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When you’re building your personal brand business – there’s a foundation you MUST lay before you can jump into selling and scaling. And in this episode, Bob Gentle will walk us through what the foundation is…

Plus he’ll talk to us about how setting a solid foundation doesn’t mean you have to wait to make a profit. He’ll show us how you can work the entire process simultaneously so you’re building and selling as you go.

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Bob’s Previous Episode – episode 95

Alyson Lex 0:04
We have known Bob for, I don't know, a year, year and a half now maybe a little longer. I'm not really sure to be honest with you. But if there is one person besides Jennie Wright, that I'm stoked, that is in my world, it's Bob gentle, have amplified. He is so smart guys, and I am super excited that we're going to talk with him today, hear some stories, some case studies and things that are working and not working when it comes to building your personal brand business online. And in a minute, I'm gonna ask him to really tell me what a personal brand business is. But first, Bob, thank you for being here with us.

Bob Gentle 0:48
Oh, my pleasure, I think you're two of my favorite podcasters there's no many people can pull a podcast off effectively with two people. And keep it going. So my congratulations for that. But yeah, you're great fun to speak to every time.

Alyson Lex 1:01
Well, thank you. Um, I like this starting an episode off with a compliment thing that's good for the ego. Bob, tell me before we talk about what a personal brand is, and what a personal brand businesses? How did you get into this? What made you focus on on helping people build this?

Bob Gentle 1:22
It's a really good question. And honestly, it's one of those questions I would really struggle to answer. I think as a kid, one of the things that really bugged me, and has always bugged me was this whole idea of going to work to make a living to go to work to make a living. And that hamster wheel. And I think, I heard a phrase the other day of going to work in the boredom minds. And I think for so many people, that's a reality is they go, and they work at a job they're not really into. But in every single person, there's this spark, then there's something that good. And if they feel called, to execute on that, to take action on it, I really want to be there to help them with that. Now, not all my work is around helping people with personal brands, I work with corporates as well. But if I'm going to be making an impact on in the world, it's going to be most effectively by helping individuals hone in on their zone of genius, and take that to the people who need it most in the world. So a personal brand is really that which goes before you, I guess what do people apart a brand is what do people say about you, when you're not in the room? A personal brand is exactly the same thing, essentially. But are people even talking about you? For a lot of people? The answer is no. So your personal brand, focusing in on that is building your visibility, but then marketing and monetizing that as well as where the business comes in.

Jennie Wright 2:56
There's a lot there. When it comes to personal brand. I think there's a lot of questions about it, which is why we want to have you back. Bob's been a guest on this podcast before go find his previous episode, it's well worth a listen. But one of the things that we want to ask you today in terms of branding and personal branding, and scaling, and all this kind of stuff is also not both downloaded your personal brand business blueprint, it is a great freebie it's on your website, we will link it in our show notes. And we'll do that in a couple of minutes. So you guys can go and check it out. But in that outline that you give it and I think it's like 33 pages or 37 pages, it's really great. In there, you outline everything you need to know to build a business or build your personal brand business. And I think my question is, can you tell us a little bit more about the stages that people have to go through in order to get that whole making oodles of money thing happen?

Bob Gentle 3:51
Yeah, so the reason that roadmap slash blueprint came along. So the blueprint is really the whole document where there's lots of text and stuff to bid that I really focus in on is the visual element of it, the roadmap. And the reason I put that together was partly to help me put in order, what for a lot of people is just chaos. And most people struggle to prioritize all the different pieces of advice they get. Some people will tell you a virtual Summit is your key to riches. Other people were telling Facebook ads, and other people will tell you just go on a podcast. It's amazing. But there's an order and there's a structure to these things. And if you work on the foundational elements first and those are really understanding what is your zone of genius? What's the niche that you're going to focus in on if you're going to and then how are you communicating that to the world? Are you communicating that to the world and a lot of the time, people haven't done that basic work, they might be brilliant at what they do. But if you don't know who you're for, you're gonna have a problem because there are billions of people on Earth. There are plenty of people for everyone. So who do you want to communicate with let's articulate clearly Then look at some fundamentals of trying to turn an audience, into someone you have a relationship with. So looking at email lists and the conversion of audience into emails, do you have the basic mechanics of that in place? A lot of the time, the answer is no. Again, you might have a brilliant consulting business. And if you haven't got these foundations nailed down when you come to scale, later on, you're going to struggle, and you're going to leave a ton of money on the table, then there's looking at, what are you communicating? How consistently Are you committing, I've even made a commitment to being a content creator. If you haven't done that, again, later on, you're going to struggle to have any credibility, then looking at your authority, how are you building your visibility, I'm here on your podcast. So next time, somebody says you should speak to Bob, there's not gonna be a Who the hell's Bob is going to be you should go check out his podcast, Jenny, and analysts and said, He's awesome. This is building your authority, you need to focus in on that. And then, and this is a big one for me, productization. I have a client who has a very successful consulting practice. But he couldn't scale because he hadn't packaged things in such a way that people could go, I want to blue one. If you have made it complicated for people to buy, if you haven't put what if you haven't put your genius in a box and wrapped a bow on the top, people are going to struggle to buy it if you can't communicate what that is. And then once you've done that, then you can come looking at sales processes and scale processes and things like that. And again, there are a lot of tactics and techniques about that. Most people want to jump right to the end. And then they wonder why they struggle. So those are the kinds of things the roadmap will help you structure and put in order.

