Build a brand or a personal brand?

This was my advice to a freelancer who asked whether to build a brand or a personal brand:

Build both?

People buy from people. You have a personal brand regardless of whether you’re consciously building it or not. You have your LinkedIn profile and that will stay with you for life. You may as well have your equivalent of perrymarshall dot com

At the start, people are literally just hiring you anyway. So be the high-paid consultant/freelancer.

Over time, you’ll move along the sliding scale to Agency, Productised Service, and Platform. Wherever you slide along to, all three are businesses you’re going to build with the intention of no longer being the frontman, and that can run without you. (Read “Built to Sell”.)

How will you bootstrap your business brand? By leveraging your personal brand.

I haven’t even created a business brand yet, but am already doing business as a business rather than just Andy Black, AdWords freelancer.

Start with your personal brand, even if it’s to put your personal details on the domain you intend growing into a business brand.

While we’re small, use that as our strength. Don’t try and hide the fact that clients will get the personal touch from the business owner.

….

Me personally, I have my own personal brand, and I’m now building other brands that have nothing to do with Andy Black.