Jones - Start you up: rock star secrets to unleash your personal brand & set your career on fire

Steve Jones showed us how to brand like a rock star in his first book. Now he cranks the amp all the way to eleven with Start You Up, a book packed with fascinating behind-the-scenes stories of musical legends. These are stories with a purposethey have much to teach us about persistence, leadership, and excellencebut theyre also a heck of a lot of fun to read.

Daniel H. Pink, author of To Sell Is Human

I know firsthand how a strong personal brand opens doors and how a weak personal brand can kill a career before it starts. Steves book uses music industry insights that will make you more successful, and youll actually have fun reading it.

Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur and The Pumpkin Plan

Working with Fleetwood Mac, I witnessed the meteoric rise of a legendary brand. In this book, youll observe the experiences of rocks elite, and if youre smart youll put these lessons to work in your career, creating a personal brand that stands outand rocks.

Ken Caillat, coproducer of Fleetwood Macs Rumours album and author of Making Rumours

The essential ingredients in a creating a successful personal or business brand are the same. You must discover how to differentiate and embrace what makes you different and unique from the rest. Many individuals and companies are in constant search for perfection, but top music artists teach us that the secret to perfection is embracing the right imperfections that make you stand out and grow. This book shows the way to creating a differentiated brand that customers will love.

Bolivar J. Bueno, coauthor of The Power of Cult Branding

Your name, whether on the front door of a company or the top of a resume, speaks volumes about you. How people perceive you can be the difference between a wildly successful business and a lifetime of missed opportunities.

Don Seymour, managing director at DMS Offshore Investment Services

Steve has declared war on the all-too-common life of quiet desperation, the unfulfilled spirit, and the ho-hum career. Rock on.

Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid), author of Ignore Everybody and blogger at gapingvoid.com

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press
Austin, Texas
www.gbgpress.com

Copyright 2014 Steve Jones
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group LLC

For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Greenleaf Book Group LLC at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group LLC
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group LLC
Cover image: iStockphoto.com/BlueMoonPics

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-070-1

eBook Edition

Other Editions:
Print ISBN: 978-1-62634-069-5

To my wife Susan, and our sons Isaac and Matthew: You are my rock stars, and I am forever your biggest fan.

I n high school, I spent far too much time listening to music instead of studying.

Yeah, I wasnt the worlds greatest student.

Textbooks bored me. Teachers put me to sleep. But music engaged me and brought out emotions and excitement. My high school marks werent terribly bad, but year after year my report card always contained comments from teachers like needs to work to his potential. I really didnt know what that meant. So for years, I figured that either school was really hard or I wasnt very smart.

My ninth-grade history teacher changed that. He didnt read from a textbook. He didnt write on the chalkboard. He simply told us stories. He told grandiose tales about explorers and revolutions, wars and battles, and presidents and coups. While textbooks took all of this information and made it boring, he made it all come to life. My ninth-grade history mark was fantastic, and suddenly school wasnt quite so tough.

I hope that the backstage rock n roll stories that follow in the pages ahead help bring the concept of personal branding and career growth to life for you the way my ninth-grade teacher brought history to life for me. Stories are so much better than the facts and figures; they are the cornerstone to all communication, including personal branding. Instead of facts and figures, this book is simply a collection of stories about rock stars, the crazy stuff they did, and how we can use their experiences to build our own personal brands and become, in essence, rock stars at whatever it is we want to do in life.

My 2011 book, Brand Like a Rock Star: Lessons from Rock n Roll to Make Your Business Rich and Famous connected with people because of those types of stories. I applied the lesson learned from my ninth-grade history teacher and shared stories about the bands I love. Combining my experience in marketing and music, the book examined branding from the perspective of rock music legends. Instead of dry information in a textbook, the book shared business wisdom through the many backstage stories from rock n roll.

What could AC/DC teach businesses about building a consistent brand? What could Bob Marleys short but brilliant career teach entrepreneurs about niche marketing? What could the bold punk rock experience of the Sex Pistols show us about using PR to get attention? As it turns out, the answer to all of those questions is quite a lot. As I researched chapter after chapter, I discovered that rock n roll provided an incredible template for building stronger brands and creating more profitable businesses in the process. I also began to notice that the same lessons applied to individuals, often more directly than they did to businesses. These lessons can be applied to all of us, helping us to build personal brands that can elevate us from weekend-loving, Monday-dreading worker drones into rock stars, complete with fans and a bright spotlight shining on us on stage. At that point, Start You Up began to take shape.

Rock n Roll gives us uplifting, against-all-odds success stories, like Rick Allen of Def Leppard, a drummer whoat the height of his bands rise to famelost his left arm in a horrific car accident.

There are tales of growth and learning, such as U2, a band forced to write their own songs because when they started out they werent good enough to accurately play cover versions.

There are profiles of people with purpose, like Bob Geldof, who found a way to turn good work into good pay.

Some of the stories are just plain fun, like Al Koopers sneaky role in helping to create a Bob Dylan classic, and the lesson it can teach us about taking risks.

And it wouldnt be rock n roll without comeback stories, like Meat Loafs rise from obscurity to stardom, then to bankruptcy, and back to stardom sixteen years after his first breakthrough.