How to build a personal brand online

Hi.

Hi.

I would have kept that on the whole time. Hello. My name is Jess Bruno. I am a content strategist, and I help founder-led businesses show up unapologetically online with really good content. Like, oh my God. And offline at day raves, I host a immersive networking event called Ne’Twerking, where we have the most fun and we dance around.

I know some people in the room have been there and it is really f*cking fun. What we’re doing today is I’m going to show you how to build a personal brand online. Does everyone in here, are you the face of your business? Who’s not the face of their business? Because you work with a startup? Is your founder the face of the business?

(Oh, they should be).

Well, you’ve got some explaining to do to them. Okay.

The way I work is I have been doing this business since 2020. This business is my Covid baby. Did anyone else start their business in 2020? Pre 2020? Pre 2010? Pre 2000’s?

Wow, I love.

I’ve been working in marketing for ten years. I started this business because I was too sick to work in normal roles. I have something called Ulcerative Colitis. I live with a stoma bag and I had to quit my job because I was sick of calling in sick. And I started my marketing business because all of my friends who worked in the creative industries were texting me nonstop in 2020 because their livelihood just stopped.

They couldn’t perform anymore. They couldn’t go out anymore, and they all decided to be coaches. I’m sure you know someone in 2020 that decided to be a coach. You’re like, what? Cool. And they had resin ashtray businesses, so that’s how my business started. I had loads of people texting me, asking me for advice.

Yeah. That’s me. That’s what I do. And what we’re going to do now is I’m going to tell you the secret to getting 10,000 followers to your social media page by the end of the year. Who wants to have 10,000 followers on their social media by the end of the year? Maybe you want 20,000. Who wants 20,000 by the end of the year?

(That’s a lot!)

Who wants to have 30,000, maybe 100,000 followers. Who wants those numbers because I’m gonna tell you how to get it. I’m going to tell you how to get it. You stole my joke.

The answer, the magic answer is to buy them.

There is no quick, fast, exciting way to get all of these followers, to get all of these aligned people into your business, unless you f*cking buy them. But, I’ve built a profitable, quickly scaled business in five years through selling through the silence, through talking to the void. I’ve built a six figure business on average of 30 likes a post.

And so today I’m going to tell you how I did that. Big slay. f*cking big slay. We’re going to do a bit of like work first, we’re going to eat the frog first, I’m going to get you to look at your own pages and have a look at your own, wherever you want to go. We’re going to do a little audit of how you’re showing up.

So you do this for your boss. We’re going to do a little bit of optimisation. And then we’re going to work out what the f*ck to post because it’s like, do you wake up every day on most days and look at your content strategy and go eugh, what the f*ck am I going to post today? So we’re going to work that out today, which is really fun.

So we’re going to start with an audit. We’re going to dust off your phone. Now I want to just quickly know in the room are you sat next to someone you know really well? Okay. Is anyone sat next to people you know really well or do you kind of, no one really knows. Yeah. Okay. If you are, you need to sit next to someone who doesn’t really know your business or your brand that well.

Yeah. If you need to. Move.

Move.

So let’s start with the most important bit, your name, does your username and in LinkedIn this is probably yes, but on Instagram maybe not. Does your username communicate who you are and or what you do? Just that name. Is it easy to read or remember and does it make sense if someone read it out loud? Have a look at your page.

If yes, ten Gryffindor points to you or Slytherin, whatever you’re saying. If no, we need to change it. And I want you to think about if you were invited on stage to a TEDx talk introducing to the Stage Grow with Jess Bruno. Like, that’s not my name, but I like I like how that sounds. That feels like my brand a little bit.

Does yours, does it make sense? If yes, amazing. If no, we’re going to have to change that a little bit because it needs to just make sense to your name.

The next bit is, and this could be on your LinkedIn and you’re about bit or like that little tagline there on Instagram. It’s your name bit of your handle. Are you using relevant SEO, so have you got keywords that describe what you are in your name? So on Instagram a lot of people just use the same. Are you using relevant keywords?

