Learn how to create instant Instagram influence and start to grow your personal brand with today’s expert interview with Zach Benson. Also, learn how Zach uses Instagram to travel the world for free.
Our guest is Zach Benson, a full-time entrepreneur, keynote speaker, world traveler, dancer, personal brand expert, and owner of Assistagram, an Instagram marketing agency.
I am excited because Zach Benson is a personal friend of mine. Someone I know who’s been in the game, and who has done amazing things with his business.
Zach handles the accounts of some amazing influencers and top internet marketers in the world, such as Russell Brunson and Robert Kiyosaki. He’s been featured on Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur because of what he’s been able to accomplish using his personal brand and these tools.
The Value of Personal Branding
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:04:11] Today we’re going to talk about how to build a personal brand, which is definitely a topic I’ve been focusing on. So let’s start with the impact that having a personal brand has had in your journey. Why is it so important to build a personal brand?
Zach Benson: [00:05:17] It’s everything, man. I mean, when you have a personal brand and it’s famous, you can do anything. It’s easier to seal deals, to create high-level relationships with celebrities and people that you want to connect with.
It’s just going to 100x your business. How I realized that it was so important was when I was teaching breakdance. I’d reach out to dance studios and say, “Hey, I’m Zach, I want to teach a workshop.”
Email after email, I heard no after no. One lady was kind enough to say, “Zach, you don’t have a personal brand. Nobody knows about you. You haven’t really won any awards or been on any TV shows. You don’t even have a website. How do you expect to charge $850 an hour for a class when I know nothing about you and you’re not famous?”
And you know, it just really clicked. Then I was like, she’s right. I’ve got to figure it out, how to get into competitions and audition for talent agencies and TV shows and build a website with professional photography and professional video testimonials. And so it was really 10 years ago when I said, okay, now this all makes sense. I see what she was saying.
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:06:36] I think a lot of people say they can see the value in building a reputation. That’s not new, but a lot of them don’t take the next step. Why is building a personal brand so difficult? What do you think holds people back on getting started?
Zach Benson: [00:07:04] That’s the big thing that separates a lot of people, right? You could be the most talented person in the world. But if you don’t know about PR and branding and selling yourself and putting yourself out there, nobody’s really going to know.
Nowadays it’s a little bit easier. If you’re super, super good, let’s say at breakdance. Let’s say that you’re this breakdancer from Morocco and you’re just the best in the world. People have YouTube to get famous now or Instagram to get famous now. And these are free platforms where people can put out free content and get known. So that’s why I really went all-in with Instagram and have built people’s brands on that. Because it’s a great launching platform.
But I really think it’s difficult because people just don’t know the how-tos. And even if they do know the how-tos, I feel like a lot of them are afraid to just try, to fail, to get rejected, to hear nos, to have people doubt them, ignore them, and all that stuff.
So I think it has to do with that. It’s the mindset. It’s going to take a lot of time and some money. It takes a lot of hard work.
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:08:21] If you had to start again today, knowing what you know now, how would you start? I know we all have to choose our own path, but for you specifically, for what you want to do, where would you start? If you had to start over.
Zach Benson: [00:08:39] Knowing what I know now and starting over, it’s really important to build relationships with people in the media. I guess what I wish I would have done right away, when starting from zero, was creating those relationships and doing outreach to those people because that would have saved a ton of time off my learning curve.
When you have those valuable relationships and connections, you can do anything. Just by simply getting written up about in your local newspaper or your local TV channel, it’s about connecting with local celebrities right away, and providing value to them and getting noticed and seen by them. So then they’re like, “Okay, wow, that’s an interesting story. Whoa. I want to cover that.”
I wish I would have started out pitching them sooner than waiting until now.
Become a Person of Interest
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:09:50] How do you get in front of these people and make those connections other than just reaching out? You were passionate about dance and travel. You learned a unique skill. All these things make you a really interesting person to talk to. So when you reach out to these media contacts, it gets a little easier. How did you start to find these passions and lean into them? Tell me about how that happened for you.
