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- 🧠 How to turn your personal brand into a money machine
🧠 How to turn your personal brand into a money machine
The step-by-step playbook for inbound leads & partnerships.
Kody Nordquist
March 22, 2025
Welcome back to the 82nd edition of Nord Media
Before we get started, is there anything specific you want to learn about? Let me know, as always, I appreciate all of you who reply each week and share feedback with me.
I bet you a MILLION dollars you’re not leveraging your most powerful asset.
No, it’s not your product.
Not your ad budget.
Not even your network.
It’s your personal brand.
The founders and operators who treat personal branding like a sales channel are landing inbound deals, stacking leverage, and outpacing competitors all without spending a dime on ads.
So today, I’m sharing the EXACT guide I use to turn social presence into revenue, partnerships, and high-intent leads.
Let's dive in.
🧠 Exclusive Partner: Windmill Growth
I've been thinking a lot about personal brands lately.
Not because I particularly enjoy talking about myself (though my wife might disagree), but because I've watched something fascinating happen over the past year.
I recently connected with Ben at Windmill Growth after seeing some genuinely impressive numbers from their client work (found here):
One founder went from 0 to 30 million impressions and 7,000 followers in just 4 months.
A B2B talent company generated a $500K increase in ARR within 6 months.
A B2C spirits brand founder gained 6,000+ followers and 1.1+ million impressions, driving significant Shopify store traffic purely through organic LinkedIn growth.
When I asked how they were achieving this, Ben explained their approach wasn't about gaming algorithms or posting motivational quotes over sunset pictures.
It's about positioning professionals as trusted authorities in their space through strategic content creation and boosting engagement - exactly what I've been preaching for years.
I've arranged for Ben’s team to set aside some time specifically for Nord Media readers this week.
If you're serious about turning your expertise into a lead generation engine, book a call.
Special for Nord Media readers: Get 20% off Windmill’s Growth Service for your first 3 months when you mention this newsletter
The Founders & Operators Winning Without a “Big Audience”
You don’t need 100K followers to make money from social.
Some of the most effective personal brands are micro-authorities that are highly respected in their niche, trusted by the right people, and top-of-mind when opportunities come up.
What they do differently:
They don’t post just for the sake of likes, but to transform those likes into qualified leads.
They speak to buyers, not just followers.
They monetize directly instead of hoping engagement pays off.
Meanwhile, most people fall into the trap of chasing virality, thinking it will get them leads… When they should be optimizing engagement to create actual business impact.
3 Ways to Convert Attention Into Revenue
Likes don’t pay the bills. But attention, when directed properly, does.
There are 3 high-leverage monetization levers for personal branding:
Social media brings in cold attention. Newsletters turn that attention warm and convert it into revenue.
Consistently showing up in inboxes builds trust.
Subscribers are high-intent. They want what you have to say.
Your email list is owned. Not at the mercy of algorithms.
If you’re not capturing emails, you’re wasting the audience you already have.
2. Paid Communities & Consulting (Turning Expertise Into Cashflow)
High-value connections don’t want to scroll through free LinkedIn or X threads forever. They’re willing to pay for structured access to experts.
Paid communities turn your knowledge into recurring revenue.
Consulting & advisory work lets you sell direct expertise at a premium.
The goal isn’t to monetize followers. It’s to monetize trust.
3. Partnerships & Inbound Deal Flow (Where the Big Money Is)
The real money isn’t in selling courses. It’s in high-leverage partnerships that come when you’ve built credibility in your space.
Equity deals and advisory roles from businesses that need your expertise.
Joint ventures and product collaborations that don’t require upfront capital.
Inbound leads for high-ticket services without running ads.
When you become the “default” expert people think of, deals come to you.
The common theme with everything above?
They all follow a strategic, structured system for content creation - which is absolutely critical for building a monetizable personal brand.
Most People Are Playing the Wrong Game
Personal branding doesn’t mean trying to go viral. You want to be top-of-mind when the right opportunities come up.
Optimize for business outcomes through the right engagement, not just mass virality.
Treat personal branding as a sales channel, not a hobby.
Convert attention to owned audiences, direct revenue, and high-leverage deals.
Your social presence is an asset if you use it right, and by boosting engagement on your content that’s optimized for leads - you’re only building a strong distribution pipeline to help effectively reach and convert your target audience.
Pop Quiz: How much of Meta’s global revenue comes from catalog ads?I’ll give you a second
……40%.
The answer is FORTY PERCENT. That’s how much of Meta’s GLOBAL REVENUE comes from plain old catalog ads. Not video ads, not static image ads - but yes, boring ol’ catalog ads.
If you couldn’t tell - catalog ads aren’t a side-thing anymore. They are the main course.
And if you’re not already an expert on catalog ads, you’re getting LEFT BEHIND.
That’s why Marpipe and Nik Sharma spent WEEKS pouring over $2b worth of purchase conversion data from catalog ads - so we could give you only the goods:
How to go from 0 to 100 with catalog ads
What you should do (starting today)
What you SHOULDN’T do
Grab your copy of The State of Catalog Ads 2025 report HERE and stay ahead of the curve.
Closing Thoughts
So stop focusing on trying to go ‘viral’. Focus on turning attention into generating the right engagement that can turn into inbound leads, partnerships, and revenue.
Newsletters, paid communities, and partnerships are the highest-leverage monetization channels.
Position yourself as a micro-authority. You don’t need a huge audience to make money.
Being top-of-mind > chasing likes.
The best opportunities come inbound when you’re the go-to expert in your space.
All roads lead back to generating the right engagement through strategic, structured content creation. Start treating your personal brand like an acquisition channel, and the deals will follow.
Looking for more of my recommendations? Here’s some other services I personally use and strongly recommend 👇
Superfiliate - Consolidate all of your word of mouth programs (influencer, affiliate, ambassador, referral) into one app while turning every link shared by a creator or customer into a co-branded high converting landing page.
Signup today and get 1 month free simply by mentioning my name when you onboard😎
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Aligned Growth - I’ve been working with the team at Aligned Growth for a few months now across several brands I work on. On-top of that they’ve helped HexClad generate over 450M views just last year. If you’re doing over $6M / year and looking to start or improve your influencer & product seeding program. » Learn More «
Goodo Studios - A lot of brands struggle with the creative output needed to continue scaling effectively. This is why a majority of the brands I work with including my own use Goodo Studios to supplement their creative team. Their process is extremely simple and dialed in to ensure they’re able to step into any brand and demonstrate and industry leading level of performance to help you and your brand scale. » Sign Up Today «
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Surefoot - Your ads are driving traffic, but are your pages turning visitors into buyers? Every week, the team at Surefoot shares real-world A/B test results, proven CRO strategies, and practical insights to help you optimize your website and maximize your conversion rates. No fluff. No generic advice. Just actionable takeaways from brands doing $10MM to $200M. 👉️ Sign up now and start converting more shoppers into buyers.
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Marpipe - It’s time to face it - your DPA doesn’t look good. It’s raw and incomplete. This is hurting your brand and your performance. Marpipe fixes this. The best operators in the world (Ridge, Simple Modern, True Classic) use Marpipe to run 2x better performing DPA. » Get started «
Saral - Managing influencers is a time suck. Finding them, emailing back and forth, tracking what they post, measuring results...
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It's why brands that value their time (like Obvi, Salud, and Homecourt) use it to run smoother campaigns with better results. Chat with the team → (Let them know I sent you!)