The next bit we’re going to look at and this is like if you need to make changes maybe you can make them later today. Don’t make anything now because you’ll be sat here doing it over and over again. Just make mental note if you want to make some changes, the next bit we’re going to talk about is your bio.

So this can be like the tagline on your LinkedIn or the about, like just a little bio you have on your Instagram. We want to make sure that it tells people like, gives your flavor and tells people what you do and some three key things you want to keep in there is make sure your industry is clear.

Make sure people know what your focus is and then, if your location based, add in location. Here are three that I really love that we can look at for like flavor and spice and personality. So I love Izzy’s, Izzy Manuel, she is in perfect sustainability and ethics. Then we’ve got like her USP in there. She’s a Masters in Chemistry graduate, as seen in British Vogue.

I love that, it’s like give me a bit of social proof right there. I’m like, yes she is sustainable content creator. I get that. I understand who she is. I really love this is a product-based business, Short Stuff, functional stationery that looks beautiful on your desk. Home of the viral corporate girly notebook. That’s a bit of social proof in there for me.

And then a call to action telling me how to shop. And then we have May James, she’s got loads of SEO in her, she’s got loads of keywords, scaling expert, strategy and consultant and coach. I help female founders to scale sustainably. I love my James so much, she’s my business coach, I don’t particularly like an ‘I help’ statement.

Well, spicy, I know dicey, I really really don’t like ‘I help’ statements in copy on like about pages. I just feel like there are so many better ways to say it than ‘I help’, because you do so much more than help, you give, so much more. So I’d like people to think out of the box when it comes to their about section on these, this small bit of real estate because you’re a business.

We know you help, you know. So what I’d like you to do now is you’ve been discussing your bios with your partner next door. I want you to stand up.

Find someone else in the room that you haven’t spoken to yet, and you’re going to give them your phone. And they have to explain who you are from looking at your page. So we’ve looked and we think, yeah, it all looks good, but someone else needs to stand up, go to each other, don’t do it across the table, but go find someone in the room that you haven’t spoken to yet, and you have to explain to them what they do.

So again, don’t worry about making big changes or doing, like, editing it right now, but just make a mental note and think about, I don’t know, I always sit and redo my bio hundreds of times, then post it without showing it to anyone. So next time you do update your bio or if you’ve got any changes to make, just show someone and be like, be kind,

but tell me, does this what do you think I do? Because we want to make sense to anyone that’s coming around. Even with the fractional CFO, I can’t remember what you said. Sorry. Even though she’s not your ideal client. We do want to make it make sense.

Okay. Next bit. We’re gonna do your display picture really quickly. So here are some no no’s on display pictures. And have a look at yours to see if you’re getting on my naughty list.

These are our naughty list. So this is Emilie Nutley. She’s so tiny I can’t see her. She’s got a lovely bedspread. Where’s she gone? This is Fab. I love my Fab. I can’t see anything on this. It’s too busy. There’s too much in the background. Short stuff. That’s a fuzzy logo. And sometimes we’ll zoom in to our logos and it looks tiny.

And then again, Alt Marketing School, Fab again on my naughty list. No, this is obviously not their real profile pictures. I fabricated them to show you, but I love them. These are. These are ones that I absolutely love from a logo point of view and from a founder-led point of view. So Emilie’s at the top. Love the personality there.

She’s a Financial Strategist and she’s really just like so fun. You get like, oh, she’s not a regular Financial Strategist, she’s a cool one. Fab. Just like slap bang. Her profile, her colour, her brand colour, her main brand colour, cut herself out. Stands out on the grid so well. Short Stuff, not just the ‘s’, like sometimes with words

it’s difficult to get them into that circle, but she’s stacked it and they’re colorful and they’re loud. And I love to see that. And again, with Alt Marketing School this is her full logo, but she’s just chosen this part. So I just want you to quickly look at your profile picture just from like a, does it make sense?

