Have you ever followed your favorite influencer or content creator and thought, “How in the world do they put out so much good content? I  will never be able to maintain that level of demand!”  

This week, we’re going to explore why having a content plan, and personal brand operating system is fundamental to monetizing your expertise. We’ll also break down how to set one up for yourself.  

But first, let’s dive into 3 reasons why most people fail to set up a personal brand system:  

•  They started their personal brand sharing off-the-cuff stories and insights with their audience and don’t realize to maintain and grow momentum off-the-cuff isn’t reliable.
• They don’t know exactly what their brand *magic* is and how to deliver on this “special sauce” over and over again (AKA they think they’ve played all their cards)
• They don’t have the time or resources to create or maintain this system.

Whatever the case may be, if you hope to scale your personal brand and start cashing in on it, you need to have a content engine driving it.  

Here’s how to structure it.     

• Know your audience.
• Know their challenge.
• Know your pillar pieces.
• Properly calendar. 
• Get assistance as needed. 

Let’s break each part down further...  

1. Know your audience  

The fundamental “mindshift” in building a successful brand is recognizing the best personal brands in the world aren’t really about the creator/influencer. Instead, these personal brands focus (knowingly or unknowingly) on making their audience feel seen, heard and understood. It’s why so many influencers have followers that emulate them in terms of demographics and psychographics; they naturally attract people facing similar circumstances, fostering relatability and likeability.   

If you haven’t gotten radically clear and narrow on your personal brand’s audience, it will become overwhelming and futile to create content; when you talk to everybody, you talk to nobody. Too many ideas are on the table, and often that leads to stagnation, not inspiration.   

Want to get clear on content? Get clear on your audience first.   

I have a "wall of audience members" in my office. It represents 4 personas I've narrowed my message to over the past 10 years.

2. Know your audience’s challenges  

Once you’ve mapped out who your audience is, start getting curious about their struggles. What keeps them up at night? Where are they stuck?   

Great content and marketing relieve pain, whether by entertaining,  informing, or inspiring. To become a personal brand of value, you must understand how you can help your audience overcome their pain over and over and over again.   

A great place to start?   

Interview your top clients or aspirational clients about their frequently asked questions regarding your area of expertise. Ask them what frustrates them about products and services in your industry. Write those top questions down and then answer them in a variety of ways.   

    3. Know your pillar pieces  

“Pillar pieces,” or “hub pieces,” or “bottom of the content pyramid pieces” are a fancy way to say that all great content marketing systems,  whether it’s for a corporate brand or a personal brand, have some version of “long-form” content fueling their content machine. Much like the article you are reading right now, these are “in-depth” pieces that expand on one of those burning questions or pain points your audience has. Other long-form pieces include podcasts, books, and speaking engagements. Why long-form? Because it’s easier to break one meaty piece of robust content into 10 different smaller pieces of content than it is to write 10 sporadic pieces of short-form content.   

The challenge: Choose a piece of long-form content. List 6 ideas spread out over 3 months.   

Gary Vaynerchuk’s “Content Pyramid,” as expressed by Theodor Purcarea

4. Properly calendar   

Once you’ve mapped out your 6 long-form content ideas, you can place them into a calendar and start executing them. Then, you can take  “bits” of that long-form content and sprinkle it over the 3 month period.  

If each piece of long-form content gives you 5 posts, you now have  30 pieces of content anchoring your personal brand. You can repeat this as much as needed to reach your ideal cadence of posting.  

5. Get assistance as needed  

Although strategizing long-form content, writing it out, breaking it down into smaller pieces, creating supporting graphical and video assets,  and scheduling it is something you can do by yourself, it’s easily a  full-time job.   

Instead, focus on items in your “Zone of Genius” or “Zone of  Excellence” (review below) and outsource the rest. If you’re a prolific writer and you think best by creating articles, then keep that, and outsource graphic creation and scheduling to a virtual assistant.  

If you crush on video and ooze charm, focus on being your most dazzling self while filming long-form videos, then outsource the splicing of the video up.  

Remember, consistency is key to building your brand.

Even if you have the best ideas in the world, if maintaining your system is too time-consuming for you, you’ll stall out. Delegate properly to elevate and monetize your expertise.   

The Recap:     

• Consistency is key to growing your personal brand.
• If you don’t establish a content plan and personal brand operating system, your opportunities to grow your brand awareness and monetize it will reach capacity. 
• Start mapping your system by understanding your audience and their challenges, mapping out pillar pieces to solve these challenges, splicing your pillar pieces into smaller content chunks, and spreading them out over time.
• Enlist help to outsource and run your system as needed. You can’t do it all, all the time.

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