The Solopreneur's Guide to Building an Effective Personalized - Marketing, Branding and Sales System 

Recently, I read a story about a person who spent over 200k on coaches and courses - trying to build her online business. While the information did help her to some extent, it didn't produce the kind of six-figure income she'd hoped for. Not even close. When you hear a story like this, you may think, "I'd never do that!" Maybe not 200k, but the pattern is there. It's unmistakable. 

Two decades ago, I was facing the same, basic challenges many of you are facing right now. I was trying to compete with the "big dogs" in my marketplace. I was trying to look BIGGER than I was. I was trying to look more ESTABLISHED than I was. Sometimes, things would just click and I'd get a bunch of work in (website design and development + email marketing contracts). 

Then, a few months later... the work would dry up. And my income along with it. I spent a lot of time lost in my head trying to figure things out. My ideas seemed to work on paper a lot better than they did in reality. Each month the game would start all over again. Some months were okay, and some were really bad. 

Still, I didn't lose hope. Do you know why? 

Because the clients I did have really liked me. They really appreciated the work I did for them. Some of them even invited me out for lunch and dinner. Others sent gifts on occasion during the holidays.

But... and here's the clincher - the classic marketing approach that seemed to work for just about everyone else wasn't working for me. 

So What Finally Changed?

I did. I tuned-out the advice from all the "marketing advice gurus" of the day and went into the "wilderness" (so to speak). The WILDERNESS is the barren place that separates your past from your future. It's the place of personal transformation... where we let go of the old so we can step into the new. This is where my approach to Personal Brand Marketing was born.

Until this time, I was chalking up all the failures to bad timing, the marketplace, the economy, etc. Truth be told - I'd always felt (up until that point) that something was missing from my overall approach to business. I just had a hard time admitting it. Something always felt a bit off. Like only half my cylinders were firing. All of that changed when I moved from a product-centric approach to a people-centric one. You might say, "People before processes." Or, "Individuals over groups."

Products and services may come and go. The people who provide insights, help and guidance, however, tend to remain etched in our thoughts for years to come. This mindset shift complete transformed my strategy from the ground up. To this day, it continues to transform my business in ways .