Can I see it? Is it too busy and what can I do to simplify it? Because it’s such a tiny, tiny little circle we have to show ourselves. Oh, maybe it’s maybe needs a bit of an update.

Okay. Who’s got homework? Who’s going to change? Okay.

Yeah. Bitch.

I’m changing my whole run ins. And then who’s quite happy with theirs? Like, yeah, mine’s fine. Mines good. Mine stands. Amazing.

Cool, right.

Next bit is formatting the bio. So this is quite Instagram friendly because I know on LinkedIn it’s like just those two lines together but.

On Instagram. These are two buyers I absolutely love and I love how they’ve formatted them. So I call them either the emoji bullet point list or the one ish liner, the one that they both can work on LinkedIn as well, but of course they won’t be formatted in the same way. So Babes on Waves, meet women of colour making waves in the creative business in creativity and business.

I understand that completely. I love the use of emojis. I think having something called an emoji wheelhouse in your marketing is really fun, and it can really help make you stand out. Own 5 to 7 emojis that you use again and again and again. Choose the ones in your brand colour. Choose the ones that are fun. Keep them in your notes app, use them in all your captions.

And I love these ones because they stand out. So Babes on Waves is a membership and a studio and a directory they do in real life and online events. And then they’re again, this is something that people often don’t say to do. Don’t tag another thing in your bio. Don’t take me off your page, but I think if it’s relevant, do it.

So there’s @thebusybabesclub and it says the founder, and then Ella is a copywriter. I’ve put this one here because it sounds really lovely when you say it out loud, and I love that from a copywriting perspective. “Sound like you, but better with copy that clicks and messaging that sticks. Oh look, magic links”. like that just feels really good when you say it out loud, and there’s so much fun and playfulness you can have with your buyers that can inject that personality,

and I feel like so, I love chatty G, little ChatGPT, like I’m with her every day. She knows my deepest, darkest secrets. Clearly a man.

That just.

And the use of that rocket emoji like, what are you trying to tell me, big boy. But I want you to have a look at your bio now and see. Does it read human? Does it read fun or does it feel a bit like corporate stuffy, or this could be anyone. Does it feel a bit generic and how can I zhuzh it up a bit to make it feel a bit more like me?

And that can be done with the use of emojis. Just like use some really fun different emojis. Use your emoji wheelhouse to have a look at your bio please sir.

(What if your clients aren’t very zhuzh positive?)

All clients are zhuzh positive babe, who doesn’t like a bit of zhuzh in my opinion. Who’s your client?

(Doctors).

Doctors need zhuzh in their life. I think like genuinely, genuinely, I’ve not met anyone in B2B world corporate world, you will stand out more and not saying like, I’m sorry I’m vulgar. I’m not saying get your tits out and like perform like you’re on OnlyFans. But I am saying add something into your bio that will make those doctors be like, oh, that’s cute, a little pun, something funny like Molly

I love the injection of like “no evil”, simple cute.

Absolutely be mindful of where they go.

Not saying put 100 emojis in, but I’m just 1 or 2 that feel like your brand is good in my books. And I’ve only made my clients so much money ever. So like, I’m not saying this stuff for fun. This stuff really gets you noticed and seen. If you want to stand out on LinkedIn in my opinion post un-LinkedIn.

Pinned posts. You could do these on LinkedIn as well. There are three pin posts that I love to see that I find get the greatest kind of conversion in the business from when someone’s been cold and they’ve not seen you before they come to your page. I love an ‘About Me’, one about your offer and one that’s social proof.

So ‘About Me’, I’d love to see the founder story, and I often see business owners post about me, about me, about me, about me over and over again. Like we’re always introducing or reintroducing ourselves. And that’s fine, but I would prefer you do one really strong ‘About Me’ post and you pin it to the top and people can signpost back there when they’re needed to.

