Last month, Dr. Carlos Saba (Founder of the Happy Startup School) and Anne Miltenburg (Founder of Brand The Change) chatted about the relationship between pricing and personal brands. 

To Anne, someone has a great personal brand when they have achieved a certain level of prominence in their industry. They have a reputation (preferably, of course, a positive one). To Carlos, ‘price’ reflects people’s perception of value.

So does that mean that a stronger personal brand automatically translates to higher prices? Or is it more complicated than that?

Listen to the 25-minute conversation or read the transcript below 🔊🧏🏽👇🏽👇🏻

Carlos: Okay, let’s kick off. Welcome to our second Happy Pricing podcast episode of 2023. Last week, we were with Mark Stedman, just talking about doubling prices, which was a fascinating conversation.

This week, I have the honour of being joined by Anne Miltenburg, founder of Brand the Change and author of the book Brand the Change, who is interested in branding the change. 

Anne: I laid it on a little thick, didn’t I? 

Carlos: No one’s gonna forget those three words in a hurry. 

Today, we will be talking about this idea of a personal brand, but yes, this is happy pricing. Myself and I were thinking about the idea of price being the perception of value.

So, I thought it’d be interesting to have this conversation. Then, Anne shared some wonderful stories about her own experience around the value of personal brand. Whether that’s selling one or having one, and so I thought we’d explore that and see where it went. 

So my first question is, let’s get back to basics. What is a personal brand?

Anne: So in our classes, what we teach is that a brand is basically either a person or a place or a service… some organization that has achieved some level of prominence within the world of their audience. So I think we tend to think immediately about Nike or about the Kardashians, but it’s not really about fame at all.

You can have a really strong personal brand as a dentist. You can have a really strong personal brand as a coach. It’s just about the prominence in the world of your audience, and that can have any sort of scale. 

Carlos: And when you say prominence in the world of your audience, what does the word prominence mean in this case?

Anne: People know you. They’ve heard about you. They have some sort of emotional relationship with you; they understand what you do, they’re intrigued by it, and they’re willing to follow along with it. And hopefully, at some point, you know, engage with it. So either become an ambassador for it or be a customer of the product or service.

And I think that can look very different, depending on what kind of professional role you take. And if you’re in a company or outside, those are the key hallmarks. 

Can you accidentally create a personal brand?

Anne: I think most of us accidentally create our brands, right? So we’re just going about life doing what we do, and we build a reputation by everything that we do, and that can be done with a lot of awareness and just totally unconsciously because everything that you do sends a signal to the world.

So unless people don’t know you at all, you’ve not sent any signals. I think most of us are actually in a situation where we’ve kind of just built up something and could probably benefit from being much more strategic.

How can you strategically build a personal brand?

[00:02:58] Carlos: Yeah. And that’s what I’ve experienced, particularly with several people in our community. This idea of strategically creating your personal brand might feel a bit uncomfortable. Could you talk about the idea of strategically creating a personal brand, at least for me? There’s a bit of arrogance; I think of influencers and this whole idea of showing a side of yourself that might not be real or more polished than necessary.

Anne: Yeah, I think this one is really interesting. We have so many assumptions and so many associations with the words branding and strategy. And very often, unfortunately, those are based on the worst examples of it. So when I say strategy, I mean to say it’s about having a plan that allows you to do what you love in the best possible way.

 Strategy doesn’t mean commercial and doesn’t mean loud. It just means a smart plan. The fact that you’re smart about it means that you don’t have to be loud. Because if you can do it in a very smart way, you don’t have to resort to being a Kardashian.

That’s probably a sign of great character— that you’re not interested in tooting your own horn all day. But I think those definitions and those assumptions could potentially be holding you back from actually getting some of the things that you want out of life.

I think that it’s very good to sit with that discomfort. 

I have these assumptions about what it could be, but if I can let those go for a second and just think about, what would it mean for my business if I walked in the door and people already knew me and already appreciated what I was doing?

And if you’re an introvert, that certainly makes the first kind of conversation a lot easier, right? 

“What is the way that I could have the people that I want to engage with how could I already be a presence in their life?”

It’s a much pleasanter way of thinking about this. And I think a much less intimidating way.

How do you find the right audience for your personal brand?

[00:04:56] Carlos: That’s really helpful because the one view that I’ve had about personal branding is it’s all about me. And so it’s all about trying to tell everything about me, but what I’m hearing or how I’m interpreting what you’re saying, there’s an element of sharing.

I share stuff about myself that helps the people I want to help or connects to the people I want to connect with. 

Is there something also about knowing who I want to connect with? That’s part of this personal branding expert exercise.

Anne: When we think personal branding has to be all about me, that’s a bit of a dysfunctional belief because no one’s interested in someone who’s only interested in themselves. 

