Transcript of How to Build a Six-Figure Personal Brand Without a Big Audience (What Actually Works) New

Most founders think they need a massive audience to build a real business off their brand. They're wrong. My guest today went from zero online presence, no followers, no platform, corporate employee, to multiple six figures across coaching, brand partnerships, speaking, and content in under two years. Not because she went viral, because she got specific. Katrina Owens is a personal brand and PR strategist who built something most people overlook. A brand so precisely positioned, clients find her by typing exactly what she does into a search bar. Today we get into why size is not the strategy, how to claim a category before the market is crowded, and the one internal shift that changes everything before the external work even begins. If you are building a brand, selling a service, or trying to turn your expertise into income, this one is for you. Let's unlock it. And we're back with Miss Katrina Owens, the personal branding expert. What's really exciting about this episode is we're going to be talking about how you actually don't need a massive personal brand to make multiple six figures. You just need the right brand. And what does that mean? Well, In this episode, Katrina is going to tell us all about it.

Katrina, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to dive into all of it.

I'm actually very excited to dive into this because as much as I love the marketing and the sales, personal brand to me is something I love as well, because I know in today's environment, especially today, personal brand is actually almost everything. If you're an entrepreneur, if you have a product, if you have a business like your personal brand attached to it, is powerful. So let's actually take a step back and tell us a little bit about Katrina. How did Katrina get into personal brand? Tell us how you're creating, you know, multiple six figures off from what I was, you know, we talked about is not that big of an audience, but you know how to actually speak and connect to them.

Yeah. So I think the most important thing to emphasize is I never created this business or this career thinking that I was going to be a personal brand expert. So 3 years ago I was actually still corporately employed and I did not have an online presence at all. I was like maybe known a little bit in my industry, which was real estate development here in Vancouver, but like I didn't post on LinkedIn. I had like a private Instagram that was just for like friends and family that I posted on like maybe 4 times a year. So I was not someone who had an online presence or by the way, was like comfortable with having one, but I really abruptly left my corporate career and was like, I guess I'll start a business, and I guess that means I have to get on Instagram. So I started my marketing and public relations agency back then and started to get really comfortable posting online, although it was still something that felt pretty challenging for me. And I actually always let the thought of like I don't have that many followers. I haven't been doing this for that long.

Like, that thought actually plagued me a lot in the early days because I was trying to show up like someone that had all of this experience and clout and a following, and I didn't. But it was through that journey of actually building my personal brand in public that built up the personal brand that I have today. And I mean, people will say it's like having— it's like building muscle, right? We get comfortable showing up online and, and even in person too. So I really built my personal brand from scratch, from zero, in a very, very short amount of time. Um, started as an agency and then within one year I flipped my agency into a full-time coaching business and replaced my agency income within that 12 months. And now my personal brand is really comprised of like several revenue streams, coaching and consulting, yes, but almost equally so brand partnerships. Paid speaking, uh, event revenue from the in-person experiences I host and like content monetization. So podcast ads and social media content, newsletter sponsors, all that sort of fun stuff. So yeah, that's what that looks like.

So I mean, you've, you've definitely, it sounds like you have multiple, uh, income streams off your, your brand itself, which is very interesting. I'd like to get into, uh, all of that before we do. Why don't we take a step back and ask the question? I mean, Well, let me ask you this: why is it so important today to have a personal brand?

So what I had found when I was starting my agency was that people didn't actually care about the agency brand. People were working with me and my team because of me. And the more that I showed up and just kind of shared who I was, the more clients we brought in, the more sales we had. And I think it's because we used to live in this world where maybe we made relationships with business owners because we met them in person. And, you know, it was really common for brands to have these personalities online, and then there were like influencers too. But it wasn't super common for like the business owner to also be the face of the business until I believe the market just got so saturated and social media became like such a powerhouse that everyone was using for so many different ways that we went from like, oh, we don't need that human connection because we're all digital, to now like craving that again and actually only trusting the brands that we can put a face to. So I think now is the, with the rise of AI and everything, like now more than ever is the time for the personal brand, in my opinion.

