Shanee Moret Explains How to Build and Monetize Your Personal BrandBusiness growth expert Shanee Moret shares how you can grow and monetize your personal brand without spending all day on social media.

ByTerry Rice

Photo Credit: Nick Nelson

Shanee Moret never wanted to build a personal brand, she was forced to. While her daughter was in the hospital she was given an ultimatum by her manager, get back to work or you're fired. As you can imagine, she chose the latter.

To support herself she offered copywriting services but she ran into another problem, she absolutely hated cold calling. The solution? Start creating content on LinkedIn to attract inbound leads. She gave herself 30 days to make it work and by all accounts it certainly has. Today Shanee has well over one million followers on LinkedIn and helps other entrepreneurs build their brand and revenue as the founder ofGrowth Academy.

Shanee sat down to talk with me about how she built and monetized her brand - and how you can do the same - during the latest episode of theLaunch Your Business podcast.

Here are a few of my favorite takeaways.

How to Tell Your Story

We all have a personal brand. Personal branding just allows you to have more control over the narrative. The best way to get started is by learning how to tell your story. But, your story shouldn't just be about you, it should reflect how you're uniquely suited to help your target audience.

As Shanee states "It's all about understanding who you want to attract and understanding what they're struggling with. From there you can determine how you could leverage your own story to attract those people."

One framework I recommend for this isDonald Miller's Storybrand. In short, you position your audience as the star of the story, then talk about how you'll help them find success and avoid failure based on your own experiences.

Shanee also speaks to why it's important to be vulnerable and authentic. And look, I know those are both overused buzzwords, but she shared the impact it has on her business and how it can help you as well.

“我对他们的情感,我using my own experiences. But because they resonate with it they're going to be attracted to what I'm saying. It's going to spark their curiosity. It's going to make them come back to the content, engage and increase the chances of them becoming a client"

Need more help telling your story? Ask your friends and family what stands out to them about you. We often overlook the most interesting parts of our own story because we're too close to it.

Getting Over the Apprehension of Building a Personal Brand

One issue you may have with building your personal brand is, well, not wanting to share personal information. If that's the case, Shanee has good news for you. "You don't have to share your personal life to build a personal brand. Look at Gary Vaynerchuk, he barely shares anything about his personal life but he's visible."

So while you don't have to share what you ate for breakfast, you do have to be visible. You can do this through text-based content, images or video. I realize I may have lost you at the video part and I can understand any apprehension you may have about it. When I first started creating videos I somehow looked angry and scared at the same time.

Shanee shared her rocky start as well "For the first one my hands are shaking. People look at me now and say 'Oh, you're so comfortable on video'. Yeah. This is like thousands of videos later. This is just a lot of practice and I'm still not the best. I still get nervous even before livestreams and masterclasses but I show up and I do it."

尽管挑战,她解释了为什么showing up "I want the desired result of growth. I want to be able to provide for my daughter, my family at a generational wealth level more than I'm afraid of getting on a video."

So, what will a personal brand do for you? Once you get clear on that you'll have all the motivation needed to push through any of the associated challenges.

How to Monetize Your Personal Brand

The number one mistake Shanee's see people make with their personal brand? They don't have an offer for their audience. As a result, there's no journey for their audience to go on once they know, like and trust you.

An offer can be as simple as encouraging people to join your email list, which is exactly what I do on LinkedIn. My weekly newsletter,The Solopreneur's Shortcut, promises one thought, one time-saver and one tactic to help you grow your business and avoid burnout. It comes out on Friday and all week I tease out highlights of the newsletter content on LinkedIn. I then encourage people to join my email list so they can gain access to more detailed information. You can take a similar approach and then promote offers you charge for once someone joins your email list.

Shanee spoke about how your audience can help you craft that offer, and why it's the key to monetizing your brand. "I've helped people build that offer because your community will reveal certain things and patterns over time that you could craft the perfect offer for them. And I feel like that mindset, that monetization is bad is why some people have big personal brands but they're still ineffective"

Your personal brand can easily become a revenue generating asset, but that won't happen until you extend an offer to your audience.

What's next?

Those were a few key takeaways from my conversation with Dorie. To hear the full conversation and get access to additional resources tune in to this week's episode of theLaunch Your Businesspodcast.

Launch Your Businessis brought to you byChatterBoss. A company that helps entrepreneurs make money, save time and avoid burnout by providing top notch executive assistants. To learn more and save $50 off your first month visitwww.chatterboss.com/launch.

Have questions about launching your business? I've partnered with Chatterboss to providefree office hourswhere you can ask me questions and get them answered live. You can learn more andsign up here.

Wavy Line
Terry Rice

Entrepreneur Staff

Business Development Expert-in-Residence

Terry Rice is the Business Development Expert-in-Residence at Entrepreneur and host of the podcastLaunch Your Business, which provides emerging entrepreneurs with the critical guidance needed to start a business. As the founder ofTerry Rice Consultinghe helps entrepreneurs make more money, save time and avoid burnout. He writes anewsletterabout how to build your business and personal brand in just 5 minutes per week and created arevenue optimization checklistto help you multiply your income potential.

Editor's Pick

Related Topics

Making a Change

Get a Lifetime of Tailored Piano Instruction From This $150 AI App

Perhaps the best part: Learn to play on your own time.

Business News

Doctor's Office Receptionist Arrested for Allegedly Stealing $44,000 From Patients in Square Payment Scam

According to police, the receptionist stole from over 75 patients.

Cryptocurrency / Blockchain

I Want To Buy My Groceries With Crypto — So What's Stopping Me?

There are several ways to make crypto's future less daunting to reach.

Growing a Business

Everyone Wants Meaningful Work. But What Does That Look Like, Really?

More people than ever are searching for work that has meaning. But nobody can agree on how to find it, provide it, or even define it. So we set out to try.

Business News

Gap Poaches Top Mattel Exec as Its New CEO in a Bid to Boost Declining Sales

Richard Dickson was hired for his expertise in brand transformation.

Cryptocurrency / Blockchain

Is Cryptocurrency the Future of Real Estate Transactions? Here's What You Should Know.

Discussing cryptocurrency's influence on the real estate industry and what the future may look like.