You don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars.
Let’s get that out of the way.
What you do need?
A clear mission, a deep obsession with helping people, and a personal brand built on trust.
I know that might sound like fluffy Internet talk, but it’s not.
Stick with me.
What I’m about to share is a repeatable, tactical system for standing out, scaling a business, and becoming the person people think of first when they need help solving a specific problem.
Let’s get into it.
Step 1: Start With WHO, Not WHY
We’ve all heard “start with why.”
But when you’re building a personal brand, it’s more like start with WHO.
Who is the exact person you’re trying to serve?
Because once you define that, everything else becomes easier: what content to create, what to sell, how to price it, and how to talk about it.
The shortcut to figuring out your “who” is to serve the person you once were.
You’ve already solved the problems they’re struggling with now.
You’ve felt the pain, learned the lessons, and walked the path.
That gives you an unfair advantage and all the credibility you need.
(If you’re struggling with identifying your “who” or what that looks like in your business, my company Brand Builders Group can walk you through this in a free strategy session.)
Step 2: Define the ONE Word Problem You Solve
Brené Brown owns “shame.”
Dave Ramsey owns “debt.”
I own “obscurity.”
What word do you own?
If people can’t clearly and simply understand the one problem you solve, they won’t know why to follow you…let alone hire you.
Get that clarity, and suddenly your entire content and business strategy has direction.
Then take it a step further: write down 52 questions your ideal customer has about that problem.
Tackle one question for each week of the year.
That’s your content plan.
Tip: Your Story Is the Strategy
People pay for transformation, not information.
And guess what?
Your story is the transformation.
If you’ve overcome something hard or helped others do the same, that becomes your content.
You don’t need to invent something out of thin air.
You just need to document what you did, turn it into a step-by-step framework, and give it away for free to build trust.
Step 3: Automation Is to Your Time What Compounding Is to Your Money
Automation is to your time what compounding interest is to your money.
Your content, your systems, your frameworks—those are all assets.
If you build them right, they work for you while you sleep.
(Especially when you stop playing “cover songs” of other people’s work and start creating your own.)
Every piece of content you publish should add value.
Save the best for first, not last.
If people don’t get anything useful from your free content, why would they pay for the rest?
Step 4: Serve Deep, Not Wide: Fractal Math and Scaling Without Millions of Followers
If you want to double your business, you don’t need to find more people.
You need to go deeper with the ones you already have.
I call it Fractal Math.
It goes like this:
- 1,000 people buy a $30 product = $30,000
- 10% of them will pay $300 = $30,000
- 10% of those will pay $3,000 = $30,000
- 10% of those will pay $30,000 = $30,000
That’s $120,000 from the same 1,000 customers.
Most people obsess over growing their audience when they should focus on deepening trust with the people already paying attention.
Step 5: Why Obsession Beats Talent Every Time
Growing a business online is hard because the environment is noisy, competitive, and there’s always someone bigger, louder, or earlier than you.
But you have one advantage no one else has: your obsession.
When you obsess over helping a specific group of people, your brand stands out.
You say “no” to things that don’t align.
You don’t jump on every trend.
You’re in this for the long game, and your audience can feel that.
That’s what separates people like Dave Ramsey, Lewis Howes, and Ed Mylett from the rest.
They’re obsessed with solving one specific problem for one specific person.
The Real ROI of a Personal Brand
Lots of people think personal branding is a vanity project.
But we (Brand Builders Group) conducted a national research study and found that:
- 74% of Americans trust someone more because of their personal brand.
- 63% are more likely to buy from someone with a personal brand.
- 58% are willing to spend more if they know the values of the founder.
In other words, your humanity is your unfair advantage.
So yes, build the funnels.
Yes, build the business.
But don’t skip the personal brand.
It’s the thing that gets people to care about what you’re building in the first place.
The Goal: Build the Business, Then Remove Yourself
Your personal brand is the booster rocket: it gets the business into orbit.
But once it’s flying, your brand doesn’t have to run everything.
That’s the end game: build something scalable, repeatable, and independent of you.
And if you’re not sure where to start?
Brand Builders Group has the roadmap.
To be clear: this isn’t about becoming famous, it’s about becoming trusted.
And that’s something we need more of (online and off).
If you’ve ever thought, “I have something to share, but I don’t know how to turn it into a business,” this is your first step.
