This is Why YOU Need a Personal Brand

People in the crowds love, love to tell people who are in the arena, on the court, on the field, doing the thing they love telling those people what is and what isn’t possible. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about being in the stands, being in the crowd, being in the audience that gives people this, this belief that they, they know this game, that they understand it better than the people who are on the field playing it. And I was reminded of this because last week I sent out a newsletter called how to build a, a million dollar personal brand. And I laid out the structure that we’ve used in my own personal brand to grow that to multiple seven figures at this point. But this is a framework that you could apply in all different domains. But the underlying message of that article was simply this, is that everybody needs to have a personal brand in this day and age. One of the examples that I used was that of a barista. The example is if you were working as a barista and you know you’re making your minimum wage, and one day you go to your shop and you discover it’s closed, the owner has closed it down, you have no more job, right? You’ve been terminated.

Now you’re going to go out into the marketplace and you’re going to try and find the new job. You’re going to go to the other coffee shops and you’re going to apply, you’re going to submit your resume, you’re going to sit in interviews and you’re going to be trying to put on your best foot and hopefully get in the door and continue your barista ing career. But the problem is that your skills, you have no reputation, right? You’re just another person who wants to make coffee to these companies. And so for them, as they are going through the list of resumes, you look fundamentally no different than anybody else that is applying for the same job. However, if you were to rewind, say, a year or two, if you had started creating unique content on the Internet, whether that’s on Instagram, doing reels or YouTube videos, or a podcast that was all about coffee, about recipes, about gear, if you were to create your own barista brand, as well as working in the restaurant or in the coffee shop, then let’s say maybe you have amassed an audience of 1015 thousand people. That’s a pretty good size audience for a niche like coffee. So now you get laid off, you go to these other coffee shops and you’re interviewing and they go, oh, I’ve seen your channel. Because coffee nerds like coffee nerds.

