Branding your business: personal brand vs business brand | BYOB 3/2

hello, I’m your host Kaycinho, I’m a digital alchemist, and this episode, is episode number two of a module dedicated to “the creation phase” of launching your business. so if you haven’t seen the first video, I invite you to check this playlist.

And by the way, this module is the second module of a course dedicated to take you from the burning desire to become your own boss to actually launching your business. So if you want access to the full course (videos will be added until the course is complete) by clicking here.

Branding Your Business?

So you are ready to create your brand but but wonder whether you should you create a Personal brand or a Corporate brand?

Let me share with you what helped me along my journey.

Creating your business a big step and if you’re serious about it, it means that you’ve stepped out of Dreamer’s land and you are ready to take action and execute.

Now one of the single most important decision that you’ll have to take now is to decide whether you will create a Personal Brand or a Corporate Brand.

Let’s first discuss about the pros and cons of a personal brand:

Branding Your Business: The Personal Brand

About the Pros:

• it’s easier to setup than a Corporate Brand: your personality is already defined, what’s left for you to do is to polish the angles
• in this day and age, people want to connect with real humans instead of opaque corporations
• higher conversions: if you truly bring outstanding value to your audience, your conversion rates will be much higher

Now about the Cons:

• a Personal Brand is way harder to sell than a Corporate Brand. Still possible, but doesn’t happen everyday. And don’t forget than selling your personal brand means you’ll have no control about what your image becomes.
• depending on the type of business you’re in, a Personal Brand can be hard to scale up. Especially if your USP’s (Unique Selling Propositions) revolve around traits of your personality. If you’re a public speaker for example, you won’t be able to delegate that part of the business, and you can only be at one place at a time.

Branding your business: the corporate brand

Now about a Corporate Brand:

First the Pros:

• a successful Corporate Brand can easily be sold if for any reason, you’d want to get away from it
• even if you didn’t want to sell, you could easily hire qualified talents to take care of your business, as long as strong processes are in place and you could work on your other businesses
• a Corporate Brand can easily be scaled up and replicated in other markets. If your brand is successful and you open business opportunities for franchising, the growth could be exponential.

Now about the Cons:

• a Corporate Brand takes a lot more work to setup: naming the brand, checking the availability and securing the brand name is only a part of it and can take a lot of time, depending on your specific case
• a Corporate Brand is not that flexible. If your Corporate Brand is well known for, in a specific domain, and you come up with a new exciting idea that has nothing to do with the brand, you might have to create a new brand whereas with your Personal Brand, you could easily re-invent yourself or diversify (with caution though!).Of course there are examples like the Virgin Group and all the different businesses tied to the Virgin brand, but let’s say Mc Donald’s wanted to start selling Luxury Cars tomorrow, they’s run into a problem, right? You get the idea.

Branding Your Business: So What’s The Perfect Solution?

There are many parameters involved in answering this question, especially because of the current landscape, so instead of reasoning in terms of Personal Brand versus Corporate Brand, the good mindset is to ask yourself this simple question :

How can my Personal Brand leverage more business?

Whether you’ve decided to go for a Personal Brand or a full blown Corporate Brand, this is my advice about a smart branding strategy in this day and age:

Branding Your Business: Step 1

Build a strong Personal Brand no matter what, so in all cases, in my opinion, you should build your Personal Brand, but treat it as a business.

Make it look good, stand out from the crowd, go the extra mile and work to bring outstanding value to your audience.

Branding Your Business: Step 2

If you go Personal Brand only, you’re already in business. Keep on growing your audience and deliver great value.

Examples of great personal brands on YouTube are Roberto Blake, Casey Neistat and Gary Vaynerchuck, just to name a few. But, they have corporate brands too by the way, that they could sell one day if they feel like it.

Now you could choose the option of “Personal Brand only” if you don’t intend to sell your business one day. If you are a dancer for example, or an artist, then it makes sense to only develop your Personal Brand. But as we’ll see, I think there is a better option.

Personal and Corporate brands?

Now if you decide to go Personal AND Corporate Brands, then build your Personal Brand alongside your Corporate Brand or Brands since you could develop several businesses.

For example, if you’ve been following episode one of this module, I’ve talked about the Kaycinho brand which is serving you on this episode right now.

Now as a reminder, the short version of my brand statement is the following:

“That brand believes in service to others, passion about the Digital Age and freedom through entrepreneurship. It focuses on simple yet actionable solutions to help creative professionals as well as aspiring and confirmed entrepreneurs leverage the power of the Digital Age to market themselves and grow in a sea of brands and businesses. “

Initially I wanted to create a corporate brand since I had a very specific idea in mind, but at the same time, I knew that the whole topic of digital and freedom through entrepreneurship is so tied to my passion and my personality that it was a better option to develop my personal brand first, and eventually create a corporate brand serving a very specific segment of my audience. That way, if tomorrow I decided to get more involved with motivational content on my personal brand for example, I could still do so while at the same time generating business for a specific segment of my audience with my Corporate brand.

Personal does not mean amateur

As you may have noticed, I treat my personal brand as a business: I’m working hard on my content, fixing deadlines and looking at the best way to deliver the best quality, as well as caring about the presentation, the visuals, the editing, the sound processing and so on.

Of course, it’s far from perfect, but the key is to aim for excellence, every step along the way.

On the other hand though, because it’s a personal brand, you will find numerous references to my own personal story, with an angle related to the topics I’m covering, so that you may get to know me better, and at the same time, relate to things that you may be experiencing yourself.

So if you decide to go Personal AND Corporate Brand, then build your Personal Brand alongside your Corporate Brand or Brands since you could develop several businesses.

Branding your business: when personal and corporate melt together

So going back to having both a Personal Brand and a Business Brand, the credibility of your Personal Brand can be a booster for your other brands.

For example, if Tony Robbins launched a new business venture tomorrow, his following and audience are so strong, that his new venture would immediately start with the benefit of a gazillion of potential customers.

Because if people can trust your Personal Brand, they are more likely to trust any other type of products & services you may provide.

So with this solution, sky is the limit really. I know it takes more time, but it will give you a strong foundation and a good advantage in the long run.

The Apple brand is strong but which human name comes up to your mind when I mention Apple? Steve Jobs.

The Virgin brand is strong but which human name comes up to your mind when I mention Virgin? Richard Branson.

We all need to connect and identify to real people, so think about it.

Branding Your Business: Step 3

Keep on working on your Personal Brand, even if your Corporate Brand(s) are successful. We all change and evolve (and it’s a good thing!), so you never know what new venture you might want to start tomorrow.

Branding Your Business: In Other Words…

If you decide to build a Personal Brand, you’re making an essential move in this day and age.

If you decide to build a Corporate brand, make sure you also develop your personal brand! Yes it will take more work, but will definitely be worth it in the long run.

The choice is yours but I hope that I’ve helped you narrow down the best strategy for you. Let me know in the comments.

If you watched the companion video and if you like it, please give it a thumbs up, as it really helps growing the channel and if you know someone that could benefit from it, I’m going to ask you if you’d like to share it now.

Because let’s face it, there are so many things to do in a day that if you don’t do it now you’ll probably forget.

Now if you want to brand, market and grow your business it in the Digital Age make sure you subscribe to my email newsletter so that you never miss your share of digital alchemy and tips, tools, services and case studies that can help you grow your business online.

So, that’s it for this video, and in the next one we’ll discuss about how to define a name for your brand.

In the meantime, don’t forget to invest in YOUR success!