Want to Be a Better Entrepreneur? It All Starts with This Simple Branding Strategy. As an entrepreneur, getting your personal brand right can make or break your business. Here are my thoughts on how to do it.
By Aytekin Tank Edited by Kara McIntyre
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I'm the founder of a tech company, but there are a few reasons why I spend so much of my time writing articles like this one. First, I like to write, and think it's a great exercise for stretching my brain in new ways. Second, I've learned a lot in my 20-plus years as an entrepreneur, and many of those lessons are worth sharing with others.
Regularly publishing articles has also had the effect of helping me develop my personal brand. For founders, this can be critical. Think about someone like Richard Branson: We know him as a fun, outgoing adventurer who seems like a great guy to ride a jet ski with. It's all but impossible to untie his image from the Virgin Group constellation of companies for which he is known.
On the other hand, consider someone like Sam Bankman-Fried, whose once carefully cultivated image as an effective altruist has since gone up in flames following revelations that he defrauded customers for billions of dollars.
As an entrepreneur, getting your personal brand right can make or break your business. Here are my thoughts on how to do it.
Related: Stop Letting Others Define You — Here's How to Take Control with a Bold Personal Brand
The power of a personal brand
Personal brands are often conflated with reputations, but they're not the same. As Harvard Business Review points out, reputations are built on first impressions, the relationships you create and how you communicate with others. In other words, your reputation is a collection of opinions formed about you based on your actions and behaviors.
A personal brand, on the other hand, is intentional. It's how you want people to see you. "Whereas reputation is about credibility, your personal brand is about visibility and the values that you outwardly represent," the authors write. Or, as Jeff Bezos put it, "Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room."
Everyone has the opportunity to create a personal brand. Back in 2010, branding guru Dan Schawbel told the New York Times that, "the internet has forced everyone in the world to become a marketer." Schawbel was right back then, and he still is. LinkedIn, Medium, TikTok — all of these are potential avenues for allowing people to get to know you and the image you want to project. Done right, it can create enormous opportunities for growing your business.
Building the right brand
When thinking about how to define your brand, authenticity is key. You don't want to try to position yourself as a marketing guru if you've never launched a campaign, or a thought leader if you rarely share your opinions.
Instead, be honest. You don't have to publicize every detail of your personal life or your journey, but what you do share needs to be true. Equally important is being transparent about both your successes and your failures — genuine vulnerability resonates with people.
Being intentional about how to position yourself means first getting clear on your values and what sets you apart. For me, a big part of my personal brand is bootstrapping. It's a core part of my story as an entrepreneur, and a path that I truly believe in.
Of course, I didn't start out thinking I'd become known as a bootstrapping evangelist — it just happened to be the route that made the most sense for my company, Jotform. But as my business grew, I began to see value in the unique way I'd gone about building it, and I wanted to give my customers and stakeholders a peek behind the curtain. Being open about my journey as a bootstrapped founder has allowed people to get to know me and what I'm about, and it's only helped generate trust in my product.
Still, it may not be immediately obvious what you want your brand to say. Not sure where to begin? Grab a pen and paper, and write down the answers to the following questions:
- What motivates you to get up in the morning and work?
- What are the projects that energize you most?
- At the end of your career, what do you want to have contributed to the world?
By the end of this exercise, you should have a more clear idea about where your priorities fall.
Related: Why Personal Branding Matters More Than Ever for Successful Entrepreneurs
Connecting with key stakeholders
While you want your brand to reach the right people, it's not necessary for it to resonate with everyone, personal branding consultant Jennifer Holloway told BBC. "Don't expect to have a personal brand that everybody loves," she said, adding that the goal is not to try to contort yourself to gain admiration. "It's about subtlety and authenticity."
As with any other endeavor, you'll always want to collect feedback from others, particularly those who fall in the target group of people you're trying to reach. Ask colleagues, mentors and others in your field for their honest thoughts on your messaging, and take those thoughts to heart. Doing this will not only raise your visibility, but help refine your approach.
Like people themselves, personal brands don't have to be perfect. Sheryl Sandberg once argued against the value of branding, saying that "people are not that simple. When we are packaged, we're ineffective and inauthentic."
I disagree. Far from coming across as phony, communicating who you are and what you stand for in an authentic way can build credibility that extends to everything you touch. And done right, it can be a powerful force multiplier for growing your business and reaching your goals.
