Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

In this podcast, I explain the process by which the 3rd issue of Personal Branding Magazine was created. Developing the magazine takes at least three months, including project management with author submissions/deadlines, getting the cover shot approved, as well as setting up the interviews, finalizing sponsors, taking all the content and mending it together and promoting it.

Question: How did you manage to get Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin on the front cover?

Answer: Before issue 2 came out, I wanted to interview and place both innovators on the cover, but with no success. As a brand new publication, it’s very challenging to get high profile people to work with you. If I was calling up as a Forbes, Fortune or WSJ journalist, my chances would improve drastically. This is in large part due to branding and how we are still in the early stages of bring this magazine to life. After issue 2 came out, I received a notice from the Google branding team explaining to me how I was able to use them on the cover, as long as I made no edits to their pictures. After seeing very few publications with them on the cover, I figured that I would go for it.

Question: Explain the cover in more detail. What were the thoughts behind it?

Answer: The magazine name is in the Google colors to symbolize that Google plays a major role in what the magazine has to offer. The phrase “brand influencer’s” was chosen because it’s a group of people that can influence the decisions of others. In this issue I chose people who were leaders in the technology and social media space. The bottom part of the magazine, where it says “Your Brand Here” is supposed to show you that people can easily type your name in Google as a background check for your credentials. “Your Brand Can’t Hide From Google,” means that if you’ve developed your brand online (and it’s a unique name), then people can easily find you.

Question: OK Dan, now how did you pull off interviewing six of these top brand influencer’s?

Answer: After two issues, people are starting to treat the magazine as a legitimate media source. After getting Jack Welch, Donald Trump and Philip Rosedales’ name on the past issues, people are starting to want to work with us. Om Malik was the hardest of the six to reach. Each time I tried to get in touch, he was either on a plane, on a train, in a conference or in his car. It took me over a month to get six questions out of him, but he’s a really great person, so it was worth the effort. Matt Mullenweg’s assistant was very nice and he was more than happy to speak to me on the phone. He is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever talked to and is very down to earth. To get Gina Bianchini, I had to go through Brew PR, which is Nings PR agency. Mark Frauenfelder, Gina Trapani and David Weekly were contacted directly through email and they were all very excited to be on the cover and interviewed.

Question: How do you get the contributors and how can I submit an article for issue 4 (May 1st)?

Answer: Contributors are picked from my network. They tend to have commented on my blog, contacted me through email or I’ve pulled them in to help give a full perspective on the state of personal branding in the magazine. To contribute, please email me your article, which is limited to 500 words, your bio and a head shot.

Have another question? Put it in the comments and I’ll answer it in the next post!