Why Your Personal Brand Matters Just Like The Business Brand

When you have established a brand for your company, you feel that you have achieved a milestone – and indeed, you have. However, should you, as the founder, remain hiding behind the company? Many founders do not focus on building their personal brand – they think that it’s not essential. According to a report from the Impact learning Center, 82% of clients are likely to trust a company if the CEO is active on social media. 

It is saddening to see that only one out of five founders interact with their consumers on social media. Yet, consumers love to respond to CEOs and founders who share their personal lives on social media. That translates to sales. 

When you want to build trust, building a personal brand comes handy—personal brand help in increasing sales and creating dwelling relationships with your clients. 

Below are Three reasons why every founder should create a personal brand. 

1. Personal brands build credibility for raising capital. 

Most investors invest in people first, then the ideas. There is a rule in the “Investor’s Rule” that says “Invest in People, Not Ideas.” Investors will only invest in you if you have amassed exposure for your personal brand and have built trust with your audience. It becomes simple to get investors and to help the company succeed if you can prove through your personal brand that you are able to sell a service to your audience. 

It’s also way easy to book a meeting with top investors if they recognize your name, whether it is from your social media or significant press coverage. The main thing is that they should be in a position to know you before the meeting through your online presence. When they see that they see that you have gained some online trust and credibility, then they are more likely to take the meeting with you. Personal branding can do that.

2. Personal brands distinguish products in competitive markets.

Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, and Jessica Alba’s Honest Company remain on top because of the heightened exposure and the element of trust in their brands, which compels the consumer to choose their product over many others in the market. In competitive markets, trust is established through personal brands that they know, interact with, and follow.

Don’t confuse this with becoming a celebrity like the people I mentioned above. You don’t need to become one. By creating a brand, I mean that you should have a platform that you can churn out content that speaks to your audience. Brand, according to Seth Godin, is “the set of expectations, stories, memories, and relationships that when taken together, they account for a client’s decision to choose your service or product over another.” 

3. Most articles are about people rather than companies.

Authors write intending to get more traction. Hence, they write articles with the stories behind the companies. It is scientifically proven that the human brain is 22 times more likely to remember stories than facts. In this context, an article on how you built a tech startup in your garage is more likely to resonate than an article that focuses on what the tech startup does. Therefore, pitching journalists on company-related stories will be successful if the pitch is framed around your story as a CEO or a founder. 

Related: The Power Of Personal Branding

All founders want to stand out in the market and improve their chances to raise capital and gain traction in the press. To do that, ensure that you set aside some hours a week to build your personal brand and establish a rapport with your target audience. Your company will reap the benefits.