Personal Brand or a Business Brand?
Branding comes with lots of work, from coming up with a vision and matching your brand with the target audience to monitoring its success. But first, what type of brand do you need to build? Personal or business brand?
A personal brand revolves around your personality- an individual. Mostly, a business operating under a personal brand will have your name as the brand name.
A business brand, on the other hand, revolves around an identity you create for your business. You just come up with a name for your business that’s independent of your personal name.
I have personally noticed that creating a personal brand works way better, especially with the help of our online tools. But there are a few reasons you may want to avoid this.
This post highlights the pros and cons of each personal branding system.
Pros of a Personal Brand
Flexibility
When a business operates under a personal brand, it tends to be more flexible than the one under a business brand name. For example, if you change your line of business, you can easily adapt to changes without changing the brand name whatsoever, and nothing much gets affected.
Ideal for a speaking career
For those who want to pursue a speaking career like motivational speaking, giving expert tips, instructional speaking, etc., personal branding is so ideal. Although it’s tough to associate your name with your expertise, after you have done the work, people will find it easy to identify you and will want to hear from you.
Ideal for one person industries
Are you an artist or an author? A personal brand will work best for you. It helps you discover yourself, your authentic voice, and helps build credibility in your industry.
Cons of a Personal Brand
There is some risk
If you are a professional, your personal branding is the flavor of your venture. You can always control your personal branding efforts, but when you suffer from poor management and inconsistencies, things may start falling apart. Bad practices like bad email etiquette can tarnish your personal brand in the marketplace.
It is hard to sell out
In fact, nobody starts a personal brand to sell it out. However, after establishing it after some time, there is a remote possibility that this may just happen. If you suspect such an opportunity, reconsider your decision to create a personal brand, and opt for a business brand instead. You will sell a business brand much more comfortable.
Business Brands
With a business brand, be ready to pull in lots of resources in terms of time and money. Basically, if you avoid a name that already exists and you decide to create one from thin air, you will have to face some difficulty.
You have to come up with catchy and meaningful words, which is a whole lot of hard job.
Pros of Business Brand Names
Helps create better plans
When creating a business brand, you carefully go through plans for your business. Here, you thoroughly think about your target customers, what they need, and how to offer it a unique way.
The whole process helps you get deep into your business plans and come up with a vision of where you want your business to go.
No limitations
With business brands, you have no restrictions as to what words to use. You just find a few words that express what you do. Then come up with a tagline to trigger excitement.
Easier to sell
Mostly, businesses go through lifecycles. That means, at some point, you will want to sell your business. Now, if, for any reason, you decide to sell it out, it will be a lot easier if you’ve built under a business brand name. If you have created your business brand heavily, that’s an asset most investors will run for.
Cons of Business Brand Names
Hard work
Building a business brand is tough hard work. Mostly, you will create a brand name when you have not yet decided on what to offer, sometimes unsure of your target clients.
No flexibility
What happens if your interest changes, or you relocate or even owners change hands? Well, you want to change your focus, you will be forced to start a different business altogether.
People argue that you can just change the tagline, and everything flows well. What if you change your line for interest completely? Well, it’s still hard, and the only possible way out is to create another business.
Is There A Happy Medium?
Absolutely yes! The trick is to build a business brand, at the same time, working to establish a personal authority around a topic.
Create a business then mercilessly spread the word about what you offer. Create appealing content about your services, get into interviews, and personally be involved in talking about your business brand. As you do this, your personal authority definitely grows alongside your business brand’s awareness.
Be sure to blend your brand with stunning visuals to draw attention to your personal brand or your business brand. This free on-demand images workshop will help you learn how to create beautiful visuals even without designer knowledge.
Are you unable to decide between a personal and business brand name? This guide is meant for you—a perfect blend of personality, authority, and engagement.