Zach Benson: [00:10:43] Well, so you’ve heard my story, but for those of you who haven’t, I was born in Korea. I grew up in Iowa though, because I was adopted by my family in Iowa.
It was hard for me because I had a speech impediment. I couldn’t say the letter R. So I was this quiet kid. I never participated in class. I was always getting these bad grades. I was made fun of a lot.
Life wasn’t looking too good for me until I did find dance. It was finally something that I was just really good at and passionate about, and excelled at. And so I went all in just like anything in life. Once I find something that I’m really good at, it brings me a lot of joy.
I just go full force. I learn everything I can about it. I put in a lot of time, a lot of hours of work and meet others that are doing it better than me and learn from them. And so that’s what happened with dance. I was never the best, but I was on So You Think You Can Dance for a little bit. I didn’t go all the way but I made it to the top 100 in the LA audition and really leveraged that. I used their brand to teach dance all around the world.
One producer said, “Zach, you just don’t have what it takes.” And so after the third time auditioning and making it the top 100, I did not try out again. His words hurt me, but the second producer told me, “You know, don’t put your eggs all in one basket. Go out and make a name for yourself, use our brand, and teach great dance all around the world.”
And that’s what I did. Towards the end of my career, I was pulling in a thousand dollars an hour, actually getting paid what I wanted to get paid when I first started. It’s that 10 year, 10,000 hours rule. Finally, I could use the name. I could connect myself with something.
Then he was like, “Why don’t you contact Nestle Nesquik, like the chocolate Hershey company, you know.” I contacted them and said, “Hey, my name is Nesquik. I go by that, I drink Nesquik before competitions, here’s a special video that I made and created just for you, would you be willing to watch it?”
And you know, they watched it man, and they loved it. They ended up sharing on their Facebook page. We’ve had millions of followers. And they sponsored me for a year. Then I could say, “Hey, I’ve worked with Nestle.” And then the jobs started opening up and everybody wanted my dance workshops.
Now it’s all making sense. You never have to actually be the best to go out there and do what you love full time, all around the world. I mean, there are two types of people. People who hustle their way in like me. Not being the best and learning about marketing and PR and branding, doing those things, and then leveraging those things to create opportunities.
And then there are other people who are just world-class, like an Olympic gold medalist. But even then you still have to have the charisma, the personality, the character. Learning how to be good on camera, learning how to sell yourself to get those huge sponsor deals.
So what I’m saying is you don’t have to be world-class to work with world-class clients and people. It’s just really about the personal brand and reputation.
Use Instagram to Grow Your Personal Brand
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:15:45] So I want to tap into that Instagram brain of yours. What’s one of the skills you picked up? I’d love to give some people tips on how to use this tool a little better. Can we talk about Instagram a little bit and your approach to growing a channel?
Zach Benson: [00:16:09] What I usually tell people, if you’re not on Instagram, now this is the time to be on it. There’s still so much opportunity on this platform. It’s what everybody’s using to connect with celebrities and influencers. Getting them in front of them to promote their products and services.
It’s what people use these days. People still do Facebook and there’s a lot of opportunity there, but it’s a lot easier to connect with people on Instagram. That’s why building and growing your brand on Instagram is so important.
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:16:45] I feel like you do it differently than a lot of people though. You’ve actually figured out how to help people legitimately grow interest in their brand and their business. What do you do differently?
Zach Benson: [00:17:11] Well, if you guys look at my profile @zachvacay, you’re going to see just reposted travel content. Not even my own videos. And so the strategy that I recommend for anybody who’s starting out there and even people who are on it now, is to use the repost strategy.
The Instagram Repost Strategy
Find other content that’s in your industry and niche that’s gone viral, from maybe other influencers that are on other pages or other celebrities that you follow and admire. Look on the home page and find that content, videos that have gotten hundreds of thousands to millions of views. And you’re going to start to see why they actually went viral, hit that home page, and got millions of views on their content.
