Oct 18, 2019
Marc Ensign is
the Big Cheese at LoudMouse, a personal branding agency for
speakers, authors, coaches, entrepreneurs and
artists.
A musician by
training, Marc dreamed of performing on Broadway. He created a
strong personal “brand,” wrote articles for music industry
magazines, interviewed and forged relationships with a lot of
performers. As a skilled bass player, Marc eventually “got the
Broadway gig,” not by touting his amazing bass playing, but by
promoting his ability to imitate a wide variety of styles.
Supporting, rather than competing against, other professional
musicians, Marc substituted for regular Broadway show band members
who, for whatever reason, needed “a night off.” His full time
Broadway career ended up lasting 10 years.
In 2001/2002, while working as a musician in
the evenings, Marc dabbled in web design during the day. A big and
lucrative assignment from American Express’s
Travel + Leisure
Magazine turned Marc’s
“pajamas as business casual” web design company into a marketing
agency – overnight. A decade later, he felt lost.
Marc had no education in marketing, but he had
a passion for it –and, in particular, for figuring out the one
impossible dream a person had – and creating a marketing message
and strategy to achieve it – building, for each of his clients, a
“personal brand” to get them to their “Broadway.” A couple of years
ago, he started LoudMouse with a mission: To change the world by empowering those who
want to change the world.
Marc was a
breakout speaker at Hubspot’s Inbound 2019 and talked about
“Standing Out and Start Getting Paid: How to Build a Personal Brand
They Can’t Ignore.”
In this
interview, Marc outlines three elements for building a successful
personal brand.
- Identity. Be clear on who you
are. Communicate “who you are” in a way that really connects with
people in an authentic way.
- Visibility. Be able to
communicate the message of “who you are” with visual elements: Your
font/color/ logo/ website/ social media platforms/ pictures/
headshots. These elements have to be congruent with each other –
and consistent.
- Authority. Are you positioned
as an industry expert/leader/podcaster interviewee? When people
`think of your industry, regardless of size, do people think of
you? Did you write the book on the most important thing or a new
groundbreaking innovation?
Marc authored The Groove Book: A Study in Musical Styles for
Bass (2011) and
Slappin': A Complete Study of
Slap Technique for Bass: A Complete Study of Slap Technique for
Bass (2015), both under
the Mel Bay Publications imprint. He is still building his brand as
a musician, while using his agency to help “small” people leverage
their brands to have “big voices.”