Peter Murphy Lewis talks with Jason Barnard about leveraging personal branding to drive business growth.

Peter Murphy Lewis is a Fractional CMO and the Founder of Strategic Pete. Peter successfully utilizes his personal brand to generate 90% of his revenue. He highlights key challenges like maintaining a personal brand's influence while planning for potential business exit.

Peter also emphasizes how personal branding has significantly impacted his career, including opportunities from TV shows to documentaries. He shares strategies for integrating personal brand with business objectives, using LinkedIn as a tool for visibility.

Jason Barnard and Peter Murphy Lewis discuss the importance of social proof and strategic PR in strengthening a personal brand, ensuring it aligns clearly with business objectives. This episode shows how to transform personal visibility into sustainable business growth.

What you’ll learn from Peter Murphy Lewis

00:00 Peter Murphy Lewis and Jason Barnard

01:55 What Did Jason Barnard Highlight in Peter Murphy Lewis’ Knowledge Panel?

01:59 What Did Jason Barnard Say About Peter Murphy Lewis’ Subtitle in His Brand SERP?

02:37 Why Did Peter Murphy Lewis Say Using His Middle Name Was Luck for 10 Years and Then Intentional?

03:04 Why is Using a Middle Name Important for Personal Branding?

04:17 Why Does Having a Popular Name Create Too Much Competition and Ambiguity in Online Search Results?

06:06 What is Personal Branding in the Context of Entrepreneurship and Leadership?

06:27 What Makes Personal Brands Unique From Local Businesses?

06:38 Why Do Entrepreneurs Rely on Digital Presence to Build Credibility and Trust?

06:44 Why Do Leaders Focus on Personal Branding Over Traditional SEO Tactics?

07:17 Why Do You Need AI and Search Engines to Validate Your Digital Authority?

09:06 Why Do You Need to Focus on Your Website as the Strategic Focal Point for Machines?

09:41 How Do Assistive Engines Such as ChatGPT Help People Discover Professionals, Even Unintentionally?

10:12 How Can B2B Professionals Use Personal Branding to Attract Potential Clients?

10:24 How Does a Strong Personal Brand Help Build Trust in B2B Marketing?

11:16 Why Does Peter Murphy Lewis Prioritize Driving People to His LinkedIn Instead of His Website?

12:03 Why is LinkedIn the Best Platform for Building Trust When Selling High-Ticket Services?

12:46 Why is Jason Barnard Understood by All Llms and Able to Generate Accurate Responses About Him?

14:14 How Does Associating Your Name With Your Business, Media, and Services Impact Your Brand Strategy?

14:51 How is Being Seen as a TV Personality by Google an Advantage?

15:41 What Are the Common Pitfalls People Face When Building a Business Around Their Personal Brand?

17:35 What Exit Strategy Should You Consider When Your Business Revolves Around Your Personal Brand?

21:18 How Do Leaders Transfer Client Trust From Personal Brand to Their Capable Team?

21:49 How Do Successful CEOs Balance Strategic Leadership With Team Execution?

22:15 How Do Leaders Empower Teams While Remaining the Go-to Problem Solver?

22:43 How Do Leaders Optimize Their Time Between Problem-Solving and Team Execution?

This episode was recorded live on video February 18th 2025

https://youtube.com/live/aRTlGX-Sspc

Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N-OEzC20gIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mko_aIV1YEPeter Murphy Lewis

Transcript from Peter Murphy Lewis with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. Personal Branding in Business

[00:00:00] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands the test of time and becomes our legacy, a legacy we're proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard.

[00:00:31] Jason Barnard: Hi everybody and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy with me, Jason Barnard. And a quick hello and we're good to go. Welcome to the show, Peter Murphy Lewis.

[00:00:43] Peter Murphy Lewis: I'm happy to be here. I've never been sung to for an intro.

[00:00:47] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. I just noticed I took an extra breath because I realized your name's quite long with Peter Murphy Lewis and I had to get the full breath in so I could get to the end without running out.

[00:00:57] Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, at least I don't have like a Junior or Peter Murphy Lewis III afterwards.

