How to Build a Personal Brand That Converts with Erik Cabral
Your personal brand is more than just a logo or a tagline — it’s the foundation of your business growth. In a recent episode of Scale Smart, Grow Fast podcast, Harley Green sat down with Erik Cabral, founder of OnAir Brands, to talk about how entrepreneurs can harness clarity, podcasting, and mission-driven branding to create lasting impact.
Preferred listening on the go? Catch the full podcast episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Why Clarity is Non-Negotiable
Erik’s first lesson is simple but powerful: clarity creates momentum. Many entrepreneurs suffer from shiny object syndrome — chasing too many ideas at once and burning out. Instead, Erik advises narrowing your focus: define who you are, who you serve, and what problem you solve. Without clarity, your message won’t connect, and your brand won’t convert.
Personal Brand as the Umbrella
If you run multiple businesses or projects, your personal brand becomes the umbrella. Erik points to leaders like Elon Musk and Tony Robbins, whose personal brands open doors for all their ventures. By building your brand DNA around your values and mission, you allow your audience to connect with you first, making it easier to introduce new offers, services, or businesses later.
Podcasting: The Ultimate Growth Tool
According to Erik, podcasting is more than content — it’s a networking and growth engine. Instead of “picking someone’s brain over coffee,” podcasting allows you to lead with value by giving guests a platform to share their message. It’s also a long-term play: success comes not from three episodes, but from consistent creation and commitment.
To stay sustainable, Erik emphasizes systems and delegation. Entrepreneurs should focus on their strengths and eventually outsource editing, design, and promotion — freeing time to run the business while the podcast works as a powerful marketing channel.
Turning Clients into Brand Champions
Your best marketing asset is often your satisfied clients. Erik encourages entrepreneurs to turn happy customers into brand champions by collecting testimonials, referrals, and even co-created stories. These champions amplify your message and build credibility far faster than ads or self-promotion.
Faith, Mission, and Erik’s Book
Erik’s journey also highlights the importance of a mission bigger than yourself. His book, Be Your Brand to Glorify God, reframes personal branding as a way to serve others and lead with values, not ego. For him, success is about creating impact through service — and entrepreneurs can do the same by aligning their brand with purpose.
Key Takeaways for Entrepreneurs
- Clarity comes first: Define your mission, audience, and values.
- Personal brand > business brand: Build trust in you, then extend it to your ventures.
- Podcast strategically: Use it for value, networking, and long-term growth.
- Delegate smartly: Free your time by outsourcing tactical tasks.
- Turn influence into opportunity: Leverage testimonials and client stories to scale credibility.
🚀 Ready to build a brand that converts? Start by defining your values with Erik’s free Core Values Worksheet at www.beyourbrandNOW.com.
🔹 Your business can only grow as clear as your brand. Don’t let busywork hold you back from building influence and opportunity. Schedule a free discovery call with Workergenix today and learn how to delegate smarter so you can focus on growing your personal brand
Like what you read? Get weekly insights on scaling, efficiency, and profitability—straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.Transcript
Harley Green:
All right, hey guys, welcome back to the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast. Your personal brand is one of your most powerful business assets, if you know how to use it. In this episode, Erik Cabral, founder of OnAir Brands and trusted advisor to Fortune 100 and Inc 5000 companies, shares how to craft a message that connects, build a brand that converts, and leverage podcasting to grow your business. With over 25 years in brand strategy, Erik’s going to offer a proven mission-driven framework for turning clarity into momentum and influence into opportunity. Erik, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. How are you doing today?
Erik Cabral:
Fantastic, Harley. Thank you so much for having me.
Harley Green:
It’s our pleasure. Now, Erik, tell us a little bit more about your background. How did you get into marketing and doing podcasting?
