Watched an interesting documentary over the weekend with my wife on Martha Stewart.
Perhaps you saw it on Netflix too, or perhaps, like me initially, you breezed by it.
A few years ago I probably wouldn’t have bothered watching. Not that I have a strong opinion on her either way, but just knowing her schtick (most of her content centered around homemaking, gardening, etc. - nothing against that, just not my thing), I wouldn’t have been all that interested.
But as many of you know, over the years I’ve grown much more interested in reading about/watching successful entrepreneurs, and whether you like her or not, you can’t deny she’s been one heck of a successful entrepreneur.
So we watched the documentary and I have to say, I enjoyed every minute of it.
Not only did her life follow an interesting arc (how she got her start, grew her business, went to jail, re-started the career so-to-speak, etc.), but the documentary even mentioned how she could have very well been the first ever “influencer” as we know it.
Which peaked my interest because most of you know how important I think personal branding is these days.
I’m not saying everyone should aspire to being an influencer, but if you’re growing a business, one of the best ways to grow/market it these days is by building a personal brand.
It’s why I write this newsletter, continue to build my brand on LinkedIn (almost 19k followers), record podcasts, etc.
Why?
Many reasons, but one of them is that more people are consuming more content than ever before, and influencer marketing is booming as well, and eventually, most products/services will be such commodities that people will decide who to buy from based on who they know/like/trust, which is typically friends, family or the “influencers” they follow.
Don’t fret too much - I’m not saying to drop everything and race to beat Kim Kardashian to 100 million followers (or however many she has these days). I’m saying that if you agree with me even a sliver that building a brand is super important, then you should be spending time on it, and I learned a lot from that Martha Stewart documentary on how she did it.
For example:
creating lots of “content” about things you love (I used brackets there because she started with books, magazine, cable TV, etc., but now I’d recommend social media/video content);
be as genuine and authentic as possible;
perfection, or the pursuit of it, can go a long way - but also have its downsides;
if you build an entire business around your brand, don’t get criminally charged with inside trading.
That last bullet is a half joke, but also a really interesting lesson too. If you are the entire brand, do everything you can to protect it.
You don’t have to be the next Martha, but just start. You might be surprised with how much business you can drum up with even 1,000 followers on 1 platform.
And highly recommend giving it a watch if you have Netflix, and if you do, let me know what you think!
Have a great day,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
Who I can help:
Immigration firms in Canada looking to prepare immigration applications faster than ever before, check out my startup Visto;
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Great suggestion on the documentary that is very interesting! Thanks