Is to have that personal connection. I agree on that. So what was it? What changed specifically? I mean, for you, you were trying to do a personal brand, you were, you know, let's just say you were faking it till you made it, right? For sure. Which we all do. I mean, you sometimes you actually have to do that, right? Until you get there. Yeah. But it was working, but it wasn't working. And then, but something shifted. Was it the messaging? Was it how you position yourself? Or was that shift internal that then externally people started feeling and picking up differently?

That's a good question. I actually think it's both, which is such a cop-out, but I'll tell you why. So I think positioning is so important when I work with clients on like actually building out their personal brand. I borrow the Blue Ocean Strategy if you're familiar with it. So that framework says that your positioning, your differentiation, and your messaging are like the 3 components of a blue ocean brand. So I believe the same is for a personal brand. When I introduce myself as like the public relations for personal brands expert, people are like, oh, I've heard of you. Or like, oh, I've never heard of someone doing that before. And that's that kind of resonance that you can start to build. I mean, even still to this day, I've had people find me for speaking engagements by literally typing in public relations for personal brands on Instagram, and I'm the only one that comes up under those keywords. It's happened a couple times now. So, and that's not like a mind-blowing like tagline, that's like just the function of my job. But most people aren't willing to like get that specific into what they do, claiming a space.

So it's that. But for me, there was so much inner work, and still to this day that I have to I mean, even now I find as I start to work with bigger and bigger brands, there are moments when I think to myself, why are they picking me over the person with the 200,000 followers over there? So I do still have those moments. I don't think those ever leave, but I think the positioning is actually a great starting place because once you see it working, it helps build your confidence too.

Mm. It's interesting you said that because now we have— there's— we could go different routes on this of what happens when you build a personal brand, why most people don't build a personal brand. I think it's because what you kind of— you're worried about those, you know, what other people think. Why would they go with me when they can go with someone else? But I want to stick more into the business side of this because I think it's interesting because you said it yourself, people chose you over, say, the big brands. And you're saying it's purely because of your posi— you, you created the blue ocean strategy. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Positioning, which then results in a highly engaged audience. Like my audience, I know how they buy. I have case studies to show brands like, hey, I ran this masterclass with a sponsorship. This is how many clicks we received. So I don't think we build the audience without having that clear personal brand, because that's what makes someone interesting and that's what makes people pay attention. But that next step is that audience engagement, which is actually what I think starts to land bigger and bigger opportunities.

So let me ask you a pretty simple generic question, but how do you define what a personal brand is?

I just say it's the human behind whatever product, service you're trying to sell. So I really focus on what I call the professional personal brand because I'll get a lot of people who maybe fall more into the influencer category coming to me wanting maybe to work with me or be coached by me, and that's actually a niche, niche or category I don't touch. I work with business owners on building out their professional personal brand because how influencers function is actually different than a personal brand. Influencers are hired on a more like kind of spokesperson basis. So you might hire an influencer to represent a new product launch and they're going to post it about, post about it on their channels. Most influencers, they might be like a wellness influencer or like a reality TV star. But they don't have a function. And this is generalization, but they don't have a function beyond this is my service offering. This is the impact, the very specific impact that I impart on an audience. Whereas a professional personal brand to me is someone who has a business that is purpose-driven. They're having an impact on their audience and really becoming known for a specific thing.

So when a brand hires a personal brand in like a brand partnership capacity, and I'll use myself as an example, I'm actually integrating whatever product or service the brand is bringing to me into what I already do. So to just add color to this, one of my consistent brand partners is Adobe Acrobat. So I'm not saying, hey, Adobe Acrobat, what do you want me to say? They'll show me their like new features or the angles that they're working on or what they want conveyed. And it's my responsibility to build a use case around how it integrates into my business that we then use in content. And that's how it's kind of different where an influencer would get like their, the, an approved ad read and have to like, yeah, play within lines. So I don't know if that helps define the, the personal brand in a way.

