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Own Your Impact equips experts and leaders to transform their expertise into meaningful influence. Host Macy Robison reveals how successful thought leaders use deliberate systems—not luck or volume—to amplify their authentic voice and create lasting impact. Through practical frameworks and strategic guidance, you'll discover how to build a self-reinforcing ecosystem of Core Resonance, structured Content, a Central Platform, strategic Connections, and intentional Commercialization. Whether you're just starting to share your expertise or scaling an existing platform, this podcast delivers the roadmap to turn your ideas into purpose-driven influence that resonates far beyond what you might imagine possible.
[00:00:00] A couple of years ago, I got an email from a thought leader named Julie Chenell that completely reframed how I think about building a thought leadership business. Now, Julie is one of my favorite people to follow. I have learned a ton from her over the years. She's a marketing, specifically funnels expert, and she's the co-founder of a company called Funnel Gorgeous.
[00:00:24] In this email, she laid out three distinct types of brands, and when I read through this, it. Just made everything click into place because at the time I was working full-time at StoryBrand and I was hearing from so many people who were business owners that they felt like they weren't measuring up in terms of the business they were building.
[00:00:45] They felt like they were trying to. Build something sellable and something that could run without them. A , quote unquote real company. I just wanna scale. There's a lot of talk about scaling, but when we really dug in, many of them just wanted to run a brand that allowed them to help their [00:01:00] family in terms of the revenue that they were able to bring in, give them the flexibility to pick up their kids from school.
[00:01:06] And it just made me realize there's so much. Opportunity we have to choose when we run our own businesses, and we don't embrace that because we start comparing ourselves to other people's businesses. All of these business owners felt like they were doing something wrong by staying small. Like the company focused on them was somehow less legitimate than building a company that they could make an eight figure exit from.
[00:01:30] But this email from Julie really helped me see. Something important, Amy Porterfield, Jenna Kutcher, Marie Forleo names we talk about a lot here as thought leaders. These are three of the biggest names in online business. They're all what Julie calls a type one personal brand business, and they're doing just fine.
[00:01:48] Julie's company funnel gorgeous that she started with Kathy Olson. They are a type two hybrid brand and they are doing great. We will talk about what each of these types of businesses mean. [00:02:00] But I wanted to bring up this conversation because as we head into the end of the year. I know that I am, and I know that many of you are thinking about what you want to build in the next year, and I think one of the most important decisions you can make is the chief deciding officer of your business.
[00:02:13] And if you haven't listened to that episode, it's episode 37. Go back and listen to it. One of the most important decisions you can make is being really clear and self-aware about which one of these three types of businesses we're gonna talk about today. You actually want to build and run. Because you don't have to build something that's sellable.
[00:02:35] You don't have to buy into this tech bro culture, like build something to a nine figure exit and go lay on the beach if you want to, great. Do that. But you don't have to create a faceless brand like that that you can exit. You can decide what you actually want to build, what you actually want to grow.
[00:02:53] One of the things I talked about when I worked full-time at StoryBrand. With all of the guides was this, you need to build the [00:03:00] business that you wanna run. It needs to feel like a playground, not a prison. And if you've ever felt like your personal brand being the face of your brand, a business like that isn't legitimate enough.
[00:03:11] Or if you feel like you should be building towards something bigger, this episode is for you. So let me walk through Julie Chanel's framework for the three types of brands. I wanted to share this because it really has given me and my clients and people that I talk with about this idea, permission to choose what we actually want instead of what we think we're supposed to build.
[00:03:35] Julie has a brand new book called Million Dollar Grit that goes into a lot of other amazing lessons that she has learned. As someone who started out as a solopreneur face of her business, has built a really successful type two hybrid brand. We'll talk about what that means in a minute. , I just think she's really wise, so if this is helpful to you, for sure, pick up that book too.
[00:03:57] I'll make sure I put the link in the show notes. So [00:04:00] let's talk about this email I got from Julie again, came at the perfect time for me. She talked about three types of brands. Type one she calls the personal brand, that's familiar labeling for all of us. This is where the person is, the brand.
[00:04:15] So Marie Forlio, Jenna Kutcher, Rachel Hollis, anyone who is the face of what they're doing and the brand and the business are built around their personal platform and expertise. That's what Julie classifies as a type one personal brand. I'll call it a personal brand going forward. So personal brands, these businesses.
