Brand-related decisions are frequently quite personal and can have a significant effect on your business. Choosing between personal branding and business branding is a difficult decision.
Which is best for you right now? We'll discuss that another day. Today, I'll go through some additional facets of branding for both your personal and professional lives.
Personal branding is exclusively about a person. We see that person on billboards, out and about, and engaging with us both online and in person.
Whereas business branding is exclusively for an organization, their promotion encompasses the business they are presently doing or aspire to do so with their type of clients.
So why the personal brand first?
Late Zig Ziglar an internationally-known author and motivational speaker said - “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you”.
Linkedin has been catching the attention of professionals from diverse fields for the past 3-4 years significantly. Why is that? Today people are not just using Linkedin for job search but they are leveraging it for building their personal brand. Be it small business owners, employees, influencers, CEOs or VPs of a top global corporation they all are consistent with building their personal brand. And the reason is well explained by Zig Ziglar.
“Everyone’s motive is almost similar, they all want their name to be recognized as a brand. They want the same importance, conversations, and benefits as a business does.”
Integrity and trust are key
Tell me whenever you are about to sign up for a new service or are in the grocery buying a new brand of soup, do you seek out feedback, and look for recommendations first? I am sure you do and so does everyone else in the world. According to the 2020 data published on marketingcharts.com, 93% of consumers seek out their friends and family feedback while buying anything.
We all like to buy things from places that provide us with quality products, take care of our demands, and customize according to our needs. So, the majority of the time consumers go for the brands that have been in the market for a long time. They don’t go for alternatives as there is no established trust.
Brands keep evolving
Consumers get bored easily. Why does this happen? Because once your consumers find out about the products and services you are providing and it is not making sense to them (yes, here is mostly about the feelings), they will stop buying and your sales will take a hit. Today consumers want to feel emotionally rewarded by engaging brand experiences, excellent customer service, and enjoyable interactions when they interact with a brand, whether it be a product, service, or retail store.
This is the reason that after a certain point of time, you need to change the strategy of your brand. And who can prove it better than the timeless brand LEGO? The company started from making wooden toys to official LEGO bricks and in 2005 LEGO established a factory in which you could easily buy customer pieces, models and make your own toys (which is no longer active) And let's not forget that in 2014, LEGO won the hearts of millions of kids and adults by incorporating their own theme into a LEGO movie. This brand surely understands the emotions of its consumers.
Personal branding Versus Business Branding
Forget about which is better and think about how these two can be incorporated into a bigger purpose. A person and a business focusing on their branding have only one goal, to reach out to more people and add value to their life because if you are not adding any value then you need to rethink your purpose. We all have a purpose to pursue our goals in our life, which helps us to progress. So as a brand you need to ask why I am selling this product? Is it a better option among all products? Is it better for the environment ? or is it solving the problems of consumers in a more efficient way than other brands? Once you start asking you will either find your purpose or redefine it.
Can a personal brand complement a business and increase people's value?
The finest example, in my opinion, is how Oprah Winfrey frequently encourages people and businesses through her books, shows, and appearances. She also assisted numerous authors by asking them to her show. Eventually, most of them became bestsellers.
So when it comes to who is against who, we must always keep in mind that we can also consider what would happen if we worked together to achieve tremendous success.
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Shellye Archambeau is determined to help you with all possible strategies to climb the ladder of success. She values your feedback. Do mention them in the comment section below.