Alyson Lex 6:46
So I love that you have that foundational process, and I am here for it. However, how long does it take to set all that stuff up? Because if I'm trying to grow my business, like I'm ready to make money. And I think maybe that's why people skip is because they want to get to that profit part. So how long can we expect to set this kind of thing up?

Bob Gentle 7:13
I think like a lot of building processes, you start from the bottom, and you gradually work up, but you can find success right at the beginning. And if your business isn't making any money, then jumping straight into scaling processes isn't the place to go. If you can't sell on the phone, you're not going to sell in a summit. That's just the truth. If you haven't got to the place place where you can clearly articulate the value of what you do to one person on a call. Then why is that going to be any different than a webinar? You're just gonna have 100 people say no, instead of one.

Jennie Wright 7:51
And I want to break in because I want to get really specific if I can with some of the stuff that you're saying. Right? So one of the things you said is you could you know, you could get success right off the bat. And I think you and I have we've had some really cool discussions since the time that we've known each other on how we're going to get that scale like you were on my summit growing profit online, you were on episode 95. For this podcast. The specifics like I want to get I think you and I both agree and Allison agrees to is that some people just like you were saying jump into quickly, expecting that they'll get to, you know, superstar status right away. Without having those fundamentals in place. If we put the fundamentals in place, give us a timeline, like what can people expect? Sure, you could, you can go viral and you know, have massive success. But how about for the rest of the world, like the rest of the online people?

Bob Gentle 8:44
I think as soon as you start understanding, right at the very beginning of my roadmap, we've got niche and genius. So there's understanding really, what is it as uniquely valuable about you getting done that work? Doing that will mean you really only sell to magic, and you're not selling all the other stuff nobody cares about. So if you can do that, everything you do subsequently is going to be more effective starting tomorrow. So then we look at things like a salad. If I'm invited onto a summit, and I've never been a podcast guest I've never been a content creator. I'm going to I'm going to poorly optimize that opportunity. Yes, it might work for me. But if I'd spent a little bit of time in a podcast guest first. When I have that summit opportunity, I'm going to be more confident, I'm going to be more articulate, and I'm going to be more effective. So I'm jumping around a little bit. But the truth is, when I started doing YouTube videos, I was in it for the long game. The reality is the first three YouTube videos I Did people who already knew me said, Bob, I love that I want to work with you, they already knew me. But I was a content creator of Bob, now, I wasn't the guy that was trying to hustle anymore. So you can see success at the beginning of all of these things at every level. Spending time on them will, will, will bring your success, layer them together, work on them all in parallel, and in sequence, and you'll see incredible success gives pretty much guaranteed.

Alyson Lex 10:31
I like what you said there about working on things in parallel, but still following that sequence. So you're not saying, hey, Alison, you've got to go through what steps one through four of my roadmap before you can sell anything? You're saying? Do it all together? Right?

Bob Gentle 10:53
What I would want people to use my roadmap for is to look at where have they maybe got a weakness or a vulnerability? Where could they cultivate and where could they grow in order to be more successful with everything else that they're doing? It's really, the way I would, the way I often describe it is, it's a little bit like a tourist map. You know, when you're going on vacation, and you don't really understand where you're going, you might go to some great places, you might have a great time. But you missed all kinds of amazing stuff that if you'd known about it, you would prioritize that first. So that's how I look at it. It's really the difference between a tourist map, which really focuses on the highlights of the things you can't miss, rather than a geographic map, which just has everything and you have no way to discriminate what's important and what's not.

Jennie Wright 11:43
Okay, so that, that does make me understand a little bit better what you're sort of saying, and I'm trying to pull out as much content as I can for listener so that they understand sort of what to expect when they're trying to build something like this out. And your experience.