[00:04:35] Commercialized by, by selling courses, by selling memberships, masterminds. They often monetize their podcasts like someone like Lewis Howes does. They might have books. They're often service-based businesses as well. So anyone who is a coach, uh, does consulting like I do done for You work like some of the StoryBrand guides that I work with, they, they are still a personal brand.
[00:04:58] They are the face of the business. [00:05:00] They're the person that someone comes to to get help. The key thing that I think makes people feel like it's not enough when it comes to like this exit, the business conversation is a personal brand is not really sellable without the person because the person and the brand are the same thing.
[00:05:16] So there's definition. Let's set that aside for a second. The next brand Julie talks about in this email is a type three brand, a faceless brand. This faceless brand is what most people think of when they imagine building something sellable when they, you know, listen to diary of a CEO or how I built this.
[00:05:35] And they wanna build something that can. Live beyond them and and get them that exit. These are companies, I don't know, like Acuity, Calendly, Asana, Kartra, SaaS brands. There's no person that we can think of that's necessarily attached to the brand at all. And the real clue is the social media account probably shows the company logo because it's run by a team of people behind the scenes.
[00:05:58] And I think when people are [00:06:00] tired of being the face of their brand, of being the personal brand and some of the energy that requires. This faceless brand type of business is what they crave. That their work matters enough to be a sellable asset, that there's something that can run without them. Now, there's a type two brand that we skipped over, and Julie calls this type two, the hybrid brand, the in between.
[00:06:25] Often these are brands that start out as a personal brand and then build a company brand alongside them. So think of like Russell Brunson with ClickFunnels or Patrick Lencioni, the Table Group. Donald Miller and StoryBrand, Michael Hyatt, and full focus in a hybrid brand. Both the person and the brand are known.
[00:06:49] They both help push the company forward. It's almost like they're working together. The person's authority builds the brand and the brand amplifies the person's reach. [00:07:00] Now that company can be a sellable asset. It usually doesn't go for the same amount of money as a faceless brand, but it can be a sellable asset.
[00:07:10] But here's the other thing that Julie talks about in the email that I think is really important to understand. The hybrid brand is often I think, looked at in business as a stopover destination. You started out as a personal brand. You built a company, and now we're gonna build something we can sell.
[00:07:27] It's like a stopover point, but Julie says the hybrid brand, having a personal brand with a business alongside it is a legitimate destination, not just a stepping stone. Her company funnel, gorgeous is. Hybrid by design. Her co-founder Kathy, has her own personal brand. Julie has her own personal brand, and they're not trying to be faceless.
[00:07:52] They're intentionally building a company where Julie's personal expertise and Kathy's personal expertise [00:08:00] unite inside a funnel, gorgeous, and make all three brands matter. Where I see people make a mistake here is when they treat this hybrid brand with a lack of self-awareness about what they've built, or they think of it as temporary building it while secretly aiming for the faceless brand because the strategies that get you from personal brand to hybrid don't work when you're jumping from hybrid to faceless brand.
[00:08:25] There's a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of investment that has to go into building a faceless brand. It just takes a lot of time and effort to build something like that and it's a completely different process and trying to operate like you are that faceless brand when you actually have a hybrid, can create a lot of friction and a lot of problems inside.
[00:08:48] Organization and can also harm your personal brand. The relationship between the three was the really big aha for me here. Moving from a personal brand to a hybrid [00:09:00] brand with that, that company along the side. It's challenging, but it's doable. You add a team, you build systems, you create a brand identity alongside your personal brand.
[00:09:08] It takes time and it takes intention, but it's a bridge you can deliberately build and be really successful. But like I just said, jumping from a hybrid brand, that type two brand to a faceless brand type three, that's fundamentally different. A faceless brand requires capital venture funding. Outside investment.
[00:09:28] You can bootstrap them, but it takes a long time. And when you're trying to build a faceless brand that can compete with established players, you need the resources to match their level of branding, advertising, and infrastructure. Think about. How really massive companies advertise versus a bootstrapped personal brand or a hybrid brand like Nike does things completely differently than a personal brand or a hybrid brand would.
