I’ve been a coach, a creator, and a public speaker for a few years now, and I wouldn’t have gotten there without my audience. At first, I just posted my journey in the tech industry. I wasn’t an expert, and I didn’t plan on teaching anyone, let alone coaching anyone. But my audience was getting a ton of value from my life lessons and wanted me to help them. So I did. 

Sometimes, it’s as easy as that. People, especially after 2020, want coaching from people with real-life experiences. I was able to build a profitable personal brand, not because I was an expert, but because people saw that I could build a new life for myself and wanted to do the same thing. And now that I’ve sat and really figured out what made me successful and what didn’t, I’m going to teach you, too. 

In this week’s episode, we’re starting something new. This week’s episode is the first in a new mini-series, The Profitable Personal Brand Series! We’re going behind the scenes of my first paying clients and figuring out why people wanted to pay for coaching before I even had an offer yet. 

How to work with Erika:

Attract 7+ Paid Opportunities Through Your Personal Brand — Without Being Salesy with the free Magnetic CEO Method | Monday, May 4th, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PT

Claim your limited-time-only spot in Erika’s 90-Min one-on-one Personal Branding Intensive 

Join the waitlist for the Courage Driven Latina program here!

Join the waitlist for the Magnetic Mastermind here!

Resources Mentioned:
Click here to claim your Manifest Your Marca bot! https://theerikacruz.com/manifest-your-marca 

Follow Erika on:
Instagram @‌theerikacruz
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Website:
http://www.theerikacruz.com

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST, an Afro-Latina-owned boutique podcast production and copywriting studio. 

Episode Transcript:

Erika: [00:00:00] the difference between creating content and building a brand. Creating content means you’re just posting things without intention. Building a brand means that there’s kind of this bigger why, a bigger mission behind it.

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. I’m doing something I’ve never done before and we are doing a mini series. I am taking you behind the scenes of my profitable personal brand, and I’m taking you behind the scenes regarding how I made money from my personal brand.

[00:01:00] In three different ways. So if you are wondering how in the world do people go from creating content and building a personal brand to actually making money from it, you are going to see behind the curtains over the next three podcast episodes. And today’s podcast episode is all about how to sign coaching clients from your personal brand.

The way this is going to work is I am going to share my story with you as well as. What I would do if I was starting from scratch and what I would do based on the mistakes I made and the things that I’ve learned along the way, because many people that I know are posting and they’re showing up and they’re growing their audience, but they maybe have not made a dollar, or they’ve made very minimal money.

And for a long time, that’s where I was as well. I was at 150,000 followers on TikTok and about 12,000 on Instagram, and I had not made a penny. And I was wondering how in the world people turned followers [00:02:00] into clients. How did they make money, especially if they weren’t an expert in anything? Personally, I remember feeling, I have been in the tech industry for so long.

I’ve worked a variety of different jobs and I know a little bit about a lot of different things, but I don’t know a lot about one thing that I can then turn into a paid skill maybe that I could do consulting from. And maybe you feel the same way. Maybe you are in this place where you’re like, what in the world would I teach people?

So let me set the scene for how I went from. Working a six figure tech job. Two, starting my own business and then making more money in my business than I did in my six figure tech job within the first 12 months of leaving. And I, I don’t say this to brag, and I know that sounds like a. Bam, fast results story, and that’s not necessarily the case.

I’m going to really pull back the curtains in this podcast episode, like I [00:03:00] mentioned, and let’s just get into the story. So I was in this six figure tech job that I was so grateful for. My parents immigrated to this country. They both still work, very labor intensive jobs. My dad does yard work. My mom is a housekeeper.

Or she has a housekeeping small business. She doesn’t really have anybody that works with her, but she’s her own boss and she’s the person who goes and cleans houses, and I felt so guilty feeling unfulfilled that I’m working. In an AC office, right. With free snacks in the tech industry, while my dad is out in the sun doing yard work in his sixties and my mom is cleaning houses and yeah, she might be inside in the ac, but she’s also cleaning other people’s toilets.

