Creating Your Own Brand? Build Like a Professional, Not a Business
Branding is one of the obvious pillars of cultivating a business and if you’re building a personal brand, you might be inclined to think ‘if it works for a business, it will work for me.’
If you’re creating your own brand, you might be inclined to look towards commercial giants for guidance- how does Magic Of I do it? Why are people obsessed with Dunkin despite their underrated coffee? While they might give great inspiration, you can’t copy and paste big industry practices into individual use. Through my experience as a branding expert who’s curated both business identities and clients personal image, there are a few key differences between building a personal brand and a business identity. Lets get into it.
What Even Is a Personal Brand?
A personal brand is essentially how you want to be remembered- it's the intentional and conscious building of your reputation. Now, there will always be parts of your personal brand that just happen naturally through your actions or other people's perceptions. You can't control everything (wouldn't that be nice?), but you can intentionally cultivate the vibe you want to be known for and position yourself professionally in the world.
The Big Differences
1. It's About You, Not Your Ideal Buyer
Strong consumer brands are built entirely around their ideal buyer. Every color choice, font selection, and visual element is carefully chosen to communicate with and capture that specific person's attention. But with a personal brand? You're at the center. The audience finds and is attracted to you, not the other way around.
That said, reputation is still a two-way street. While you're not building everything around a buyer, you do need to consider how others receive and react to your personal brand. It's about finding that sweet spot between authentic self-expression and effective communication.
2. Visual Identity Can Come First
When branding a business, the visual stuff should come last. Sure, you need a basic logo and colors when you start, but the deep visual identity work comes after you've nailed down your foundations - your ideal buyer, mission, vision, and values.
When creating your own brand you can flip this script. By starting with the visual vibe right away, you’re able to easily center yourself (which remember, is the whole point). And, since repetition is one of the key pillars in brand building, leaning into your visual image early on helps kickstart this.
And the best part? Everything is flexible. As you grow and develop as a human, your personal brand will reflect that. It’s normal to make tweaks along the way, don’t get too hung up on getting everything right that you wait to establish your visual presence.
3. Profit Isn't the Point (Unless You Want It to Be)
A business brand exists to further the business- which, let's be real, means making money. But a personal brand? You don't have to sell a thing if you don't want to. You might use your personal brand to:
Build better business connections
Position yourself for career opportunities
Emerge as a thought leader
Make a career pivot
Connect with your community
Think about someone like Noam Chomsky- he's not out there hocking 6-week courses or promoting his herbal tea line. His personal brand is about pushing his intellectual pursuits and activism into the world.
4. Your Personal Brand Follows You
It’s pretty common to see businesses scaled to sell or going through organizational shifts. But the branding of that business typically survives independently of who's running the show. Just. because you have a CEO doesn’t mean you’re ideal buyer changes, right? Companies get bought and sold, leadership changes but the brand maintains it’s image (unless there's an intentional rebrand).
Your personal brand, though? That's all you, baby. It follows you wherever you go, whatever you do. That's why it's so important to build it thoughtfully.
When Personal and Business Brands Overlap
Here's where it gets interesting- if you're an entrepreneur, your personal brand and business brand will probably overlap somewhere. The question is: how much?
Think of it like a spectrum:
Strong Overlap: Martha Stewart is the perfect example. Her name and face are on everything, but her business is still its own entity.
Loose Overlap: Look at Bobbi Brown. She founded Bobbi Brown Cosmetics (which literally has her name on it), and though she no longer is part of that company her name still lives on the black, minimalistic packaging. But her newer venture, Jones Road Beauty, has a more subtle connection to her personal brand. You still see Bobbi Brown’s face, she shows up in most of the marketing, but the brand could stand on its own if she left.
The key is that even when they're strongly connected, your personal brand and business brand aren't the same thing. Your business is its own entity, and your personal brand is a part of it- but not the whole thing.
Finding Your Sweet Spot
When you're building both a personal and business brand, ask yourself:
How closely do you want them linked?
What aspects of your personal brand serve your business goals?
What parts of your personal brand might you want to keep separate?
How can you use your personal brand to support but not overshadow your business?
Remember: There's no one-size-fits-all answer here. Some entrepreneurs want their personal brand front and center in their business, while others prefer to keep more separation. Both approaches can work beautifully - it's all about what feels right for you and serves your goals.
Launching Your Personal Brand?
Working on building your personal brand? Let's look at your birth chart- it can be an amazing tool for understanding how to position yourself authentically in the world.
Right now I’m crafting an offering similar to Selling With Certainty that’s just for personal branding. Interested in trying it out? Just book a Selling With Certainty session and mention on the intake form that this is for personal branding.