[00:09:56] It's a different world. There's different capital [00:10:00] requirements, different operations, different governance, different everything. So the materials and strategies you use to go from personal brand to hybrid brand just don't work. For the jump to faceless brand, it's just different and it's, you know, you can say what got you here won't get you there.
[00:10:15] It's a completely different ball game. And so the real problem here is not confusion when I'm seeing this with the experts that I work with. When they feel like they want to build something bigger, when they feel like they should, which I hate that word, be doing more. It's not that they feel stuck in no man's land.
[00:10:36] They feel like they're doing something wrong, and they often have a personal brand that's working beautifully. They're making really good money. They're serving clients well. They're creating real transformation, but they don't feel like they have a quote unquote real business. They feel like they're supposed to be building something bigger, something sellable, something that can scale without them, which is why when I talked about the Science of Scaling book, uh, several episodes ago, which is another one I'll, [00:11:00] I'll link in the show notes.
[00:11:02] It is a different mindset when you have a personal brand, a business, when we're talking about scale, scale is not just about removing yourself and removing your face from everything you've built. It's about thinking about how to scale your impact. But when we get confused about that word, we start questioning everything like, everything's working well.
[00:11:22] Well, but, but should I hire a team? Should I build systems? Am I thinking too small? Here's what I want you to hear. There is nothing wrong with having a personal brand business. There's nothing wrong with being the face of your business. It's not a failure state. It's not what you're doing while you figure out how to build a quote unquote real company, it's a completely legitimate choice that needs to be owned In her email, Julie says, I think most people starting a business to make money.
[00:11:51] Should start with a personal brand. It's the easiest way to get revenue flowing. And I talk with people a lot about that a lot. If you've got [00:12:00] something you can sell to someone who has a problem, go start talking to people. There are opportunities and situations where you might wanna move from a personal brand to a hybrid brand. And Julie talks about this a little bit in the email.
[00:12:12] They want a bigger, deeper impact. They want to reach more people. They want to think about being more of an owner instead of a doer. They want to build a team. Maybe they want legacy. Something to keep going when they're done actively working. I think full focus is a good example of that.
[00:12:29] Scalability, more money. Some people move from a personal brand to a hybrid brand 'cause they're really aiming for that faceless brand. And what Julie made really clear is, treating a hybrid brand as a stopover to a faceless brand is a mistake. Hybrid brand is a legitimate destination.
[00:12:48] The thing I talk with clients about a lot, if they already have a team. Is understanding whether they have a hybrid brand or a personal brand, because both of these things can and should be done by [00:13:00] design. In her email, Julie talks about her company funnel gorgeous. It's a hybrid brand by design. It's not a stopping point on the way to something else.
[00:13:07] Sure, they may sell it someday, but it is a hybrid brand by design and they know that one of the trade offs for. Being a hybrid brand is, it may not have a massive nine figure exit, but they really have no intention as far as I know of selling it. And this is a conversation I have a lot with with clients who have type two brands.
[00:13:27] Is this something you wanna sell someday? Great. We're going to be making different decisions about how your personal brand and your company brand work together to grow so that we set you up for success with that. Potential outcome someday, or if like, never say never, but we're not planning on selling it.
[00:13:44] Great. We're gonna make some different decisions, deliberate decisions about how commercialization, how central platform, how connection strategies are going to work but we make deliberate choices. I think the problem comes when you build a hybrid brand [00:14:00] thinking that it's just a stepping stone to the faceless brand thinking that, oh, I'm gonna build a company and then I'm gonna sell it someday, and I have dollar signs in my eyes because you haven't considered what that jump.
[00:14:11] Really requires the materials, the things that you do to bridge from a personal brand to a hybrid brand will not work for the jump to a faceless brand. The, the distance is too far, fundamentally different. Capital requirements, fundamentally different structure, different governance. It's a totally different world.
[00:14:33] I feel like full focus, and Michael Hyatt did this a few years ago, and they've talked about this on their podcast that he has with his daughter, that they were in the process of removing Michael's.
[00:14:46] Personal brand from the business, changing the name, some things like that. And they did not do it deliberately. They made the decision to shift everything while Michael was on sabbatical. And it was very jarring for customers and it has taken [00:15:00] some time to recover from that. , It's just something we can learn from.
