Will building my personal brand help my business?

This all depends on how you feel about promoting yourself in relation to your business. 

I am personally a big advocate of it, and since day one I have always promoted myself in relation to Mocks, so that I am now known to be the “Mocks lady”. 

This has helped my business in that people know exactly who to come to when they need Mocks, and often my reputation precedes me when I meet new people.  

The other benefits you can get are:

• Being seen as an expert in your industry, which translates into people seeing you (and in turn your business) as trustworthy and reliable.
• It can promote your business as being far bigger than it is – people tend to automatically assume that if you are out there promoting yourself that you’ve got to have a big business by association.
• You get offered opportunities such as public speaking, which is a great way to promote your business further.
• You will get opportunities to meet other high profile business people which can help you in growing your business and getting new ideas.

However, I know some business people who like to fly below the radar, they promote their business as an entity but not the people behind it. This is usually just a matter of personal style – some entrepreneurs prefer the quiet life.

One last warning if you do go down the track of becoming the “face” of your brand. Remember that the values that become associated with you in turn are associated with your business, so try not to get too drunk at those networking events!

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Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com and author of Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.

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