Episode 83
The Personal Brand Show (Pt. 2)
April 7, 2017 · Mike Murphy
EP83: THE PERSONAL BRAND SHOW (PT. 2) Behind the scenes look at my exact approach and strategies to building a personal brand. Episode Summary: 5 strategies and tactics I am using to build the Mike Murphy personal brand so I can build a business doing what I love and that is learning technology, creating content and teaching and inspiring others to move forward in business and in life.
Episode Summary: Part 2 of the personal brand series — the 5 concrete strategies and tactics behind building the Mike Murphy brand, from self-awareness work to visual identity to monetization.
What You’ll Learn
- A recap of the 5 core principles from Part 1, and 2 pre-show mindset tips
- The 5 concrete strategies used to build the Mike Murphy personal brand
- Why self-awareness assessments like StrengthsFinder and Fascinate matter for branding decisions
- How visual branding, content creation, business, and teaching all work together as one system
A behind-the-scenes look at the exact approach and strategy behind building the Mike Murphy personal brand — the goal being a business built around learning technology, creating content, and teaching and inspiring others to move forward in business and life.
Recap: Part 1’s 5 Core Principles
Episode 82 covered: start ASAP, practice and develop your skills, create content and build a body of work, be productive and hone business skills, and teach or share what you know.
Pre-Show Tips
Do you. Learn from and be inspired by others whose message resonates, but comparison and envy over someone else’s success are traps to avoid entirely.
Create your content. Everything’s been done before in some form — that’s fine. Someone else’s successful class or business doesn’t diminish the value of making your own version, made your own way.
Strategy 1: Self-Awareness
Understanding strengths and weaknesses well enough to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Knowing what makes you unique, and how others actually perceive you, shapes the content itself — the words used, the tone set.
3 ways to build self-awareness:
- Ask at least 5 friends and family members what they think you’re good at.
- Take the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment.
- Take Sally Hogshead’s “How to Fascinate” assessment, which reveals how others perceive you — a genuine eye-opener, referenced regularly since taking it. (Result: “The Anchor,” with trust as the primary advantage and mystique as the secondary one.)
Strategy 2: Branding & Artwork
Visual branding — colors, fonts, artwork — should be a genuine reflection of personality and style, not a polished, generic look. The brand leans into orange and yellow retro colors, a face, a podcast school bus, and the tagline “Learn. Create. Move Forward.” — scrappy and a little different on purpose, not refined.
Tip: pick a font and color palette and commit to it. A Fiverr designer can build a solid palette for around $5 — worth trying a few different designers to find the right fit.
Resources: Adobe Color, Coolors.
Strategy 3: Content Creation & Marketing
The brand centers on being a content creator across video, audio, and writing, and an expert in the tools used to make it. Main content: the podcast (audio), tutorials on YouTube/Instagram/Facebook (video), and Medium articles (writing).
Strategy 4: Business & Networking
Monetization: affiliate marketing (Amazon, Adobe, websites), educational content (courses, books), video production (tutorials and animated videos), and consulting.
Networking: social media, events (Podfest and Podcast Movement), and local business connections.
Strategy 5: Teaching & Sharing What You Know
Tightly linked to content creation — genuinely wanting to help people, not just perform expertise. This started with weekly “Ask Mike Anything” livestreams on Blab and Firetalk, has since moved to Instagram and Facebook Stories/Live, with YouTube Live planned as the next addition.