[00:15:03] 'cause if you're going to build a hybrid brand, build it because that's where you want to be. Build that brand identity alongside your personal identity because it's your vision, not because you think it's the path to something else, and it will make both your brand and the company brand grow more intentionally.
[00:15:21] It needs to be your vision and your decision, not the path to something else. You can always change your mind, but eyes wide open decisions, I think are the best way to build businesses like this. Here's what ultimately matters. There are reasons that some people move, shift, sell, change the structures of their business.
[00:15:43] That doesn't mean you should do the same thing. This is where we put blinders on a little bit. If you want to stay the face of your business and want to build your impact through that, and don't really care so much about other people delivering your IP and your work, stay the face of your business.
[00:15:59] If your [00:16:00] current revenue and lifestyle is working for you right now, you don't need to change anything. You're allowed to choose all of this on purpose.
[00:16:12] Here's the pattern that I don't think I've seen anybody talking about when it comes to these three types of businesses, and it's really been fascinating to witness some of the most successful entrepreneurs. Who have built and exited faceless brands come back and choose to build personal brands. Sarah Blakely builds.
[00:16:28] Spanx sold a majority stake. She's building a personal brand, and she started building it while she was still at Spanx. Jamie Krn Lima sold it cosmetics to L'Oreal for a billion dollars and is now an author and a speaker and a podcaster. Alex Hormoze built and sold multiple companies and now has a massive personal brand teaching others.
[00:16:47] I actually think his is more of a hybrid brand because he has acquisition.com, but they're working together, and that's another good example of building a hybrid brand on purpose. But think about what this means. They had the ultimate exit that everybody thinks they [00:17:00] should have. They think that everybody's supposedly working toward, that's sellable, faceless brand that makes people extraordinarily wealthy and
[00:17:06] they chose to come back and build personal brands, not because they couldn't maintain a faceless brand. I think they're building personal brands because after experiencing what it's like to run a massive enterprise after the exit, after proving they could do the thing that everyone says is the goal, they discovered what they actually wanted was the freedom and direct impact of thought leadership of a personal brand.
[00:17:29] They wanted to put their unique voice out in the world in the way that they wanted to use it. They wanted to directly connect with people they wanna teach, write, speak, create transformation on their own terms. That is where a personal brand offers something that a faceless brand does not control over what you teach over your ip, a direct relationship with your audience and the transformation they're trying to accomplish.
[00:17:53] The ability to pivot really quickly. Freedom to create exactly what you want without corporate structure or investor expectations. So [00:18:00] if you're questioning whether your personal brand business is legitimate, remember
[00:18:04] people who have done the thing that you think you're supposed to be building to have a quote unquote real business are choosing what you already have.
[00:18:11] So let's talk about what each type actually requires, so you have some framing to continue choosing what you're doing on purpose. I think personal brand businesses require expertise that people will pay for.
[00:18:24] A clear voice, clear core resonance, you probably have a commercialization model that's around service-based work, coaching, consulting, done for you. You need to be comfortable with revenue tied to your personal capacity or your ability to create impact with a team behind you, but you're still the face of everything.
[00:18:44] You probably need the ability to create courses or programs or memberships as you're ready. Having a small support team, having contractors that, a lot of authors have teams like this, but you need to be comfortable with your revenue [00:19:00] tied to your personal capacity. Hybrid brands require everything from that personal brand, plus the ability to build a brand identity alongside your personal identity
[00:19:10] team, building management, the ability to hand the reins over, potentially to someone else to lead that company. Once you've built it, there's more complex operations, which means it's more expensive. , You are the owner. You're still involved, but you're not doing everything and you need to be okay with that.
[00:19:25] You're dealing with running a company and all that that requires, or having someone else run your company and you being involved with them day to day. Amy Porterfield had a really interesting episode on her podcast maybe a year and a half ago about her decision to hire A CEO.
[00:19:39] She brought her CEO on the episode with her. And talked about the decision that needed to be made for Amy to continue to expand her personal brand and her impact. She needed to hand the reins over to A CEO and what that entailed and what that looks like, and how they communicate with one another. It requires, , a lot of communication and discipline.
