I know so many women who want more for themselves. They want to feel comfortable posting online, have financial freedom, and live more courageously. But at the same time, most of them say the same thing: that “it’s too late,” and “there are already too many influencers.” As someone who started posting on social media “late,” it’s never too late to start. 

Give yourself the chance to succeed! I have clients who have started from ZERO followers, and now they’re on brand trips and selling out their business offers. Their dreams, everything on their vision boards, are coming true because they put themselves in the position to be seen by their community. And this week, I’m going to tell you why it’s not too late to join them.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about why it’s not too late to jump into the creator economy. You can start right now and see results in just a few weeks! The creator economy is no longer this faraway resource that’s out of reach for regular people; it’s a growing part of our current economy. And if you put yourself out there, you can reap all the benefits you want from it.

Tune in to hear why a personal brand can help you solidify your career in this economy and how to get started today! 

How to work with Erika:

Join the waitlist for the Magnetic Mastermind program here!

Join the waitlist for the Courage Driven Latina program here!

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

Follow Erika on:
Instagram @‌theerikacruz
TikTok @‌theerikacruz
LinkedIn

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: Hello, hello. Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution Podcast. If you have ever felt like you are late to the game and you should have started two years ago or three years ago or a year ago, then this podcast episode is for you. I’ve been a full-time coach for five and a half years, almost six [00:01:00] years, and ever since I got started, I’ve noticed a rise in women wanting more freedom, more purpose in more…

And when I say freedom, I mean time freedom and financial freedom, and also desiring more purpose. But over the last year, I’ve seen that, like double or triple. More and more people now understand the power of a personal brand, and we are seeing literally before our eyes, people that have gotten started, had hardly any followers, grew their personal brand, and now they’re like on a brand trip, or now they have sold out their offer.

And we are seeing this happen in real time. You’ve probably followed somebody that was not where they are now when you started following them. I know people have been following my journey since I was a food blogger, and I hadn’t made any money yet. So they’ve watched the evolution of me starting the business and all of that.

And yet a lot of people feel like it’s just too late for them [00:02:00] and it– there’s no point in doing it. And that’s further from the truth. The creator economy is growing tremendously, and what’s happening is, yes, there are more people creating content. Yes, you do have to create better quality content for it to be visible to people, but it’s definitely possible.

And it’s possible because nobody else is you. Nobody else has your story. Nobody else has your perspective except you. Do I think every single person needs to go post on social media? No, I understand that some people don’t even want to do that, and if that’s you, then that is totally fine. I’m not telling you that every single person needs to do it, but I do think we can all benefit from learning entrepreneurial skills, especially with the rise of AI and being that so many jobs are being shifted and it’s not even that there’s no jobs anymore, it’s just evolving, the type of jobs there [00:03:00] are.

And I remember hearing this AI specialist who was talking about how the future of work isn’t necessarily Roles like we know them today. It’s more going to be project-based where we get to work with different companies using our skill set. And as I look at this, I’m like, that’s literally what consulting is now.

That’s literally what coaching is now. So eventually, if this person is right, that’s where work is transitioning to. So it can only benefit us today to start to learn some of these skills. And with so many people being laid off, I mean, I’ve seen it with my clients. I would say about forty percent of my clients have been laid off, and they have either go- gone to go look for a different job, or they have leaned deeply into entrepreneurship.

And that’s a big number, right? Like forty percent. Uh, and not that they’re currently laid off, but have been laid off, I should say.So whether or not you want to build a personal brand, I [00:04:00] do think learning some entrepreneurial skills and learning how to position yourself and learning some of the skills that go along with a personal brand can only help you, because the last thing we want is to rely on a nine-to-five job that we may not have tomorrow.

And our generation is very different than our parents’ generation. So our parents were all about, “Let’s find a stable job and stay there until we retire.” Our generation is all about, “How do I find something that feels fulfilling, that allows me to use my skill set, but I also have some freedom and some flexibility?”

So our desires and our needs as a society, is definitely evolving, and I feel like we’re evolving out of this employee mindset. And if what that AI specialist said is true, then we are headed in this direction of more and more people becoming entrepreneurs. And women are some of the leaders in entrepreneurship.

Like, as we look at new businesses built, more businesses are being started by women, especially women of [00:05:00] color, especially Latinas. So we are seeing a huge rise in entrepreneurship. So whether you don’t wanna be an entrepreneur full-time, again, I still think these are skills that are so, so necessary. But you may be saying to yourself that it’s too late, and why would you need to do that?

And what I want you to know is that you’re not too late. You’re definitely not too late because, again, nobody is you. And as I mentioned with AI changing everything, it really is in your favor because information is now free, right? People don’t need you for information. They want you with information and your story because information alone doesn’t really mean much.

But information with your experience, with your story, with your perspective is what’s so much more powerful. And what people are really starving for right now is connection and trust Like even if we’re scrolling on social media and you see somebody doing a podcast, at this point you’re like, “Is this a real person or [00:06:00] is this AI?”

Right? So for this reason, faceless accounts are so not working if personal branding is your thing. And we’re losing trust with social media. So showing up as your more human self, it really is the new currency. Showing up imperfectly. It’s why I’ve been a lot more vulnerable in a lot of my posts.

It’s why I’ve been telling my story a lot more. I’ve been encouraging my clients to do the same. And the creator who shows up as themselves is always going to win. The authentic creator, not the person who’s just positioning themselves as perfect. And I think a lot of us are, like, delaying and waiting to get started until we’ve reached this place of expertise, and you don’t have to do that.

