How to Build a Personal Brand and Become the Face of Your Business

Intimidating, ambitious, and time-sucking, but if executed properly a personal brand can take your business to a whole new level. Are you ready to upgrade?

Building a Personal Brand & Becoming the Face of Your Company

One of the most important roles as an entrepreneur is to be the head marketer of your business’s brand. Not to be confused with the CMO, the head marketer of your business’s brand fills a distinct role. You’re not responsible for your marketing team. You’re responsible for giving your company a human presence. You’re responsible for pushing forward new ideas and innovative concepts. You’re responsible for influencing your industry and your audience.

Becoming the face of your company elevates your status, but that’s not what it’s about. You’re after something else. Something greater.

4 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Should Build a Personal Brand

1. A Personal Brand Tells Customers The ‘WHY’

Anyone can explain what a company does. Quite frankly, it’s not that interesting. People want to know the why behind the company. What drives the business to do what it does? We crave stories and want to see the humanity behind the brand. Who better than entrepreneurs to tell their company’s story?

Being the face of your company distinguishes your brand because it allows you to share the powerful stories that got you to where you are today. You become an identifiable leader who speaks directly to your company’s purpose. That’s your core. Without it you’re just one of (literally) millions of businesses worldwide. All the features and benefits in the world can’t possibly portray your company’s purpose the way you can.

Simon Sinek explains in his book and TED Talk (3rd most popular of all time) how great leaders inspire change by starting with the why. People need to understand the why of your business before they trust you with their money.

You must use a purpose and a person to motivate your audience. Not a product. It’s the entrepreneur’s job to tell the ‘why.’

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2. Develops Your Thought Leadership

Is being a thought leader worth it? If you want to be known as the expert in your field, then the answer is yes.

And the best part? Becoming the face of your company helps develop your thought leadership by allowing you to be more:

Approachable

You’re able to increase your approachability as you share your expertise and wisdom. As the face of your company, you spread your ideas by networking, tweeting, and podcasting. You give interviews and attend events. You provide ways for people to connect and engage with you. Now you can use that role to develop thought leadership.

Discoverable

It doesn’t matter how smart you are. You could have all the wisdom in the world, but it’s useless if you can’t reach your audience and your audience can’t reach you. Thought leaders need visibility now more than ever before. Building a personal brand gives you the visibility needed share your message.

Connected

Entrepreneurs have mastered the art of connecting with the right people. You understand how to say just the right things to cultivate a powerful follower base for your company. You’ve done it for your company — now do the same for your expertise.

Your network helped you get to where you are today. You know people. Entrepreneurs who are the faces of their companies have the unique ability to use these connections to develop their thought leadership.

Labeling yourself as a “thought leader” is up to you. Call yourself what you want. The equation remains:

Personal Brand + Entrepreneur = Thought Leader

3. A Personal Brand Influences People

Entrepreneurs know how to make bold, sometimes controversial, statements with confidence. As the face of your business’s brand you’ll be doing the same thing, only this time you have visibility and an audience who will listen. That’s influence.

“Influence” in this context is less about power and more about providing solutions to problems within your industry.

You make yourself easy to find when you become the face of your business’s brand. Media finds you. Other industry experts find you. Potential customers find you. When they find you, they listen to your expertise because you’re giving solutions to the problems they face.

As more people turn to you for advice, your willingness to give solutions will be shared and scaled.

The solutions you provide to problems within your industry are essentially the products and services you offer, right? Which leads to the 4th and final reason why entrepreneurs should be the face of their company.

4. Grow Your Business & Opportunities

You can increase your opportunities and grow your business by being the face of your company.

One word: credibility. Credibility fuels growth and opportunities for your business in 2 ways:

1. Humility

When an entire company is attached to a single person, that person immediately becomes accountable to all of its customers and employees. They take the blame for any slip-ups. Intimidating? Perhaps. Necessary? Absolutely. A humble leader is a credible leader. Humility will only help a company recover from mistakes and come back stronger.

2. Value

You can provide tremendous value to potential customers by sharing your wisdom and knowledge. Here’s the problem. You can’t share anything if you don’t have an audience. The answer to that is right at your fingertips. Entrepreneurs are the perfect candidates to rise up and become the face of their brand. It’s the perfect platform to spread value.

Growing your business means having people trust you. Your customers won’t trust a lifeless logo, but they’ll trust a face.

The Faceless Brand: Not Yours

Part of the reason why entrepreneurs start businesses is that they’re passionate about something they care and know deeply about. They’ve become experts in their niches by building businesses… yet remain invisible within them. Becoming the face of your company elevates expertise and provides new opportunities for growth. It gives you the unique ability to share the stories that define your company.

Are you ready to upgrade?

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