In this ‘About Me’ post, I want to see your founder story, your why. A lot of people say it’s not about you, make it about your audience. Your ‘About Me’, and people say on websites don’t make your ‘About Me’ section about you really make it about them and what they want to see and what they want to hear.

But I, from a founder-led business perspective, I want to know your journey and I want to know what brought you here. And I want to know, like the other side of the business, I want to know about the person that I’m working with, not just, we’re going to have your social proof in the offer there as well.

But I want you to inject your lore. Why you started the business, how it started. So for me, I’ve got too sick to work. And so I started the business from a place of, I needed to do something. I love talking about that all the time. I love talking about my chronic illness that’s never, ever taken away from the business.

We’re going to talk about that later. I love talking about bringing dance and movement and happiness and joy into work. I love swearing, I love being really like, I love all of my clients. I have this kind of friendship relationship with them. We don’t really cross boundaries, but I’m very casual with them. So I keep that casual tone in my content.

So I want you to think about, if you have an ‘About Me’ post or if you’ve got an ‘About Me’ section, where have you injected personality into it? And what is that running lore of your story? What is that ‘why’ that you can bring in? What is your why? Or have you made it all really about the business, about the clients?

Because I promise you, your clients want to know a little bit about you. I booked a client through an Instagram story when I talked about my love of ham and pineapple pizza.

Because they were like, oh my God, same let’s book in that discovery call. I was like, great. So what about your lore? And would someone like to share what their lore is and how they’ve brought that into the business, or who’s who’s a bit scared about talking about their stuff outside of the business?

There is absolutely a line. So I want you to what I do is I understand what I want to talk about, what makes sense for me as a founder, what makes sense in the business. There is so much that I don’t talk about. I really like, so much that I would never say online, but I do talk about chronic illness.

I do talk about burnout quite a lot. I do talk about, well, I am quite open, but there’s so much stuff that I don’t share, like a whip my stoma bag out all the time on social media because I love talking about that, and that’s a big part of my lore. So I think what we need to do is decide what can you talk about excellently and over and over again that you feel comfortable with, that has had a big impact.

And the reason why you started this business in the first place and the stuff that you don’t share. I’m not saying open your knicker drawer and show me all your like, skeletons, but I am saying being a little bit more vulnerable, but from a safeguarding of vulnerability because you’re passionate about that stuff can make a big impact. And as you said, the post went down quite well.

I don’t book clients with stoma bags, I don’t work with people with chronic illness. Don’t come to me and ask me for advice that way. I work with business owners. I work with business owners only. And so it feels counterintuitive, like, why am I talking about this stuff that’s nothing to do with the business, but it only adds more to your presence online and you become a human.

You’re like, I can. I feel it builds trust because they know you more because it’s human to human. People buy people.

I think there’s lines. It’s an individual decision. I love sharing the messy middle of business as well, and I think that’s something. And I think it was really scary for me recently because I closed down parts of my business that have made money and I’m rebuilding, but I’m sharing the behind the build of it all. And I’m telling people that I’ve closed this part of my business, and I’m going to be making less money.

And that feels like, oh, no one’s going to want to talk to me anymore because no one’s going to want to hire me because I closed all this stuff down. But to the contrary, people are rooting for me. They’re watching what I’m doing, and I’ve got like, 20 people signed up to a waitlist that’s from like a basically a Pinterest board because they’re because they’re rooting for me and they’re a big cheerleader of my brand, and they know I can help them.

So yes, from the scar, not the wound. But don’t be afraid to talk about the messy middle of business as well.

Okay? I was going to show you some examples of patent posts that my client has done that’s been really successful for her. So we’ve got a “normal BS things you’ll go through as you build a successful acting career”, something that’s talking directly to her ideal client plus, but that is her social proof. So inside she’s got loads of client testimonials.

