How Personal Branding Saved My Life

The Comeback - Week 14 (19,500 Subs):

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“I have found someone else”

That was the last message I read from the woman I loved most.

I had never felt pain like this in my entire life. 

In a matter of seconds, the small amount of hope I was clinging onto was shattered into a thousand pieces.

She meant everything to me.

I was on the brink. I had nothing left to give.

So I stepped forward to the edge of my balcony in Austin Texas – looking down at the concrete 22 floors below - preparing myself to jump.

We all have moments in life where we feel the walls closing in around us.

Sometimes we feel the only option left is to end everything instead of facing the excruciating pain.

But if we dig deep into our soul, and find that one flicker of hope, often it can be enough to pull us through.

And that’s exactly what happened to me.

I turned my pain into triumph by finding a higher purpose that has ignited a blazing inferno of self-belief and inspiration.

But before I tell you about how that story ended let me first tell you how it all began and why my personal brand was my saving grace.

So It’s the end of 2021 and I’m working from my small home office in Bristol England and I’ve just joined a small marketing agency called Alpha Inbound.

A performance marketing company in the E-commerce space that helps brands scale through creative assets and paid advertising on social media.

At the time they were doing about $5,000 a month in revenue and I made a bold promise to the founder: “I’ll get this agency to $100,000 a month”.

I didn’t know exactly how - I just knew I WOULD NOT STOP until I got the job done.

But standing out in one of the most competitive landscapes by just sending out cold emails wasn’t going to be enough. I had to be bold. I had to do something different.

So I started posting on LinkedIn.

Finally, after staring at blank Google documents, having no idea what to write and constantly posting but seeing zero traction I cracked it.

I went on to gain 50,000 followers for my personal brand, bring in $600,000 of new revenue for the agency last year directly from LinkedIn, and hire our best team members all inbound.

In this piece, I’ll be sharing with you:

• Why You’re not too late to the party to start a personal brand

• Why it is the one asset that connects ALL the dots

• How you start today and get attention fast

• How to turn that attention into revenue for your business

Today on David to Goliath:

1. Failures - Newsletter Going to Spam

2. Breakthroughs - Balkan E-commerce

3. Main Topic - How to Build a Personal Brand

4. Mindset - Expectations

5. Dan’s Introduction

Road to 100,000: Behind the Scenes

Failures - Newsletter Going to Spam

Just a quick one here. On this newsletter we’re actually sharing some of the information we shared last week.

This is because the newsletter ended up in most people’s Spam folders and the deliverability rate was incredibly low.

For those of you who’ve read it, there’s no harm in hammering the message home.

Plus, there was another reason…

Breakthroughs - Balkan E-commerce

The truth is we’ve spent the last month preparing for our presentation at Balkan E-commerce - happening this Friday on April the 5th.

I’m talking about why a personal brand is the one asset that connects all the dots, and why it can transform your business and life (I know it did mine).

What you’re reading today is my exact speech, word for word.

In my opinion, this is my best content yet.

I hope you enjoy (and also learn something).

Main Topic: How to Build a Personal Brand

First, let’s strip everything back.

What activities do we need to take in order to grow a business?

You’re likely doing one of the following:

• You’re trying to make more sales

• You’re trying to hire better talent

• You’re trying to find investors to grow your business faster

• You’re trying to find partners that have access to ALL your ideal clients

For the ones of you who don’t fall into any of the above, I’m not sure what you’re up to but please email me your secrets because clearly I’m missing something!

But look to grow a business you’re going to have to do all these things at some point.

And each one on their own takes an extraordinary amount of time.

And since we only have 24 hours a day working hard will not be enough.

We have to play smart.

We have to play with leverage.

Leverage, leverage…

That big smart word that gets thrown around.

But what does leverage actually mean for business?

Simply put: Achieving more output with every input of time.

For example:

Input: Person A writes LinkedIn post.

Output: 10 people read.

Input: Person B writes LinkedIn post.

Output: 100,000 people read.

Same input. Drastically different output.

That’s leverage.

The more leverage you have, the faster you can grow.

As Naval Ravikant states, there are 4 main types of leverage:

1- People:

Hiring others and then delegating aspects of your business so as a team you scale faster (and get back your time to focus on ‘move the needle’' activities).

2- Capital:

Getting money to invest in key areas and accelerate growth.

3- Technology:

Utilising software and technology to do things 10X faster and 10X cheaper than humans otherwise could.

4- Media:

Influencing the masses with your personal brand.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.

The last and newest type of leverage (media), is the one which connects all the dots.

If you play your cards right and build a powerful personal brand, you’ll have access to:

• The best team members

• The best investors

• The best tech companies

No slimy sales tactics necessary.