I get it. I do understand it. I, if I can say back just so that it's as maybe a different way of clarity is really your personal brand is the business owner or the expert selling their own service, their own products, their own, whatever it might be. B, where an influencer, they're selling other people's products and basically they're infomercials for other people's businesses. You focus on, I love what you said, professional personal brand, not the influencer style. But then you also just said in your, and this is where the nuance is, in your professional business personal brand, you're also working with other people, with other companies or other services, like you said, Adobe.

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's been really interesting because I see more and more brands wanting to work with the personal brands instead of the influencers. Because if we go back to earlier in the conversation, there's like this authenticity shift that's happening. So now people can tell when there's like a sponsored post, they can tell when it's an influencer doing an unboxing or they've been paid for a particular experience where now the conversation shifting a little bit more where here I am kind of sharing my life and my journey and I've integrated a brand into that. A really great example of, of that too is last fall, Adobe brought me to Adobe MAX, which is their big convention that they have in L.A., and I shared my journey as, okay, I'm going on my first ever brand trip and it's with Adobe. So there's so many layers of emotions and storytelling. It's not just like, hey, I went to this event and this is what I learned. There's like nuance and depth. And that's what, to my last point, builds audience engagement too, because people are now invested and they're like, what are they going to do next?

What's she going to do next?

And that's what you do. Yeah, that's what your expertise.

Yeah.

So like if someone's sitting there and they're in there, have been struggling building a personal brand or they're wanting to start a personal brand, what are some of the— because today, you know, it's all about the vault unlock. So we want to hear, you know, what are the actual things that people can do to, you know, either consider starting a personal brand and/or if they're struggling with their personal brand, what are some of the nuances that they can implement so that people start seeing them differently and the, you know, the algorithms start picking them up? Because I could tell you when I built my personal brand, it took me 9 years to build it and, you know, 3 months to get it right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what's really interesting? The first stumbling block that I see is people who will actually say, I want to build my personal brand. And I'm like, okay, so like, what do you want to do? Or what do you want to be known for? And then they say, I don't know, but I want to be like a 7-figure personal brand. I want to build a 7-figure business off of this. And I am like, unfortunately, the revenue goal actually doesn't matter when it comes to personal branding. And here's why. It's because as soon as we just say that we're in it for the money or the clout or the exposure, The audience can tell and it's just going to feel forced and inauthentic. And typically when someone's having trouble like building their personal brand or creating content, um, one of the biggest things I see is because they're trying to sell or promote or build what they think they should be as opposed to like what they actually like really, really want on the inside. So, um, some of the language I use in my, in my own personal brand and as I built my brand was this feeling of being famous.

So I'd always tell business owners like, I help you feel famous. And I would include words like, I feel so famous right now. And I'd say things like that. And I was saying these things when I had like 500 followers on Instagram, 700 followers on Instagram, and I'm like embracing the cringe. But at the core, I really wanted to be famous or feel famous. And I really think just letting myself kind of share that. And, you know, I'm sure there are some people that were like, she's not for me. That's not— that's not the, you know, fame. What a vain thing to want. Or, you know, all the things that people have that feel triggered by other people going after what they want. But I think typically when someone's working with me and they won't actually like acknowledge the thing that they really want or the feeling they really want to have, or even like what they really want to be known for, Nothing else is going to work. So I don't care, like, what course you think you're going to sell, like, what you think you're going to speak about on stage. If you can't tell me, like, what your purpose or deepest desire is, then, like, the rest is just not going to build in a way that's sustainable.

And I think that's the energy shift we're talking about, is this is inauthenticity where you can't fake the real truth depth of someone. And they can do a good job hiding it and some do a better job than others. But it, you know, for a true personal brand, you gotta actually step into that brand of who you really are, not what you think the market wants from you.

Yeah. And I mean, I have worked with clients in the past who they don't have that clarity. And I mean, that comes from an inner place because you do have to really know yourself and, or at least be able to go on that journey of self-discovery. And I'll have clients who are like, well, you know what? I, I took, you know, Alex Hormozi's masterclass and I want to build what he built. I'm like, well, if you want to do that, then you have to like be willing to show up in a way that's not like that, but that's true for you and be able to build an audience that resonates with whatever message you want to sell. But one of the problems now is that we have these really big figures, especially in the online space, where people just try to mimic them instead of showing up like like how they really are if you were to like meet them in person or have coffee with them. And I, that's, I think where people like lose the plot a little bit and probably find building a personal brand hard cuz they're trying to be someone else.