 So I know some people who might conventionally be thought of as having very strong personal brands, but I hate their personal brands because they’re not interested in me; they’re just interested in a platform for themselves.

So don’t let the a*holes hold you back from finding your own examples. And I think that is also something really good as an exercise. 

So think about who you love as a person in a profession who doesn’t have a conventional personal brand but who you’ve gotten to know and whose services you know and admire.

And what can you learn from the way that that person has built it? Because I think if we’re always looking at the examples that we don’t want to follow, we’re basically building our knowledge of this topic on the wrong examples. And if we can learn from the people that we do love and admire, then I think that is much more helpful.

 You need good, wholesome, inspirational examples. 

What are some examples of personal brands we can learn from?

[00:06:29] Carlos: Maybe on that then, for those people who, who are interested, do you have an example of someone with a personal brand that you admire and what is it about them that, that you, you’re attracted to?

Anne: Of my favourites is Dr. Ayana Johnson. She’s a marine biologist, and she’s a policy advisor. And I think what’s really impressive is how she managed to build a following and actually used her personal presence to really drive climate action in the U. S. and put pressure on the government and organize a movement of climate action and support for science and also make that more diverse. 

There are authors that I really love. So I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a really strong brand as an author and a feminist.

These are people of substance; they have the story and the content and the depth, but they’re always also really clear on what I want to be recognized for. What’s the impact that I want to achieve? And how am I going to get it? People involved with this are being a little unapologetic about how they’re trying to do that in some cases, but with a lot of integrity. 

What is the story of your own personal brand

[00:07:42]Carlos: you had a couple of stories around primarily first your own experience or value of a personal brand and then the story around helping someone build their own and then this question of your own value given what other people were charging or who were supporting this work. 

So maybe start off with the story of your own personal brand and what is its value. 

Anne: So I was creative director at Interbrand. I was on the Dutch Design Awards jury for four years. I was on the board of the Dutch Designers Association. I was a writer. I was teaching at Design Academy. I was creating workshops. Like, I was doing a thousand things. And this was really hard on me. And it was also quite difficult for people to know, like, Okay, well, she does this brand stuff, and then she does this other stuff, and she’s writing about culture and society and design and social engagement.

And it was quite fuzzy. And so, I forced myself when I quit my role to focus on this one question: How can I leverage the brand for social change? I needed to be positioned as the expert in this space to get my foot in the door of potential clients.

So we used our brand thinking canvas to think through: if I want to be recognized as the expert, what do I need to do? It’s not just about telling people you’re the expert; it’s about showing them as well, right?

We created these workshop formats, we had lots of pilots, we gathered testimonials, and I wrote articles for Stanford Social Innovation Review, which is, you know, a big deal in social impact land.

I made sure that the workshops where we did those pilots were at reputable organizations like Impact Hub and Amani Institute. And so we slowly built that ecosystem. And I just made sure that no one else had to deal with any of the other stuff that I was doing in any other way.

And every signal that was being sent was about, Hey, if you’re looking for someone at the intersection of brand and social change, you need to talk to Anne.

It wasn’t at all about cosmetics because I was also living it. And so the stuff that I was doing was matching what I was saying.

You have this idea of being recognized as the expert and being the expert; those two things have to come together over time.

But I think one of the things that’s important there to keep in mind is that your reputation is like an oil tanker, and you have to hang on to that wheel for a long time before the boat starts to make the turn. So, whenever you’re thinking about your personal brand, what you need to think about is a three to five-year horizon of where you want to go.

So, every time people have an interaction with you, it’s going to build some recognition in their head.

It’s going to take 20 newsletters.Maybe it’s going to take 40 LinkedIn posts, three conversations. 

Having a TED talk on the topic and having a book on a topic helped; I cannot even express how many hours of investment that is. 

It’s a pretty bad investment because you could have invested that all to charge high prices as a brand consultant for commercial companies, but you’re working in the impact space. This switch is not going to result in higher prices.

So I think understanding that this is the branding part of the process, you can kind of make it part of your personal journey because it can be super helpful. It’s really nice. If you’re able to have this compass and this clarity, this is where I want to go. And the thing that I’m doing and saying is building towards that recognition.

What is the relationship between your personal brand and pricing?

[00:11:20] Carlos: The value, as I understand it from you, isn’t necessarily about charging higher prices.

It’s about when you meet the people who want to work with you; it’s an effortless relationship. You don’t need to sell yourself so hard anymore. It becomes, I know you. You do that work; I want to work with you. And then it’s your choice as to whether they can afford you or they work with you.

Anne: There are times that it works, and there are also times that it can work against you. So, I’ll give you an example where it really worked for me. So, I moved to the countryside in Kenya during COVID.

I thought this was the end of my career because I needed to be in Nairobi, where I could network. 

And our neighbours were having a brunch thing, and they invited a couple of people. They invited my husband because he’s an interesting guy, and I came along as the wife. And people are like, oh, you’re the wife, and they move on to the other people who they already know to be interesting at the table.