But before posting content and building your personal brand, I first need to tell you where 99% of people go wrong.

The myth of Attention.

So many companies still bang on about only writing for your ideal customer.

Well I call B.S. and here’s why:

First, imagine your ideal customer.

• How old are they?

• What kind of business do they run?

• What role do they have in that business?

• What problems are keeping them up at night?

For me last year the ideal customer was the CEO of a supplement brand on Shopify doing between $5 - $20M in revenue that was having problems scaling their social media advertising profitably.

Now that limits me to about 8,000 people, probably less.

So out of the 1 billion people that use LinkedIn you’re telling me it’s a good idea to only write content for 8,000 people?!

Something just felt wrong, so I started digging.

I took a step back and thought to myself in the decision making process exactly who do they speak to when deciding whether or not to work with my company?

1. People in their team

2. Partners they work with

3. Their friends who are business owners

4. Smilar business owners

I wanted to influence THOSE people, not just my ideal customer.

So I came up with a philosophy called the sphere of influence.

With the objective being that when my ideal customer would ask those people in their sphere of influence who to work with the same answer would come back everytime:

Nigel Thomas, 

Nigel Thomas,

NIGEL THOMAS!!

And that’s exactly what happened.

Whilst the rest of the agencies were struggling to get new business last year, our pipeline was overflowing with opportunities and we grew over 100%, all inbound.

So now we’ve got that out of the way who wants to know how to get attention organically really fast?!

(admittedly this part works better in a speech but I’ll pretend you’ve just put up your hand screaming with excitement)

Look, it doesn’t matter what platform you use, the foundation of getting attention is always the same.

It’s about understanding the core underlying principles of human psychology.

After posting over 700 times on LinkedIn and getting over 10 million impressions all organically these are 6 things I recommend focusing on right now to get attention and penetrate your ideal customer's sphere of influence:

1- Authority and Social Proof

No one wants to be the guinea pig.

As humans our basic instinct, just like any other creature is to survive.

So 99% of people will choose the option which in their eyes has the least likelihood of failure.

Think about it.

When was the last time you bought a product on Amazon with a 1-star review?

Probably never - and that’s the point.

We go with what looks safe.

So how do you maximize safety with your content?

By tapping into authority sources people trust and also backing up your previous experience with social proof (numbers).

For example: Looking back through all the teams I’ve run and clients we’ve helped the total amount spent on social media advertising is $100M. This is a big number that commands authority and grabs people’s attention as they’re scrolling through the Newsfeed.

Action Items: 

• Brainstorm your best achievements

• Think of impressive numbers/publications you’ve been in

• Get creative and don’t shy away from being bold

• Give people a reason to trust you, give them the safe option

2- Going Against the Grain

Another thing we humans love is being nosy.

Remember when your mum told you that crazy story about your neighbour?

You were hooked. Eager to find out what happened next so you could butt in with your opinion.

Yes, we all love a bit of gossip (too much if you ask me!).

So how can we best utilise people’s curiosity to get attention?

Taking a common narrative and taking an opposing view.

For example: Common advice is not to put all your eggs in one basket. In this LinkedIn post, I took the opposing angle and used a story in my life to back that viewpoint. The post did really well, getting over 700 engagements:

Action Items: 

• List out your strongest opinions

• Think about the polar opposite

• Find commonly used phrases

• State why you think different

• Show how it can benefit them

Important Note: You must actually believe in the view you’re putting forward. Getting attention for the sake of it is a terrible strategy because you’ll just attract people towards a fake persona. This is a surefire to burn yourself out and become extremely unhappy.

3- Bridging The Gap:

The only constant in human evolution is change.

That’s why you’re reading this and not sitting in a cave wondering where your next meal is coming from.

We’re always looking for progress and to better ourselves.

If you can relate to your audience by painting a picture of their current situation, and then giving them a bridge to their desired situation, they will listen.

For example: I took my situation from 5 years ago when I was $50,000 in debt (current situation) and then showed where I am today - being the CEO of a 7 figure marketing agency (desired situation).

Action Items: 

• Ask clients about current situation

• Watch back through your sales calls

• Think back where you were 1 yr ago

• What problems kept you up at night?

• Where do you clients want to be?

• Write content using exact language

• Give people a bridge from their current to their desired situation

4- Step-Step Processes:

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

And the quickest way to show your care is by giving them back more of their most important asset: time.

If you share an easy to follow step-step process and when they implement it solves their problem, you will not only get a lot more attention, but you will also win their trust.

Meaning when they need their next problem fixed in that area, they will come to you.

For example: I spent hours and hours relentlessly testing out different sales tactics to take E--commerce brands from not knowing who I was to becoming high paying customers. I went back through everything that actually mattered and broke it down into 9 simple steps that nearly anyone in a service-based business could understand and implement.