Right. And I really do think that going to work with my mom when I was a kid. Was such a motivation for me because I knew that this wasn’t the life I wanted to live. And not that I [00:04:00] think there’s anything wrong with housekeeping. I think it is a necessary thing that a lot of people need, and it is humble work and it really makes a difference.

Like when my mom walks into the house. Versus when she leaves, that is a different damn house. And walking into a clean house, there’s, there’s no better feeling than that. So it’s not that I’m demeaning my mom’s work, but it was more of this moment of, damn, she worked so hard for me to have access to education.

I better take advantage of that. And then it was also, and coming from this place of, I don’t want, want my mom to have to clean houses forever. And so I’m at this job where it’s successful. But I knew I want something more, and I wasn’t sure exactly what that was. And I had already played with creating content when I started the food blog.

Obviously I did not do a great job of building my personal brand around the food blog. There’s a difference between. [00:05:00] Creating content and building a personal brand. Creating content is just posting videos, posting photos. Building a personal brand has a cohesive message. You have a purpose, you have a bigger why behind creating your content.

And my bigger why was self-development and how self-development supported me. So when I was working in the tech industry, I knew that I wasn’t fulfilled. But one of the things I did begin to do is I began to listen to podcasts. I began to listen to books and all of this really happened. I’m really going in detail here, but all of this really happened when I called off my engagement 

 if you’re new around here, I called off an engagement. I have an episode about it and I believe it’s titled, storytellers, the story that I Told that We All Grow Latina Summit.It was live streamed on tv.

And if you’ve been here for a little while, then you probably know that. But after that, I really went through this moment of choosing myself and who do I wanna [00:06:00] be? And I was figuring out what in the world is my purpose. I took courses on finding my purpose. I read books around finding my purpose. And then when I turned to content creation, specifically on TikTok, I started posting about everything that I learned.

I started posting about my experience being a Latina in tech. I started posting about. finding your purpose. I started posting around self-development, overcoming perfectionism, overcoming self-doubt, all of these universal things that a lot of other women go through, and that is when my personal brand really started to take off.

My, my audience grew and suddenly I end up with all these followers and I’m still at the tech job, and I’m thinking, okay, you know what? How in the world do I. Do something with these followers. I knew because I worked in marketing and tech, that when you have demand, that is a great time to sell something, but I had no idea what I was going to sell.

And remember earlier I mentioned that I had worked all of these different jobs when I was in tech, but I didn’t feel like an expert in [00:07:00] anything. And I heard somebody, I believe it was Amy Porterfield, where she was talking about how you only have to be 10% ahead. Of the people you are teaching. So as long as you’re a few steps ahead, you could teach somebody what you’ve helped yourself with.

So I remember, I’ll never forget the day, it was like November of 2019 and I was sitting out, this outdoor kind of happy hour thing by myself with my journal, and I took the time to write down what is everything that has helped me over the last two or three years. And nobody gave me this exercise. It just kind of came to me.

And that is when I first created, like my ghetto first draft. If you’re one of my clients, you’re familiar with that concept. Your ghetto first draft is just like the first iteration of whatever you’re doing, but. In my journal, I’ll never forget, I created my ghetto first draft of what I wanted to teach people in my coaching program.

And I didn’t even know what a coach was yet, but I was developing the curriculum. I was like, this is how [00:08:00] I can help people. And I started using that as my content. So it was all about helping you find your purpose, helping you find clarity, what to do when you’re starting over. And I had just done that, right?

I had just supported myself in starting over from. I was about to get married, move in with somebody while we were already living together. But that’s besides the point. But I was about to take one direction in my life and then I decided, you know what? Nope, this isn’t for me. And I completely pivoted. And then I had this moment of rediscovering who I was.

And that is exactly what my program ended up being about. It was called Purpose Driven Latina. I’m getting ahead of myself here because this didn’t happen until a few, many months later, but that is how I ended up coming up with what it was that I was teaching. So if you are like, I have no idea how in the world I would make money.

