Founder Brand Feature: Your Personal Brand is Like a Dating Profile, Are You Catfishing?
with Author & Speaker, Mike Michalowicz
This week’s Founder Brand Feature:
Author & Speaker Mike Michalowicz
What to Know About Mike:
his books have been read by over half a million readers
keynoted at the world's biggest business events
built four multi-million-dollar companies and sold two of them: one to private equity and another to a Fortune 500
Mike notes on his website that those are just the peaks of his journey, there were many low points as well:
“In addition to those successes, I have also: lost my house once, lost my entire fortune twice, launched ten failed businesses, and experienced years of depression. For nearly two decades I have lived a life of "entrepreneurial poverty" – where I was broke financially, emotionally, and physically.”
Mike became a business author with a clear mission: Eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. He devoted his life to fixing those struggles for you, for himself, and for every entrepreneur, he comes into contact with that aligns with his mission. “Successful entrepreneurship is not easy, but it can be a whole lot simpler.”
Could you share your perspective on the role your personal brand has played in building your business?
As an author, my name is effectively the company name, so personal branding is significant.
One key thing I’ve found while building my personal brand is that, I don't want to be an oddity. I don't want to be outrageous. That's not the goal here. I don’t want to be Jaco the clown. My goal is simply to appeal to the community who naturally would appeal to who I am, what I do, and how I do it. It's authentically me, I just amplify my idiosyncrasies.
What have been some of the methods or strategies that have made the biggest difference in building your brand and authority as an entrepreneur?
The biggest difference has been persistence and consistency.
I've been a full‑time author now for 15 years or approaching 15 years, I started around 2008 and that's a long time. Most people have heard of my work in the last year or two. It's not like, oh yeah, 15 years ago I was following Mike’s stuff.
It's really in recent times that I’ve had more success, like my books, Profit First & Hit Different, have been very successful for me. What I liken this to is like a band, like a music band. You guys are consistently putting music out there and once you have it hit, you start performing that hit over and over again. I’ve started to really find that groove, what hits for people.
Often times we're looking for that magic bullet, that won’t work. It's about being persistent and serving your community.
The other strategy I used, is I didn't go for the broad community. Even though I write my books for small business owners, entrepreneurs… I didn't try to go to all the small business events. In the very beginning, I focused in on female entrepreneurs predominantly, because that was the community that was resonating with me.
What has been the most surprising benefit from building your personal brand?
This kind of celebrity ship that happens has been surprising. There’s A List, B List, C List… I'm defintely Z list or drawing on the very bottom, but getting recognized publicly happens here and there.
I remember once I was at a major airport and someone across the walkway spotted me in the distance. They go, “Oh my God, it's Mike Michalowicz.” So everyone looks at the person yelling and then they look over toward me… and no one knows who the hell I am. One guy goes, “uh, alright… is that you? Are you Mike Michalowicz?” I'm like, “No, no, not at all,” and I kept on walking.
In my mind, I'm not a celebrity by any stretch of imagination. I’m simply an author who writes stuff that I hope serves a lot of people. I appreciate the recognition, but I'm definitely not better than others. I'm definitely not some special oddity. I'm just doing what I feel called to do.
It's kind of fun. My wife gets a little tired of it when we're at an event. Many people will recognize who I am at certain speaking events and so forth. They’ll ask her “What's it like to be married to Mike?!” She's like, “Eh… he's a schlub.” Haha!
So that's been kind of weird and fun, but definitely something I don't necessarily seek out.
Final Thoughts:
I want to reiterate something when it comes to building a powerful brand, you need to really lean into your authentic self and to avoid the copycat syndrome.
There's been some people that come to me and say, “Wow, I love your website. It’s so fresh and unique. May I copy it?” And I'm like, “You're welcome to copy it. I'm honored. You asked and most people will just copy it without asking, which is kind. On that note, I don't know if it will be a good service to you.”
We can replicate others, but it's not true to us at a certain point. The prospect figures that out. There's a disconnect.
In the dating world, you hear about people that post pictures of themselves when they're 25 years old- prime shape. Now they're 55 with a huge beer gut. That’s lying and misleading.
If we have incongruencies in our brand, at a certain point, you are lying.
Be consistent with who you are. Be your current self.
“If we have incongruencies in our brand, at a certain point, you are lying. ”
-Mike Michalowicz
More about Mike:
Website: mikemichalowicz.com
Facebook: MikeMichalowiczFanPage
Instagram: @mikemichalowicz
Twitter: @mikemichalowicz
Youtube: Mike Michalowicz