How Small Enterprise Homeowners Can Make Them Work Collectively

Building a unique, authentic brand is essential for any business. A strong identity helps customers understand who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

But many founders confuse their corporate brand with their personal brand. And while the combination works for a few, it isn’t the right approach for most.

In my experience as a creative, brand strategist and coach for small businesses and startups, separating your personal brand from your company strengthens your business as well as individual autonomy and professional growth.

If you have any public figure – and if you are a small business owner, it probably is – I highly recommend starting a completely separate corporate brand and using a “personal professional” branding platform to share insights into your life.

Here’s why:

1. You have the freedom to grow beyond your business: Many entrepreneurs end up writing a book, becoming speakers, or starting a new project or company. Your personal professional brand is a perfect platform to share and promote this type of work while enabling the company’s normal business operations.
2. You can sharpen your corporate brand better: Separating all of your professional interests from your company’s main goal strengthens your company’s brand by making it more focused and purposeful.
3. You optimize your brand for growth: Even if at the beginning you feel like you are your company, when you have visions of growing a team or maybe being taken over, you want the company brand to stand alone without you. Your professional success shouldn’t depend on the success of your company.
4. You are more than your business: Employers, customers and partners often want to get a deeper understanding of you. What causes do you stand for? What other professional groups do you belong to? Which creative endeavors or interests round off your personality?

Convinced? Great. Well, this is how it works:

Build your own professional brand

I like to think of your personal professional brand as an extended LinkedIn profile. It’s an online work-related identity that goes beyond your business or company.

Source: Flight design

Caption: My personal professional brand is all about my skills and background – not just my current business.

People often mistake this for a personal brand; However, I find it helpful to distinguish the two. In the past, I’ve had a hard time deciding what to keep private and what to share publicly. How much of me does it take to feel authentic without feeling like the whole world knows all of my secrets (the “personal branding” approach that many take on social media)?

A … Create “personal professional brand“Was the solution: on my website and on social media, I share issues I believe in, projects I participate in, and sometimes even a bit of my everyday life, like photos from a recent trip or a picture of my family. I like to think of it as “HR Appropriate” – when applying for a position, partnership, or client contract, that personal professional brand would help tell a fuller story about me.

My personal professional brand is a mixture of professional successes and personal facts that convey a feeling for my personality.

Are there any exceptions? Sure! If your personal professional brand is your corporate brand – a lot of writers, speakers, coaches, and thought leaders fall into this category – then having a brand can make sense.

But otherwise, keep them separate but align them with each other. This is how it could work:

Build a personal professional website

I always recommend securing the domain name for yourname.com (or something very similar) as the home for your personal professional brand. Don’t want to maintain this type of website in addition to your company website? Neither do I, so I made a page on my company’s website. My personal professional website, arianawolf.com, simply redirects to flightdesign.co/ariana-wolf. But if I ever want to separate them down the line, I can, and no one took the url with my name on it.

Show yourself on social networks – but only where you shine

As a small business owner (especially as a reader of this blog), you probably know the power of social media for your business. You are also likely stressed out managing your platforms for both your business and your personal account.

Here is your permission not to be active on all platforms if you don’t want to. Unlike your company, you don’t need them all. Instead, think of the site that you like the most and that best highlights your work and focus your personal professional branding efforts on it.

For a lot of people, this is Twitter because it’s quick and easy. For more visual people, it’s Instagram. As I work in a creative field, my clients want to know that I am creative, so my main focus is on Instagram, where I share my photographs that I have taken.

My Instagram shows my photography – a creative habit related to my business but also my personal professional brand.

Speaking of social media, a quick note on LinkedIn. While many people use “business owner” by default in their title, it is worth adding some other descriptions of who you are and what you are best at. This way, when someone is looking for an expert or speaker and comes across your profile, they will get a feel for who you are outside of your company.

Build your opinion leadership

When you find opportunities to share your expertise, e.g. B. Writing articles or appearing in podcasts, you can make both your company and your personal professional brand visible. If you have these opportunities, you can and should mention your company, but you should also share your philosophies and what you stand for as a professional outside of your current position.

For example, I was recently interviewed for a podcast where I talked about my branding philosophy. Yes, I do that every day at work, but it’s also a piece of advice I bring with me when advising other startups or on advisory boards. It’s part of who I am outside of my business.

Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine

Personally, I believe – for both brands and people – that what makes you a little quirky makes you easy for others to connect with. So when developing your personal professional brand don’t be afraid to let these things shine! Do you love roller skating? Do you have an epic collection of Star Wars miniatures? These fun hobbies may not be the focus of your company’s branding, but they will add an element of interest, intrigue, and connection to your personal professional brand. After all, they’re what make you who – and that’s what branding is all about.