I encourage you to think about who was I three years ago or who was I five years ago? Because I guarantee you, if you [00:09:00] go back three years or five years and you meet the old version of yourself, there’s probably so many things you can help that version of yourself with. And I want you to get really specific.

What’s a big transformation you helped yourself through? And that is how you can begin to develop your first offer, and that is what I did. So let me continue on. I had also just become a yoga instructor, so I thought I was going to end up teaching yoga and maybe doing workshops in inside of yoga studios, teaching these different things.

Because remember, I didn’t know what coaching was yet. But then as time went on, the new year started and COVID hit and all the yoga studios closed. So that direction that I thought I was going completely ended up switching gears. It was not where I was going anymore. So I took two, creating more content because that’s where I was already seeing some traction.

[00:10:00] The tech company that I was working for allowed us also work from home. So I suddenly wasn’t commuting anymore. I had a lot more time on my hands. I would get my work done really fast, and then I would create content and I was making two or three videos a day. Mind you, I had nowhere to go. Everything was closed.

I don’t expect you to be doing this right now, but it was just my creative outlet and it was really fun for me. And my audience began to grow and began to grow and began to grow. So I started doing these free virtual workshops because remember, I thought I was going to be doing these in-person workshops.

So I did a workshop on How to overcome imposter syndrome, and then how to stay motivated during the pandemic. So I did these trainings and it was. Who the heck was I to teach these trainings? I have no idea. I don’t know. But I did it. And of course I had a lot of people register because people were just stuck at home and at the end, and obviously like I had been doing a good job of showing up and building demand, and at the end of my workshops, I remember both workshops, people asked me [00:11:00] if I could coach them, and I was like.

I remember thinking internally, I don’t even know what coaching is, and I opened up a new browse, a new tab that I wasn’t sharing my screen for, and I literally typed in what is coaching? And I read the description and I was like, oh my gosh, who am I to do that? And I kind of let it go and I never followed up with those people because I was so scared.

But as time went on, I then saw. That somebody was enrolling for a coaching program and I said, well, I don’t know if I could be a coach, but maybe I can join this program and see if it’s something that I like doing. So I joined the program and I’ll never forget, it was the second week of coaching and we learned about the power of mindset.

And I had already learned about the power of mindset when I was in college. It really supported me through being a student at uc, Berkeley, because I’m not naturally a great student. I wasn’t naturally like at Book Smart. I really did have to put in effort. And when I [00:12:00] learned about mindset and the aspect of coaching, I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I can do for other Latinas.

And in that moment, I decided I am going to start my coaching program.

So once I saw the way that this coaching container was laid out, I thought, I can definitely do this and I can definitely do this for Latinas. And that is where I created my program, Purpose-Driven Latina. And it was all because I know I wanna help them find their purpose. So my coach at the time, his name is Harry, was like, what if you called it Purpose driven Latina?

I was like, yes, that’s exactly it. And I was so excited. And I really, y’all had no idea exactly what I was doing. I was just following my excitement, following my fear thinking, you know what? We are in this global pandemic. Who knows what’s going to happen? Healthy people are passing away, and I don’t wanna regret not giving this a shot.

And I went for it full force. But because I [00:13:00] had done such a good job of building demand with my personal brand. I had people who couldn’t wait to join this program. I sold it out three times. And I’m not saying this to brag, I’m saying this to say that when you do a good job of creating demand, giving people value, positioning yourself as a thought leader, even if you’re not an expert yet, because one of the things I did really well as I was building my brand is that I was taking people along the journey with me.

Even as I was building my business. I was constantly sharing the behind the scenes. Here’s what I’m working on today. Oh, this is a challenge. I didn’t know I was going to come across. And because I shared my progress and my journey and people saw where I was going, they were more likely to work with me.

Not because I was already an expert, but because they saw where I started and they saw where I was going and where I ended up. And they were like, I want to do that as well because I know that she didn’t start already knowing how to do this. So if she was able to help herself, she could probably help me as [00:14:00] well. 

A few years ago I was working a six figure tech job, and on paper everything looked great, but inside I felt very unfulfilled and I knew that I was meant for more. So I started building my personal brand, and at first it really wasn’t working. I almost gave up until suddenly. It started to work and I had no idea how to turn this personal brand into a business.

