Personal brand maestro Richard Branson
As an entrepreneur, your personal branding is as important as the branding of your business. It is the key to establishing yourself as an authority in your field and winning the trust of your target audience and future customers. However, personal branding and business branding are two very different things.
International performance coach and founder of AC PowerCoaching Agnes Cserhati says: “Personal branding has a profound impact on how people perceive and respond to you. It’s not a nice-to-have but a must-have for your entrepreneurial success. You may have an innovative product or service, but it is hard to differentiate yourself in a competitive market. But there is only one of you, so use it to create a competitive advantage.
“Your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room; therefore, it is the most potent catalyst for building trust. You have two choices; you can allow others to say what they want about you based on their perceptions, or you consciously drive the process and ensure that what others say about you, online and offline, aligns closely with your image and values.”
When you think about some of the most successful and charismatic entrepreneurs, they all have a compelling, relatable story. Virgin founder Richard Branson’s audacious yet fun personal brand has been a key driver of the company’s success, helping to win trust through customer-centric values and create a vision of a company that is friendlier and more human-centric than others.
As the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg established a personal brand that manifested itself in her book Lean In, which sparked debate and made her a household name for women who struggle to ‘have it all’ and break into male-dominated industries.
People find stories irresistible, so as an entrepreneur, the first step to building your personal branding is communicating your story, which is about your journey, how you started and how you got to where you are today. Varun Bhanot, cofounder and CEO of MAGIC AI, recognized early on in his startup journey that his personal brand would be pivotal to his business success. Launched in 2022, MAGIC AI is an AI personal trainer that delivers one-to-one personalized training to people in their homes using an AI-powered mirror.
He says: “In October last year, I started investing in personal branding, mainly on LinkedIn and Twitter. I committed to posting three times a week about my journey, building my startup. It is important because people buy from people, and you can connect with customers if you build a name and story behind a brand. In addition, if people see you as an authority on a subject, in our case AI and health, it lends further credibility to the brand you are building.”
At the heart of his personal brand is authenticity, showing the lowlights and highlights of the entrepreneurial journey, hoping it may inspire or help others. Among the most significant benefits of these personal branding efforts has been attracting the interest of investors who have followed Bhanot’s regular social media posts about his journey.
He adds: “It has also helped to attract opportunities such as podcasts and press invitations as people see me as someone with something to say. It has also given greater credibility and authority to our brand. As a new company, it can be tough to cut through the noise, especially in a noisy field like AI or healthtech. However, by intentionally giving our brand a voice via my brand, it no longer feels like a faceless corporate but rather a brand people can relate to. A mission people can get behind.”
Helping people to understand who you are may sound straightforward, but doing it to maximum effect through a compelling personal brand takes time, effort and a clear understanding of why you are doing it.
Firstly, corporate branding vastly differs from personal branding, which is less about your actual business and more about the perceptions of the person behind it. There’s also a vast difference between having confidence in your values and your authority and being arrogant; the first can be a powerful catalyst for your brand, while the second will turn people off.
Agnes Cserhati says: “You need to identify your core values, key strengths and unique value proposition, then reflect on your strengths, accomplishments and professional goals, and ask yourself, ‘What makes me stand out in my industry?’ Create a personal brand statement and stick to it. Be consistent. You are communicating your brand identity and value proposition, so your messaging must be clear, concise and memorable.
“A quick but impactful hack is to write down three words you would like others to say about you when you are not in the room. Then ask 20 members of your network for the first three words that come to mind when they think of you. See if their perception matches how you want to be identified.”