For the first decade of my professional career, I kept my damn mouth shut.

Seriously, go and Google it. You won’t find a single piece of content from me that pre-dates WLTV.

So what the hell was I doing?

I was working.

It stuns me that people keep asking about how to start a personal brand; how to be a “YouTube personality” without having a clear understanding of what comes before that, which is actually knowing something about something. It’s this notion that is so prevalent right now, which is that you can just come out of nowhere and build your brand through various tactics.

To position yourself as an expert is difficult, but most people aren’t asking the first important question, which is: expert in what? What do you want to provide people with? What are you great at? What do you love? What is your legacy going to be (because legacy is always above currency)?

People argue on this with me. Some say “Look at football coaches”, and what they mean by that is: coaches aren’t football players. You don’t have to be a great player to be a great coach. And to that I say: seriously? Have you looked at every football coach? Ignoring the fact that they are entirely different skill sets (because that’s another whole conversation), there is no football coach that comes out of nowhere at twenty-three and wins Super Bowls.

So this new quick hack of using social media and modern tech to build up your brand isn’t enough. It just isn’t. There is no substitute for honest hard work. You have to earn the privilege of building a “personal brand”, and the only way to do that is to actually execute.

Now, if you’ve met all those requirements above, if you’re really a business badass and your legacy is strong, here are some tips I have for getting your brand out there:

1. Decide if you’re ready to put yourself out there

2. Use email marketing to it’s full advantage

3. Make video content (the right way)

4. In fact, create as much content as possible

5. Never automate

6. Keep scaling your content

7. Hustle

Yep, it’s a lot. But you’re gonna have to get used to that. Once you become a brand, the work never stops. And if you truly love your legacy and respect it, it’ll be the best decision you ever make.

Gary Vaynerchuk – Personal Branding

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