The 90 Day Brand Plan

Chapter 1PERSONAL BRANDS FILL STANDS

I stood in front of my company, exchanging gifts and bonuses at our annual end‐of‐year wrap‐up, looking around at my team's faces. I found myself completely shaken by how far we had come in just three short years. Just four years prior, this was all an insane idea in my head, an idea I had while working my full‐time retail job selling phones.

Before all of this, building a branding agency was purely a delusional and lofty “one day” goal of mine—something to dream about in the distant future. Back then I felt alone, afraid, yet I ventured into the unknown, with no guarantee of success, no money in my bank account, no previous business experience, no mentors or coaches—just stubbornness and the will to have a crack at something I had never done before: branding myself publicly. This is what I worked on for the next couple of years.

And what did I achieve after all this time? My agency Rivyl. A crew of 20 mavericks (an endearing term we use to refer to our team for their rebelliously creative nature), all responsible for an average of 70 client projects to juggle every month. They laughed, made fun of each other, and relished in the unfathomable success we had created for ourselves in such a short time frame as an aggressive start‐up. They joked about their onboarding interviews in years past, when they'd initially questioned whether the ...