Personal branding vs business branding: what’s the difference? Which one should I focus on? The short answer to question one personal branding is the person, the expert, the leader, business branding is the business, the brand, the organization. The short answer to question two: both but do your personal brand first.

Let’s start with your personal brand and why it’s important. There are a TON of reasons, and I have multiple blogs on this, let’s start with reason number one in the context of business: people buy from people. People do not want faceless brands and logos, they want PEOPLE. Leaders. Creators.

“92% of people trust recommendations from people over brands, even if they don’t know those people”

So having a strong personal brand is extremely beneficial to your business. Giving your customers a PERSON to follow can hugely benefit your business.

Why start with it? Because your business is an extension of you, your values, your goals, your purpose. If you can start with YOU, then your Customer, then your business, you’re on a pretty good path.

My businesses are all thanks to my personal brand. The personal branding business aside, all of my other businesses are growing through my personal brand, until I have more time and money to dedicate to their own personal marketing. For example, I actually don’t do any marketing for my jewelry brand at all – all business there comes through my personal brand. There is heavy marketing done for a lot of jewelry brands, of course, it’s just I haven’t got the time to concentrate on that at the moment.

So what are the main differences and which should you focus on?

What’s the difference between a personal brand and a business brand?

Business branding (or you might know it as corporate branding) is all about branding the business – the brand, the company. So, if I talk about my agency or my jewelry brand, they are businesses, with their own brands.

Personal branding is all about branding the person, the leader. What do I think? What do I believe? People are more likely to engage with me than they are with any of my other businesses because I’m a person. A personal brand outlasts any business brand you’ll have, it’s one of the best investments you can make, both for the now and for your future. Having a personal brand creates opportunity, it creates freedom.

Should you focus on personal branding or business branding?

I would always recommend starting with your personal brand, because if you start by defining your personal brand and really getting clear on your purpose, your values, your mission, your vision, your messaging – why you’re doing what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for – it usually overlaps with your business brand.

It’s easier to define these areas for yourself than your business because your business doesn’t have a personality. I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s not a real person; you can’t ask it questions about its motivation and goals and expect it to answer articulately. So, if you define your mission for yourself as a person, and your business is that extension of yourself, you’re starting in the right way.

HOWEVER, building a personal brand requires courage and persistence. You are putting yourself out there as a person, you have nothing to hide behind, it is you. If this scares you, then go business. Build a story and a personality for your business, create an avatar, a little cartoon, something which enables people to get to KNOW you. Create HIGH quality, useful, engaging content so people follow you and put the time in, branding is not overnight.

Personal branding or corporate branding: where to start?

Start with why, start with your purpose, what do you believe? What are you here for? Your brand and your business are just the delivery of this, so get SUPER clear on it.

But shouldn’t I do my business brand first so I can make money?

You can, yes, if you’re the person above who hates the thought of becoming an online leader. However, if you’re looking to build a business and create revenue quickly, I’d go personal brand first. Build a brand as an expert in the THING you do, then turn it into a business, for example, web agencies often start as freelancers.

Here’s an example of how I use my personal brand to start new businesses without spending any additional money:

As you may know (hopefully by now), I’m a personal branding specialist, I also have a personal branding agency called power talent. It doesn’t exist yet on social media and I haven’t yet branded it as a business, but it has clients. Clients come to me for support with personal branding, I work with them on a 1:1 basis to define and create their personal brand, then they go into power talent for videos, sales funnels, copywriting, content websites, photoshoots, you name it, power talent does it.

Once power talent has built up some cash, I will brand it and website it and turn it into a business, with clients, testimonials, and case studies.

Personal branding vs corporate branding: what’s next for you?

If you’re interested in starting work on your business brand, then head over to POWER nomads.

If you want to know more about my personal branding work and where to start with personal branding – or even just to find out whether personal branding is for you (it almost definitely is!), then have a look at my blogs because I do cover a lot of personal branding there.