Today we talk about ROI with Andrew Cordle about how he built his personal brand, the power of perception and brand experiences, and the value of investing in yourself.
Andrew is a great teacher and speaker and is an accomplished entrepreneur and investor. His company, Money Is, dedicates itself to bringing financial and investing literacy to everyone. He is also a 3-time Amazon bestselling author, a sought-after wealth strategist, and chief editor of Money Is Magazine.
He invested so much into his personal brand and shares with us today about where he started seeing his ROI.
IS THERE AN ROI FOR PERSONAL BRANDING?
Brandon Birkmeyer: Did something really start to become fruitful in terms of you building your reputation? Are there any moments that stood out?
Andrew Cordle: Probably the biggest one where it really exploded (and when I say exploded, I’m really talking financially because that’s why people build brands, there’s nothing wrong with that) was when I was actually publicly speaking. I was speaking at different events.
WORDS PLAY A BIG ROLE IN ROI
I wasn’t speaking on branding. I was speaking on wealth. In my own life, I was working on branding and investing in myself from a brand standpoint. I was in the room, understanding my objective was to speak on wealth and how to create it, what were the steps, et cetera…
I began to deep dive and all this stuff that I just told you about, the experience. Inside of it, the word that I wanted them to feel was the word “wealth”, because that’s where we were headed. Very rarely do we ever use the word wealth as well, which is a piece of the brand you’ve got to understand.
When I use the word “experience” from my podcast, I’ll never use the word experience in any of my marketing. It’s not in my office anywhere. We never say the word, but at the end of the show, my staff takes it back in the green room and they do some clips with them. They’ll always ask them, “Hey, tell us about what you thought about the show.”
9 out of 10 times, everyone will say, “It was the craziest experience that I’ve ever had.” That’s data research telling me I hit it. I’m doing what I’m supposed to.
INVEST IN YOUR BRAND FEELING TO SEE THE PERSONAL BRAND ROI
Where it first really paid off was when I was speaking. What we were trying to create was “wealth” in the room, not ever using the word, but we had to establish that word. Again, it went back into what did I wear?
I know this is funny, but what shoes that I wear, what socks that I wear, uh, and then I got deeper and deeper and deeper into it. I got into three-piece suits with custom ties. Every piece was built differently. I was spending so much freaking money. It was insane, but it was because I was creating a feeling in the room.
As I went deeper into that feeling, we hit $300 million from me on stage selling, creating this feeling in the room because remember, all sales are emotional. For the first time, I could tie in investing in my brand which created an emotional feeling about my brand which led directly to sales every freaking time.
INVEST WHERE OTHERS WON’T AND SEE THE PERSONAL BRAND ROI
There were about 40 of us speakers, and they were all trained professionals 12 years into it. I was in year 1. Within two years I became the number one speaker in the company. Then a year later we almost doubled everybody’s sales in the company.
Nobody could figure out why. They asked, “What are you doing differently?” and had me start training the speakers. They would send the speakers to me and say, “Watch what he’s doing and say what he’s saying.”
What they can never understand is it wasn’t what I was saying. It was the emotional feeling that I had created in my rooms. And the other speakers didn’t want to invest that into the room. Therefore, they can never get to the level that I was at. They were better speakers, were more polished, and were more professional, but they never had created a feeling.
For me, Brandon, that was the big breakthrough. When that happened, I thought, holy shit. I can directly tie the emotional feeling that I’m creating to the sales in the back of the room. Nobody can compete with me even though they were way better. Why? I had created an emotional feeling in that room and they weren’t.
AFFECT THE PERCEPTION IN THE ROOM
Brandon Birkmeyer: That’s amazing. I think what it highlights is one of the biggest parts of reputation is perception. If you can affect the perception, taking extra time to invest in the things that some people won’t, they see that nuance and it builds trust.
It builds some kind of level of trust in the relationship that you can’t define unless you’ve been there and experienced it.
Andrew Cordle: You can’t put a dollar behind it because there’s no ROI, except I can tell you is I’m a part of a billion-dollar empire that I didn’t put my capital into. My partners started it. The reason they came and said, “We want to partner with you,” was because I had a brand.
I was spending my money on my brand. They were building this massive company. What they didn’t have was a brand and they needed it. They needed that piece. They didn’t understand it. I was able to partner with a billion-dollar empire with no money in my pocket because I had invested in a brand. That happened in the last two years. It’s even fast-tracked into massive stuff.
However, it’s hard. It’s hard because most people don’t want to. They can’t calculate it and they can’t see the end of it. It’s risky because they’re thinking, “My God, I have to make these sales because I need to pay this bill.”
As an entrepreneur understanding the long play, invest in the brand. That has always paid off for me.
CONNECT WITH ANDREW
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If you’d like more content about how to build your personal brand, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
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Talk soon!