And one of the guys there surprises me by asking, “Oh, Anne, what do you do?” 

And I said, “well, I’m a brand developer. Specialized in building brands for social change.” 

And he’s like, “what’s your last name?” 

And I said, “my last name is Miltenburg.” 

And he just, he was struck by that.

And I was like, very uncomfortable about that because I’m obviously like a tiny, tiny, tiny little person, but it was a very interesting moment. And then it made it obviously much easier than to have conversations with him, but I did have to actually make it clear that I was available for work and for collaboration.

So it wasn’t like, Oh, you have a book, or I know you, and therefore I will hire you now, because I think actually, what can also happen is people are like, Oh, she’s very busy. She’s doing well. She’s got a book. She’s too academic. Is she still practising? Is she too expensive? So there’s like, it’s not just like an automatic thing, right?

You still need to be able to kind of make the sale. And so I think brand plus marketing plus sales is still kind of important. It doesn’t just land in your in your lap.

I also wanted to make sure that everyone understands that, for instance, you could position yourself as a very affordable person.

You could say I’m the logo king on the corner. I make logos cheap. I do lots of them.

It’s a really strong personal brand. And it’s a personal brand based on the positioning of a low price. But the idea then is that many people come to you to do a cheap job, so you end up having much more revenue. 

 It’s not just about higher prices. It’s about the happy price, and it’s hopefully about the increase in revenue; rather than, can I ask for 200 bucks instead of 150 an hour? 

 The group of people that you want to connect with doesn’t need to be the world. This is also a kind of misperception that social media has created that you have to be out there for the world to see. Whereas, if you’re thinking about your happy price, you’re thinking about what you need to make a year in order to be happy.

How many people are we really talking about? And this is again where the smart question comes back in. So, if you’re saying I have a number in my mind of what I need to make a year. And in order to do that, I need to have five or 50 customers. Then, I think the process of figuring out how I am going to encounter those people becomes much more intentional.

How can you work on your confidence around pricing?

[00:14:29] Carlos: Well, the thing that resonated with a lot of our work at the moment, and Vision 2020 in particular, is what do you need?

What is it you need, not only in terms of money but also in terms of the way you get energy, the way you want to work, who you want to work with, and having that clarity as part of the design brief for the business, not purely numbers and market strategies or market surveys and research.

The other story I wanted to share with everyone was the story of you working to help someone else build their personal brand and trying to value that piece of work.

I thought that was a really useful story to share because I think it spoke to your own journey of understanding your confidence around pricing.

Anne: Yeah. So what’s interesting is that we mostly work in training and coaching situations at Brand The Change, but I’m also a freelance brand director and usually that’s for small, medium-sized businesses in the tech for good space. 

But, in some cases, people approach you and say, Hey, that stuff you do for organizations, can you do that for me as well?

And what I learned from that process is. The amount of time that goes into helping an individual figure out where they want to go, what they want to be known for, how they’re going to get there and build that stuff. It’s almost like therapy that you need to go through with someone, right? So, the amount of strategic workshops that we did together, for instance, was more than what I would do for my other customers. 

That’s a really, really tough process. And ultimately, look at how much time it takes and what the fee is for this. And that’s quite intense, it’s quite intense.

And I realized from that process that I enjoyed doing this work. But I’m not a therapist. 

I can do therapy for companies, but I don’t want to do therapy for people because I feel like that’s a little too dangerous. 

How can brand strategists work to build personal brands for others?

Carlos: Yeah, so when you were working with this person who wanted a personal brand, you know, you kind of made a calculation or an estimate of about the time that you would spend and then you put together a proposal based on that.

And then what? I remember you saying you needed to work more than the estimate. And not only that, when you are commissioning websites or tweets or things like that, the rates that these people would charge just seemed uncomfortably higher compared to you.

I think the message I was looking at as well is this: We can base what we charge on our time. But then it all depends on the person, whether that’s a good value or not, how much they perceive having this personal brand is going to improve their business.

And so, on the one hand, if this person, through a personal brand, sees the potential to make, say, millions, not having a personal brand means she could lose that money.

What will I achieve by having a personal brand? And what is the cost of not doing it? Being overwhelmed and never being mentioned by anyone, no one really understanding who I am and what, how to refer me, having a conversation with someone and without too much effort getting a client because they totally understand who you are, what you stand for because of this deeper work that you’ve been able to go through.

Anne: I’m a huge proponent of value-based pricing, but I think when it comes to branding, there are two big challenges.

I think the first thing is that I rarely meet someone who thinks about it in the strategic way that you do.

So I rarely meet someone who’s like, “Well, what would it mean for me if I had a strong personal brand?” So that’s a question that I would mainly ask, right? It’s part of definitely part of the conversation, but people tend to undervalue that tremendously.