Bob Gentle 12:01
Jenny's having a cough.

Jennie Wright 12:06
Have you seen? You know, have you seen things work? Where most of it comes from building that personal brand? Or can you give us any examples on you know how that works, or what it might look like we get like super concrete with us.

Bob Gentle 12:23
Being super concrete if you take something like a framework. So the personal brand blueprint, and the roadmap element of that is to Bob gentle framework, this is how I approach the work. And I have a couple of clients who were great at what they did. They were brilliant, and they had fairly successful businesses. They were both comfortably in the six figures just nudged into six figures doing quite well. But they really struggled to communicate to customers what it was that made them different from their competitors, because they were both coaches. But they both came at it from a very specific, but very different angle. So he said, Okay, let's look at the framework element in your business. Do you have a roadmap or a framework or a guide that really puts in clear terms? What working with you would look like so the five step program, the roadmap as I have, there's lots of different framework styles. Neither of them had one. And within a couple of weeks of spending a bit of time on us, they were seeing much more success in sales, because people could immediately snap into what it was they did. Everything that they subsequently did in terms of going to podcasts, they found easier. In terms of writing, they found easier. In terms of the content they created, they found easier because they had rails to run on for everything. And this framework spoke specifically two they're very different niches. One is in the you works in the sort of, would you call it he works in the church in the US. And another one works with consulting firms, big global consultants, consulting firms, the framework allowed both of them to communicate more articulately and be more effective. So that's one example I guess. Another example is podcasts. And looking at when you want to scale later on in your business, an important element you'll all both be well aware of is the power of joint ventures. If you haven't spent a little bit of time working on your personal authority, and your network and community, when you come to take that decision, I want to work on joint ventures and I want to grow through that. It's incredibly powerful. You can double your revenue very quickly just through joint ventures. When you go knocking on doors asking to join in people's joint ventures or for people to promote your products, they're gonna say, Who are you Why should I trust you? So again, looking at these joint ventures for some clients, they know they want to go there. They know what they want to leverage this. It's very powerful. And that's why we say, well, today you need to focus on podcasts. So tomorrow, you'll be taken seriously when you want to look at joint ventures.

Alyson Lex 15:21
I like the framework thing. And so one of the things that I've talked to my clients about when I write their copy is that the idea of having that framework, that system, that acronym that something, it makes it feel more established as well, like, it's not just Suzie Q made this up off the top of her head, like she's put thought into this, and she's made it a thing, it's a thing. And I never thought about how it helps communicate it better throughout all of the other stuff. So I really just wanted to kind of call that out. And I know that before we hit the record, and actually, even after we hit record, we talked about one of the big mistakes that people make, which is trying to monetize and scale up to soon. What are some of the other pitfalls or traps that you've seen some of your clients fall into that that we can avoid?

Bob Gentle 16:27
I think there's another element to the roadmap, I have another secondary framework, which I haven't made public yet. Because there's an important aspect to this, that really, this roadmap is all about information. But the truth is, if we all had the same information, we would all be running seven figure businesses, eight figure businesses, success isn't just an information game. It's also about personal development and personal growth. And I'd see the biggest mistake people making is the arrogance that they are complete, they're finished. Humility in this game is very important. Because if you're not willing to accept, you've got some growing to do, you're going to struggle. When we look at things like content creation, when I work with brand new clients who are right at the beginning of this journey, they'll tell me, I'm too busy for a social media post once a week. We've got some work to do here. If they're not willing to accept that they've got some work to do, then there's a problem. There kind of areas. I'm working on a book just now, you can probably tell them something cool coming. I've got the secretary framework, which I'm calling the seven blades of good fortune My wife hates to me. But it's really looking at what is it that makes the super successful, super successful, because it's not information if you parachuted me into I don't know, what Todd Herman's business, or you parachuted me into what what's his name, Tony Robbins business, I would destroy it in a week, because I'm not the person that I would need to be in order to successfully deliver that. So I spent a bit of time looking at what are the personal qualities, the characteristics that these people all have in common. And I came up with this idea of the seven blades of good fortune. These are the seven qualities that they all work on. And it's things like building your knowledge and your understanding, being a lifelong learner, actually having a dream and a vision. So many people limit their visions limit their dreams, focusing on being more productive, if you can't manage a social media post, once a week, you have a productivity problem. Building your network and your community, building your creativity and your imagination because that's a big one for a lot of people. They have no creativity, mindset and positivity. There's one guy I look I look at online, I think he's the most positive person I've ever seen. He's always got something nice to say about everyone and everything. Your basic confidence and a bit of swagger. I am a raging introvert. As a kid, very, very shy, I've had to work on this very hard. Those seven qualities are fundamentally successful to your success on this journey. And anybody that you see this at the peak of their candy, keep these seven blades very sharp. So I say that because it's important because the thing that's going to let you down is not information. It's that you're not willing to grow.