Action Items: 

• Reverse engineer how you solved problems for your clients

• Break down the process into extremely simple steps

• List them out with original subtitles

• Start posting so people can implement and get same result

5- Sharing Personal Stories:

For over 50,000 years humans have communicated through stories.

Whether oral, written or spoken.

Safe to say: It works.

But telling good stories is rare.

The best way to stand out is to be vulnerable.

People love supporting someone on their hero journey. Yes, the wins are great, although, you’ll stand out more if you share your struggles.

Because it’s hard - and most people aren’t willing to for fear of judgement or appearing weak.

For example: I think most of you know by now I lost the woman who believed in me most and that led me down a dark path. The reason why I started David to Goliath - to document my comeback. This post was the first time I opened up and a lot of people reach out to me directly saying how much this had touched them. 

Action Items:

• Using the hero’s journey framework map out the key events in your life

• Break down each into a separate story focusing your struggles

• Tell people either moral of story or the solution you used to break through

• Even though it’s your story, it’s actually about them, not you

6- Write Attention Grabbing Headlines

David Ogilvy known as the godfather of advertising once said: “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

So spending at least 50% on an attention-grabbing headline is crucial.

I have re-written the headline for old pieces of content and changing nothing else it got 10X the reach.

That’s how much difference it makes.

And most people’s headlines absolutely suck.

To write great headlines use the previous 5 points - Authority/social proof, going against the grain, bridging the gap, giving away step-step processes and sharing personal stories.

For example, here are 2 bad headlines and how I’d fix them to get attention using a mixture of the 5 techniques:

Bad Headline: “I successfully scaled a marketing agency.”

Attention Gripping Headline: “I scaled a marketing agency from $80,000 to $1.2M in less than 12 months by implementing these 7 key steps:”

Action Item: Using the 5 techniques listed above spend at least 50% of your time writing attention-grabbing headlines. Start testing and see what your audience likes best. Don’t copy and paste others. Originality pays best.

So now you know how to get attention FAST!

Here are my 3 Biggest Undervalued Personal Brand strategies.

(Which 99% don’t use but are shockingly simple):

1. Stay consistent by making the process fun

2. Get quality feedback to improve faster

3. Tap into other people’s media leverage

Stay Consistent By Having Fun:

Just like the world's biggest creator Mr Beast did back in the day, find a friendship group with other people on the same path as you.

Reach out to at least 10 people who post consistently on your platform of choice and:

1. Engage on each other's content

2. Share the best strategies that are working right now 

3. Collaborate to tap into each other's audiences (more on that in a second)

Get Quality Feedback:

Look, no matter how much you read you’re never going to be perfect at content day 1. Even on day 10,000. You must leave your ego at the door and get feedback.

3 main ways to get feedback:

1. Your friendship group (as mentioned above)

2. Your ideal customers or current clients

3. Pay for an hour of time from people who have powerful personal brands

Tap Into Other People’s Media Leverage:

Another strategy to fast-track your growth is by collaborating with people who already have personal brands in your industry.

Let’s say you have a ton of experience and knowledge but you don’t have any eyeballs.

A great exchange of value would be appearing on a podcast that has thousands of listeners in your specific industry. 

You offer the audience great advice which increases the value for the host.

And in return, a portion of those listeners will start following you.

Just make sure you take full advantage of that attention by having a lead magnet or resource you can point the audience towards - make it simple for them.

Action Item: Shortlist 20-50 creators in your industry that have personal brands. Tell them why collaborating with you would be valuable for their audience. Make life easy for them e.g. say you’ll create a value-packed carousel for LinkedIn (like Audrey Chia did with me) - all they have to do is post it and tag you.

Now I could go on and on but honestly, if you implement everything I’ve said so far you’ll be in the top 1% of personal brands online.

But there is one more thing: and this is the thing that helped me most.

Going in with the right expectations.

Mindset - Expectations

Now I want you to imagine a boomerang.

One of those strange-looking Australian things people chuck about in the local park.

The idea is throwing it out there so it swings back, right?

In reality, they don’t work but for building a personal brand it works like a treat.

At the start noone cares who you are.

So you have to use brute force to push your boomerang out there until swings back and becomes that one asset that connects all the dots.

Understanding this I set myself an expectation:

I will post every single weekday for an entire year expecting absolutely NOTHING in return.

This was the single biggest thing that allowed me to have success the year after.

• I removed all the pressure

• Stopped constantly checking my impressions 

• And just kept relentlessly putting in the reps

If you can truly embrace this mindset I can almost guarantee (as long as implement everything I’ve said today) that you will build a powerful personal brand.

