Personal Branding Guide Part 1: Why You Must Brand Your Small Business Around YOU

Small business owners often are challenged in the area of branding because first of all, there is a lack of understanding of what branding truly means. So let's define branding. According to the American Marketing Assocation, branding is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Another definition they have is a brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.

My personal description: A brand is a perception. It's an image you portray to your customers and potential customers through visual elements. Why did I say it's a perception? Because brand is simply what you make your company to be in the eyes of your customers. If you tell your customers "I'm red" and in everything (services that you offer, products that you sell) you present them you're red, they will believe you're red.

I also would like to think of brand as the value that you provide and the trust and credibility you create through the value you offer. For example: Walmart's slogan is "Save money, live better." What customers recognize in their brand is that they know they can get more bang for their buck when they go in at Walmart to buy stuff. That's what brand is all about.

Another example is Starbucks. Although Starbucks does not have an advertising slogan, when you hear the name "Starbucks", you know that you will get good coffee and great "lounging" experience inside their store (which now by the way also offers free wi-fi!). Often when I ask a friend, do you want Starbucks? I would usually get "Ooooooo Starbucks!" So now you understand that brand isn't just about the visual elements but also the experience.

Often, I get compliments on my brand here at EntrepreneurChic.com. Whether I'm on Twitter or on Facebook, people recognizes my caricature. But most of all, when people see or hear about Entrepreneur Chic, they know that I provide free and good tips and advice for small business owners. More than my caricature, really what Entrepreneur Chic is known for is the valuable content I share.

Why brand around YOU?
In the past few years, there seem to have a huge turn in branding trend. More and more small business owners have realized that they must brand around themselves and not around their products or services. This is called "personal branding." Wikipedia defines personal branding as the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. The term was first coined and used by Tom Peters.

These days, personal branding isn't just for celebrities (J.Lo, P. Diddy), millionaires, and successful entrepreneurs (Donald Trump) anymore. Truth is personal branding is for everybody.

Come to think of this: If you're a student looking to get into a university and trying to get a scholarship, what you're representing is you. You're selling you! You show YOUR grades, YOUR personality, YOUR capabilities, YOUR potential. If you're an individual applying for a job, you're selling you! In your resume, you're presenting you! YOUR skills, talents, and experience to your potential employer. When you submit your resume, they don't look at the brand of the paper that you used to get it printed on, they look at YOU.

Five Core Reasons Why You Should Brand Around You:
1. It's easier to build trust.
When you're a small business owner and an unknown brand in a certain industry, it requires more effort on your side to gain customers trust. If you're putting your name out there, people will tend to be a little bit more open to "try you out" because after all, your name is at stake. You screw your product or service, you screw your name.

2. It shows more transparency.
Branding around you shows who is behind the business, product, or service.

3. It's more "relatable".
Your name identifies you. People can identify to a name of an individual. Why? Because it's a human to human connection.

4. It's expandable.
You are not limited to just one single product or service. For example, with Entrepreneur Chic, I can literally expand to a membership site, a line of informational products for entrepreneurs, even shirts, pens, and other cool stuff! If I use Lynne Gabriel as a brand and I started with a purse line of product, later on I can always add shoes, clothes, make-up, and perfume.

5. It applies to any kind of industry.
What's really cool about personal branding is that it applies to whatever industry you're in. Whether you're a blogger, a photographer, a writer, a designer, a scrapbooker or stationer!

Now that you know what branding is and the reasons why, on part 2 of my Personal Branding Guide, I will discuss the "how".

So wait…you're probably thinking, here I am teaching about personal branding yet my blog is not personally branded. Well, let's just say that I've reserved my name to a totally non-business related reason. *Smiles!*

Please feel free to ask me any questions through the comments section below or through my FB fan page or Twitter! Also, if you find value on this blog post and thought that someone else might benefit, I would appreciate if you can "like" on your FB, retweet, and Digg.

Until then! See you again soon!…

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Comments (1)

Donetta Almas says:

October 25, 2010 at 2:10 PM

Since 2008 I’ve been obsessed with making prosperity over very short periods of time. Now i finally understand that there is no shortcut to success. Now I’m obsessed with not wasting time

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