When you’re a founder, your personal brand can add significantly to your company’s credibility. It can help you to engage more effectively with potential customers, investors, partners, and the media.
You can think of it as the sum of your professional reputation, what you stand for, what you’re an expert at, and what your mission is. Essentially, the sum of what you did before, what you’re doing right now, and where you’re going in the future.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos describes personal brand as “what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Having a strong personal brand can be a critical factor in whether others buy into the mission and vision of your company. Whether they talk about it with friends and colleagues, recommend it to others, or trust you. People are naturally more inclined to trust a business when they can see who owns it and what they’re passionate about.
It can also be a major factor in whether the media views you as a competent and noteworthy spokesperson on topics that are relevant to your company. When you become recognized as a subject matter expert or thought leader in the domain in which your company operates. You increase the chances of journalists approaching you for comment, or to talk about what your company is doing.
You can think of increased visibility as a way to increase your surface area for luck. It’s not always possible to predict what opportunities might come your way, but by being visible and authentic, you can greatly increase the volume of inbound opportunities.
One way to evaluate your personal brand is to do an online search for yourself and see what you find. Imagine that someone else is doing the search and they currently know nothing about you. If they do find information, does it strengthen their trust in you as a person, and by connection, in your company?
You can also do a reverse search by using keywords that describe your core areas of expertise, just as a journalist might search for an expert to interview on a particular topic. When you do the search, does your name appear in the first few results? If not, how can you change that outcome?
By the time you’re working full time on your startup, you should expect that a web search for you delivers at least the following results:
- A LinkedIn profile page.
- Your biography and photo on the team page of your company website.
- Social media accounts.
- Photos of you in a business context (as opposed to holiday pictures you posted on a social site).
- A couple of blog posts on topics relevant to your company or industry.
- Links to any of your talks, webinars, or interviews.
- Some media coverage, even if it’s in a small publication or contains a brief mention of you and your company as part of a larger article.
If you’re a startup founder at the beginning of building a company, here are some practical things you can do to establish and grow your personal brand. They start with basic steps that you can take immediately.
Create a professional LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn is the online business directory that more than 600 million people use worldwide. Not having a LinkedIn profile makes you look amateurish. It’s essential that you have one and that it’s professional and up to date.
Unless your startup is in stealth mode, your LinkedIn profile should list your role as founder of your company. If you’re a full-time founder, your role should be the only current professional role listed, and should be the first listing.
Besides a professional-looking photo, your profile should include a summary that says something about who you are and what you did before. It should also provide a glimpse into where you’re going. Make sure your profile doesn’t read like you’re looking for a job!
The About section of your LinkedIn profile is also a great place to mention the kinds of opportunities for which you’re looking. People are naturally inclined to try to help, so you might as well make it easy for them. Think about your business objectives. What opportunities do you want more of, and how can you articulate these opportunities to make it easy for the right people to connect with you?
https://lernix.com.my/dynamics-365-finance-training-courses-malaysia
Leave a Reply