Erik Cabral:
Yeah, it was not by design for sure. Corporate America and school, traditional college and finding my way up the corporate ladder was a wonderful way to make a living. Creating artwork and logos in the beginning, very early stages of my career, was my first. I’ll never forget, Harley, a postcard — like a four by six postcard that was going to go direct mail. They called it that for all the kids out there who don’t remember mail. But yeah, you would get these postcards and I was like, “Mom, look,” and I took a stack of them. I was like, “Look, my first printout, there are hundreds of thousands of these out there.” And then eventually the coolest thing was seeing my work on billboards driving down a highway. I would see, “Look, I designed that billboard. How cool.” So that was really my background. I just loved designing, loved graphic design. At the time they called it commercial arts and people would ask, “What’s that?” But eventually all these tools became more and more familiar — Adobe and all these guys. And when I finally left after 21 years in corporate America, I was so done. I wanted to retire, at least from the art world. And I got into, of all things, real estate investing. And my wife was like, “You don’t know anything about real estate. What are you talking about? What are you doing?”
Harley Green:
You.
Erik Cabral:
And I was like, I just want to build wealth. I was in a wealth creation phase of my life. And I was very focused on how can I get there very quickly. You know, I lost 20 years not knowing anything about finance, being financially illiterate. And I was like, “Oh, I read this book from Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad,” and then eventually read Cash Flow Quadrant. I was like, “Oh, wait a minute.” In this quadrant he’s talking about the employee, which was me for the majority of my years. And then it was like, now you need to own a business or become an investor. So there were all these different avenues. I was like, I want to own a business and I want to become an investor. And I want to make passive income. So that’s really where it all started. And once I jumped into the investing community, I realized that the one thing that they had in common was an abundant mindset. And I came from the opposite — completely scarcity-minded environment where it was dog-eat-dog, everybody was just against each other. And it was really bizarre to be around people that wanted to help you. Especially the most successful people would always end the conversation with, “How can I help you? How can I provide more value in your life?” And that was the game changer. And I just said, I need to be around these people and I need to record these conversations I’m having in the hallways for my sake, so I can remember these conversations and just extract value out of it. And that turned into a podcast and people started to point to me like the guy recording a conversation as the podcast guy. And it wasn’t necessarily a podcast at the time. So that’s really where it all started.
Harley Green:
I love that growth and transition and especially the abundance mindset. And it really has shown through in your success and how you’ve helped others too now. Speaking of that, you’ve helped build so many brands. What would you say is the first thing you look for when helping someone define their personal or business brand?
Erik Cabral:
The first thing I look for is how much clarity they have. A lot of us can have all these ideas, but they’re not very focused. If you have a lot of great ideas and a lot of what we call in the entrepreneurial world shiny object syndrome, then your focus and lack of clarity will spread you thin. I was guilty of this for sure because I started four companies out of the gate. I was so excited to be out there, Harley. I was like, I’m going to create a real estate empire, then I’m going to build a media agency, then I’m going to have an event company and a coaching company. Literally all these things I was doing at the same time thinking that was cool, that was trendy, that hustle-and-grind mentality. And it didn’t serve me. It really hurt me in the long term. Now, I benefited greatly from it for sure because it made for a lot of connections. All the people that you may have mentioned in my bio were a result of me creating all that. But it was a quick avenue to burnout. There was no way I was going to sustain that. So eventually over the years, I had to shut down one, two, three and eventually all the companies so I could focus on one. So that’s the first thing I look for when I speak to an entrepreneur who’s all over the place: What are we focusing on? What do you have complete clarity on? And who do you serve? Like who is the audience for that particular product that you have? Because yes, I understand successful entrepreneurs have four, five, six businesses and they’re running them all successfully. But for this particular one, what is the message? What is the clear mission? And who does it help? That is typically the very first thing that I look for.
Harley Green:
How do you help other entrepreneurs that you’re working with who might be in that same situation you were in, with the hustle culture of, “I’m going to do four or five different businesses because that’s cool”? How do you help walk them back from that and get that clarity?