I made a lot of mistakes. I probably left a lot of money on the table, but you know what? This was all part of the learning experience, but eventually I figured it out and I learned how to sign one-on-one clients.I learned how to build a group coaching program.

I even landed paid speaking engagements, and I got paid for workshops. For brand deals and for partnerships, and now I teach women how to do the same. So if you have a personal brand and you are ready to actually leverage it for real opportunities, impact and income, [00:15:00] then I want to invite you to my free live workshop.

It is the magnetic. CEO method, you are going to learn how to attract paid opportunities without feeling salesy, without feeling pushy, or feeling like you have to chase them. And it’s happening on Monday, May 4th at five o’clock Pacific.

You can sign up using the link down below, so come and learn how to build a brand that doesn’t just grow, but actually gets you paid, recognized, and in demand. I will see you on Monday, May 4th at five o’clock Pacific. This is so funny. I had a whole outline for this podcast episode and I haven’t looked at it once, so I’m just not going to look at it because I think we’re going on a nice little flow here, and I love this more storytelling aspect. That also gives you some tips here and there. So what does this all mean for you?

Let’s just do a quick recap. Building your brand and the difference between creating content and building a brand. Creating content means you’re just posting things without. Intention. Building a brand [00:16:00] means that you have a cohesive message. You understand that there’s intention behind your content, and there’s kind of this bigger why, a bigger mission behind it.

And that doesn’t mean that every single thing you post has to be the same. Let’s say that your mission. Is to support women in their thirties in feeling empowered through things like fitness and nutrition. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to share when you go on vacation, you’re not boxed in. But it means everything you share is coming from that lens of empowering women in their thirties to through nutrition and through fitness.

So maybe it would be something like, let’s say you take a trip, here’s everything I ate. This would maybe be the way you start the video. Here’s everything I ate on my three day trip to Cancun as a 30-year-old who’s prioritizing Her nutrition and fitness. So do you see how there’s still so many things you can share?[00:17:00] 

And what I did is I would tie everything back to purpose. So whether I was going on a trip or whether I was going on a hike, I would constantly record content and I would always end a message, end it with a message that was bringing them back to kind of my main point. It’s important to note that one must give a lot of value and you, you don’t just start by selling something, right? You don’t start an account and say, oh my gosh, come work with me one-on-one, or Come join my group program. No, you don’t have credibility yet. And it’s not like somebody else has to give you credibility.

You give yourself credibility by the way you show up. And that was one of the things that I did well, the second time that I started building my brand or the, the first successful time I was building my brand, which is when I started creating content on TikTok and on Instagram about self-development, around purpose and things like that.

Previously when I had done the food blog, it was just. Content and I didn’t do a good job of [00:18:00] sharing my journey. I would just post food pictures and it, and I would hide in my face half the time, like that’s not the same as showing up, right? There was definitely a big fear of being seen, but I slowly but surely got over that the more I began showing up on my TikTok account and on my Instagram account. The next thing I did was offer these free classes, and that is where I was giving so much value and people started asking me, do you offer coaching? That’s how I got introduced to coaching, and then I ended up working with a coach. And honestly, I’m so glad I did because I would’ve had no idea what to do if I would’ve just tried to take on a coaching client.

I wouldn’t have any idea how to price it. I wouldn’t have any idea how to structure it. And I didn’t copy my coach, but what I did is I copied his format and what I mean is it was a 12 week program. We would meet on a weekly basis on Zoom, and I was like, okay, cool, I can do that. Obviously the things I was teaching in my program were different.

It was focused on Latinas. It was focused on finding your purpose. So I changed and adapted [00:19:00] the format to my own. It was almost like I took his cookie cutter and I made my own like cookie dough that went inside. And that was so helpful for me because it took a lot of decision making away from my brain, and now my programs have completely evolved.

