“Good morning, big sister! Could you please give me 2 loaves of regular bread and 1 loaf of roasted bread?”
As a child, my mom used to send me to the Baker to buy bread for breakfast some mornings, particularly on the weekends.
We lived at the bottom of a winding lane, in a suburb just outside Colombo, Sri Lanka.
I would walk or ride my bike to the junction where the bakery was located, buy some bread which had just come out of the oven, and head back.
Few pleasures in life equal the smell, taste, and texture of straight-out-the-oven fresh bread.
But this isn’t a book about bread. It’s a book about the baker.
When I head back to Sri Lanka from time to time…
When I happen by Koswatte junction…
“Big sister” the Baker remembers me, and I remember her.
It takes us a few seconds to recognize each other (it’s been almost 30 years)… but it happens.
For most of human history, people knew who they were buying from.
Whether because of a lack of mobility, or the “village” being the way most people group together in a community, we lived in a personal and personalized economy.
The baker was the baker and he was always gonna be around.
And every morning, you’d be able to get your piping hot, straight-out-the-oven fresh bread.
He’d know your favorites, how many loaves you want…
He’d throw in a freebie once in a while…
You’d give him a little extra from time to time…
You’d know each other’s families, and so on.
The idea of buying from a faceless business, of buying from a brand, is fairly recent.
The industrial age was, what, 200 years or so ago?
We switched from the personalized economy to buying from corporations.
Because of novelty, convenience, technology, whatever.
And that became ubiquitous.
But what happens when you live in a world of infinite choice?
When you have hundreds, maybe thousands, of choices for the same product…
All pretty much doing the same thing…
The only difference being the packaging or the price?
Well, people realized they want to know who they’re buying from.
They want Connection.
To whatever it is and whoever it is they’re buying from.
They want a story.
This is a book about telling stories.
Your story.
Your customer’s story.
And weaving them both together.
So you can both become the best versions of yourselves.
Welcome to Dragon Energy: The Tao Of Personal Branding.
How to use this book
Tao or Dao is a Chinese word signifying ‘way’, ‘path’, ‘route’, ‘road’ or sometimes more loosely ‘doctrine’, ‘principle’ or ‘holistic science’.
This book is the “Way” of Personal Branding.
As such, it is a book of fundamentals… of principles over tactics.
I have tried to omit, to the best of my ability, activities or tactics specific to certain marketing channels, social media platforms, means of communication, etc.
I have tried to include, to the best of my ability, what broadly applies to all marketing channels, social media platforms, means of communication, etc.
This books assumes you are familiar with digital marketing in general.
That you are tech-savvy enough to use social media, use an email service provider, blog using content management systems like WordPress, and so on.
If you are not familiar with these things, the information you need is available online for free.
Were I to teach you every aspect of digital marketing from scratch, this book would not end.
My concern, my only concern, is to teach you how to build an audience of people around your unique and inimitable person.
And to lead and serve this audience in a way that allows you to create value for them and wealth for yourself.
I’ve divided this book, roughly, into 4 parts:
- Part one shows you how to find your personal brand
- Part two shows you how to attract people to you using content
- Part three shows you how to build your audience
- Part four shows you how to monetize that audience
This book is short. There is no fluff.
The goal is for you to take the lessons you find in it and apply them immediately to your business.
Understand this:
I am teaching you a system that, if internalized, you can continue to apply in your business for life.
It will not matter how technology changes…how buying behavior changes…how marketing changes…
Because the principles in this book are derived from human psychology.
Human psychology hasn’t changed since Allah sent Adam (peace be upon him) down to Earth.
A note about examples and case studies
Because this book is a “Tao,” I won’t be including too many current examples.
I’m going to give you my system.
A system I know works.
Other than that, much of the “tactical” content will be presented to you in the bonus materials – video, audio, text, etc…
Because if Dragon Energy is the Tao…
The ecosystem I’ve created for the book – the Facebook group, the masterclasses, the resources – is its living application.
And that, by definition, will change over time.
Continue reading: Discovering Dragon Energy from 2 unlikely sources.