This is the best strategy that I can recommend because you have to follow and copy stuff that’s working. The algorithm on Instagram is constantly changing, and they’re super smart.
What used to work like in 2014 or 15 or 16, or even 2019? It’s not working now. Automation’s pretty much shut down, follow-unfollow no longer works. I’m talking about growth strategies. All these tools and robots that were created and made people’s lives easier on Instagram, are all shut down. If you are using them, then your accounts also get shut down.
So it’s a bad thing. Don’t use robots, but use reposted content. That’s what I’m doing on my account. I have not spent one penny, one single dollar on the @zachvacay account. So the strategy that I’m teaching you guys is a hundred percent free, right? We grew it from zero to 72,000 followers. It’s even verified on Instagram, just from reposting content and using the second strategy that I’m about to teach you.
The Personal Brand Network Strategy
So once you’ve learned how to find viral content, the next thing is to network with other influencers or other big pages in your niche. They’re posting similar types of content as you and you want to befriend them.
You want to reach out to them and say, “I love your content. I love your page. I’ve been following you for a while and I can see that you’re growing a lot. Would you be willing to get me into some engagement groups? I see a lot of interaction and engagement on your page. I’d be willing to pay you 20 bucks for each group you can get me into.”
This is a cold direct message that I’m sending to people who have a hundred thousand followers or maybe like a million followers. Somebody bigger. And by simply complimenting them and offering them money, they’re going to listen. Everybody wants to get paid, and everybody wants to feel loved and respected.
Just with those two things, the viral content and these engagement groups, that’s my whole strategy for my personal account. And I’m getting people signed up for my stuff every single day on autopilot, just with this strategy, and growing my page organically, for free.
Of course, I don’t do it myself. I have my managers and my team do it all for me. But this is a strategy that’s still working today.
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
Generating Leads with Your Instagram Profile
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:28:04] Let’s talk about your Instagram profile. What a lot of people will do is they’ll have content all about them. Then they’ll have a link that drives people to the thing that they’re selling. On your account, your link goes to an article. It doesn’t take you anywhere I can buy something from you. Can you talk about that? Is that part of the strategy?
Zach Benson: [00:28:39] People ask me all the time, “Why don’t you have an account for the business or your personal page? You’re not even posting personal content.”
And guys, the reason is that I just want to inspire other people to travel this beautiful world, to explore it, and to get excited about these travel videos that I’m posting.
The other part is I’m putting them into my funnel and they don’t even realize it. My funnel, my marketing strategy for my @zachvacay account is where you can say that I’ve been to so many countries, I’m a world traveler, investor, growth marketer, and then you can see I have this article. It’s my Forbes article. And I say, “Learn how we travel the world for free.” And it brings them to my Forbes article that was written about me a couple of years ago.
It’s just more pure value because, in this world that we live in, people are just trying so hard to make direct sales. Anytime you just say, “Hey, click my link, buy it now,” some people will, if you have a ton of influence, if you’ve provided them a ton of value and they really love you and they’re raving fans, yes. That’s how The Rock and Conor McGregor and all these people make a ton of money, but they have insane brands.
For me, I’m not at that level yet. So what I’m doing is piquing their interests with my travel content, getting them excited to learn more, how to travel the world like I do. And Forbes is instant credibility. It’s instant, high level, social proof. So then they can say, “Wow, who is this Zach guy? This guy’s a mystery, he’s on Forbes. And he’s teaching me all of this stuff about how to grow Instagram and travel for free. And then he has this free guide at the bottom of the Forbes article.”
That’s my funnel guys. That’s my opt-in. That’s how I get people to join my email list and my academies. I have this freebie guide up at the end of my Forbes article on my account @zachvacay. When they click it, it brings them to my Facebook chatbot and then everything is automated.
It says, “Hey, I’m Zach. I see you want the guide. What’s the best email?” Type it in. Boom. It’s on its way. “By the way, I have some more value that I’m offering in my free Facebook group if you want in.”
