Personal branding: Does this story appeal to you?

15 replies
Hey WF,

Currently trying to make a personal brand and crafting a good story. I want to ask you if this story appeals to you in a business sense. By the way, this is all completely true, haven't made any of this up.

"
I have been an entrepreneur for as long as anyone close to me can remember. While most eight year olds were washing their parents cars for pocket money, I was washing the cars of the entire neighborhood block. When I turned 13, I began selling on eBay, and within a few months, I sold over $20,000 of refurbished iPods.

Growing up, I always had a passion for soccer and loved playing at lunchtime with my classmates and training a few days a week with my local amateur team after school, but that was a far as my ambition went then. So in high school I combined my love of soccer ---- with e-commerce and created what would later become "Australia's #1 Online Soccer Store", taking out full page ads in magazines and having employees as far as India and the Philippines.

In 2009, my Dad got an offer for work exchange abroad and so me and my parents moved to Budapest, Hungary. It was there where I quickly learnt how crazy Europeans were about their soccer. One day that fall, in a moment of wicked inspiration, I decided I was going to become a professional soccer player. There are 265 million people in the world who actively play soccer but I somehow believed I was going to be apart of that <0.0001% make it professionally.




Two years later, through numerous failed tryouts and 1000's of hours of intense practice through sunshine and snow; my "impossible" dreams were realised when I received a contract offer to play professionally. Since then I've had the privileged opportunity to have had training stints with the Australian national team and in elite foreign teams all over Europe.

These days I'm still focused on building big businesses as I am on playing infront of thousands of people. I use my relentless drive and energy to help startups like Parkwhiz and Adblockplus become successful through explanation video and building their digital brands with StartupVideo.net
"




Does this appeal to you, would it make you connect more with me and be interested in the work I currently do?



Any feedback would be much appreciated and I hope to return the favor for your own problems.
#appeal #branding #personal #story
  • Profile picture of the author OutOfThisWord
    Too much "I".

    What's in it for them?

    You need to get to that fast or they click away.

    Craft your logical sales argument.

    The best way to create 'brand awareness' is to get customers 'a wearing your brand.'

    And the only way to do that is appeal to their big problem and offer you and your service as a solution.

    You are not making a pitch here, you are talking in the mirror.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ltemodel
      The story has potential. Spice it up. Take out all the passive voice and punch your reader in the head a couple times to wake them up.

      I love the story, but it lacks passion.
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  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    I agree with the others. I believe it is great what you have done BUT how does that benefit them?
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    • Profile picture of the author Cool Hand Luke
      Originally Posted by OutOfThisWord View Post

      Too much "I".

      What's in it for them?

      You need to get to that fast or they click away.

      Craft your logical sales argument.

      The best way to create 'brand awareness' is to get customers 'a wearing your brand.'

      And the only way to do that is appeal to their big problem and offer you and your service as a solution.

      You are not making a pitch here, you are talking in the mirror.
      Originally Posted by laurencewins View Post

      I agree with the others. I believe it is great what you have done BUT how does that benefit them?
      Nowhere in the OP's post did he say this was the beginning or the largest part of his copy, he just said this is part of the personal story he'll be using within the copy.

      Obviously when telling your own story, you'll use the word "I" and it's used as a tactic to get your prospect to relate to you and feel like your own story/struggles/experience mirrors their own. Loads of very effective sales letters/presentations do this. Look at Tao of Badass and you'll see a personal story that goes on for more than 5 minutes, or 4 minute abs, where the ONLY thing mentioned throughout the first half of the video is the narrator's experience, which is then followed by "Would you like to experience results like I got? Well, now you can because..."

      I would imagine the OP will detail what his prospects will be getting in other sections of the overall of copy.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Cohen
        Exactly Luke.

        A personal branding story is supposed to be focused on the marketer. It shows his empathy. It builds his credibility. And it answers the "why" question.

        Alex
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    Originally Posted by nickhumph View Post

    ...When I turned 13, I began selling on eBay, and within a few months, I sold over $20,000 of refurbished iPods.

    ...

    In 2009, my Dad got an offer for work exchange abroad and so me and my parents ...
    Revise these two sentences and omit the age-identifiers - you're identifying yourself as someone very young, who still lived with his parents as recently as 3 years ago (and maybe still does). It's a great story when you're 40 to reflect back on, but you're what, 20 now? Those statements create a timeline that says "I'm still a kid" not "I'm an Entrepreneur".

    Try these instead:

    In 2007, I started selling on eBay. Within a few short months I had sold more than $20,000 of refurbished iPod's, and was surging towards PowerSeller status.

    and

    Then in 2009 I had a the opportunity of a lifetime to travel and work abroad, so...
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    Ron Rule
    http://ronrule.com

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  • Profile picture of the author nickhumph
    Thanks everyone for your help!