[00:19:59] Decision [00:20:00] making and like really eyes wide open decision making to run a hybrid brand, I believe. And if you don't know that, that's what you're running, I've seen it happen so many times where there is friction, there are problems
[00:20:13] that could be avoided by just being aware that there's a personal brand and a company that are working together side by side, and we need to make decisions because that's the structure. Faceless brands require significant capital venture funding grants or all of the above. There needs to be corporate structure.
[00:20:33] Corporate level operations. It's often, you know, even if you bootstrap. A company that ends up growing to this point, you've got to adjust that bootstrap moving from startup to corporate mentality as you go. It's fundamentally different from a personal brand, from a hybrid brand. There are not very many brands that start out as personal brands that can make this full jump.
[00:20:56] And Julie's email is really clear. She says, I [00:21:00] believe most people who are personal brands or hybrid brands should probably stay there. Very few brands make the jump to that faceless brand if they didn't initially start out that way, and that is okay. All of this at the end of the day, is about desire and decision making.
[00:21:17] I've worked with a lot of thought leaders over the last 10 years. And having this archetype assessment has been really helpful to give more information about how my clients naturally create transformation, how they naturally express their expertise. How they can give themselves permission to stop copying and pasting when it comes to those types of things.
[00:21:36] But it doesn't necessarily determine which business model of these three that you should build. Any archetype can thrive as a personal brand or choose to build a hybrid brand. What determines your path isn't how you think or how you create, it's what you want. A transformational guide who loves developing people and building systems might thrive.
[00:21:59] Building a [00:22:00] hybrid brand and, and having a company alongside them. A transformational guide who wants to stay in the work with clients like I do, would be miserable trying to build a big company and a hybrid brand like that. Managing like a huge team. Same archetype, different desires, different business model.
[00:22:17] I've known this too about myself for a long time, even before building this archetype assessment. Back when I was doing marketing full-time, I would look at my friends who had made the decision to build agencies and build out a team, and I was like, I just, I feel like I should go. That path started walking down and it was like, I am not wired for this.
[00:22:37] It was about my desire and making the decision to intentionally stay where I was, and that's great. It had nothing to do with my archetype. It did have to do with my desire and my decision to structure the business in the way I wanted to structure it.
[00:22:51] Another example, a wisdom writer. I have a client that's a really influential wisdom writer. Could choose to stay a personal brand their entire career. [00:23:00] Could write books, could go out and speak, could find a lot of different ways to generate revenue and stay as a personal brand with a couple of people supporting them.
[00:23:10] There are tons of thought leaders that have, have their businesses structured this way, or they could build a hybrid brand. Like, you know, we mentioned Patrick Lencioni earlier. He built a company next to his own personal brand, just a different vision for what they wanted to build.
[00:23:27] All of this is about self-knowledge, desire, and decision making. Understanding your archetype , understanding how you're wired, understanding what energizes versus what drains you is the self-knowledge that you do need to have as you make some of these decisions. And then desire, being really honest about what you want your business and you want your days to look like.
[00:23:46] You could start out thinking that you're building a playground and you could very quickly end up in a prison of your own making because you weren't honest about what you wanted your business to look like.
[00:23:57] Self knowledge, desire, and decision making. [00:24:00] Choosing on purpose instead of going with the flow, thinking about what you should be doing and what you're supposed to be building, you need to take a step back and decide you can do that on your own. You can do that with the help of people like myself who are strategists in this area, but you need to decide because most.
[00:24:18] Thought leadership brands are personal brands or hybrid brands, and the question isn't which one is better. The question is, which one do you actually want to run? You get to choose, so if you're trying to figure this out, some questions you can ask yourself, do I enjoy leadership and management, or do I just tolerate it?
[00:24:36] If you just tolerate it and you already have a personal brand that you love, stick around there for a while. Another question to ask. Do I want to build something sellable or do I want to get paid well for my expertise? Both are valid different paths, and you can get paid well for your expertise regardless of whether you have a personal brand or hybrid brand.
[00:24:56] But that sellable question is the one you need to answer. [00:25:00] I've had friends who have hybrid brands. You have agencies who have really built successful companies. They're still sellable. They're just not nine figure faceless brands sellable.
[00:25:12] Another question, am I energized by developing people in systems or am I drained by it? 'cause your honest answer here matters a lot more than you think. Can I command premium prices for my personal expertise? If yes. Great. Like again, both paths are valid. Personal brand or hybrid brand, it just depends on if you want to be selling your personal expertise or maybe have a, a company with a sales team that can sell your personal expertise.
