But, as every change brings you a blessing, mine was the desire to explore my new skills, on my OWN terms, without associating them with any external brand.
In the upcoming years I started to focus on several side jobs such as PR for small brands and celebrities, events, and digital consultancy. But this proved not to be the best strategy either. I was very busy, handling several projects, but not having improved my incomes as much as I had hoped.
When I was trying to get more clients and to promote my expertise more, I got into the Personal Branding discipline. After reading some books I decided to enrol in a program and start work with experts. All the content and knowledge received was very useful, but my core problem – getting more clients and narrowing down my skills – was still not solved.

What happened instead was that I started to coach others in Personal Branding. I discovered that I had a natural talent in discovering people’s “unique features” (that they were not aware about) and combining them with their expertise and skills into an innovative, disruptive new SUPER POWER.
I realized that FAMOUS people don’t became famous for everything they do or know, but for ONE thing that is innovative and really appealing for their audiences.
I also realized, that neither myself or my clients will not become famous for doing A LOT. We will became famous because we SOLVE one key problem in an innovative, simple, fast and disruptive WAY. And this is why people will trust us, love us and of course PAY us.
To get more in depth on this inner discovery process I joined Alain Cardon’s Coaching School – a six month program – where I learnt how to use coaching techniques to support my clients on their way to implement their personal branding plans and strategies, while removing all the blockers, fears and insecurities.

This way, I was able not to only provide them with a service through which they can FIND their celWEBrity Factor, but also to support them to TURN their Personal Brand into REALITY.

And while doing all these… My Personal Brand also surfaced.

First, I discovered that I already had a Personal Brand. My given name was exactly the brand I needed – Maria Cristina Banu, or “MC Money“ as people already knew me – because Banu in Romanian means “money“.

I realized that I am the Master of Ceremony between my clients’ expertise, capabilities and personal brand, being able to discover the key audience problem that they can solve in the best possible way, and supporting them in the process of turning SKILLS into PROFIT.

This is how I converted a corporate professional with a degree in Nutrition into “The Go To Corporate Nutritionist“, an event organizer always invited to the coolest places into “The CoolScouter“ and an Executive Coach with high expertise in Presentation Skills into “The Difficult Conversation Buddy“.
The Go To Corporate Nutritionist now supports corporate professionals to change their life-style through small steps they can do every day, achieving results easy and without the stress that comes with big changes.
The CoolScouter has built a community of people whom he guides to discover new cool places and other cool people.

What about myself? Well, MC Money supports her clients to find their celWEBrity Factor and build a celWEBrity business around it that turns SKILLS into PROFIT.