I get 30 to 40 people a day just from this simple funnel on my personal account, joining my free Facebook group. It’s just a more indirect kind of way of how I’m getting people to learn about me.
And then, of course, they’re in my funnel. Then I can provide them more value in my free Facebook group or my email campaigns. If I want, I can retarget them with some other ads, but that’s how I’m doing it. My style is more indirect, not as in-your-face as some people.
How Zach Benson Earned Over 700 Nights of Free Travel
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:31:59] What an amazing way to have the story do the work for you. And I think no one takes that approach. I like breaking it down like this, and I love letting you explain it to us because it helps us see behind the curtain a little bit too. Now let’s talk about the travel side of it. Talk a little bit about how that started to happen and what your approach is to be able to see the world.
Zach Benson: [00:33:25] Well, that’s my content too. Even if you look on my personal Facebook, that’s where I post more personal stuff. Before it was just a lot of travel stuff. I’d just be posting up my beautiful destinations, my beautiful hotels that I’ve gotten for free.
In the past few years, guys, I’ve gotten over 700 nights for free for myself and my friends. I did that all through Instagram.
You’re probably wondering how the heck did I get that much?
I’m not like the normal influencer guys. I don’t have this entitlement mentality where I feel like I deserve this stuff. But I figured out ways to create awesome win-wins for these hotels, these people, these tourism boards and countries that I’m working for that actually drive tourist visits and customers through their doors.
It’s amazing when you can just simply 1) give freely, but then 2) think of a strategic way for all sides to win and benefit rather than just simply paying for something. Because of course, I can pay. But I’d rather figure out a strategic way that it could actually help people like 10 times more.
And that’s what I’ve been able to do. I give these hotels exposure on my 6 million travel follower accounts. I give them growth. I give them free content. I give them reviews. I bring in destination influencers from other countries to promote them and to share about their experience at these hotels.
I’m hooking them up with so many amazing people that are blowing up and growing their brands and hotels. That’s why they give me so many free nights.
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:35:14] I’m sure it was harder at the beginning. When you started, did you have to work on your approach, change how you asked, and change your offering a couple of times? How did that work at the beginning?
Zach Benson: [00:35:57] I learned the art of cold outreach quite a while ago. I was already doing it with dancing. I figured out how to get a high open-rate and get people to respond and reply. So when I’m doing these hotel emails, it’s really about leading with value, with irresistible offers. I know so many of these hotels have been approached by so many influencers just wanting to get free stays and only offering the bare minimum.
I know that they’ve been scammed or burned or offered very little. And so my approach is instead of just one thing, I’m going to figure out all the things that I can do for you. Plus I’m going to do a training for you and your team. I’m going to give you access and all rights to the content and reviews and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I overwhelm them with value and they’re like, “Whoa, this guy Zach is over the top. He’s going all out and really wants to help us. Okay, I want to bring him out.” And that’s how I’ve gotten 125 nights just at one hotel for free for the whole year and got them to also sign for a year-long paying contract. Because in my very first impression with them, I’ve blown them away.
So you want to do that with everything in life, guys. Blow away and surprise your clients, your friends, your family, and the people that are dearest to you, as many times as you can.
Then they’re going to say, “Okay, this guy really cares about me. This guy really wants me to win and help me and support me and help me reach my dreams. I’m going to tell everybody about him.”
That’s how you build and grow your business and build raving fans that just love you and talk about you when you’re not even there.
Connect with Zach Benson
Brandon Birkmeyer: [00:37:43] For those who want to work with you, how do they find you?
Zach Benson: [00:38:56] So if you guys want us to grow your account and grow your business on Instagram then go to the website. Set up a call and then we’ll figure out what you need. And if you want to connect with me, just connect with me. You can add me on Instagram, Zach Benson is my name, and find me on Facebook. We’d love to hear your story and would love to connect and figure out how we can support and help each other. So please reach out. It’s been awesome.
Website: www.assistagram.us
Instagram: @zachvacay
Facebook: Zach Benson
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