Erik Cabral:
I’m a huge proponent of your personal brand and ensuring that if you have multiple businesses, even more so the reason you should focus on your personal brand. Because then everything sits and falls under that umbrella. Let’s take Elon Musk, for example. He’s got The Boring Company, Tesla, the solar company — multiple companies. Same thing with Tony Robbins. I think he always boasts, he’s like, “I’m running 186 businesses right now.” He literally has tons of businesses that he’s involved in. But the umbrella of Tony Robbins is what sits at the top: his personal brand. So I always try to encourage our clients or prospects who have multiple businesses and want to talk about everything — if you want to do that, and you don’t want to take my advice, let’s build a personal brand that has its own systems and your beliefs so that people can fall in love with you. And then when they’re ready, they’re going to raise their hand and go, “Hey, Harley, I love when you talk about family. I love when you talk about homeschooling,” whatever it is that you want to talk about that clearly identifies who you are so they can identify with those values. Now they’re like, “I didn’t know you had this type of company. I didn’t know you had that type of company.” It opens the door for the conversation. So when they’re ready, they want to do business with you — the person, not the company.
Harley Green:
Speaking of that personal brand, is it more important to focus on your personal mission and values, or do you help people think more about the ideal client they want to connect with? Do you tailor it to resonate with them, or is there some kind of in-between?
Erik Cabral:
Our process is typically to really boil down who you are, because a lot of people you’d be surprised don’t know who they are. Or if they do, they’ve never verbalized it and they’ve never put them into single-word values, which helps them to communicate. That’s what we’re all about: we have to communicate and we have to communicate clearly. Because if we don’t understand our mission and how we serve people, then how are others supposed to understand as well? So we have to gain clarity first and then we can help and serve more people. For example, I have tons of people in my network that love to do cold plunges, heat therapy, all this biohacking. But say they’re real estate investors, and then they’ll often come to me and go, “Erik, man, everybody’s reaching out to me. I’m getting so much feedback. But why is everybody asking me how to build a cold plunge in their garage?” And then I look at their feed and I’m like, “Because all you’re doing is talking about cold plunge therapy.” Is that what you want to do? Do you want to build a lifestyle business brand? “No, I’m a real estate investor.” Then stop talking about the things you don’t want to serve or solve. So that’s the biggest challenge. I want to make sure our clients, number one, know who they are and what the brand DNA is for them. And then we can really dive into who they serve.
Harley Green:
Well, and speaking of that clarity and who you serve, what are some other common branding mistakes that even smart businesses make and how can they fix them?
Erik Cabral:
It’s this — where they try to create a message for everybody. That’s a huge one. Especially if you’re coming out of the gate as a new entrepreneur, you don’t want to alienate or push out potential buyers, customers, or clients. And I get that, I was the same way. But at some point, you’re going to have enough case studies and enough wins where you can start to identify the common thread throughout all of the people that you’ve been helping. For instance, years down the line after we started producing a lot of podcasts, I zoomed out and then looked at all the clients. I was like, “Oh, they’re all men. They’re all middle-aged. They’re all family men. A lot of them are Christians.” I was like, this is my avatar. These are the guys who I’ve been creating podcasts and serving over the past three, four years. So then that became one of our avatars. I can speak directly to that person to the point where I’ve given them a name. I know what they eat. I know what they do on their time off. I know what type of cars they drive. Those are the type of things where we can get really granular so that when you do record and you do create messages, you’re speaking specifically to the person you know you can help.
Harley Green:
Speaking of speaking to the person you can help — podcasting is obviously a huge part of your strategy. Why do you see it as such a powerful tool for brand building and business growth?
Erik Cabral:
Gosh. When I started not too long ago in 2017, it was still, “Hey, can I take you out for a cup of coffee, Harley, and pick your brain?” And when I started building my real estate portfolio, it wasn’t just kids or younger people. It was anyone that saw me having success relatively quickly. They’d say, “He bought a multifamily building in less than a year.” So people were asking me out to coffee. It got to the point where I was like, let’s just have a call. And then I started to look up to others as well. Like, how did you get there? I want to get to 24 units, I want to get to 100 doors. And I would ask for their time. But coffee is never really that enticing. But a podcast is — “Would you be interested in having a conversation on my podcast?” At the time I could confidently say it was 100% yes. Everyone would say yes to that. It’s such a wonderful opportunity for you to lead with value and say, “Hey, I have a platform for you to speak your message to my community” versus “You want to have coffee?” where I’m just pulling knowledge from you but not really giving any value back. Podcasting is such a great vehicle for creating value for others and putting it out there. Everybody wins with a podcast.
