I often imagine a sceptical consultant, leaning on his metaphorical shovel, and asking, “I’ve already got a brand, why do I need a personal brand too?”
The latest book, out soon, My Personal Brand covers much of this reasoning in detail, so here are the crib notes. (Incidentally, ‘sceptic’ is spelled with a ‘c’ in British English.)
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A Personal Brand will carry more trust.
While companies can build up trust in their brand over time, a personality-rich soloist can build trust faster, simply by showing their face to the camera. People like doing business with people, those they like.
It has been shown that video content is the preferred format for viewing promotions, and Facebook Lives get 10X the engagement of other videos. Facebook Lives generally mean you show your face and talk naturally. (https://bloggingx.com/facebook-live-statistics/)
Your Personal Brand voice cannot be easily outsourced to Chat GPT.
Sure, it’s easy to let a chatbot take care of our copy once we know the written tone and angle we want. But if we don’t ensure a consistent tone and put in some of our own colloquialisms, there will be a mismatch between your natural voice and the copy output.
Corporations are nice, but you emit more personality and engagement with personal brands.
While sometimes a company brand will be the better choice if you want to sell the company, we can also benefit from building trust personally, such as writing our own book and advertising that book along with us. Case in point, Sabri Subry of King Kong, whose picture ad trails me around Facebook.
Visibility online is easier with personal names.
Also, I believe that it is easier for people to remember your NAME and face, and harder to remember a company’s name. Looking up the company, they often get it wrong.
Visibility is easier when utilising a personal name website, especially if you plan to launch books or courses. My own name website has stayed, while five different books have been launched and their websites faded. I have a ‘business name’ website too, though I hardly need to.
KPI is not just a nice name for a book, influence helps soloists.
Key Person of Influence seminars (and its book) swept Australia several years ago, as they latched onto an underserved market: those professionals who want to gain influence and authority through more educational content. They charged $10,000 for the program, which didn’t include any publishing or editing. That was extra.
Solo service providers or entrepreneurs (people who invent something) often want to convince a sector of a theory or plan or prove they are a little better than the rest, and that’s why Key Person of Influence, Amplify, and Experts Academy all attract people looking to make a splash. Or as Glenn Carlson calls it, a dent in the Universe.
Naming businesses can be fraught with difficulty
I thought that Business Author Academy could be a good name for supporting authors who are in business to write a book and understand publishing, but it turns out that self-help writers, who may be coaches or counsellors, don’t think it’s for them. So, it’s perhaps better to be crystal clear and use a meaningful slogan under your personal name.
Setting up a Personal Brand is not that hard… possibly
Look, some authors are under the impression that setting up a personal brand is hard work, but actually, it can be fun. Do you like picking colours? Is it fulfilling to go through your own personal values and attributes? Will you be able to write like you talk, minus the swearing and upping the energy? Most people would answer yes to these questions.
If you follow the book’s exercises, most of this is covered off. The colours you pick might relate to your book, your current logo, or a new headshot – so that is something you will have to think about. Consider the style of all imagery and icons, which relates to the mood you’re setting. This will all go into your Personal Brand Style Guide.
If this is sounding not your thing, then there are good local brand designers who may charge under $1,000 to set up your colours, styles, logo variants and symbols. Not many, but look for a freelancer rather than an agency to better meet your budget.
You can have a Biography or Byline that engages
Personal brand also comes into writing your Bio (about me), as this is where personality can really shine. People are trying to get to know you and your work, not just to be impressed by your accolades, so personal brand work can help you to write this bio more authentically.
So there you go, eight ways that a personal brand will benefit your sceptical self.