It's interesting you say that because I, I, I, I go yes and, and I, and I say yes, it is so true that you probably get further being more authentic you.

Mm-hmm.

Than being someone, you know, showing up as someone you're not. But I know a lot of personal brands that are doing very, very— we're not talking multiple six, we're talking not multiple sevens, we're talking multiple eight-figure brands that are complete asses behind the scenes. You like— I mean, the person you see on TV is not the person that they are behind the scenes. So I go, okay, if that's true, how are they getting the success? And then the guy who is actually trying to be authentic isn't getting the success. Where is that fine line?

Well, unfortunately, sometimes I think some of it, and this is actually an important part of personal branding, it comes down to relationship building. So if we look at some of these really big 8-figure brands, probably have pretty deep connections, um, maybe big networks. They put themselves in certain rooms or programs or masterminds and were able to build very fast because of who they knew. And, uh, that's actually a big part of personal branding just generally. It's one thing I tell all of my clients. I do it religiously, going to events, finding new spaces where I can increase my brand awareness with, you know, people that might be on another level than me, and maybe they're doing things that I want to be able to do. And I do think sometimes the people that are feeling the challenge in building their, their personal brand, and you've got these people who are doing it well, I mean, You know, they might be assholes, but they're going out there and they're getting what they want and they're making the relationships. They're probably also making the investments, um, financially, time-wise into building it. So that is the caveat. Unfortunately, unfortunately, it's like the same way in Hollywood.

There's the, uh, yeah, what I'm hearing here, which is like the truth, right? Is number one, you gotta be willing to invest in your personal brand. You're not gonna do it and get out there. For no dollars. Number 2, there is a game. There is a game to be played when it comes to personal branding. You're either playing that game or you're not. And sitting on your heels is not gonna help you grow your personal brand. Now, what are we gonna do as we see all these personal AI brands come out? How do the human personal brands even keep up? And what I mean by that, like, yeah, we can be content junkies and try to post 5 videos a day and we all know what that takes like when you're doing 5 videos a day. But what happens when the AI is doing 10 and then you do 10, they do 20? I mean, how are we gonna compete with that?

I know this is something that I wish I could predict the future on this one, but the thing that I just keep coming back to is the in-person connection. I think we're, I mean, I was seeing a post on it today by I think Gary Vee, like, It's just like analog, being in person, having real life experiences is like making a comeback. And I mean, I host my own in-person stuff and it does so well. And I think it's because we've now gone too far in this other direction where we're like, okay, we want real people again. And like, I personally hate scrolling my feed and not knowing like what's AI and what's not. Like it really bothers me. Um, So I think like anything, everything goes in a cycle. So we're going to see how this pans out. But I have a feeling that's why getting into events, but also building real communities with other business owners, whatever that looks like, joining different membership communities, going to events, being in masterminds so you can build that in person, like that relationship building has always been one of the most important parts of business building.

But I think even more so now with AI and people maybe not even knowing if someone is a real person or not.

Well, it's interesting because even I get comments on my personal brand, my Instagram specifically, people think AI, they actually think I'm AI, which it's wild. Oh my God. Because I'm like, I'm not actually, it's not AI, but I, you know, they think I'm AI. So I'm thinking to myself, well, why not make it? If they already think I'm AI, why not make it? And then I don't have to be there.

There are people that can help you with that.

It's so, yeah, it's so interesting because I know this personal, there's so much behind having the right personal brand. And I think we can talk about all the tactics and what to do, but I believe it comes down to what you said earlier, which comes through from messaging or positioning, which comes to the deeper of Do you know who you are and do you know what you want to represent? And do you have the confidence to go out in the world and get and take the beatings to represent that?

Actually, though, yeah, honestly, because it's not easy. I would say it's the most vulnerable exposing work you could do because now it's not, hey, will you invest in my product? It's you're pitching yourself, whether it's to speak or to work with a brand or I don't know, to invite people to an event and it's all you. And so people say business isn't personal, but like in this way it is.