Harley Green:
With podcasting and someone building their personal brand, do you have a recommendation or guidelines when it comes to deciding whether to have your own podcast, do the podcast guesting circuit, or a combination of both? How do you help people navigate that?
Erik Cabral:
A combination is the best strategy. But the question comes down to bandwidth — how much time do you have? Starting a podcast is easy, but it’s also hard. In 2021, we had the biggest spike in creating podcasts for our clients. Everybody wanted a podcast after 2020. Everyone was bored at home. And then it went down. In 2022, podfade is what we call it. People don’t make it past three months or 12 episodes. What I find is that podcasts can be easy to start — low-hanging fruit — but really challenging and difficult to maintain because people lack systems, processes, and teams. If you’re a solopreneur, at some point you’re going to have to pass this off to a team, whether you develop your own or hire a company like ours. Podcasts are a long-term play. You can’t go in and say, “I’m gonna start a podcast for three to six months and see how it goes.” No, you have to commit. Just like YouTube — you have to commit to 100 videos before you see the fruit that comes from all that hard work and energy you’re pouring in. So yes, go in with a long-term mindset, have a budget for it, and don’t wing it. Develop systems and processes if you’re doing it yourself so that you can document and pass this off to an editor because it’s not sustainable otherwise. You need to run your business in order to have success, but the podcast can be used to support that. The podcast has to lead with value and entertainment. Information is abundant everywhere, but if you can be entertaining and bring your unique perspective, that’s what draws people in.
Harley Green:
So when someone knows they’re good, they’ve heard you say, “It’s not easy, you have to stick with it,” but it’s still hard — what are some tips or strategies you offer people to stick with podcasting for the long term and not burn out or get bored of it?
Erik Cabral:
Looking for unrealistic results can really deter you long term. Instead, flip the coin and say, “Who can I help and who can I serve?” Look for those stories and opportunities when you’re creating your content. For example, years into my podcast journey, a listener reached out to me. He shared, “Thank you for sharing the story about how you had to fold one of your companies because I am in the process of doing that and I’m alone. I felt like such a loser, and hearing you — who I see as a success — made me feel like there’s a community. Thank you.” I still live off the fumes of that conversation. That’s the value I’m providing. If it helped one person, imagine all the people who didn’t reach out. Always take those stories, put them in your back pocket, and use them as fuel to continue on your journey. It’s not about ROI, it’s about who you are helping, who you are serving, and how you’re inspiring people to keep going even when it feels hard.
Harley Green:
I love that story of getting feedback and how it’s still motivating you today. I get the same thing — random texts from someone in my network who I had no idea was listening to the podcast, saying, “Really loved that episode with Erik, talking about these things.” So I encourage all of you listening to podcasts — shoot a text or an email to the host of the podcast you’re listening to. It goes so far and helps keep the podcasts you like and support going. It’s an amazing thing. So really appreciate you bringing that part up, Erik.
Erik Cabral:
So true. Yeah.
Harley Green:
Talking about the effort that goes into these podcasts — it can be very time-consuming, not just the number of episodes but also processing, managing guests, editing, publishing, promoting. At what point do you typically see it makes sense to start handing off some of that process to a service like yours, or maybe an assistant?
Erik Cabral:
If you have a budget, figure out what that is. In our intake form, we try to figure out if clients qualify to work with us or if we can serve them at the highest value. We’re $2,500 a month at minimum, with other services above that. At minimum, I need to know if you have $30,000 to invest annually in what we do. If not, it may be best for you to hire a bunch of VAs to do this, whether they’re $5 to $8 an hour. But make sure you check their work carefully. Everyone’s going to say they have editing skills and design skills. Ask for samples. Some people have even sent me our own work as their sample. Get referrals, ensure that the work is truly theirs. If you build your own team, you’ll need at least someone skilled in editing videos — that’s a different beast — and someone skilled in design. Not just basic Canva design, but someone who can make it shine. If you’re just starting out, don’t let polish hold you back. Figure out what your budget is, even if it’s $100 a month. Find someone to help you and start to take those little things off your plate so you can focus on building your business, doing sales, and doing marketing versus tactical tasks.