You can bring us along on the journey with you. That’s exactly how I ended up landing the front page of The New York Times, because I literally brought people on the journey with me of leaving my job. And then whenever The New York Times reporter reached out, reached out to my friend Gigi, she immediately thought of me because [00:07:00] I had been sharing my journey. As I mentioned earlier, layoffs are up and contract work really is on the rise, which this means it’s your sign because there is no such thing as job security and there never was. I remember, my brother works for the government and the reason why he went that route was because it was a stable job that gave him a pension.

And then shortly after this new administration came into office this, this recent time, so many people were laid off and they were already, him and his wife, they both work for the government, they were already looking at like, “Okay, what, what’s next for us if we don’t work here?” And people thought, you know, tech was the place to be and now it’s like, hmm, tech, being in tech is not the flex it once was, especially with AI and all of these different layoffs.

So again, as I mentioned earlier, I’m like looking at my notes now so that’s why I’m kind of repeating myself, but every woman really should have some entrepreneurial skills, even if you have a [00:08:00] nine-to-five. And having a personal brand is your ability to generate income on your own terms. Mind you, when I say having a personal brand, this does not mean every person needs to go build– needs to go become an influencer.

That’s not what I’m saying at all. All of us have interests, all of us have skills, and all of us have lived experience, and if we could create some type of content around that, it could even be like a LinkedIn post, or it could be a reel, or it could be a TikTok, or… I mean, it can look s- in so many different ways.

It can, it can happen for us. But we have so much to share And that can open so many doors for us, and that’s the point that I’m making here. I’m not saying that we need to go become influencers. I’m not saying everybody should strive for brand deals. But what I am saying is that being able to tell our story and position ourselves are skills that are going to help us in the rise of AI. I think it’s also important for us to look at what is working and how the receipts really do not lie. So if we look at some of our favorite, [00:09:00] favorite brands nowadays, there’s typically a person behind that brand that has a personal brand. So think Rare Beauty, right? That’s… People buy from Selena Gomez, not just the product.

And it’s no accident that Selena Gomez is on the Rare Beauty page, like applying makeup herself and doing things like that. Or MrBeast, he literally started out with just a camera, and now he has a show and chocolate bars, right? That’s literally– That is a great example of how a personal brand turned into, like, a whole business for him.

But the one thing I want you to take away is that every successful brand has a human at the center of it. And not an AI person, right? Like an actual human. And even though the market is more saturated now and more people are creating content, a lot of it is just noise and it’s generic. But what cuts through all that noise is realness, specificity, your story, and your mess. I posted a video about how I’m thirty-five and I’m [00:10:00] not– or I am embarrassed to admit that, whatever, and I still get comments now, and I posted this over a month ago, and it’s at, like, half a million views.

And it’s, it’s the most vulnerable piece of content I’ve ever posted, and most of the… Of course, I get some silly comments on it, but most of the comments are all about, “Thank you so much for sharing this. I resonate with this so much.” We really are looking for human connection now. And again, it’s not about being perfect.

It’s about showing up as your human self. So the, the trick here with having a lot more people creating content is that you need to create really specific content. If I said, “Spend the day with me,” that’s not interesting enough to get you to stop what you’re doing to watch my video. Now, if I said, “Spend the day with me as a thirty-five-year-old, year old entrepreneur who is working at increasing her profits by two hundred percent,” that’s very different, right?

It’s like if you have the goals of being an entrepreneur or if you are an entrepreneur, you probably want to see that. Or if I say, like, “Everything I eat in a day as a vegetarian that is [00:11:00] still making sure I eat a hundred grams of protein.” That’s like, okay, you’re like vegetarian and protein. Those things seem, those things seem very different.

How is she going to do that? It invokes a lot of curiosity. It’s a lot of specificity. And that’s pretty much what I want to leave you with today, that there’s so much power in your story. That’s– there’s power in your humanness. There’s power in building a personal brand, and that does not mean you have to become an influencer. 

Having a personal brand is like… It reminds me of this. You know how when you’re in your job, it’s not necessarily the person who does the most that gets rewarded.

It’s the person who’s loudest about what they’ve gotten done that gets promoted. It’s the person who’s loudest about their wins. Your personal brand is just like your digital kinda resume, your digital footprint, your– the way that you stay top of mind for people. And it is the ability to tell your story, the ability to be visible and to be seen opens so many doors for you.

I mean, I never thought I would end up in the front page– on the [00:12:00] front page of The New York Times. I never thought I would end up interviewing celebrities. I mean, opportunities that I just couldn’t have even thought to try to manifest have come my way thanks to my personal brand. And I do not consider myself an influencer whatsoever.

I’m definitely more of a business owner, a coach, and a content creator. But again, you can do it in a way that feels in alignment for you. And if I could leave you with anything, it’s that a personal brand isn’t vanity, it’s strategy, it’s security, and it’s also legacy because the personal brand is something nobody could really take away from you. If you end up getting let go from a job and you have a personal brand, you’re more likely to find another job really quickly.

Or you can make money through your audience. And there’s so many, so many opportunities. Well, this was a short but sweet episode just because this was a conversation I had with somebody earlier, so I thought I could make this into a podcast episode. If you would like my support with building your [00:13:00] personal brand and you don’t even know where to get started, then I invite you to join me inside of Courage Driven Latina.

It is my signature program. You get twelve months access. We get– You have weekly calls, you get content reviews, access to all of my trainings where I will support you with figuring out what your niche is, what your messaging is, how to create content. And you get my eyes on your content, and I support you through signing your first paid client.

I will link the link down below. We just closed doors for my program, Magnetic Mastermind, and I did get a lot of requests from people who were like, “Wait, I’m not a good fit for this. I’m just starting out.” So for that reason, I’m opening the doors for a very short period of time. So if this, this is of interest to you, click the link below, and I can’t wait to speak with you.

All right, y’all, have a great rest of your day, and I will see you next Tuesday.  [00:14:00]