Yeah. Personal brand is personal. It's interesting. You're saying something here that I'm picking the nuance up on it and I hope other people are too. There is a confidence There's a conviction that you must have internally, externally, that you are going to sell your message and you're going to sell your position and you're going to sell your belief in yourself because that is what you're selling now. You're not, you don't get to hide behind a brand name. You don't get to hide behind a brand product. You don't get to hide behind another service. You are selling you. And if you don't believe in you, if you don't have the conviction in you, you don't have what it takes to be able to go out there and be authentic, real, and be able to connect because people are going to see it. They're going to feel it.

Yeah. And, you know, you make such a good point, like the confidence piece. And I'm saying this coming from someone who had very, very low self-confidence, very low self-esteem when I started my business, like it was on the floor. And I just think that the more inner work you can do, and sometimes I hate making that such a big part of the conversation, because I feel like there's so much mindset out there, there's so much personal development stuff. But at the end of the day, the biggest transitions I've made in my business is when I have been willing to just make a bigger investment, take a bigger risk, feel confident to make a bigger ask. And when I look at all of the personal brands out there that I have the pleasure of working with or seeing, the ones that succeed are the ones that stand by their messaging, their business, regardless of how many nos they get in a row. So that's what it takes.

You're going to— I love you here— want to get the rejections. One of the— well, someone I used to follow said this once and I loved it was, I don't judge my success on the amount of people that love me. I judge my success on the amount of people that hate me. If you don't have haters, you ain't big enough. And I love that because what I've realized and I'm seeing, and this is the game you gotta be willing to play, is you can't be liked by everybody and have a big personal brand.

No. And you actually, you need to be a little bit polarizing. Like that's what engages people. That's what makes you memorable. And I was someone for a very long time, actually still working through this one, where being liked or being palatable for everyone was very important for me, especially in corporate. You want everybody to like you and tolerate you. And so that was a very uncomfortable thing for me as I built my personal brand. I was like, oh, and you can kind of see it like even in this journey that I've, I've gone on, I think it's grown and changed so fast that I have seen people who might have been very engaged with me coming to my events, you know, participating in the conversations and my content, all of that. And then they kind of like drop away. And I know that it's because at some point, maybe there's something that I said, or something that I— I mean, I'm not that controversial. But I think sometimes people trigger other people for different reasons. And that's the one that's been hard for me, just knowing, oh, not everyone's gonna love you 100% of the time.

And that's okay. But it's a hard one. It's a hard pill to swallow.

Well, they're not going to, because two things happen when you stick to your own message, your own truth, is you start to grow and then you start to outgrow your environment. You start to outgrow the people around you. And as we know, again, we don't want to make it all self-development, but the crabs in the buckets, they're going to pull you down.

Totally.

People will try to pull you down to keep them at their level. The worst that people don't speak about is your parents, your family. But here's the difference. The friends and the public, that audience will try to keep you down because you are just a reminder to them of that their own capability of being successful and they're giving up and they don't want that. So as long as you don't succeed, I don't have to go after my dream. Some deep psychology there.

Yeah.

What I realize when it comes to your parents, your family, Even though that might be true, the second one is they don't want you to grow because they don't want you to outgrow them because they love you. It's not because they don't love you, it's because they love you and they're scared that you're going to get too big and forget them and leave them behind. So when you are growing personal brand, I mean, these are all the things that will happen. We know that. I mean, it is just what it is. But what I'm hearing from you is the ones that can withstand all of that and get through all of that and still find a way to be authentic through that are the brands that will have the most impact.

Yeah. And I think it's knowing that all of that is so far out of your control. How people respond to you isn't actually in your realm of responsibility anyways. The best measure for me is if I can go to sleep at night knowing I did what was authentic to me, I can get behind everything that I said, I did, how I managed relationships, then that's the most important part. And I think when we— if we take it back to actually like personal branding and say it's content, or say it's sharing something on a podcast, because sometimes I've done a podcast episode that has made people question or feel uncomfortable, and I'm like, well, their opinion doesn't change how I feel. Maybe their opinion makes me a little bit uncomfortable, but it actually doesn't change me. Like, I'm not re-recording recording the episode and thinking I've changed my mind. And I think the same goes for content too. If we're being a little bit polarizing, or if we're being, I don't know, controversial, or just standing up for what we know is true, then I think that's the most important part. And just knowing— I mean, there, I have a reel on Facebook right now that is like viral, and I can't— I don't look at the comments.