Alyson Lex 19:41
I am not going to lie. I kind of want someone to hand me seven blades of good fortune. So I can be like the next Marvel movie superhero because that's exactly what that sounds like. I write like, so marketing that you can market it that way become your own business superhero. All right. Good fortune, Oh, perfect, same same wavelength, all of that. All right? How do we get started? So, you know, I have my business. And then I have my personal brand, which is just how I'm showing up as the face of my business or as a member of my business. I'm more I'm want to make sure that people view me as the expert. They, you know, I've got the authority, they see who I am they see my stuff. How do we? How do we juggle all that? Because there's five phases in there that you're saying that I got to do all at one time? How do I figure out which is the most important other than figuring out where my big hole is, like you mentioned with your clients like these are the you don't have that framework? How do I make sure that I'm focusing where I need to focus when I need to focus on it?

Bob Gentle 21:00
I think for a lot of people, that's the biggest struggle. And the honest truth is, it's going to be hard. A roadmap is helpful. But if you're going if you're spending a lot of money on a vacation, you're probably going to hire a tour guide. And I think that's why working with people like you is important for people like me, so that you got somebody to hold the hand on the way to help you identify, Okay, you know what, you've seen the Sistine Chapel a couple of times, you've you've watched it on video, you've only got a day. So let's not go there. Let's go here instead. To help you make those judgments if you're not a seasoned traveler, travel with others, go on a bus tour, join masterminds get a coach, find mentors, these are the way we make this is the way we make this journey. Work is how we make it effective and efficient. You can figure all this stuff out on your own, but it's going to cost you time. So with this map in hand, you can work with people like me, you can work with people like you, you can find mentors, you can find Facebook groups, the tour guide, will allow you to make some decisions. But it's not going to be the same as having a tour guide. That's the simple answer is it's different for everybody.

Jennie Wright 22:21
It's simple. But yeah.

Bob Gentle 22:25
The reason I built that guide, was to make me more effective with my clients, I make it available to other people in order to a they can see what I'm about. But also, if they're not ready to work with me, they can ask me a quick question. And I can say, this is where you need to focus on today. And the reason for that is because of this and this. And that doesn't have to cost them any money. It also does a lot of people download it, and they never get in touch with me. But I see them taking action. So

Jennie Wright 22:59
there's a lot to unpack and everything that you said, you know, Allison, and I have 1000, I have a lot of respect for what you do and trying what you're creating. And being a introvert to an to an extent myself, I understand that nervousness if you can believe it, this semi introvert used to get up on stage and sing in front of people. I don't even know how I did it. But then I would need to recover afterwards. So taking everything that you've been talking about, I think people need to go and check you out. I think they need to find out more information. Where can people find out this information, where's the best place on the web or sphere for them to get in touch with you.

Bob Gentle 23:44
You can find me on social media. Everywhere you go. It's at Bob gentle, I'm super easy to find. My website, which is where you can get the roadmap is amplify me dot Agency, and the roadmap will pop up in front of you, I promise. Other than that, I have a podcast again in any podcast player to search Bob gentle or amplify or the personal brand Entrepreneur Show and you will find it. And I will be delighted to have anyone join me anywhere. And if anyone wants to email me, again is Bob at amplify me dot agency. I am happy to hear from anyone for any reason.

Jennie Wright 24:22
Well, I can attest to your openness and availability because I've had many conversations with you on different platforms. So just head on over Rob those all those links in our show notes so you can grab them. And I just want to take a quick thanks. A quick second to thank you for being on for the second time on the System to THRIVE podcast. We really enjoyed having

Bob Gentle 24:40
you back. Oh, it's an absolute honor. I'm thrilled. Thank you so much.

Jennie Wright 24:44
Awesome. Thanks so much. And to my co host Alison great questions today. Always,

Alyson Lex 24:52
I do what I can. It's always just a little self serving.

Jennie Wright 24:57
Always right. We're always trying to learn something from this So thanks so much for listening everybody if you haven't already please make sure you're following this podcast everywhere you're listening to podcasts leave us a comment let us know what you think and we'll be back again soon take care