The Blog of Chris Stott

I know that many readers of this site run businesses that sell products or services created by an individual.

In a few of my consulting calls with clients recently, both internationally and locally, I’ve noticed a trend to seperate a company’s brand identity and the personal identity of the person actually running it.

If your business is based solely on you, then your brand has to encompass YOU.

I’ll give you three examples:

A local training company, providing mandatory regulatory training to the airline industry.
This company is small, with just a few employees and spear headed by an invidivual. Their website (the key place where they now get leads for new customers) contains no information about the leader of the company or the training staff that you would meet if you took them up on a course.

With 20 minutes work they could have an ‘about page’ and/or a ‘meet the trainers’, with photos and a short (50-100) words bio about each of them. This gives the company a persona and, having researched their competitors, a unique edge to thier offering.

A popular online learning blog, spearheaded by an individual who is active in blogging, social media, consulting and product creation.
Though this person has a presence on the site, they really could focus in on themselves as the emodiment of their brand. Their competittors fall down either side of this, either selling services as an individual or as a faceless corporation. For the small business the key here is to stand out by showing the person behind the brand.

My business.
For a while I hid behind a brand. My company talked about how ‘we can help…’ and ‘contact us…’.

I’ve now completely changed my focus. I am the embodiment of my brand. Now it is ‘I can help…’ and ‘contact me…’. People who get in touch know who they will be talking too.

Of course there are many counter arguments to this approach, but for people who operate small businesses, their key deferential is going to be the individuals you will encounter if you spend money with that business 95% of the time.

This requires that you really believe in your brand so that you can become it. You can only achieve this is you are focusing on a business that you believe in and enjoy and want to build in to something incredible. Something you are willing to put your name too.

Remember that this doesn’t have to be your passion. This just needs to be something you have great interest in and believe in.

So ask yourself: How can I become my brand?