I felt like this before and I turned into this afterwards and we’ve called out, we’ve spoken their language on that first slide. The second one is just a hello there like ‘About Me’, we’ll look at the Instagram if you want. And that just goes to like all information about her. And then we’ve got a call to action to her offer.

That’s just talking about the moment which is the freebie right now. It’s just into her newsletter. I like to update pin posts every six months because I feel like we change as business owners every six months anyway. So yeah, this is my client, Adele, and these are her three pin posts at the top. Reels. Carousels. Stories. Videos. Oh my!

How do you know what the f*ck to post? There’s so much option. What am I going to do today? How am I going to show up today? What am I going to say today? If you’ve ever felt that posting paralysis and then just not, or you spent hours and hours writing a post or deleting it multiple times, or not knowing what style, where, we’re going to get into that right now.

So I call myself a Chronic, Iconic Business Owner. In my first year of business, I really hid my health journey. I was really scared that my story would make me look unprofessional, that no one’s going to hire me. I started the business 2020, first year I had no money, nothing. I had like 50p in my bank account and -£2000 in a Monzo account that I didn’t know about.

And Monzo did start banging on my door very soon afterwards and I was posting all of this marketing advice content like five ways to do your Instagram bio and how hashtags work. And I really wasn’t getting any traction out of it at all. And I was like, right, okay, I want to show up and I want to start talking about stuff, so maybe I can bring a bit of my health in because there’s such a big reason of the business.

And so in 2021, I asked my thousand ish followers on Instagram if I should talk about my journey. Do you remember on Instagram Stories they had this like A/B poll back in the day? And can you guess what they said? You think everyone’s like, yeah, talk about it. Talk about girl.

What the f*ck?

57% of people said, no, I would not take you seriously. And I got paragraphs from about three people telling me exactly why they wouldn’t take me seriously. They said I wouldn’t believe that you would have like, the energy to do the work. I just would work with someone else. I think I’m just being honest. I don’t think I’d work with you if I also knew about your chronic illness journey.

And I was like rah.

Okay, so I’ve got a decision now. I can either keep playing it safe, keep spending my life inside of Canva, making these assets and being the perfect like, Barbie business owner. But that’s obviously not working for me. Or I could try and bring in some more of my personality and just see what happens. And my sales literally 6x.

I’m going to look at some numbers here. So these are sales. So in 2022 I made 35 sales. In 2023 I made 103. In 2024, I hit my first six figure year with 219 sales and in 2025, I’m getting there 176. But I started sharing my story unapologetically on LinkedIn and on Instagram, and my sales started to scale at pace.

Now, I’m not a regular content strategist, as you can probably tell. I’m a cool one, and a lot of my work is to do with neuroplasticity. So our brains are wired to create pathways based on repetitive thoughts. It’s a process called neuroplasticity. The more you tell yourself I’m just so shit at content, I’m just so shit at content, I just, I just I’m just going to be I’m just gonna hide behind this post.

The truer it becomes, and the deeper it gets ingrained into your core belief system of how you should show up. So I’m wondering, I’m curious, what are the repetitive thoughts you tell yourself that are keeping you small online? You’re welcome to write them down or tell tell your partner what are the things that your brain tells yourself about how you should and should show up online that’s keeping you small?

Please tell your partner.

Would anyone like to share in the room just a couple of you what your head tells you about yourself and your content? Yes.

Don’t be salesy. Who else gets? Don’t be salesy. Nothing new to say.

I’m just shit. Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. And these are the things our brain just tells us, right? It just says it all the time. Mine are. It’s pity likes. Or they’ve only liked it because they feel sorry for me. And that’s a big thing with chronic illness. I’m like, they don’t actually like me. I’m too fat. That goes around my head all the time.

I look too fat to post that or that double chin. What’s that saying? 30 likes equals no one cares. And I’m not qualified to say I know this shit. This happens every time I post, today. This is my brain tells me. But we can retrain our brain. Neuroplasticity means those ‘I’m so shit at content loops’ are only permanent if you let them stay there.

