We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jon Barnes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My business around personal brand coaching came directly out of my Marketing and Strategy trainings I had been running for years. Essentially, no matter who I was helping or what they were doing, we’d always come back to the fact that they were the face of the brand and had messenging, activities, and channels that were distinct-yet-related to the bigger brand of the organization. I took the practical and messenging side of brand building and marketing and simply shone it through the strategic prism so it all was aligned to personal branding and not branding for the organization. At the end of the day, it’s all about shaping perception around what drives you, how you’re unique, and where you tell your story- whether for you or the business you represent.

Jon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I originally went to school to be a car designer. After making it into one of the top design schools in the country, I experienced a revelation that was both life-changing and unnerving at the same time. I feel like God showed me that my broader gift was creativity and not just cars. With this revelation I’ve since gone on to explore a variety of careers focused on creative communication including marketing and advertising, legal marketing, working in youth ministry, YouTube stardom, and now personal brand coaching.

Today. I have 2 lines of business. I coach people on how to create, leverage, and love their personal brands and I also serve as a bolt-on CMO/Director of Marketing for organizations needing action-oriented marketing strategy and execution.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When it comes to your personal brand, I think everyone who invests seriously in it will have a “struggle story.” Mine is really focused on having one thing I thought I would do my entire life and then when I had the opportunity to do it I realized that it’s not what I truly wanted. Whether it’s through a change, pivot, hardship, relationship, experience, or pursuit of something outside the norm, everyone has some aspect of a struggle story that they should tap into when it comes to building their personal brand.

When I coach people on developing their personal brand narrative, we always start with what’s important to them, how they approach life, their style, distinctives, and aspirations. From there, creating storytelling buckets and speaking to the pain points of your audience is half of the hard work when it comes to you getting out there. the logos, colors, and cool website vibes are all secondary to getting your story right.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

While it may not be a lesson to un-learn, I think a principle that really crystalized for me being responsible for everything in the business is that you have to make contact and be out there. You have to be engaged with your audience and clients. Just your presence is often half the battle and people are buying your energy and a feeling of confidence they have knowing you’re in control of whatever it is they hired you to do. If you show up and have a sense of urgency, you’ll eventually figure out whatever challenge comes your way and you’ll be successful. If you don’t invest in the relationship and you can’t execute in a timely manner, well… game over.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thejonbarnes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pumthuggee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejonbarnes/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatjonbarnes/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/pumthuggee