This is from Sabrina Clark, our friend at Brand-Yourself.com:
These days, personal branding is essential. Whether you’re a small business owner, C-level executive, job-seeker or student, everybody has some sort of online presence. And how you look on the web matters.
Fortunately, you can control how you look online. No matter your industry, effective personal branding creates awareness about who you are and what you do. More importantly, it’s an easy way to earn new business for both you and your company.
Despite this, many business owners aren’t aware of the power personal branding has to grow their business. Below we’ve shared 3 major ways that anyone can earn more business with effective personal branding in 2018.
Generate more leads
One of the key elements of growing any company is attracting new customers at the top of the funnel. By building an impressive personal brand online, you create an entirely new channel of growth for your business.
This is as true for a small business (like a one-person PR firm) as it is for a Fortune 500 company. An effective personal brand has a direct appeal because it shows the people behind the product or service. Instead of hiding behind a faceless business, a strong personal brand puts you out there and creates that human connection.
Whether you share a recent article you posted on your own blog or tweet a video of you speaking on a panel, your personal brand is a chance to show another layer behind your business. Potential customers that build a connection with a thought leader in any industry are more likely to purchase their product or service at some point. Your personal brand lets you foster that feeling of one on one connection, and build a trusting relationship with your audience.
Think about it, it’s been proven that social CEOs can enhance the reputation of their companies, attract new employees and increase sales. And those are just a few of the benefits of building up your personal brand online. Whether you’re the CEO of an international conglomerate or just started your own business, it’s about time you invested in your personal brand.
Enhance your relationship with existing customers
Growing your customer base is an important part of any thriving business. But maintaining your relationship with existing customers is critical to your company’s overall health too. Most business owners think that providing a consistently positive and valuable experience to customers is the standard way to do this, but then they neglect the role personal branding can play.
In this day and age, digital engagement and a strong personal brand are requirements when it comes to providing a great experience to customers and clients. First of all, you open up a new line of communication with your clients. Whether you decide to do monthly AMAs, or tweet directly at customers who had a great or poor experience with your own Twitter account, you show that you care about the customer experience.
By making yourself more accessible you encourage a sense of transparency. As you develop your personal brand, you can start tying it in with your business efforts as well.
One great example of this is a welcome email from the founder of a company. These perform exceptionally well for one simple reason, they’re personal. By connecting with a new customer on a more personal level, you start to build a bond.
Additionally, by using your voice online and sharing your experiences and insights, you instill trust in your existing customers. Publicly showcasing your experiences, skills and successes through your personal brand tells your customers that you are capable, engaged and constantly growing.
Create new partnerships
A good partnership can be an extremely high-leverage way to bring in new business. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand how to create them effectively. Most try cold email outreach for this, but that has a low success rate. What if you could bring in new partnership opportunities without all that?
Luckily, by developing a strong personal brand you naturally create new opportunities for partnerships. The neat thing is that you don’t have to be a massive thought leader in your industry to benefit from this.
A small guest post or thoughtful exchange on social media can be enough to get the ball rolling and open the door for new potential partnerships. These opportunities might come to you directly, or you may see a window to reach out and propose a partnership yourself.
Another quick win here is to include a partnership page on your personal website. Once that’s up and running, make a point to share it on social media from time to time. As your personal brand grows, more high-quality partnership opportunities will present themselves. Make it easy for potential partners to connect and talk with you about their ideas!
Whether your professional goals for 2018 include generating more leads, improving your relationship with customers, or creating new partnerships, personal branding will help.
