The Importance Of Personal Branding When Building A Business

Chances are you have probably heard the term “personal branding” before, but do you really know what it means to have one, let alone understand its benefits? When you’re building your business, your personal brand is your greatest asset, and here’s why.

Your personal brand is you. It is not something you have to create. As a matter of fact, your parents determined much about it the moment you were born. They gave you your name, raised you in their religious and political beliefs, and determined where you went to school. Every person who you have ever met has a perception of you going all the way back to before you remember. As you grow older you can learn to direct your personal brand to drive results and be the image you want it to be.

Now let’s take a look at business. A business is a person or body of people providing a product or service that solves a problem in the marketplace. After that product or service is set, however, there exist problems such as branding, marketing, and scaling the vision. This task looms over the heads of many who are starting out, as they begin to wonder how they can ever generate massive awareness.

The answer is simple. Personal branding.

To increase your belief in the concept, let me start out by giving you a few examples.

Founders Who Have Built Well Known Personal Brands

Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone, good old “Uncle G” as his followers sometimes call him, has used his name to generate multiple millions of dollars per month with Cardone University alone. Notice he used his last name in his business? In Discovery’s series Undercover Billionaire, Grant was faced with the issue of not being able to leverage his name. You see, your name is what carries weight. There’s a quote that says you work for your last, not your first.

With a social media following of nearly 10 million people spanning across platforms, Grant’s becoming a household name who carries a serious amount of influence, which results in income and opportunities.

Tai Lopez

Next, we have Tai Lopez. Okay, okay, love him or hate him, the “here in my garage” guy is a business owner to be reckoned with. From the time his first ad hit YouTube Tai was able to associate himself with the mainstream entertainers on the platform and become a permanent part of internet culture. With the success of his courses, and I imagine ad revenue, he is now buying Americana brands such as Pier1, Steinmart, and Radioshack with his partner Alex Mehr. Just to name a few…I don’t think he has anything to prove moving forward.

Sam Walton

Our final example is the seemingly lesser-known Sam Walton. I say “seemingly” but Sam Walton was the founder of Wal-Mart. You know that giant store you buy your groceries from that’s in every city in America? Sam Walton in his autobiographical book Made In America talks about his entire life and the rise of the Wal-Mart empire. There were obviously a lot of things that went into the company’s success, but something lesser-known is Sam Walton’s character. He led the company with humility, sternness, and kindness. He never got too big to listen to an employee’s opinion, whether they were a bagger or an executive. His character spread, and people knew him for aspects of his personal brand.

These are just three examples, all with varying levels of success but with one thing in common. They leveraged their personal brands to get to where they wanted to go and grow their businesses.

Building a Personal Brand

Our world is becoming more driven by consumer opinions with each passing day. Influencers say don’t buy from a brand, and people stop. Elon Musk makes one tweet about Bitcoin and the market plummets. If personal brands of influence determine the market, have you ever considered becoming a person of influence yourself?

I’m not saying that you have to become famous, but the more people who know about you, the more trust and credibility will be generated. Remember that problem of marketing and scale I mentioned earlier? Solved! It is much easier to build a personal brand than it is to build a company brand. For a company’s brand, you have to develop the name, character traits, color schemes, logos, etc., whereas for your personal brand you make a few changes and put yourself into the market.

As the business owner, you should highly consider becoming the face of it. I can’t help but mention Phil Swift of Flex Seal. You think Phil, you think Flex Seal. You think Flex Seal, you think Phil. They go hand in hand. People buy from people. This is why Phil has 1.4 million followers on Instagram, and the company less than half that at the time of publishing this article.

A great way to establish your credibility and, therefore, the credibility of your business is to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. Come on, share your personal story, and then share how you got started in your field. This positions you as an expert and person of interest while marketing yourself to new audiences.

If you treat your personal brand like a business, you’ll be rewarded in your business. Go out and get ambitiously creative. Your comfort zone won’t drive results.

Have any tips on building a personal brand. Let me know down in the comments.

This article originally published on GREY Journal.