[00:01:02] Jason Barnard: Yes. Ooh, that would be difficult. Today we're going to be talking about Leveraging Personal Branding to Drive Business Growth. And I'm really interested in this because my personal brand drives a lot of business for Kalicube. It's hugely valuable. And I know that's the case for you, and I think you know as well as I do, perhaps even better, how important your personal brand is for business. As a CEO, you've recently just exited a company and your personal brand was important there, I imagine.

[00:01:29] Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah, my personal brand from the. From the company that I just sold is what got me a TV show. My personal. Yeah. And then my personal. My personal brand from the TV show then got me a documentary. So, like, this has been a domino effect since 2007, when I was 27 years old.

[00:01:49] Jason Barnard: Oh, that's cool. Now what we're going to do is look quickly at your Brand SERP and your Knowledge Panel. This is what I always do with the guests. And you have this magnificent Knowledge Panel. It looks really great, but it says TV Personality as your subtitle, which isn't strictly accurate except that your TV stuff is dominating. But that's a beautiful Knowledge Panel. And your about text is brilliant. And you look like a superstar.

You are a superstar. But then I was thinking, well, Peter Murphy Lewis, there's only one of those. But there's a lot of Peter Lewis's and there's a musician and you don't even get a look in here. And that's the problem with having a common name or a popular name. Did you use Murphy in the middle because you have a common name or is that luck?

[00:02:37] Peter Murphy Lewis: It is luck for the first 10 years and then intentional for the next 10. So the luck happens that my middle name Murphy is very important in my family. I have a lot of Irish heritage, and growing up I had 13 first or second cousins with the middle name Murphy from an old grandmother who lost her last name Murphy, and we all got it inherited as a middle name. So Murphy has been critical for me since I was a kid. Well, when I moved to South America, people thought my middle name was my last name because everyone uses their two last names when they write it out. So people thought I was Peter Murphy and it moved into Peter Murphy. And I love that you pulled up the screen share because that singer, Peter Murphy, came into my travel company, the one that I sold 30 days ago, and I didn't know who he was. I didn't know he's a famous musician.

But if you're in the rock world, if you're into 80s music, you definitely know who Peter Murphy is. And I received a phone call from somebody on my team who was a head receptionist at my office, and she said, Peter, I know that you just made a reservation. Why did you pay for it? And I said, it's not me. And they're like, who is it? And they Googled it and they realized that it was the singer who happened to be in Santiago, Chile, who was doing a tour, and he came to the office. And then I realized that I couldn't be Peter Lewis because that was too, too common. And I couldn't be Peter Murphy because there's going to be. There's somebody way famous, more famous than me. And at that point I decided I have to go with Peter Murphy Lewis.

[00:04:14] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. And it is a huge problem. That's a delightful story. Having a popular name, let's say, like Peter Lewis or even Peter Murphy, it means that there's too much competition, there's too much ambiguity. Google can't figure out, as we've just heard from your story, human beings can't sort it out. And so you need to disambiguate or become so phenomenally famous like Robert Smith or Barack Obama, that everybody knows who you are. Although Barack Obama is a very unique name, that was a very bad example. I do apologize. But at Kalicube, we come across this all the time, and people trying to make a mark and become visible with a very common name or a popular name is a problem.

We either tell them to rebrand or become very famous. What you've done is rebrand. And I think Peter Murphy Lewis is a really cool name. Correct me if I'm wrong, but once you've nailed it in your mind, you're totally comfortable.

[00:05:10] Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah. And you know, like, when, when I sign off, I'll probably do this on the podcast with you. When I sign off from anything, I always say, hey, there's only one, one Peter Murphy Lewis on LinkedIn. Come connect with me. And it's true. And if there's ever another Peter Murphy Lewis, I'm going to have to go meet the person and pay them to take off one of those three names.

[00:05:28] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. That's a really good piece of advice already is give yourself a less common name or a unique name and connect with me or Google me, because you'll always see that superstar look. It's so easy to get when you know what you're doing and when you've got a great visibility, which you do with the TV personality side of you. So I'm looking at personal branding as business growth. And first thing, you need to define what personal branding is in the context of entrepreneurship and leadership.

[00:05:59] Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, I don't have, I don't know if I have a good definition,