But for starting out, that’s exactly what I needed. So the reason I was able to go, actually, no, let me finish the story. This is the downside of not having a script or not having an outline. I opened Enrollment for Purpose Driven Latina twice. And it sold out. And then I was getting ready to enroll a third time, and that is when I decided I was going to leave my tech job.

But I did both the tech job and the business for a while. I spent six months building my brand before I even sold anything. And then I did another six months of having a business and working a tech job at the same time. I’m sharing this as my journey, it can happen much faster for you. I would say you [00:20:00] need 90 days to build your brand and then maybe another 90 days to land your first, client or your next client, but. The way that I would suggest if I was to go back, I don’t know if I would’ve done a group. It was actually a lot more work than I thought. I probably could have made a lot more money if I started off with one-on-one coaching, and then I would’ve had so much more clarity with how it was that I would help people and then I could have turned it into a group if you have a lot of followers.

And I had almost 200,000 followers at that time and that’s why I ended up going with a group and you know, it ended up really working out. But in the end. I did end up taking one-on-one clients, and that’s when I came up with a lot of my frameworks and a lot of my curriculum because when you’re working one-on-one with somebody, you get a lot of feedback from them.

So if you are somebody who’s maybe already made a little bit of money, or you’re making your first, your first sale, depending on your situation, if you have. [00:21:00] I don’t know, under 10,000 followers, I would probably suggest starting out with one-on-one coaching and if a lot of my clients have made a good amount of money with under 3000 followers.

So this isn’t a follower thing. I understand that I’m talking to you as somebody who had a lot of followers, but I would say that TikTok followers were a little different than Instagram followers. Uh, a lot of, just because they weren’t as warm, people would maybe see one video and then. Schedule a call with me as far as the way that the in the TikTok algorithm worked at that time.

I do find that the leads that come from Instagram tend to be a little bit more qualified because they’ve probably seen your stuff a few times. They’ve opted into following you. And anyway, now I’m going down a rabbit hole. But the point that I’m looking to make here. Is that while making money doesn’t happen from one day to the other, it can happen much faster than you think if you have the right strategy behind you.

And that is the [00:22:00] strategy of building demand through creating a personal brand that’s really intentional, and then ensuring that you have a specific problem you’re solving, even if it’s something that you went through, I don’t know, just a year ago or just a few months ago. And then the third is knowing how to sell and selling through your content.

That is all really important aspects to support you in making your first $10,000 or your next $10,000. And I know so many people who have over a million followers or 500,000 followers and they’ve never made a dollar. So it is not about how many followers you have, it’s about what kind of followers you have, if they’re aligned followers, and then how you sell to those followers and how much value you give to those followers. In summary. Selling one-on-one coaching or group coaching or digital offers, right? Maybe it’s [00:23:00] like an intensive or maybe some consulting. That is an amazing way to make profit from your personal brand. You are helping people. You are. Able to charge high ticket. I mean, I’ve charged anywhere between $326 for a small course that I was teaching to $11,000 for private coaching.

Depending on how much experience you have, there’s so much money that can be made and with one client, if you sign one client, and that’s $1,500 or $2,500, so 2,500. That can make a huge difference in your life. And if you sign five clients, right, you don’t need a a ton of ’em. If you are selling coaching and through your personal brand is the best way to sell offers.

And depending on your experience level, your audience size, that will determine what it is [00:24:00] that you can easily sell. And what I would recommend that. Focus on. So if you are in this phase right now where you are building your personal brand, you have a personal brand, but you’re not fully leveraging it, and you want to learn how to do that, come. Learn how to do that inside of the magnetic CEO method training.

It is completely free. I’m gonna be showing you how to turn your personal brand into a magnet for paid opportunities. We’re going to be covering coaching one-on-one coaching group coaching. But I’m also going to be covering more things like speaking opportunities, collabs, and more. And this is all happening on Monday, May 4th at five o’clock Pacific time, and you can sign up using the link down below.

So I can’t wait to see you there. And stay tuned for the second behind the scenes episode where I’m gonna be talking all about how I have used my profitable personal brand to land speaking engagements. All right, y’all. I will see you in the next episode. [00:25:00]