Harley Green:
One thing you talk about is building brand champions — people who can amplify the message. What’s your take on that and how can companies do that intentionally?
Erik Cabral:
Brand champions develop over time when you continue to serve your clients at the highest possible level. Those are basically your testimonials and case studies. Whenever you go to someone that you served and ask, “How did I do?” and they say, “You’re amazing,” that’s the perfect opportunity to say, “Hey, can I get a testimonial from you? Can you record something really quick, like right here and say that again?” And then from there, you start to realize you can actually leverage that to become a brand champion for you. Because then you can continue to ask them, “Do you know anyone like you that needs our services? Do you know anyone like you that could help us grow?” For sure they love you, right? And you’ve probably given them super discounts. Typically, in the earlier stages of business, they’re getting a really good deal, they’re grandfathered in so to speak. Those are the brand champions you want to continue to build. Just love on them, continue to serve beyond the agreement that you had, and it will happen over time for sure.
Harley Green:
If someone hasn’t been really thinking about or familiar with this concept of brand champions, but they’ve been established for a few years and have some clients, what’s a good way to try to bring that up with clients who might be happy but haven’t come forward yet? Or if they did come forward in the past and the business wasn’t ready to capture that appropriately, what would you suggest?
Erik Cabral:
If it’s a client that is no longer your client, you can still reach out. Reach out to a bunch of them and say, “Hey, I’m looking to grow my business. If you enjoyed working together, would you mind referring someone like you that we can help?” And then if you do that enough, someone will hopefully be willing to record a testimonial for you or at the very least, write a review. Here’s another hack: I’ll write the testimonials for some of my clients that I know are super busy — in their voice. This was before AI, but now you could really do it with AI. You can say, “Write a review of my services in their voice.” You can even take a blog article or something they’ve written and put it into ChatGPT, and then it’ll draft it. Keep it short, just a sentence or two, and then send it over to them. For example, in my book I have six quotes, of which only one I had to do this for. I knew him very well, and I said, “Hey Rami, I know you’re busy. I know you’ve been meaning to do this. I did it for you. Here are three options all in your voice.” He looked at them, said, “These are great,” and made some edits. It got him started, and it lit the fire. People have even done that for me — they’ll say, “Hey Erik, here’s a review I wrote in your voice.” That’s when I realized, wow, this is effective and really helpful.
Harley Green:
That’s a smart hack. Well, you mentioned your book, Erik. Tell us a little bit more about it.
Erik Cabral:
Three years ago, I committed to writing a book. I signed up with Chandler Bolt’s Self-Publishing School. It was a $5K program; I didn’t do the $10K option where they handle everything. What they gave me was a monthly coach and access to a library of content. But I realized monthly coaching wasn’t my thing. I sat on it for three years, and the real issue was I didn’t feel interesting or worthy enough to write the book. Every time I read it, I thought it was terrible. It was all about me. But through my faith journey, I realized personal branding doesn’t have to be egocentric. In Christianity, it’s not about us — it’s about God. So I shifted the whole theme of the book to glorify Him, not me, and everything started to flow. I wrote the book in less than 24 hours after that realization. The book is called Be Your Brand to Glorify God. It’s about building your personal brand and company around your mission to serve — just like Jesus did when He washed His disciples’ feet. In business, we should do the same: love on our clients, serve them, and make the world better. The book is about giving Him the glory, not building for our own egos.
Harley Green:
That’s powerful. Thank you so much for sharing these incredible tips and strategies, your story, and your book as well. If people want to learn more about you or get a copy of the book, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?
Erik Cabral:
For sure. Go to www.beyourbrandNOW.com. You can see the book there, and you can actually download a free core values worksheet we mentioned earlier — a simple exercise to start identifying your core values so you can put them out into the world. That’s at www.beyourbrandNOW.com.
Harley Green:
Awesome. For those of you listening, we’ll have the link in the show notes. If you got value from this episode, do one quick thing: hit like and subscribe so you don’t miss future strategies to help you scale smarter. And maybe you know a business owner or colleague who could use this information — share the episode with them. It could be exactly what they need right now. And if you’re listening on a podcast platform, leave us a quick rating. It helps us reach more leaders like you. As always, thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you on the next one.
