When it comes to a personal brand, you may be thinking to yourself, “Is this something I really need?” “What is it actually going to do for me?” “What do personal brands actually do?” These are all valid questions and because there are so many different benefits of a personal brand- it just depends on where you’re positioned in the market, so let’s break it down for you and your needs.
I want to mention, as a brand designer myself, and someone who has both a business and a personal brand, I know just how powerful personal brands actually are. Whether you are starting out fresh with one, or creating one after finding success in the business world, a personal brand is something that can help you stand out and show off who you actually are as an individual while reaching key goals for growth.
So, if you are looking for some of the key benefits of a personal brand, let’s dive into a few of the major ones as well as look at if you should have a personal brand or not.
Key Benefits of a Personal Brand
The Brand Will Always Be Yours
One of the biggest benefits of a personal brand is that the brand will always be yours. When it comes to a business brand, those can be sold or transferred to other people, but a personal brand will always be tied to you as an individual.
What this does, especially for serial entrepreneurs, is it gives you a place and a platform where you can showcase everything that you do from speaking to books you’ve written, places you have been published, and any other awards or achievements you have.
These are forever going to be under your name and your brand so even if you do exit your current company in the future, you are not going to lose any of this content that you worked so hard for.
It Can Work Alongside a Business Brand
Your personal brand can also work alongside your main company or companies. This allows you to have joint ventures between the businesses while still keeping them somewhat separate.
For example, say you have a financial consulting firm and that is your business brand. Your business brand may be focused on working with clients to reach certain goals or milestones and you may even have a whole team behind you that helps accomplish those goals.
You can also have a personal brand and that is what you use to promote and release your new book all about financial independence and how to achieve that. Both of these are related ventures and work alongside each other, but you are able to keep them separate.
You can even market to the same people and potentially even have client/customer crossover (ie your readers convert to paying clients of your business or your clients also purchase your book). But, if you do ever step away from or sell your company, you still have your personal brand to stand on and can continue to write books, speak at conferences, work individually with clients, etc.
You may even end up pivoting into your personal brand full-time. Need an example? Think of Jenna Kutcher- originally a wedding photographer who was sweeping the floor with her awards. She then leveraged this success in business to start a podcast and personal brand. She exited her wedding photography business to focus only on her personal brand as it rapidly grew.
One more example is my client Dr. Jessica Thomas, the owner of Reflective Therapy. In her recent re-brand we not only re-designed reflectivetherapy.com, but we also built the design for her new book and a personal brand website drjessicathomas.com. The purpose of this was to separate her successful therapy practice and client services from her program and professional development work for therapists- which was embedded in her personal brand (along with her book). This way when folks came to work with her, there was a clear path forward for a client, no matter their own need.
You Can Leverage it to Build a Business Brand
Now, we just talked about how you can use your business brand to help launch a personal brand, but you can also leverage your personal brand to build a business. This is something that we are seeing more and more with the rise of influencers, lifestyle brands, and social media personalities (although this is true for any industry).
Think about some of your favorite celebrities, actors, musicians, etc. How many of those people took their personal brand and the name that they have built up in the industry and used that to create other businesses? Let’s take a look at a few personal brands that you may recognize and how they used their brand to launch other businesses:
- Blake Lively used her brand to launch the sparkling beverage company Betty Buzz.
- Kate Hudson expanded her horizons and created the athletic wear company Fabletics.
- Married duo Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard created Hello Bello, which sells quality and affordable baby products.
- Shay Mitchell turned her own frustrations with her travel issues into a successful luggage company, Beis Bags.
- Emma Chamberlain transformed her love for coffee into her own business, Chamberlain Coffee.
- Finally, Hailey Beiber created Rhode Skincare where she could create quality skincare products that she loves.
What these examples show is that you can not only take your personal brand and create a business that goes hand-in-hand with it (for example, Hailey Beiber as a model creating a skincare line), but also use it to follow your passions.
When you look at it, acting has nothing to do with starting a drink company or a baby product business, but Blake Lively, Kristen Bell, and Dax Shepard were all able to use the name that they built up in that community to create businesses that people would trust. This isn’t only reserved for celebs, they are just great examples because you know who they are…but this is a common path for many!
Connecting with Your Audience Becomes Easier
Another one of the major benefits of a personal brand is that it can make connecting with your audience much easier. In today’s world, people want to connect with other people and invest in other people, not just big businesses and corporations.
By creating a personal brand, you are able to give people a glimpse into who you are and what you stand for. This will allow them to connect with you on a more personal level and feel like they are almost doing business with someone that they know vs a stranger.
This is why showing your face and putting yourself out there is also so important. People crave human connection whether that is in person or online. So, the more we can show that we aren’t that different, we have the same values, we want the same things, and we struggle with the same issues, the more likely people are to trust what we say and potentially invest in the things that we put out.
Allows You to More Easily Partner with Other Trusted Brands
Finally, a personal brand allows you to more easily partner with other trusted brands. Personal brands are also very commonly tied to lifestyle brands and while this can definitely be a route that you take, you also don’t need to feel like you have to have a lifestyle brand.
However, sharing things about yourself and your brand can help people and businesses get to know you better and what you stand for and that is exactly what other brands are going to be looking for in partner.
Think about it, when you are looking to partner with someone, collaborate with them, have them speak at an event, etc, you are going to look for things that give you an insight into who they are and what they value. This is where your personal brand can come in handy.
Even if you are going to be representing your company, having that personal brand where people can get to know you and become invested, can make them more likely to also partner with your business as they know that you as the leader have certain standards and values that match theirs.
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Should You Have a Personal Brand?
So, should you have a personal brand? I am always a big advocate for having some sort of personal brand that you can build over time. Regardless of if you think you are going to build countless businesses over time as an entrepreneur or if you are putting all of your eggs into one basket, a personal brand can help you in so many different ways.
Your personal brand is also where you can start to explore other passions that you have outside of your business. This can be completely different avenues that you want to go down, or it can be things like writing books/blogs/memoirs, becoming more active in the speaking community, or anything else you want to pursue.
When it comes to your personal brand, it is something that is always going to be there and is always going to be yours so the biggest benefit is that you decide how you want to grow it and what you want to be known for.
At the end of the day, if you are a person, you have a personal brand. It really comes down to truly owning that and using it to build and do the things that you really want to do and represent yourself in a way that you truly want to be represented.
Final Thoughts on Personal Brands
So, hopefully, this helps to give you a little insight into the benefits of having a personal brand and how you can use it to not only build and create new things but also to connect with people on a deeper and more personal level.
And, if you are ready to take the leap and start building out your own personal brand, I would love to help bring your vision to life. Just like any other business, a strategic brand and website can really elevate your personal brand and help you stand out in all the right ways.
You can click here to learn more about my design services or you can head over here to get in touch and start building your dream personal brand today!
