Self branding, and personal branding are terms very popular in business networking and social networking circles. If you are a business owner you will undoubtedly know what I mean by this term.

Personal Branding
This is defined as when an individual has become a brand much in the way that businesses are brands and often identifies an individual as an expert in their field. Richard Branson is a good example of personal branding, as well as celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and ‘The Beckhams’

What Sort Of Business?
One of the most popular industry types that rely on personal branding are ‘speakers’. Speakers are also typically writers and coachs and/or trainers…these all lend themselves to a need to brand oneself personally because writing and speaking can be made a very ‘personal’ business activity. A speaker and/or writer for example often has their own personal style.

Another industry which may need to rely on personal branding would be independent financial advisors. Customers deal directly with financial advisors and trust is vital and therefore for this business owner, their personal brand should be viewed as paramount.

IFA Life, which is a portal for Independant Financial Advisors have posted an excellent article on Personal Branding by international speaker and personal branding expert Lesley Everett. It’s well worth a read.

Imagery?
What typifies a personal brand is a business that tends to use the owners name for the logo design, and where the owners photographs are used extensively in advertising and marketing.

I’ve worked with quite a few clients how that have a personal brand, one example of this is writer, coach and speaker Gladys F (web design) and another is trainer and speaker Gavin Ingham (various print design, including cd and book cover design).

How To Create A Strong Personal Brand
Certain activities will help to build a good personal brand and these include;

- Networking with effective communication skills (bad networking will destroy your personal brand, believe me I do a lot of business networking I’ve seen it happen alot)

- Blogging (so as to show expertise in your field as well as your core personality/brand)

- Article Marketing (so as to show expertise in your field)

- Podcasts! Hip and new way to market yourself.

Is Personal Branding Important For Every Micro Business/Sole Trader?
Personal branding is a great way to market your services as an individual however it doesn’t suit every business and there are some downfalls to self branding.

For example, presuming you don’t want to work forever, it can be very hard if not impossible to sell your business and pass on your personal brand to someone else. When your business is tied to ‘you’ as a person, it makes it less valuable than if it has it’s own brand that could be sold on to someone new without effecting the brand (and perceived value in the eyes of it’s customers) itself.

Now and The Future
I’m convinced that over time each and every small business owner is developing a personal brand in addition to their ‘business brand’ whether they like it or not. Who can ignore the Internet age and how many are not on Twitter, Facebook, Ecademy and such like?

The moment you begin to regularly interact with other business owners and your customers also as a named representative of your business you start building a personal brand, so be careful to ensure that this matches the brand ethos of the business you represent!