Today’s information springs off of yesterdays post.  In that post we spoke about getting ‘Back To The Basics‘… and chilling out on the ‘Ninja Moves’.  If you haven’t read that post, head over and do that before reading this post.

So now that you understand how the ‘Law of Compounding‘ is just about doing a handful of simple things over and over,  I want to break down those simple steps.  These are the steps that you will do after you have defined your personal brand.

Here is a visual image of how this looks, and then I’ll go into describing each piece below the image…

Step 1: Design Your “Cash Flow Map”

This piece of  the puzzle is going to be a work in progress… well most of these steps will be.  It’s ideal to at least have a 1st phase of this in place before you start marketing (Blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, etc.).  Your ‘Cash Flow Map’ basically is the back-end of your Personal Brand.

Think of your marketing as your ‘front-end’… which funnels people to your ‘back-end’.  This is what you will be offering the people who subscribe to your list.  This is basically the stuff on the shelves of your store.  As people get to know you, like you and trust you… they will join your list and buy from you.

An important principle to remember here is you MUST offer them stuff that has to do with your niche, and the value that you’re offering must be way MORE than the dollars you are asking.

Let’s get something straight. It’s okay to sell stuff and make money from your Personal Brand!

It’s funny… people have this feeling like it’s not okay to sell stuff and make money from your blog and your brand.  Are you going to tell me that these people are not buying anything from anyone in their life?  It’s ridiculous… just make sure that what you are offering INCREASES your readers and followers life.

Step 2: Build Your Social Media Following

The first thing I want to say about this is DO NOT over complicate this.  I don’t know the exact total, but I think there are over 1000 Social Media/Networking sites on the internet today.  You DO NOT need to be on all of them.  This would be an overwhelming task.

For starters just make sure you’re hangin’ on the big boys… Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.  These three sites alone can help you to create a Rock Star Personal Brand.  You can drive more than enough traffic back to your blog from just being active on these three.

You want to focus on adding friends and followers within your niche.  Remember, you must know who your target audience is when defining your Personal Brand… this way you will know what type of people to build your following around.  If you don’t know who you want to connect with, how can you add friends and followers?  Make sense?

Step 3: Create Content

Now you need some content to share with your friends and followers.  I look at your content as the electrical, plumbing and mechanical pieces when you are building a house… it’s the stuff that makes everything run.  Without content, nothing happens!

Let me rephrase that… ‘Without Engaging Content, Nothing Happens”

This is where you will be sharing information with your following that adds value to them.  Once you know who your target audience is, then you can ask yourself “What problem can I solve for this audience?… How can I better

Building a brand or a business is all about creating solutions to other people’s problems/challenges.  A solution is something that ‘adds value’ to someone’s life… which basically means you’re answering unanswered questions that they have, or in so many words solving their problem.

Whatever type of content you are comfortable with, let that be your choice.  There are basically 3 types… video, audio and text.  I feel video is the most effective out of all the types.  I like to mix it up, mostly between video and text… and I will be getting to adding the audio in as well soon.

Step 4: Drive Traffic

Now it’s time to get some eyeballs on your stuff.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are going to be great sources of FREE quality traffic.  You’ve been building a targeted following of people within your niche on these sites to be able to share your solution driven content with them.

All you have to do at this point is post it as your Facebook status and send out a Tweet with the link to your blog post.  Instead of updating your Facebook status, you could create a Facebook ‘note’ to mix things up.  It will appear on your Facebook page as well, but the cool thing about notes is you can tag your friends and followers.

When you tag someone within the Facebook note, it will show up on their profile page and it will also show in the news feed of the people who are friends with them… gotta love the viral effect of social media!

If there was a video for the post, just upload it to your YouTube account.  Add some tags, which basically are keywords, and a short description.  Then embed the video on your blog.  It’s that simple…

A little tip for when creating the description of the video, add the URL of the blog post that you’re embedding the video on.  This is to drive the person back to your blog after watching the video.

Step 5: Build Relationships

Now this is where most people fall off.  After they’ve gone through all of the work to build their following and create their content, they don’t respond to people.  It’s very important to respond to Facebook comments, Twitter replies and retweets, YouTube comments and comments on your blog.

This is what it’s all about.  You are doing everything else to be able to do this.  It comes down to caring about your readers and your following.  The brands that CARE the most in the end… WIN!

It really can be that simple…

Once you’ve got the basics down and you’re doing them consistently… then go train to be a Ninja.  The cool part about this whole Personal Branding deal is, you can create a killer brand without all of the fancy moves and strategies.  The secret Ninja move that really counts… is CONSISTENCY!

It’s really not a Ninja move… it’s just that most people aren’t consistent so the principle of consistency seems like a secret.  It’s the one ingredient that cannot be left out when cookin’ up a successful Personal Brand!

**A Quick Little Tip**

If you go through the process of clarifying your personal brand, then all of these basic skills become that much more powerful.  When you know ‘what’ you are offering and ‘who’ you are offering it to, there is no stopping your success!

I’d love to hear your feedback…

Do you agree with me that it’s the basics that make the brand?  Share your thoughts at the bottom of this post by leaving a comment.  I always love the feedback that I get from the community here.  So much value comes from you when you leave comments.

Give this post a twirl and share it with your Facebook and Twitter buddies…

I’ve got some great news for you… I’ll be breaking down each of the 5 Basic Skills in more depth in tomorrow’s video blog post.  Definitely keep your eyes open tomorrow as you’re not going to want to miss it.

Keep it real… and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Yours In Success,

Eric Goldstein

Related Posts:

• 5 Basic Personal Branding Skills
• Back To The Basics… Enough With All The Ninja Moves!
• How To Design Your Cash Flow Map
• Have You Created Your ‘Cash Flow Map’ Yet?
• Crush Your Brand Contest Winners…
• Are You Branding YOU Or Someone Else?
• 5 Steps To Clarifying Your Personal Brand
• Are You Cash Flowing Your Passion?

Tagged as: basic skills to creating a personal brand, blogging basics, cash flow your passion, create a personal brand, create a powerful personal brand, creating a personal brand, creating a powerful personal brand, personal branding, personal branding basics