5 Reasons Why Building Your Personal Brand is Not a Luxury

The world of entrepreneurship keeps getting bigger and bigger. People are finding ways to turn their idea into profit, building businesses big and small. Chances are you’re blending in too well in a sea of other people who do what you do. How can you make yourself noticeable in a saturated industry? Build your personal brand.

What people DON’T want

• To be sold
• Marketing gimmicks and ads
• Salesy techniques

What people want:

• Their problem solved
• Someone who understands them and can connect with them
• To know, like, and trust the person behind the product/service

Most business owners do not realize the importance of personal branding because they think:

• It’s a lot of extra work
• They could use their time more productively somewhere else
• They know how it can add value to themselves or their business

Not having a personal brand can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, missed opportunities, and the ability for you to stay relevant in today’s fast pace society.

Let me share with you 5 reasons why you cannot ignore building your personal brand for the sake of your business, your reputation, and your future.

(1) Stand Out From The Crowd. We’re all personally unique, but your products and services might have a lot of competition. Give your audience more of a reason to do business with you by allowing them to see who you really are, what you’ve done, what you stand for, and how you can make people’s lives better. I love Brendon Burchard’s personal brand message, “Live. Love. Matter.” His theme/message tells me a little bit about what he believes in and makes him more human so I can connect with him. There is more leverage for me to want to choose him over every other professional in his industry.

Takeaway: People do business with people they know like and trust. So, give them a reason to choose you! 

(2) Open Yourself To More Avenues of Exposure There are so many opportunities to leverage your success and do greater things. However, if you do not have a personal brand, you could be leaving thousands of dollars on the table and massive opportunities for you to go to the next level.

Building a strong personal brand can help you get recognized by media outlets, and open the doors to speaking and consulting opportunities, not to mention potential collaborations, partnerships, sponsorships, and more. Make it an easy decision for others to feature you, hire you, etc.

Takeaway: More opportunities come to you with a strong personal brand

(3) Set Yourself Up for New Ventures One of the biggest mistakes people realize after they sell their company is not having an established personal brand. Starting the next venture becomes difficult because potential investors/partners are not aware of you, what you can do, how impactful you can be, etc. They just don’t know you so doing business with you may be questionable.

Use your personal brand to separate your talents and abilities from your company.

Having a personal brand BEFORE you exit your company will allow you to start the next venture more easily because people will know YOU, what they can expect from YOU, and how much of an impact YOU have. It will be your resume for people to give you funding, partner with you, hire you, buy from you, support you, and so on.

Takeaway: Separate yourself from your companies to make it easy for you to start new projects, collaborations, or companies.

(4) Gain Your Audience’s Trust Nowadays, people are tuning out ad campaigns and trusting more on recommendations and referrals. Building your personal brand allows you to build a more personal and trustworthy relationship with your audience.

People want to know the person behind the product and services offered. When people know and trust you, they will feel comfortable doing business with any of your other brands.

Takeaway: Build more of a personal relationship with your audience to get your customers to continue to buy your products and services again and again.

(5) Increase Your Value Perception Many people are too afraid of being vulnerable and sharing their personal journey to their success. It's not just about your accomplishments, but it's also the hurdles that got you to success that really make you relatable, likable, and trustworthy.

Use your story to position you as a key player in your industry. Write out the accomplishments and the impact you have made. List out the places you have spoken at or publications you have been featured in.

This automatically increases the value in your customer’s eyes. In your current businesses or future businesses, you can leverage your personal brand to charge premium prices.

Takeaway: Get paid what you’re worth!

How To Get Started Developing Your Brand

The quick tangible things you can do to start building your personal brand:

1. Purchase your domain name. Hopefully, you can get FirstnameLastname.com or some variation of that.
2. Set up a website to showcase your accomplishments, story, talents, and message to your audience.
3.  Clean up your personal social media profiles and make sure that what you continue to post is in alignment with how you want to be seen.

When what people say about you matches up with your intended way of how you want to be seen and when you can leverage your personal brand to gain the success you want, you’ve successfully built your personal brand that will continue to evolve as you do!