Again, I love that you can't look at the comment. I mean, Looking on the comments means you care about the other people's opinions.

All the strangers.

Yeah. And the people like, they're just, you know, keyboard warriors. Let me, let me ask you this because we got a couple of questions here. I do. And, and I want to make sure that we move this along here. What would you say to the people that they want to be the personal brand, but maybe they haven't figured out their why? Like maybe they, they, or they understand their why. They just don't know how to turn that why into a message or they're not sure. What would be the blue ocean strategy? Because how many mindset coaches are there? How many business coaches are there? How many, you know, like, you know, so what is it? You know, how would you say to those people, hey, be able to show up, be vulnerable and be in your truth?

Yeah. I mean, the best part about personal branding generally is that it evolves over time. So people kind of let that perfection or having to like have it all figured out kind of stop them from doing. Whereas what I believe is, okay, maybe you don't know what your why is, but maybe you are a social media manager and that's your job. What do you love about your job? What do you think is different about the way that you manage clients or the way that you create content? And just start there. It doesn't have to be so deep. It doesn't, it doesn't even have to feel like it's groundbreaking, but just kind of knowing those points are what's going to help you start to actually talk about those things. And then as you maybe go on podcasts or create content where you're talking to the camera, or even like, you know, having to create a keynote for the first time, you're gonna start to learn things about you and what you like to talk about. That's going to help you kind of carve out the personal brand, get more specific, and be able to talk about it in a different way.

I didn't like wake up one day and say, public relations for personal brands, anti-agency. Like, I didn't just decide that. It came through what I saw was working in my agency, what I believed in, what I would tell clients. And it just keeps evolving and you keep getting stronger and you keep getting more defined, but not starting because you don't know what your blue ocean strategy is a very like great way to never figure it out.

Yeah. Well, again, it's the simple rule of business, right? If you wait for perfection, you'll be waiting for a very, very long time. You know, at some point you just got to jump in and do. I was listening to you speak. It really brought back, I mean, now probably 20 years ago when I first started my personal brand, right? Written. The amount of brand changes I've gone through, my probably 6 or 7 iterations of who I was once, like who I was to who I am. And that's the interesting thing that we didn't talk about, but I see is the personal brands evolve to where the personal brand themselves, so the people in that personal brand where they are in their lives. The personal brand I was when I was 20 years old is not the personal brand I was when I was 30 and not who I am today. Completely different people, completely different brands, right? People want to grow. They want to see you grow. They want to see you move. So you just got to jump in and get started. Other couple of questions here because you said it and I wanted to deep dive into it is ways of monetizing your personal brand.

For me, it sounds like you've cracked the code on multiple ways. Like, yeah, the simple is coaching, offer a coaching or a consulting service. Is offer a course, offer a low ticket, mid-ticket, whatever it might be. Even you can offer your own product, right? Outside of those, what are other ways that we can monetize a personal brand? Brand, like brand partnerships. What else?

Yeah, so brand partnerships are great. My kind of formula for brand partnerships, and this is how we do it when we're small, is we're never just selling like kind of one deliverable. So great example of this is, you know, I have a podcast. It's not thousands of downloads a month, it's hundreds, but it's monetized because I sell my ads in bundles with maybe some content in my newsletter, some content on social media. Sometimes I even wrap it into like in-person event experience sponsorships. So you get really great at increasing the value of that partnership by you yourself adding more deliverables, which then allows you to charge more because there are more touchpoints. But also this is just really great marketing because long gone are the days when someone can like buy buy one reel and see a great influx of sales anyways. Like, in a marketing campaign, you need multiple touchpoints. So I believe that's good for both parties. So that's kind of the brand partnership monetization side of things. The other thing is speaking. So, and I look at speaking in a couple different ways because speaking can be really lucrative and paid in a corporate sense.