So, they’re unable to extricate the value of the brand from their everyday work. 

And to be honest, it’s pretty hard, traditionally, right? Like, how much is Coca-Cola the brand worth? And how much is the formula for the drink worth? So that’s already the hard thing. 

And then the second is that, if I’m saying that’s the value of this (thing), everyone knowing you when you walk in the door is (aware of) what you’re buying with me through this process. That means that I’m committing to an open-ended deliverable. And so I think you still need to tie that down in very specific deliverables because people will eat you up.

And when it’s very personal if I can’t make a choice. Now, all of a sudden, it’s on me to help them choose the direction of their career, right? And if I haven’t been able to get them to a place of like, hey, now people know what you want to do, then that’s a failure on my part. 

So, I’d love to know what you and Ben would advise me to do in such a situation.

How does audience awareness affect your pricing?

[00:19:25] Carlos: So for me, that talks to the. Awareness of the customer, and you’ll be familiar, I assume, with the Better Bolder Braver Journey of Consciousness of a customer. And so, if you are selling to someone who isn’t aware of the value of a personal brand, it will be hard.

Totally. And so there is a marketing aspect to this, and I think this is what you do with the community, and this is what you do by talking on places like this. So, education. You know, people understanding themselves within their own industries or their own work, 

I’m a potential customer because I’m now at a stage where I have products and services that I know work and deliver. There’s lots of clarity that could be used there. I know how much we earn through that. And I can see where we could potentially earn more if we had more people who were aware or understood or could refer us more clearly.

I’m starting to understand, ah, that’s where some proper brand work will work. 

 Through this conversation, I understand why branding can help me focus. I’m understanding that it’s a longer-term game. But I’m also understanding when it does work, The potential revenue that I could create or more revenue I could create. It’s not guaranteed. I know that’s not guaranteed. But if my appetite for risk, let’s put it that way.

My willingness to bet on something is within my capacity to spend. Then it isn’t a problem. Talk about the money as soon as possible, and that isn’t necessarily how much you are going to spend.

It’s more about how much revenue you make and how much you spend on coaching. How do you spend your marketing? If what they spend is this and you’re pricing there, then you’re missing an opportunity to get more value for yourself and to be more invested because you know exactly what their capacity is.

So that’s how I would answer that. 

Anne: Yeah, I mean, it’s very clear where we have success and where I see other people have success on this topic is that you sell the problem that you’re solving, right? 

For me, having a background working with tech for good companies for eight years straight, I really know how to talk to a board of advisors or investors about the value that I bring and the problem that I’ll be solving for them.

So I think that’s a more comfortable situation. I’m really happy I took up the project because I had really good results and I really enjoyed it. The work, but it was definitely proof again of this whole theory of, like, niche, because you’ll be more effective, you’ll be able to better solve that need.

[00:22:06] Carlos: And what I heard there as well is confidence. I think that’s the other thing I’ve learned through doing this work and working with Ben. A lot of it is about how we turn up in those conversations and the confidence that we have to back the price that we put together.

And then maybe you can do it in an hour, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to charge an hour’s worth of your time. 

Anne: My best session with someone was 45 minutes. Because she walked in, and basically, she just needed external approval. She just needed to hear from someone that it was okay to position herself in a particular way.

 And one of the things I’m not sure if this is directly related to it, but. I think if you have an enthusiasm, a passion for your work, and someone comes to you, and someone’s like, you’re the only person that can help me. You feel like, Oh my gosh, let me jump in, even though this is not my hundred per cent expertise; I think that’s also when you let go of some of those lessons learned, and you might make those mistakes again.

Carlos: This is not a linear process. You don’t do brand and marketing and selling the pricing, and then you’re done. You probably go back again because you realize that these aren’t the customers you want to work with or this isn’t the way you want to work. And you’re more clear now about who you are and what you stand for.

Some things have changed in my life. So there’s this ongoing practice. Tell your story, tell the story of your customers, understand what you really want, understand what you need that never ends. 

Anne: Yeah. Well, I also think it would be good to have people reflect back on the process and actually explain to other people what the value was in that process.

I think it’s so helpful because that’s also the mirror, so you can have an idea in your head if this is what you want to be recognized for.

And I think hearing the words of someone else describing what you do is very often super powerful, and having those other people talk about you is probably one of the biggest assets of your work.

And so if you’re in a situation where you’re not putting anything out there, and you’re not getting that feedback, having a community, like Happy Startup School, is important.

Carlos: All community power. And at least community done well.

Similarly your community is having that space where you have the guidance, but also the people around you to reflect on your journey.

Anne: Thanks everyone for sticking around. 

Carlos: Thank you, everyone, for watching live and for still being here. I found this to be a really fascinating journey, personally as well, just in terms of my understanding and preparedness, I would say, for personal branding.