Should you build a personal brand?

 

I was having lunch yesterday with a good friend and client, Sam Cawthorn of The Speakers Institute. 

If you don’t know who Sam is go ahead and check him out – the dude is a legend!

One of the many topics we were chatting about were the merits of building a personal brand.

For some people (such as coaches) the answer is obvious – do it. 

But when the goal is to sell a company (and therefore building a personal brand is not directly related to the asset value) the answer is NOT so obvious. 

We can, however, look around for examples that might leave us clues. 

One great example is Gary Vaynerchuk, AKA “Gary V”. 

There’s no question that his personal branding efforts have positively impacted Vaynermedia. To what degree his personal brand is impacting the asset value of Vaynermedia I can’t attest to. 

But it’s clear the personal brand has had “some” impact. 

So, in my mind, the question isn’t whether you should build a personal brand. 

The question is “how much time and money should you invest in your personal brand… if your goal is to build (and ultimately sell) your company?”

The answer is going to vary from person to person and company to company. 

It also varies depending on the platform. 

For example…

For my company, Fubbi, all our content marketing efforts are published on my personal LinkedIn account. That’s because LinkedIn in its current form is a far better platform for individuals than it is for companies. 

In the future, that may change. 

But on Facebook, we publish our content under our company page. 

Anyway, food for thought.