[00:25:38] Do I have a methodology that others could deliver if trained properly? If no, a hybrid brand's gonna be really hard to build. What do I actually enjoy doing in my business? If you really love working with clients or creating content, that's great. Either path is valid, but you've gotta think about how you structure things.
[00:25:59] What's my [00:26:00] actual vision for my work? Not what you think you want, but what do you actually want? These are great questions to ask, especially here at the end of the years, we're in self-reflection mode, but here's what I really want you to hear. If you don't wanna build a company, you don't have to build a company.
[00:26:14] Now, I'm not talking about legal structure, tax structure, LLC, any of that stuff. I'm talking about how your business is constructed. You can be a wisdom writer who writes books and does consulting. And that's it. You can be a resident orator who speaks and advises. You can be a strategic advisor who commands premium rates for high level thinking you can make great money, have significant impact, and never have a team of 30 people that you have to pay and manage.
[00:26:42] Amy Porterfield has a team, but it's a personal brand business. She even has a CEO, but it's a personal brand business. That's the way it's structured. Jenna Kutcher has support, but she's the brand. Re Forlio built a massive platform as a personal brand. Donald Miller has a hybrid brand. I have [00:27:00] worked inside of that hybrid brand.
[00:27:02] It is a full company that sits alongside Donald's personal brand and they work together. People who have built and exited faceless brands are choosing to come back as as personal brands because of what they offer. All of this is legitimate. So the question isn't, am I successful enough? The question is, what do I want to build?
[00:27:23] A hybrid brand makes sense. When you've mastered your methodology and you're ready to scale it through other people to create some sort of certification, you've proven your transformation process works. You've documented how you create results. You have workshops you can send people out to lead.
[00:27:36] You're genuinely excited about training other people to deliver what you've built. Maybe you really enjoy organizational leadership, not just tolerate it like you enjoy it. You love developing people, you love building systems. You love having a team that you can pour into. If you have capital to invest in the infrastructure of a team, a hybrid brand might make a ton of sense.
[00:27:57] Maybe your vision requires multiple people [00:28:00] who can run alongside and expand the business as you are continuing to show up and do what you do. A certification program is one of those, instances, if you want to serve organizations and not just individuals, that's one of the reasons that StoryBrand developed into a hybrid brand.
[00:28:15] They had big organizations coming to them that needed help with their messaging and Don couldn't go out and do all of it. So they have private workshops, and they were able to scale into that work.
[00:28:27] But don't build a hybrid brand just because you think you should build it. 'cause you want to build it, 'cause you're ready for it. And if you do, just know that building a brand identity for a company alongside your personal identity requires a little bit more strategy.
[00:28:45] If you want to move from personal brand to hybrid brand, here's what that looks like.
[00:28:49] Master your methodology, make sure you've got IP that really works. Get really good at creating transformation and already be commanding premium prices for your work. And then [00:29:00] you have to start documenting everything. One of my good friends, , it's been two or three years now, , was able to sell his agency to a much bigger.
[00:29:10] Agency, , and his first step on that path to exiting his agency was. He had been doing all the work. He started out as a solopreneur. He had a few people kind of helping him. He took a full year and wrote down all the processes, all the things that need to happen step by step to make sure the work gets done.
[00:29:32] If you can't explain how you do what you do, you can't train other people to do it. And having a hybrid brand requires that there are other people doing the things that you may now might not be doing. So get stuff documented. There are lots of ways to do this. You can build SOPs, you can create Loom videos.
[00:29:49] There's a really great tool called Scribe that will use AI to record the steps that you take when you're actually performing tasks. Just start documenting. [00:30:00] Next thing you wanna do is hire one person, one strategic team member who can take something completely off your plate. You don't wanna get an assistant that needs constant direction.
[00:30:10] You need someone to own this area of the business and take it off your plate. They need to be an A player, what? Benjamin Hardy calls a super who. And then you need to prove that your model can scale. Does it work when someone else , delivers it. And you can test this. I'm testing this right now.
[00:30:25] I'm running these archetype strategy calls with the intention of creating a practitioner certification next year, that will include a blueprint for delivering the archetype strategy calls in your own way if you're a practitioner. But I've gotta document what I'm doing first to make sure the methodology works when someone else delivers it.
