- on what they produce more than who they reproduce?_

I'm gonna ask that again. Why do we evaluate personal brands and their success, the biggies out there that we strive to be-- why do we evaluate them on what they produce more than who they are reproduce?

Or on the results they're getting more than the results they're reproducing in other.

*Last question.* _How should we handle these inherent tensions that come with building a personal brand business? _

In this episode, that would be tensions like the tension between _quantity and quality._

That's a tension that's underneath this that you are going to have to wrestle with.

Here's another one, _my responsibility as the leader of this personal brand versus their responsibility_. They being my client or my customer or my audience. That's a tension that's inherent in this conversation today.

Well, what am I responsible for as a leader, versus what they are responsible for?

I can't care more about their business than they do. So where does my responsibility end, theirs begin. We're going to have to wrestle through that as we think about, do I just want to be out there producing stuff or do I want to take some of my attention and effort and say, I'm going to take the messier harder course or path.

But if I really am committed to this, I want to reproduce this in at least some of those that are connected to my personal brand business.

[00:19:18] Closing
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Thanks again for joining me as we wrestle through these.

We've got two more in this series and then I'll wrap it up with a very personal story about really what spawned this whole series of the seven deadly dangers of building a personal brand business. And I'm even going to let you know where that quote I've used several times and several other quotes, where did all of this come from.

What was the source material for this? I think you will be very, very surprised at the source material for this. So stick with me through this.

Also, I wanted to let you know, in the next couple of weeks, probably in the next two weeks, I'm going to do a free webinar where I'm going to show you how I build a single page, personal brand website.

For example, for a coach or consultant.

I'm going to invite you literally just to look over my shoulder. In a single webinar, I'm going to spin one of those up, show you what that looks like and allow you to just sit there and watch, and then obviously ask some questions there at the end. So I don't have all the details set.

So make sure you get on my email list because I will be emailing out to my list when that webinar gets scheduled. And I want you to be there and enjoy that with me and learn. We can learn together and do that. Hop on my email list. I'll put a link to my website in the show notes. So you can just hop on the email list is all.

If you're on there already, you should be good to go. You'll get the information.

In the meantime until the next episode go and build a life giving brand.