I first ran across the concept of You, Inc. several years ago in Burke Hedges book, You, Inc., Discover The C.E.O. Within! His basic premise is that each of us is the founder, CEO and 100% stockholder in our own company. You Inc. is about the value you bring to the business. It didn’t really register as a viable real world business concept for me until I ran into someone who developed the concept of building a business around YOU -- not the company your represent.

In a nutshell, You, Inc. is about branding yourself and building a business around what you bring to the table, your expertise, your experience, and your leadership. It is not about the company or the company’s products your represent or market. People do not join a business, they join YOU. It is about developing a marketing system and leadership system that you can market and teach to your business partners. It is something you own and can't be taken from you.

For Burke, You, Inc. is a whole new way of thinking about yourself and how you relate to the world around you, especially your business. His 10 principles are in effect a personal development outline for making those changes for anyone who desires the time and financial freedom of owning their own successful business:

1. Take Responsibility
2. Dare to Dream
3. Power of Belief
4. Courage to Take Action
5. Attitude is Everything
6. Develop Productive Habits
7. Manage your Emotions
8. Prepare for Success
9. Balance Your Life
10. Change – or Be Changed

In the process, Burke teaches you how to increase your value personally and in the market place. I have found his encouragement to take small consistent actions, priceless. I also learned to expand the way I think of myself and the world around me.  It became an indispensable way of approaching my business.

He encourages you to find the hidden skills and assets that you can leverage into achieving your dreams of personal and financial wealth. In short, the 10 principles help you increase your fair market value by identifying and developing your true value as an individual in the world that you can share and market. This leads to a natural branding of yourself into You, Inc.

It was Mike Dillard that pulled the You, Inc. concept into a lucrative business model for me. He expanded on Burke’s You Inc. concept with specific strategies and skill sets. He has developed a marketing system and a leadership development system that he now teaches to others.  This system, which he branded as Magnetic Sponsoring, made him the #2 income earner in his network marketing company. He also teaches this system of leadership and marketing skills to people inside and outside his primary business.

The main theme behind You, Inc. is to understand the importance of expanding your personal paradigm so that you can discover and also develop the leadership and skill sets within you. Burke has done that and shows us the principles for that process that “discovers the C.E.O within”. Dillard takes those principles into action, develops the systems, and proved it with results. When you develop You Inc. for yourself, you will have branded and built a business around yourself that you own. No one can take from you!