Marc Ensign is the Big Cheese at LoudMouse, a personal branding agency for speakers, authors, coaches, entrepreneurs and artists.

A musician by training, Marc dreamed of performing on Broadway. He created a strong personal "brand," wrote articles for music industry magazines, interviewed and forged relationships with a lot of performers. As a skilled bass player, Marc eventually "got the Broadway gig," not by touting his amazing bass playing, but by promoting his ability to imitate a wide variety of styles. Supporting, rather than competing against, other professional musicians, Marc substituted for regular Broadway show band members who, for whatever reason, needed "a night off." His full time Broadway career ended up lasting 10 years.

In 2001/2002, while working as a musician in the evenings, Marc dabbled in web design during the day. A big and lucrative assignment from American Express's Travel + Leisure Magazine turned Marc's "pajamas as business casual" web design company into a marketing agency – overnight. A decade later, he felt lost.

Marc had no education in marketing, but he had a passion for it –and, in particular, for figuring out the one impossible dream a person had – and creating a marketing message and strategy to achieve it – building, for each of his clients, a "personal brand" to get them to their "Broadway." A couple of years ago, he started LoudMouse with a mission: To change the world by empowering those who want to change the world. Marc was a breakout speaker at Hubspot's Inbound 2019 and talked about "Standing Out and Start Getting Paid: How to Build a Personal Brand They Can't Ignore."

In this interview, Marc outlines three elements for building a successful personal brand.

1. Identity. Be clear on who you are. Communicate "who you are" in a way that really connects with people in an authentic way.
2. Visibility. Be able to communicate the message of "who you are" with visual elements: Your font/color/ logo/ website/ social media platforms/ pictures/ headshots. These elements have to be congruent with each other – and consistent.
3. Authority. Are you positioned as an industry expert/leader/podcaster interviewee? When people `think of your industry, regardless of size, do people think of you? Did you write the book on the most important thing or a new groundbreaking innovation?

Marc authored The Groove Book: A Study in Musical Styles for Bass (2011) and Slappin': A Complete Study of Slap Technique for Bass: A Complete Study of Slap Technique for Bass (2015), both under the Mel Bay Publications imprint. He is still building his brand as a musician, while using his agency to help "small" people leverage their brands to have "big voices." Marc can be reached on his company's website at: https://loudmouse.com/, on his personal website at: https://marcensign.com/, and on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcensign/.