[00:30:44] Does the business model you're building support team members, does delegation free you up or does it add management burden? Then when you figured all those things out, you can start to expand. You can add team members as revenue supports it, and you've proven you can lead effectively. And if you [00:31:00] decide you don't like it, you can always go back.
[00:31:02] I have a couple of friends that I know who have scaled up, built a team, and have deliberately stepped back down and said, you know what? I just wanna be the consultant. I wanna run this myself as the face of, of what's happening at the end of the day. This takes time. This transition takes time to do well.
[00:31:18] So give yourself time and just keep making deliberate decisions along the way.
[00:31:23] And speaking in decisions we're at the end of another year. , It's the perfect time to start thinking about things like this intentionally, not in a rushed way. You don't have to decide that you're going to have a, a personal brand, hybrid brand, or faceless brand by the end of, of this year, but you can start thinking about what you actually want to build in 2026 next year.
[00:31:44] Not about what you think you should build, not will work for someone else, but what do you want? Do you want to stay a personal brand and build around your personal expertise? There's nothing wrong with that. Mentioned several people who are really successful, who have built incredible businesses with teams [00:32:00] as personal brand focused businesses where they're the face of what's happening, or do you want to start moving toward a more hybrid brand?
[00:32:08] If you do, you can make that decision on purpose. Do it because you genuinely want to build an organization. You enjoy developing people. Your vision requires it. I think as the chief deciding officer of your business, these are some of the most important strategic decisions you can make and the best time to make them is when you're planning right now for the year ahead.
[00:32:26] Not because January 1st is magical, but because clarity about what you're building makes other decisions easier. Simplifying making a decision that takes a hundred other decisions off of your plate. Is so helpful when it comes to running any type of business, but specifically a personal brand or hybrid brand business.
[00:32:45] When you know you're building a personal brand, you can stop second guessing about whether you should hire a team and stop signing up for free webinars about how to build your team. That decision is off the table until you decide to bring it back. When you know you're building a hybrid brand, you can make strategic decisions about [00:33:00] infrastructure and team building and not worry so much about removing your face from everything that's happening because you don't need to worry about building for a faceless brand.
[00:33:09] You've made the decision. I think the worst place is to be unclear. The worst place is to go with the flow, building something by default instead of by design. We need to design. We need to design and we need to decide. So I hope this has given you some things to think about, but here's what I want you to hear.
[00:33:30] You don't have to build a massive company to generate meaningful revenue for yourself and for your family. You don't have to scale through other people. You don't have to want what other entrepreneurs want. You can be a personal brand business and be wildly successful. You can be someone who's built and exited a faceless brand and come back as a personal brand unapologetically.
[00:33:51] Or you can build a hybrid brand because that's genuinely what you want. I think the worst place to be is building something because you [00:34:00] think you're supposed to, not because you actually want to. I know that's still scary when you're building something that feels like no one else has done. It feels like climbing a mountain on your own and you're not quite sure where you're headed.
[00:34:12] But if you've got a clear understanding of what you're great at, what your voice is. You have thought through some of these components in my resident thought leadership system, and you're moving in that direction, you will find your way. I think the worst place to be is building something or being on a path towards something that you think you're supposed to do, not because you want it.
[00:34:36] All of this is about self knowledge. . Desire and decision making. Understanding how you're wired, being honest about what you want and choosing on purpose. People are attracted to that level of confidence in decision making. Even if you don't feel confident about it, you need to decide. And I think as you're planning for this next year, making these types of decisions intentionally is the way to go, [00:35:00] start to make decisions about what you're building and why, and move.
[00:35:03] That said, I know it's helpful to have someone to bounce these ideas off of. I know it's helpful for me, and if you want help figuring out which one of these models might fit you best or, or what you actually want to build. Book an archetype strategy call. That's the best way to get started working with me.
[00:35:19] Go to macy robinson.com/call. We'll start by looking at your archetype. You'll answer a few questions about what's been working, what hasn't, what you actually want, and we'll start to map out a 30 day plan. To get you moving in a direction that makes sense for you and keep an eye out. Next week I'm putting together something to help you do this annual planning work in a deeper way according to how you're wired.
[00:35:43] And I'll share more details soon