The Importance of Developing Your Personal Brand
Any business owner knows a solid brand is required to operate and scale a business. It is important to have a mission, vision, voice, and story behind the reason your business simply exists. A business's brand adds character to something that isn't human.
However, because business owners are heavily involved in the decision-making of the business brand and the direction of the company, they often personally identify with the voice and brand of the company.
Where business owners go wrong is failing to recognize how to capitalize and scale their business by developing a second brand, their Personal Brand.
What is a Personal Brand?
Your Personal Brand is your intentional effort to promote yourself in a way that establishes credibility and builds authority. No one can tell you who you are, except you! What are your values? Where have you been and where are you headed? How do you spend your time, and who do you spend it with? What skills, experience, and expertise do you have? These are questions to be asking yourself when you are trying to define your personal brand.
Why is a Personal Brand Important?
People identify with people! Humans are more interested in what other humans are doing. Most of the time, people want to see the person behind the business. A personal brand was important for me to develop because my story is, was, and continues to be, a different story than the story of my business. My story of overcoming alcoholism and the story of how I started my business are different stories that reinforce each other.
This is the beauty of a personal brand, it only reinforces the brand of your business because it can help others identify with you as a person, not a business. In order for my business to scale and grow, I realized I had to continue to delegate responsibilities and get out of my own business. I found out quickly that creating a personal brand helped my existing clients and employees feel connected because I was no longer in a client-facing role or in the office every day!
How to Capitalize on Your Personal Brand
Most personal media accounts have more followers than business accounts! You can use your personal following to bring more awareness to your business and bring in new clients through social media relationships. More than half of CROFT & FROST clients have developed from relationships through my personal following! Having a personal following allows you the opportunity as a business owner to share your skills, experience, and expertise to add value to people's lives by sharing content to help others reach their goals.
Social media platforms will pay you to produce content! I have worked hard on my social media presence and have found ways to monetize my personal Instagram and TikTok accounts! You can start developing products and services outside of what your business offers. You can publish a book, start a podcast, coach people, and get paid for speaking at events. If done successfully, you will attract more attention and cash flow to your business by developing a strong personal brand. From one business owner to another, you have information and experience the world would love for you to share!
If you want to check out my personal brand, explore my website, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Podcast, and Book!