And so there’s a good chance they’ve consumed some of your content. If you’ve been in that space, who’s more likely to get the job now? Is it somebody that just submitted an application, a resume? Or is it the person who’s been putting out content and building a brand? I would hazard that it’s more likely the person with the brand is going to get the job now. That’s just one example of why the average person would be well served by having a personal brand. But it goes further than that. The reason I believe everybody should have a personal brand is because the upside for you to make money off your reputation is very, very vast in this world of social media and content creation. And so we could take that same barista and extrapolate out. What if in five years from now they kept putting out the content while working as a barista and they grow their channel from 15,000 to 15,0000, maybe to a million people? Well, now they have built in distribution with millions of eyeballs every single month. And now they could take this thing that they’re passionate, passionate about around coffee and transform that into a product that they could sell to this audience that brings them value.
And now maybe they have. Now they’re probably, if you have a million person personal brand, a million subscribers or audience, you could probably easily build a 10 million to $20 million business off the back of that with very little expertise required. Like it would be very easy because that’s a lot of eyeballs. If you only had maybe 50,000 eyeballs on you, that would still be very easy to grow into a million dollar business, I believe. So. All that’s to say is that everybody should have a personal brand. I laid out in this newsletter exactly how to go about doing that. I haven’t talked about the monetization yet, but we’ll talk about that in a future newsletter.
So if you’re not subscribed already, go check that out. Go to anthonyvasino.com newsletter. I think you can can go directly to the blog and read this particular article about the million dollar personal brand by going to anthonyvasino.com personal brand. Or just go to the blog and scroll through, you can find it. It’s very obvious. Million dollar personal brand. So go read that one and then you can read about the monetization. Anyway, trying to help you guys, give you some tools and ways of thinking that maybe outside of your business, you could also create a very, very powerful fly.
I will. Because the power of the personal brand, to me is that it’s baked in distribution when people know who you are. Like, every fundamental, fundamentally, every business needs to solve the same two problems, which is you need a product to sell and somebody to sell it to. Distribution comes as a result of the personal brand. So as long as you have that, you will. You always have that second part of the equation solved. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out, what can you sell to them that brings them value. Anyways, all that’s to say, this guy in the crowd, this person who read the article, he reached back out, and he goes, yeah, right.
Personal barista making a million dollar personal brand. Stupid. And I was. I was like, okay, let’s engage with this, because why not? Every now and then, I do. And so I went and I searched, and I was like, okay, who are the biggest coffee brand aficionados? And I found these three people. I can’t remember the name. It’s like, Tanner Colson, Dina something, and somebody. Zach Moe.
Each one of them has over a million subscribers on Instagram. One built his brand off the back of coffee gear. The other is a blogger. The other does coffee recipes. And the interesting thing about all three of these people is that they started their personal brands while working as baristas at various coffee shops. So they started as a barista, they started this thing and started to grow, and now it became, obviously, their main thing. And then his response to that was, well, there’s no reason to believe that they’re making millions of dollars. So we did a little bit more digging.
It’s like, you’re right. Like, these people are making, well, more than millions of dollars. And all that’s to say is that people who are in the crowd who are not actually doing the thing, love to tell the people who are on the field what is and what isn’t possible. It’s funny to me because I’ve had people tell me, like, oh, when I’ve shared the story in the past of how we built our window washing company to a million dollars of top line revenue in the first year, people love to tell me, oh, that’s impossible. I’m like, okay, well, what we did. So I don’t know why you’re arguing with this. Like, how many windows have you washed? But I’d share this with you, because it’s very, very easy to let that vocal minority of people who have never actually. That’s the majority.
Vocal majority of people who have never done the thing tell you why and why not is impossible. And yet, if anybody has done the thing. I truly believe if anybody has ever done the thing, then there’s no reason why you can’t as well. It’s physically possible as long as it doesn’t violate the rules, the laws of physics. It is possible for you, too. And I think that is the most empowering way to go about the world of entrepreneurship and building. Whatever thing that means something to you is to believe that it’s possible because our beliefs limit us far more than reality. That’s just the truth.
Yes, there are limitations to reality, but your beliefs about what’s possible, you are butting up against those far, far before you ever butt up against the limits of reality. So do not put yourself inside of this little paper prison of your own making. In fact, there’s this really cool video that came out a number of years ago. They take an ant, and they put it on this white piece of paper, and then they take this marker like a Sharpie, and they draw a circle around him. And the ant will not cross over the black line of the circle, though, you know, from our perspective, we can look at it and be like, obviously, you could just walk right through that. There’s no reason, nothing’s stopping you, right? But in his mind, it is an impassable demarcation. He has built this prison in his mind, and as a result, he is imprisoned. Now, something interesting happens is that if you take that black line and you were to cross it too close to the ants so that he accidentally crosses over to it, then you will never be able to trap that ant again.
He will never be stopped by the lines, because now he knows it’s all a ruse. It’s all a belief that’s been broken inside of his mind, and so you can do the same. These beliefs that we have in our lives that we’ve surrounded ourselves with, that we don’t even stop to question, and as a result, they limit us. And this is one of those is, you know, that’s not possible for me. It’s great for you to say, but in my industry, I’m just a barista. I love coffee. There’s no way I could ever grow this thing to that size. And the answer is, yes, you can.

If you believe it, it has to start there with the belief, and then that belief has to transmute into action. That’s the important part of the equation a lot of people miss. But it’s also the part that, you know, the universe responds to what we do, not to what we. What we plan. So hope this brings you guys some value. I just wanted to talk about this one because it’s so common that people will take to the message boards and tell you all the different ways why the thing that you’re trying to build is impossible, and you might be going through that with your friends or family, the people in your life who’ve never seen you build a thing before. So they’re on the side sidelines telling you all the different ways that this is stupid and it won’t work. Ignore them.

They’re the limiting beliefs do not need to be your anchor, so continue forging forward. I’ll see you guys in the next episode. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.