Personal Branding: How to Turn Small Businesses into Profitable Brands Using the Monopoly Method

In this insightful episode of The Nathan Newberry Show, branding expert Bijal Patel shares her journey from commercial real estate professional to personal branding coach, and reveals her unique "Monopoly Method" for transforming small businesses into profitable brands. Discover practical strategies for building your personal brand without sacrificing family life or burning out.

Finding Flow: The True Path to High Performance

When asked about high performance, Bijal Patel takes a refreshingly different approach than most business coaches. Rather than focusing solely on self-discipline and rigid habits, she emphasizes creating the right environment for success.

"I think higher performance is when you have set up yourself and the conditions in your environment to allow you to meet your 10.0 self," Bijal explains. "Setting up the scenario so that you're winning at your highest capabilities."

According to Bijal, the key difference is understanding that high performance comes more naturally from flow than from forced discipline:

"I think you can use force when flow is not functioning, but I think if you can get into flow and create an environment—your space, your places...who are you connected with...who are you married to, who are your friends, what's your friend circle like, who's your peer group, who's your mentors—the amount of people who are consuming free stuff are really missing out on the relationship that you develop through having a paid mentor."

This philosophy extends to her approach to business building. As a coach who helps entrepreneurs build powerful personal brands, Bijal has worked with Fortune 500 companies and now focuses on helping small businesses transform into profitable brands through strategic personal branding.

The Monopoly Method: Building Your Personal Brand Empire

Bijal's approach to personal branding uses a vivid and practical metaphor that anyone can understand—the Monopoly board game. She explains:

"My jam is all about personal branding and using personal branding as the proper platform so you can build like in Monopoly...you have all of those houses and hotels and then suddenly you have an Empire. We help turn small businesses into brands so people can make big. That's the quickest way I can put it—we take small businesses, turn them into brands so you can make bank."

This "Monopoly Method" recognizes that your personal identity (your name) is the board itself—the foundation that never changes. From there, you build different business assets (properties) and develop them (houses and hotels) to create revenue streams.

Bijal's journey to this method wasn't planned. During COVID-19, her commercial real estate business was devastated as buildings shut down. After investing $10,000 in a mastermind program to pivot her business, she was down to her last $3,000 with two young children to support.

Her initial idea to help people set up home offices during COVID failed completely:

"Everyone in my life thought it was a great idea...way to take what you know that you've done for 13 years and boom bring it to an offer online. People are going to love it. Literally zero people loved it and zero people bought it."

This experience taught her an invaluable lesson about market research:

"Never just trust friends and family as it comes to market research. Market research happens when people pay you for the thing that you were offering, and that's 10 people pay you—not one, not three—10 people need to pay you for the thing that you have, and then we actually have an offer that's market tested."

Through what she calls a "total mistake," Bijul discovered her talent for branding while scrolling Facebook and seeing poor logo designs. Her interior design background translated perfectly into visual branding, and what was supposed to be a 90-day pivot during COVID became a thriving business.

The Harmony Approach: Building Empire While Nurturing Family

One of the most refreshing aspects of Bijal's philosophy is her rejection of the work-life "balance" myth. Instead, she proposes a different framework:

"There's no balance. A balance is like a seesaw, so one side goes up, the other side goes down. I think the more appropriate way to look at it and frame it and give yourself a new definition is this is all a harmony. It's sometimes a beautiful harmony. It's oftentimes an absolute chaotic harmony, but you wouldn't have it any other way."

This perspective allows for the natural ebbs and flows of entrepreneurial life:

"Sometimes I'm winning at being a mom, sometimes I'm crushing it at being a wife, sometimes I'm real proud of my fitness, sometimes my business is just on and popping, and sometimes nothing is doing anything it's supposed to."

Bijal is currently writing a book called "The Messy Middle" about building empires while nurturing children, aimed primarily at parents who limit their business ambitions out of fear they won't parent well. Her message is powerful:

"You're allowed to dream big when you're a parent because you're showing your kids that they can dream way bigger. But if you cut off your dreams, you're actually showing them that the minute they have kids, they have to stop dreaming."

She challenges the common assumption that building a successful business requires sacrificing family relationships, citing her own parents' journey from India with just $8 and a dream. Their sacrifice wasn't meant to be repeated, but to enable her to dream bigger:

"If I hold back on the entrepreneur I'm meant to be, which is to build an Empire while nurturing children and help other people build their Empires, she's [my daughter] going to grow up with a limitation around her."

The One-One-One Rule: Practical Steps to Build Your Brand

For those ready to start building their personal brand, Bijal offers a remarkably simple framework called the "One-One-One Rule":

1. One Platform

Choose a single social media platform where your ideal clients spend time AND that you enjoy using:

"Pick which one that you believe they live on and which one do you like to be on... if LinkedIn bores you to tears, take that as feedback that we're not going to get you in flow."

2. One Page

Use your personal page rather than creating a separate business page:

"The personal pages get so much more algorithm lift and attention than business pages do."

Bijal recommends making one announcement post to let friends and family know you'll be using your page to talk about your business.

3. One Post Per Day

Commit to posting once daily for 30 days:

"Whether it's a reel or it's a written post or it's a post with a picture, depends on platform, just once a day. That is the easiest thing, and if you do that for 30 days, the algorithm and the audience and all of it will just start to tell you back—you'll get feedback just from the habit of doing it once a day."

This simple approach allows you to overcome the fear that often prevents entrepreneurs from marketing consistently. Bijal addresses this fear directly:

"Of course it's there...you're worried what if there's a hater, what if your friends and family think all you do is promote, what if you sound like a sleazy person online."

She suggests reframing anxiety as excitement:

"Excitement and anxiety are two sides of the same coin, so do we want to look at the anxiety side, or do we want to flip it over and look at the excitement side?"

Visual Branding: Keep It Simple

While many entrepreneurs get caught up in visual branding elements like colors and fonts, Bijal offers contrarian advice:

"Keep it super simple. Don't think that the more complicated you make it, the more likely it's going to be right."

Her specific recommendations include:

• A two-color logo (or even just a wordmark)
• A minimal color palette (3-4 colors maximum)
• Prioritizing brand voice and messaging over visual elements

Most surprisingly, Bijal—a branding expert herself—discourages new businesses from investing heavily in visual branding too early:

"People who are newer to business end up fixating on the visual side of brand. It's just a flying monkey. Don't pay attention to the visual side of brand until you're at at least $20K of revenue a month, otherwise it doesn't apply to you."

Instead, she recommends focusing on developing offers, showing up consistently on social media, and honing your brand voice and messaging.

Conclusion: The Path to Brand Empire

Bijal Patel's approach to personal branding offers a refreshing alternative to the hustle culture often promoted in entrepreneurial circles. By focusing on flow instead of force, harmony instead of balance, and simplicity instead of complexity, she provides a framework accessible to entrepreneurs at any stage.

The Monopoly Method demonstrates that building a successful brand doesn't require sacrificing your personal life or burning out. Instead, it's about strategically placing your "houses and hotels" on your personal brand board and developing them consistently over time.

As Bijal and Nathan both emphasize, the key is consistency—showing up regularly, even when it's uncomfortable, to build the discipline that ultimately leads to success. The most important step is simply to begin and maintain the commitment to your personal brand journey.