Just like anything great in life, it’s well worth the wait, trust me.

Because when that boomerang swings back with momentum it will open up doors you never imagined.

For me, that boomerang wasn’t just the one asset that helped me in business.

It was the asset that saved my life.

Now remember that story I shared at the start?

So I’m standing there on the balcony in Austin preparing to jump and end it all…

In that dark moment I said to myself “If I’m not going to continue for me, I’m going to do this for everyone else who deserves a second chance in life.”

To turn all that heart-wrenching pain into a mission to help others.

I knew I had this engaged audience on LinkedIn.

I knew something was there.

There was a flicker of hope.

I had the mission.

I had the purpose.

I just didn’t know what to do with it.

So I flew back to the UK to rebuild my life.

And as fate would have it the first person I bumped into was my old childhood friend Dan Bell.

It was time to make a stand.

So the very next morning I texted him at 6AM to go on a morning run in the pitch black of the British Winter.

The rest is history.

We ran 5ks throughout the winter 4 times a week, stamping out the voice of the victim one stride at a time.

Then we got extreme.

Running up mountains

Jumping in frozen lakes

Doing shirtless press-ups chanting I AM THE GREATNESS like Muhammed Ali.

I started to see the impact my new mission was having on someone else - it was so empowering to witness a transformation in real time.

Things were coming together but I still hadn’t figured it out.

But then one moment on Christmas eve, with the help of Dan finally we cracked it.

I could tell you that story myself but since my mission is to help others I thought I’d do something different.

I thought I’d invite my childhood friend to introduce himself. So welcome - the man who changed my life, Mr Daniel Bell.

(ideally at this point there would be a huge round of applause so once again, I’ll imagine you clapping and cheering Dan on!)

Dan’s Introduction

Life has a funny way of guiding us, of pushing us towards growth and self-discovery.

At the back end of 2023, my lifelong friend Nigel walks back into my life after returning from the USA. 

We caught up on the epic business adventures he’d been on, how he’s built his LinkedIn following, but also the struggles he’s been facing. 

He told me how building his personal brand has given him the confidence to weather the storms of his life, and pursue his passions. 

At that moment I realised it wasn’t just Nigel that needed a change.

So, as a young boy, I struggled a lot fitting in. I was about 4 feet taller than everyone else, I was Chinese, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

As a lifelong musician, I had these dreams of gracing the grandest stages. But in reality, the thought of putting myself out there sent shivers down my spine.

I found myself drifting through life, constantly travelling to escape reality.

Procrastinating and making excuses. Daily.

Through Nigel’s words, I discovered the strength in vulnerability, the power of community, and felt inspired to put myself out there.

Then it hit me - we’re both digging to find deeper meaning in life. 

So this led to our new mission, on one fateful evening in my car, Christmas eve to be precise.

We wanted something bold.

We wanted to take Nigel’s personal brand to the next level to help inspire more people so what better way to that than a Newsletter.

No, no just another boring email sat gathering dust in your inbox.

A comeback, a tale of how David became a Goliath with raw naked personality splashed all over the internet like never seen before.

And what is our Goliath?

Well, I’m glad you asked.

100,000 subscribers in 1 calendar year.

The stage was set.

Finally, I had the strength to bring my creativity to the forefront, which is what I’m doing with my writing and my comics. 

We used all of the stuff mentioned earlier, all the personal branding strategies, which have helped us grow to 19,500 subscribers in just 14 weeks.

And 4 weeks ago we had our biggest breakthrough yet.

Do you know who the two in this picture are?

That’s right, Alex and Leila Hormozi.

You’ve probably heard of Alex Hormozi. He’s one of the biggest business leaders in the world right now.

But ensconced in his shadows is his wife, the mastermind behind the scenes - Leila.

We wanted to do something that has never been done before - to shine a light on Leila’s story.

So we mined every anecdote, every podcast, every resource written about her to write the untold rise of Leila Hormozi.

And it led to this:

Not just a comment but a direct message from the titan herself.

“One of the nicest things that I have had written about me”.

“EVER”

This shows just what’s possible when you take life by the horns and dare to be great.

Listen, we all have things holding us back. But we all have a purpose deep down we know would light the path for others to follow. 

So from this moment, it’s all about you. 

Remember: Just 14 weeks ago, we were your everyday David’s, sat in a WeWork office bringing this newsletter to life.

Through dreaming like giants but fighting like underdogs, with self-belief as our sling, now we’re about to grace the stage at Balkan E-commerce.

In a year from now, this could well be you.

The journey of 1,000 miles starts with one single step.

So keep Dreaming like a Giant.

But fight and believe in your dreams like a God. Damn. Underdog.

The End.

Yours truly,

-Nigel Thomas (and Daniel Bell)