LIVE COACHING: Building a Personal Brand vs Branding Your Product (or MLM)

Hey Friend!

This post is for my MLM girlies or anyone marketing a personal brand or physical product. It’s a live coaching session with one of my students about having a personal brand versus product branding, and what this might look like for you.

If this speaks to your heart and you have questions about a personal brand, an MLM, or a product to sell on the side, this is a fantastic live coaching snippet for you. Courtney is part of a network marketing company but questions how to integrate network marketing with her personal brand and vision, and whether it fits into my method.

This is the type of coaching I do inside my program, Podcast to Profit. You don’t just get group power coaching with me, you also get weekly calls with my lead coaches. We also have community coaches who deep-dive into your homework to help you build a podcast that produces real income for the kingdom of God.

Whether you have a podcast or not, this is for you. And whether you have a for-profit business or want to create a ministry, this is for you. Take a big leap of faith this year and build something sustainable with simplicity in mind.

Stop doing all the extras and wasting time creating a business that isn’t fruitful. Let me help you throw away a bunch of stuff you don’t need to be doing and take you step-by-step, A through Z, of creating a business and personal brand that makes real traction.

Grab a notebook and pen. You’re going to love this coaching call.

Why Choose a Personal Brand Over an MLM

Stef Gass: Hi, Courtney!

Courtney: How’s it going, Stefanie?

Stef Gass: It’s so good to meet you. I’m so excited. So, your question is about clarity on your podcast title and direction.

Courtney: Yes. I’ve been working through Clarify Your Calling. I feel like I have some clarity, but I’m still kind of spinning and a little all over the place.

Stef Gass: The biggest thing I see for you is this doTERRA piece. Tell me a little bit about that. How long have you been doing it, and are you open to monetizing your personal brand as well?

Courtney: I’m open to monetizing my personal brand. I would love to do that. I’ve been with doTERRA for ten years, but have not been active in the last few years. When people reach out, I answer questions, but I haven’t been teaching. I’m still making a couple of hundred dollars a month from doing nothing.

Stef Gass: As your business coach, I advise you to let doTERRA be a supplement, the icing on the cake for what we want to build for you, which is a personal brand. It can either be a way to monetize inside the program you sell, or a commercial on your podcast: ‘Here are my favorite essential oils.’

I want to stretch you to think outside the essential oil bucket. It can still be in that wheelhouse, but I don’t want you to be pigeonholeed into selling essential oils. Oils might be a solution inside this bigger thing.

Developing Courtney’s Personal Brand

Stef Gass: You mentioned integrative nutrition health coaching? What is that about?

Courtney: That’s a training I did fifteen years ago with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I love their approach. The way I was taught is that food is secondary nutrition. Our primary nutrition is our spiritual growth. For me, it’s Jesus.

It’s the way we treat our bodies and live our lives. We all know plenty of people who eat “perfectly” and are unhealthy and unhappy. Then there are people who eat junk and they’re happy and seem healthy, at least for now. It’s a whole body and whole person approach to wellness.

Stef Gass: I love that! We couldn’t call the podcast Integrative Nutrition because it’s a brand you did through them, correct?

Courtney: Yes, I would hesitate to call the podcast that because I’m not a doctor. It’s gotten more popular in doctor circles with integrative practice practitioners.

Stef Gass: What if we play off something like Integrated Nutrition? You are a coach licensed in that area. Do you feel qualified to talk about this nutrition and health sphere? That can lead to other things like:

• Essential oils
• Jesus
• Mental health

Partner the oils with the things you learned in the program. But then we need to identify who this is for. You said modern families. Could it be for Christian families? What are your thoughts about that?

Courtney: I am a Christian, and would love to attract more Christian women. I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself into Christian women, but I’m not opposed. I’ve been praying about it and eventually want to focus on that specific group. I’m not sure where the resistance is coming from.

Rip Off the Band-Aid to Create a Personal Brand

Stef Gass: It’s easier to rip off the Band-Aid. If you know where you’re going, go ahead and get there.

Courtney: So true.

Stef Gass: If you don’t know where you’re going, that’s a different conversation. If you do know you want to talk specifically to Christian families, go there. It’s fine. Some people will quit following you, and you’ll bring in new people who are just right for you.

Here’s the question to ask yourself so you will know. Will faith, Jesus, scripture, and the Bible be a part of the integrated nutrition plan? If not, leave it out. If yes, put it in.

Courtney: I feel like it has to be.

Stef Gass: Great! Integrated Nutrition for Christian families? Are you going to speak to the whole family or just the Mom?

Courtney: I love to speak to the entire family. The Mom is the gatekeeper of health in the family. I feel very strongly about that. She’s the one who typically makes the purchases and meals, but I can’t leave the kids out. I love when people work with moms, but I always have a heart for the kids, too.

Stef Gass: I love it!

Courtney: Oils and food. It’s so powerful. We’re building habits for life.