They’re patterns and patterns can change. So I’ve put some post-it notes across the room and I’ve got some pens here if we need them. But I want you to write down something I like to call a clap back, because every time your brain says I’m too fat, I’m not qualified. It’s pity likes, 30 likes equals no one cares. You can clap back with some real truth because everything you just said now is f*cking bullshit, right?

It’s not real. So when your brain says I’m just so shit at content, you can say. But I’m getting better with every post, brain. Every time your brain says no one cares about my business, you can say to yourself, but my clients always say I’m amazing. Every time your brain says, I’ve got nothing new to say, you can say my voice has value.

Now what I’d like you to do on your post-it note now is write your own clap back. Write your own clap back to what your voice tells you. We’re going to spend a couple minutes, grab a post-it note, grab a pen, and write down your affirmation that you can tell yourself.

Would anyone like to share theirs with the room? Because it can give people inspiration. Would anyone like to share what their affirmation is?

I would say I’m bad at copywriting.

So how are you going to clap back to that?

(I can practice).

I can practice. What else have we got? Any more clap backs we can share with the room?

(I put at least I’m posting something).

At least I’m posting something. Yes. Anyone else want to share?

(So there’s one thing that goes through my head a lot of the time, which is like, ‘I’m not the best person saying this’. So someone else could say it. But your perspective is valuable).

Yes, mother. I love that. So what I want you to do with these affirmations and these clap backs is put them in places and spaces that will surprise you. Just like your brain told you, I’m so shit at content all the time. If you can pop this on your laptop as your phone background, in your fridge, it will surprise you when you look at it and it slowly starts retraining your brain.

But also try, and every time your head says, I’m so shit at content, knee jerk reaction and say that other line back, say your clap back, back to you because it really does help you start showing up more.

Three ways to scale your business on Instagram or anywhere organically is number one with F*ck-it Content. The art of giving zero f*cks with your content and posting it anyway, regardless of what anybody says. Strategic Collaborations, hijacking a pre-cooked audience to share your brilliance with and the most important one, Active Rest. So we’re going to think about how people see your content right, from their point of view, from a user’s point of view.

First of all, they see your post when they’re scrolling their phone, right? We’ll just think about us, we’re just scrolling our phone. Then we see a post. We have two options. We can either make a mental note. Oh, that looks cool, I’ll buy this stuff later, or we can go and view their profile, or we’ll view their profile and we’ll go back to scrolling and I’ll look at your posts and then your post and then your post.

Or maybe I’ll see your post in the scroll. I’ll view your profile. I’ll click your link, but then we’re just going to make a mental note about that. And I’m going to come back later when I’ve got like, you know, a minute because I’m just here scrolling. I’m not here for money time. Or maybe I’ll see your post in my scroll, I’ll view your profile, I’ll click your link and I’ll take an action which is buy your stuff.

Sign up to your newsletter. Anything. But what does all of this really rely on outside of the algorithm, outside of it performing well?

Your post because if you’re not posting and if you’re posting safe content, or put your posting something that doesn’t like you’re just posting for the sake of it, or you’re just you’re not posting because your imposter syndrome is telling you all that stuff, you’re never going to make the sales, they’re never going to get to the end or take an action.

Every post is like a lottery ticket. Some might win, but most are not going to go viral. Most of them are not going to like, do the winning thing. But with content, there’s only one thing that I can guarantee 100% is that you’ve got to be in it to win it. And if you’re not posting, no one’s ever going to go and take an action.

Posting once, once every often isn’t enough on socials, but you never have to post perfectly. You never have to try and be this perfect version of yourself. You just have to start showing up. And when you can start showing up in a way that really feels like you as a human, rather than you trying to be perfect business Barbie, everything gets easier.