    I will be omitting the age identifiers and focusing more on how it can benefit the consumer in the 2nd half of the story.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Bowring
    Maybe mention the life lessons and values a sporting life has instilled in you (that would benefit the reader in knowing you.)

    --- Ross
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  • Profile picture of the author DanSharp
    Great story. I disagree about tying it in to "how it can benefit us" just yet, unless you're really subtle about it.

    I think the $20k at age 13 is a fanastic point, you should keep the age 13 identifier. BUT, drop the "in 2009, my dad" part. No reason to say you're young enough to have been living with your parents in 2009. eBay's been around for a while, after all.

    Overall consider polishing up your word choice. As is your story feels immature, like something written for a school application. "Growing up, I always had a passion" for example. Or "While most eight year olds... I was..." is another structure that marks it as an application essay.

    In the latter case, I'd give it more punch. "When I was eight, my mates were earning pocket change washing their parents' cars. I wasn't satisfied with pocket change... so I went out and washed cars for the whole neighborhood."

    Try and cut down your sentence length too. Again, schoolteachers love long multiclausal sentences. But if you're going to use that for business, break 'em up... separate out different parts with elipses (...) and dashes (--) to make your words easier to read.
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    • Profile picture of the author ronrule
      Originally Posted by DanSharp View Post

      Great story. I disagree about tying it in to "how it can benefit us" just yet, unless you're really subtle about it.

      I think the $20k at age 13 is a fanastic point, you should keep the age 13 identifier. BUT, drop the "in 2009, my dad" part. No reason to say you're young enough to have been living with your parents in 2009. eBay's been around for a while, after all.
      eBay has been around for a while, flipping iPod's hasn't. The iPod didn't really take off until 2004, so it still creates an age identifier. He could say "teenager" instead of saying 13 specifically to cloud the timeline a little.
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      Ron Rule
      http://ronrule.com

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      • Profile picture of the author marciayudkin
        focusing more on how it can benefit the consumer in the 2nd half of the story.
        Put that in the first sentence. Then readers will have more patience to get through your story.

        Marcia Yudkin
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        Check out Marcia Yudkin's No-Hype Marketing Academy for courses on copywriting, publicity, infomarketing, marketing plans, naming, and branding - not to mention the popular "Marketing for Introverts" course.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    There's plenty of good stuff in there but it reads like a biography. I appreciate personal stories much more when they're woven into a larger theme. For example, you might be talking about the economy as it relates to your business. Or maybe about entrepreneurial spirit or opportunity, taxes and regulations as they relate to everyone or how hard it appears to get started these days. Almost anything business related can set the stage.

    After you have a paragraph or two on something other than yourself is when you start to tell your audience about what you've done. Lots of people think it's hard to get started. People have lots of fears and doubts. Let your story serve as inspiration. Your age could be a liability but you can certainly use it to your advantage if you show your readers that, hey... even a young guy with the right attitude and desire can make this work.

    There are lots of ways to do it. I think most people appreciate your story as it relates to a larger picture than they would just reading a bunch of facts about what you've done.
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  • Profile picture of the author Josh Rueff
    Originally Posted by nickhumph View Post

    Any feedback would be much appreciated and I hope to return the favor for your own problems.
    Hi Nick! You're off to a great start! I think Aristotle's story arc will help you mold this into a mesmerizing appeal to emotion - keep your target reader's raw emotion and instinct in mind - what do they want, on a primal level?

    Money, power, sex, to be right, to be loved, to belong, adventure - what is it they want? Find that out and communicate on that level, sharing how you achieved what they want to.

    And this story arc has helped countless people shape their story into an appealing format:


    Hope this helps a bit (:
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    Life is full of nothing but opportunities. There is no misfortune, bad luck, or misery; only opportunity.

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  • Profile picture of the author bizgrower
    What do you market? Clarification there could help us give you more and better ideas.

    You could write in third person. Example and not an affiliate link:

    Strategic Profits » Meet Rich Schefren – President and CEO of Strategic Profits

    Dan
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    "If you think you're the smartest person in the room, then you're probably in the wrong room."

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  • Profile picture of the author Rhino99
    I think the section on realising your soccer playing aspirations could be reduced. I think the reader gets what you're trying to say by that point and I think you need to get through it quicker. Otherwise your early successes are powerful proof of why people should take you seriously. You then need to expand more on your internet businesses, but I'm guessing you're just sharing the back story part in this post.
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    Matt Ambrose Direct Response Copywriter
    www.copywriterscrucible.com

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