So I'll do a lot of corporate workshops or corporate speaking engagements. Those are high-value opportunities, but the content has to be able to appeal to a corporate audience. So I don't necessarily go into a large, large organization and tell everyone how I left corporate to start a business and how amazing it's been. I have a very specific workshop and talk that's, hey, this is why it's so great for you to align your personal brand with the organization that you work for. So you start to develop different angles that help you appeal to these, all these different audiences. So event organizers, brand partners. You can also monetize your speaking. Maybe you're not getting paid for the speaking engagement, but any speaking engagement I've ever done, I've made clients off of the back end. So whether that's someone who's followed me on Instagram because they saw my talk, or I have literally signed clients at the event— because your talk should be, if you're someone who has, um, offers, products, coaching programs, your talk, the one that you're doing for free, needs to align with something you're selling so you can sell people into that. Um, another like interesting one that I'll just mention here is you can also get brands to sponsor your, your speaking engagements.

So maybe you're not being paid by the event, but you can get a brand partner on board, and maybe you're integrating their software or a feature or something into your talk. Doesn't have to be about them, but you're, you're maybe giving them a mention on stage. Brands will pay a lot of money for that because it's so, uh, authentic and organic and almost untraceable to the, to the audience. So there's that too.

And how do those relationships work? Because that's very interesting. I love, I hear what you're saying. I'm going to go to an event that has 10,000 people in the audience. I'm a keynote speaker there. They're paying me great, but I can also monetize obviously on the backend. But hey, wait a minute, I'm going to be speaking about, let's just say I'm going to be speaking about social media and then I'm going to be speaking about the CRMs that I use. Call on the CRM company and saying, hey, I'm going to be here with these many people, pay X dollars, and I'll put you in that CRM and I'll have you, you know, promote you.

I actually tell each and every one of my clients, do not mention a brand on stage in a webinar anywhere until you've asked them if they'd like to pay for that slot first, because it's such a missed opportunity.

What a missed opportunity.

Back in in the fall, I was running this masterclass, this like visibility planning workshop, and it was so natural for me to integrate an AI tool into it because I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to give all this content. The best way for someone to use this is to use an AI tool to actually, you know, develop it and be able to continue to use the content I've provided. And so I called up my— and had a couple of different contacts in mind, called up the first one. Hey, $5,000, you'll be included in all of the email marketing and the graphic. You're a big part of this teaching component. Yeah. And that was an easy yes. So the best way to find these relationships is to go to events where you can meet brand reps in person. The cold pitching is really hard. I have a lot of clients who just try it and I say, look at the events that are near you that have a nice sponsor lineup and go there and meet the people in person. That's the fastest way to build those relationships.

Which goes back to what we've been saying this entire time. If you've been listening and hearing authentic, real communication, connections, relationships. For those of them, for the people that have been listening and are saying, I need Katrina to help me, where can they come and find you?

Yeah, I'm @katrinaowenspr on Instagram. That is the best way to find me. I answer all my DMs, but I'm also Katrina Owens on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. I have a podcast called Fame Ready that you can listen to, and I deep dive into all this stuff every week. So those are the best places to, to keep an eye out. And I'm here to help all the personal brands that are like struggling with this because there's such an amazing opportunity right now that people need to take advantage of, because it could be your dream job. It's mine for sure.

Katrina, I'm going to ask you then this last final question because I love it. For those that, those those who are struggling and want to turn this into their dream job, what's for the vault itself underneath? Unlock the vault. What's one thing you can say right now that can possibly shift their way of thinking or what they're doing?

I wish it was like so strategic and in-depth and like groundbreaking, but it really is like, You must believe that you can, because if you believe that all the possibilities exist for you and that they're endless and that you deserve to be on that stage, on that podcast, working with that brand, if you believe it, you're going to find a way to make it, to make it come true. So first you have to believe that it's possible for you.

Well, there it is. Believe that it is possible.

So simple, yet so complicated all at the same time. Huh.