Why Entrepreneurs Urgently Need Personal Branding
Personal branding is a topic of hot conversation at the moment. With over 2 million entrepreneurs now working and selling online, your personal branding has the power to help you get attention, or fade away into the background. We are now noticing that people are increasingly more interested in the person behind the company than the corporate brand itself. People want to be sold to by real people. They want relatability, trust, and connection, now more than ever. People are becoming less trusting of corporate brand messaging and interest in the stories and lives of the entrepreneurs behind the corporate brand is on the rise.
What is personal branding?
Your personal brand is how you promote yourself, both outside and inside of your business. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see. When people Google you, what person do you want them to see?
It is the telling of your story, and how it reflects your conduct, behavior, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes online. In the pre-internet days, your personal brand was really just your business card. Unless you were high profile in the media or somebody who featured strongly as the face of printed advertising, few people would have heard of you or your business. Most businesses stayed as locally run small companies and major expansion was rare. In today’s highly public world, where every little action is discussed at length on social media, you are far less anonymous.
Your business, and/or company is an extension of you, therefore it is an extension of your personal branding. How you are perceived has the power to draw clients in or potentially repel them. Your personal branding is what sets you apart from others in your field. When done well, you can tie your personal branding in with your business in ways no corporate branding can possibly do.
You can either take a back seat with your personal brand, and let it develop organically, possibly a little chaotically, beyond your control, or you can help guide your personal brand to depict you as the person you want to be. You get to have control over what and who people see. Having full awareness of your personal branding will enable you to connect with your ideal clients from the get-go because they will already have an idea of who you are and how you work. This makes the overall sales process easier and more enjoyable for both you and the client.
Why and how can I benefit from personal branding?
Strategically expanding your online network, and creating a brand for yourself, translates to an expanded pool of prospective clients. As the popular saying goes, “People do business with people they know, like, and trust.” Being the “public face” of your business allows you to build trust with potential and existing customers―even if you’re not speaking to them directly.
Gone are the days where visual branding was enough. Having a nice logo, eye-capturing colors, and fancy taglines is not sufficient to ensure clients connect with you because essentially they have no idea who you are. If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to have an air of vulnerability and be willing to show the world who you are and why your business is important.
Now this doesn’t mean that every entrepreneur needs a TikTok account or to be showing their raw and vulnerable moments on Instagram, you get to decide how much of you you want to share. Some questions to consider are:
How do I want my ideal customer to feel when they connect with me?
Why am I different from my competitors?
What aspect of me, and my life, is important for people to see to understand my work?
Which aspects do I absolutely want to keep private?
It’s important to consider yourself outside of your business.
Your personal brand makes you memorable. People remember you, your energy, and your personality more than sales conversations.
It’s important to consider who you are marketing yourself and your business for. How you choose to show up online can help influence the market you are trying to connect with.
For example, 84% of millennials distrust advertising, they trust neither the advertisements nor the brands that create them. Yet, they are prepared to buy from people they feel they know and connect with - even the business people behind the brands they dislike.
Looking to attract your dream clients? Here’s how!
People buy from people.
There has been a huge movement towards personalizing the main people in a business. Of course, this is easy for any small business – there is little difference between a sole trader and their business. It can be more difficult for large companies. However, some manage it very well. Steve Jobs used personal branding well before the phrase was even well known to distinguish himself as the face of Apple. Similarly, Elon Musk’s personal brand is probably better known than Tesla’s corporate brand.
Learn more about what a lifestyle brand is and why it’s important.
Any business owner needs to bond with potential customers first on an individual basis before they try to deliver the company’s message.
Now that you know how important personal branding is for the success of your business, are you ready to dive into it? We’re here to help!
Click here to schedule a Complimentary Brand Consultation.
Like this article? Pin it for later! 📌
