Should you build your personal brand or a business brand?

We're talking about personal brands in the next few posts because I know this is something that has been coming up a lot with my students inside Launch Magic and also just in my broader community, generally, where a lot of people have potentially started building out a service-based business under a business brand. But then they wonder, do I want to build my digital product business under my personal brand? Do I want to do it under a business brand? How do I do this?

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A personal brand or a business brand: which should you choose?

I'm going to share a few considerations that you should take into mind when you're deciding whether you should build your business under your personal brand or under your business brand.

Now, there's no right or wrong way to do it. That's the first thing I just want to say. Whatever you do, it's not going to be the wrong decision. I think a lot of the time we allow it to get us stuck because we're so worried that whatever we decide is going to be the wrong choice. But in reality, whatever you choose won't be the wrong choice and you can always change things. When I launched my first online course, it was under my old business brand which was called Wildbloom, It was a marketing consultancy. I started it under a business brand name because I had the intention of growing it into an agency. And then when I launched my first course which was a course about Facebook ads, I actually launched it under the agency name.

So, then it was only about six months later after I launched this podcast which was the real beginning of my personal brand. This podcast was the first time I'd done anything under my personal brand. And once I started my personal brand, that was when I started moving my courses away from the Wildbloom brand to live under the Steph Taylor brand, because I realized there were two completely separate audiences. Wildbloom was for people who were in established businesses, who wanted to pay somebody to do their marketing for them whereas Steph Taylor and Socialette were for people who wanted to learn how to DIY their marketing. So you can always change these things and there's no right or wrong decision. So, that's just what I want to caveat this episode with.

 

Think about the future vision of your business

So, the first thing to consider is, what is that future vision of your business? And the future vision that you know of right now, you're never going to be able to fully predict what you want and what it's going to end up like. I thought I wanted an agency, and if you'd asked me what that future vision was, I would have been like, “Yeah, I want an agency.” And then it took about six months of hiring people and growing and working with painful clients before I realized actually, no, I don't want an agency. Wildbloom wasn't ever meant to be more than an agency so I knew that I needed to start to pivot what I was doing into my personal brand.

 

Would it be best to have both?

The second consideration is, could it work or would it be best for you to have both? Maybe your personal brand is like the umbrella brand for all of your projects and maybe your business brand lives under the personal brand. Or on the flip-side, maybe your personal brand is the face of your business brand. That's another consideration. So, you can have both. You can have a personal brand and a business brand and they can work together really nicely side-by-side or one above the other.

 

Could marketing be easier under a personal brand?

The third thing to consider is, will marketing be easier for you under a personal brand? I personally find it a lot easier because I get to tell personal stories, I get to share my own experiences, I get to talk in my own voice. I get to just be me and it doesn't even feel like marketing. It just feels like I'm showing up. Whereas under a business brand, then it might become, “We think that,” and then you have to make sure that everything's aligned with the brand values rather than your own personal brand values which tend to be more aligned with your own personal values, if that makes sense.

 

Do you actually want a personal brand?

It might be something that you don't necessarily want and that you think you just should have because that's what everyone seems to be doing these days. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with having a personal brand. Yes, there are pros, but there are also a lot of cons which I will cover in another episode in a few episodes time. It's okay to not want a personal brand. Don't feel like you have to do it just because everyone else is saying you have to have a personal brand. If you want to have a business brand, a business name, that's cool, do that. You do you.

 

Is the business something that you might want to sell later on?

That's a really interesting one. There are cases where people have sold or passed on their personal brand businesses. You can sell different parts of the IP of your personal brand business. But in general, it's a lot easier to just separate yourself and sell a business brand than it is to sell your own personal brand, in general. I could be wrong there, it's not a process that I've been through, but it is something that is at the back of my mind where I think, “Oh, what if I one day wanted to sell this?” I'm not intending to, but imagine if I did. That would be a lot harder because so much of it is built around me.

So, there you have it. Five different things to consider when you're trying to decide whether to build your business under a personal brand or a business brand. I hope that helps with your decision.

 

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