So let’s do a quick case study. I’m conscious of time, I want us to run through here. I love video content. I know LinkedIn is not the best for video content, but if there’s one way that you can really show up and get people to understand who you are is by doing talk to camera style video content. And I know it doesn’t technically do very well on LinkedIn, but there are some,

I’ve seen videos that go viral on LinkedIn all the time, and also I’ve posted videos on LinkedIn that haven’t gone viral but have got me clients, and that’s what I really care about. So this founder here, Aimee Smale, she runs a fashion brand and she posts content like this all the time. She’s not a coach. She’s not a, yeah, she’s not a coach.

She runs a fashion brand. She gets people to buy her clothes. What’s important when you’re doing a video content is, I love when there’s head space above you. So you can add text on top and you can do anything there when there’s a consistent location. A lot of the time, I tell myself as an excuse and my clients do is like, oh, my house is just so messy.

The aesthetic is not really cute. I’m going to have to pay for a studio to film all of my content, but I’ve got a little corner in my house that I’ve carved out and that’s just where I film all my content. It’s consistent, it’s easy for me and I’ll just jump there and it’s better. Always add subtitles, closed captions to your videos and always add a title and a hook.

But where should I edit these bloody videos then? If you want me to talk to camera content, I haven’t got time. These are my favorites. No particular order. I really like Edits by Instagram. It’s free and you can download your videos without a watermark and upload them anywhere. It’s easy to use. There’s simple UX, simplicity is my favorite thing.

Capcut is great, but it’s got loads of paywalls and paid features and also it’s good if you want to do like more technical transitions with everything, but not the best if you’re not paying for it. Inshot, it’s good. It’s free with paid features. Again, I like that one and then you can just do them in app, like do them inside of Instagram or do it kind of, I don’t think

you can edit anything in LinkedIn. I don’t think you can. But inside of the Instagram app, which most of you have, I guess for your business you can edit Reels and really simply, but well. Another case study again is my client, Adele. We’re just going to quickly look at her because she hates doing video content. It’s like trying to draw blood from a stone.

When I kind of get her to talk to video.

She’s an actor. Yeah, she’s an actor

(Is it because she has to go as herself?)

Well it’s a different headspace isn’t it, it’s a different headspace being on screen.

So this is my client Adele who hates doing talk to video content, but what we’ve done instead is we did a B-roll shoot, so we spent a day. We spent one day. We spent one day taking all her pictures and shooting all of her B-roll. Because then with B-roll content, you can just put text on top. And that’s working really well for her.

So this is just like a video of her in action with text on top. Speaking her clients language and getting people to comment a trigger word, simple, low lift. I want you to find the least path of resistance with your content. A B-roll shot of her doing something like typing, or just, if you could do like a, one shoot of you typing and doing stuff in action.

Add some B-roll on top. Tell people what they need to know. Works really well. I love low lift style content, like one picture repeating, so this is just literally made inside of the Instagram app itself. Text on top of one photo over and over and over again. Super simple, but people are out here wanting to work with her.

I love low lift, easy to create content. Not spending hours in Canva is my favorite place to be. So that’s f*ck-it content. Posting your story in the easiest way possible. Not being, caring if it goes viral, just wanting to get out there knowing that your lowest engaged content can still book you clients. The second way to scale is strategic collaborations.

Whoever said build it and they will come has never marketed in online business. Oh my God. But when you can align yourself in places and spaces where your audience is hanging out in abundance by doing Andrew and Pete from Atomicon say this all the time, “a big cheeky ask”, have you heard them say that? Yeah.

Align yourself with people and places and businesses that have an abundance of your audience and jumping in there with them, and so you can be at the top, you’ll get a wave, big waves, little waves. And I’m not saying you have to collaborate with people that have got a million followers. Small collaborations, collaborate with your competition, work with people together because then you could be around your target audience.

Plug into spaces that already have an abundance of your audience. So that’s other founders, other freelancers, other businesses, other personal brands. I bet in this room there are multiple collaborations that can happen, but you’re too scared that you’re too close in competition, that the clients will overlap, that, oh, they won’t work with me, or what can we do that’s different.