Stef Gass: Think about it. You don’t have to marry it right now. A potential title for your podcast might be Integrated Nutrition for Christian Families.

Creating the Tagline for a Personal Brand

Stef Gass: Next, let’s work on your tagline. Tell me more about what you want to do. I know you want to talk about nutrition and habits.

Courtney: My solutions list?

Stef Gass: Yes, tell me about your solutions.

Courtney: The biggest thing I feel drawn to is cravings. I love cravings because they give us clues to what our body wants. With sugar, you’re craving energy and comfort. That’s my top solution. So, a tagline might be, Crave the Right Things. I want to focus on:

• Clean eating
• Love of cooking
• Improving metabolic health
• Food freedom
• Body image
• Positive habits
• doTERRA for health challenges
• Gratitude for motherhood
• Calmness
• Financial stewardship
• Foundations of health
• Mental health

I feel these are things I can help people with.

Your Personal Brand Should Tell a Story

Stef Gass: Good, good, good. This is a great place to start. When you do market research in Podcast to Profit, your tagline will probably change. After this call, if you like the title and tagline, move straight into the next step. Crave the Right Things is cute, but that is your slogan.

My insiders are called Lola’s and Larry’s. They call my slogans Stefisms. Nobody on the outside understands what they are, and they don’t bring in new leads. Your slogans can go in the introduction to your podcast. Here’s an example for you.

As a Christian family, I know you are craving the right things. You’re struggling to create healthy family habits. I’m here to teach you about clean eating, cooking, metabolic health, and how to be a positive and grateful mom. If these things speak to you, you’re in the right place.

I love, Crave the Right Things. Don’t throw it away. Use it in your introduction.

For now, your title could be Integrated Nutrition for Christian Families. And the tagline is, Simple Habits to Create a Healthy Family. Your tagline should be boring and elementary.

Healthy habits, integrated nutrition, and creating healthy families tell your person you will teach about food, clean eating, and cooking. The integrated nutrition piece means nutrition and science will be a part of it. Since Christian family is in the title, she knows it’s for her because biblical and moral values matter.

You’re telling a story with the title, tagline, and art. She will know, ‘Courtney is my person.’

Avoid Generic Personal Brands

Courtney: This is much better than the taglines I came up with. Mine were boring. They are Simple Wellness Solutions for Moms and Simple Steps to Family Wellness.

Stef Gass: I like wellness because it’s the bucket that everything fits in, but habits and healthy are better search terms. Words like wellness will be in your content. But if you’re a Mom searching for a meal plan, and she finds Integrated Nutrition for Christian Families with Habits to Create Healthy Families, she can touch and feel it. It’s tangible versus simple wellness strategies. Wellness is more elusive. Is wellness a habit? Is it fitness or food? That’s why it’s the umbrella. Your thing is a healthy family.

Habits are something people desperately want. I don’t see you being a habits coach, but all this stuff you will teach them are habits that Christian families integrate into their lives.

• How do we meal prep?
• How do we begin to make different choices?
• How do we sit down at the dinner table without our phones?
• How do we use essential oils for cleaning instead of chemicals?

These pieces are habits that Moms will develop for healthy families. So I think it still fits, and we might change it later, but it’s enticing.

Courtney: I had the same feeling. Is it about wellness? I even asked ChatGPT.

Stef Gass: Great job. I think we’re there. Do the five market research calls in Podcast to Profit to validate what we have landed on.

Be Careful of Distractions

Stef Gass: Be careful of distractions because sometimes when you do an interview and they say something weird and rogue, you’ll think that’s what you should do.

You’re looking for validation of a word swap. For example, they don’t say habits, they say routine. Use your market research interviews to build out your focus phrase list of all the other words they say. Use these for content planning.

And then you’re ready to launch. That’s all you have to do right now in Podcast to Profit. Pop back into Podcast Pro University for all of the tech stuff you’ll need to launch.

Courtney: I definitely need that. I can already tell that’s going to be super helpful.

Stef’s Personal Brand Vision for Courtney

Stef Gass: My vision for you is coaching at first until you can validate your offer. Then we’ll build your course or coaching program. I also see essential oils. They’re a supplement to the personal brand you are building.

Courtney: I agree. That’s where I was leaning. I told myself the original title was dumb. I liked it for twenty-four hours, but that’s not the direction I wanted to go.

Stef Gass: It’s not dumb at all. We just needed to flesh it out in this coaching call.

Courtney: I don’t want to talk negatively about my ideas, but I knew it wasn’t right. It’s a much bigger picture than just essential oils.

Stef Gass: Yes, essential oils are a piece of it. I love this. Do you feel good?

Courtney: I feel great.

Stef Gass: Friend, you can experience a breakthrough like Courtney when you join my six-month group coaching program, Podcast to Profit. My team and I will help you build your own personal brand with podcasting. I’ll see you on the inside!

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