But I’d love to challenge you to speak to someone today in this room and see how you can collaborate with them. How can you get, how can you share audiences? How can you, how can you work together? Don’t have to work it out now, but I’d love for that to be a little, a little something that you have a conversation with.

And I bet there are many collaborations available that can happen that will be very fruitful for both of your businesses.

Hi.

Just an example. This is just a pretend example. So this is my pretend client, Emma. Let’s say she’s a life coach helping mums reclaim their time. Where would I picture for collaborations? Where would I guide her? I’d say, well, why don’t you guest on a sleep therapist podcast? Or maybe do an Instagram live with a toddler clothing brand.

Or maybe you can IG live with mum-fluencers. And she’s like, yeah, that all sounds amazing, Jess, what the f*ck, how, do I just ask them? Yeah, you just f*cking ask them and you chase them. You ask them and then pretend Amiee will say to me, Jess, I asked them and they just ghosted me. And I said, okay, you ask them again, because humans are behind email addresses and I get, I’ve got 100 dm’s I need to get back to.

I’ve got many emails I need to get back to, or people ask me to collaborate all the time, and I ghost people all the time. Not because I hate them, not because I don’t want to do it. I’m f*cking busy and it’s never you. It’s always me. So chase me, chase people. The way I got on the BBC, the way I got into stylist, the way I’ve worked with Canva, the way I work with Box Park because I’m not scared to message people multiple times, 3 or 4 times.

It is never, unless they tell me f*ck off Jess, you’re the worst person in the world. It’s never me. It’s always them being busy and they’re surprised and delighted and excited to see me in their inbox is what my clap back is. So that’s the second way strategic collaborations and the third way. And to round off everything, most importantly to get any of this stuff done is something I like to call active rest.

Active rest isn’t going for a walk. Active rest isn’t having a bubble bath. Active rest is doing something that makes your mind melt away from business and life completely. You know when you just hyper focus on something and everything disappears? I wonder if you have that or does anyone not have that? Always on, what we need to do is find something that helps life melt away.

For me, that’s gaming, I love gaming, I love playing The Sims. I just downloaded a very spicy mod.

I was. like, whoa, I didn’t think it was gonna be like that.

But I’m having the time of my life and it really melts everything away. In 2022, as I just started my business, everything was kind of just taking off. You saw I made 20 something sales, I lost all of my clients. I had to start again and I ran out of money. I lost my mum on my 30th birthday and in 2022, in November of that year.

So February, I lost my mum. In November, I lost my large colon and it was hard. It was f*cked. I was right in the beginning and I was like, oh God, I have to start again. I could have given up. I could have just stopped. I could have gone on benefits. And that’s not me poo poo-ing benefits.

I’ve been on benefits many times in my life and they’ve saved my life multiple times. That was just an option for me, and I could have stayed small and I could have said, you know what? I don’t want to talk about any of this shit. This is too much now, I’m just going to stop this whole business thing.

But you couldn’t get me off my phone. I was posting on socials. I really, I care about this business. And I guess you guys, I’m assuming you all really are passionate. Your businesses aren’t just there to make money. They’re because you care. They’re an extension of you in some kind of way. You couldn’t get me off my phone.

But what I learned from taking two abrupt breaks in my business is that the algorithm can always wait. People say you have to be online constantly, posting every day, showing up all the time. But I had to take two really long breaks from my business due to my health, and I learned that you can take a pause,

and you can get burnt out, and you can really pull the emergency break and come back. Because when you show up as a personal brand, a founder-led brand, people are rooting for you and people are excited when you come back and you’re never left behind. My sales literally 6x since I started showing up and creating this founder-led, personal brand based businesses, I started my sharing my story unapologetically and that’s how I did it.

And you have any questions?

Does anyone have any questions you want