Building A Personal Brand – Is It Worth It?
It used to be that you could go run a business while hiding your name and making big claims like making money that you were not actually making. With business now, everything is out in the open on the internet. If anyone claims anything on the internet they will not be able to hide. I get questions from students that want to start a business and coach people, but they do not want to use their name because if it fails they feel like they will not be able to get a job or something.
They can still do this, but it is going to be about ten times harder if you hide and it is probably not even going to work out because people are getting really smart and are more likely able to catch people lying on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8lrPmgz0-k
Should you use your own name?
I tell students who want to start a business or get their name out there, to put their name out there on the front of their website, YouTube channel, or whatever content they are putting out onto the internet. They can even use their own personal name and brand. In the beginning of a business it is actually better to use your own name as the business name for many kinds of businesses. This is because in the beginning you lack credibility. People do not believe you and whatever you tell them, or whatever you show them for proof, it is hard to convince people. If you put your name out there, your credibility skyrockets.
When I started my business coaching and teaching people how to make money online, I put my own name out there and people trusted me from almost the first day. I spoke honestly and used my own name. Lots of other people tried to use other names or make ridiculous claims. They would always get found out because social media exposes everything.
What should you do for your business with social media?
From the first day, create a social media presence by sending paid traffic to it and building a small following. Having any sort of following attracts the aura behind the brand that the brand is legit. You actually need to be legit though, because if you only buy traffic and likes on Facebook, it is not going to do anything. If you are legit, creating content, sending some paid traffic to it, and building a small community, it will be a lot easier for you to get sales. These people in your communities should be buying from you as well.
With web design, you might not be able to just make a Facebook page and make it very successful, but there are websites like LinkedIn where you can create groups and communities of people who are looking for this sort of stuff. You can create content for them based on what they want. If you have a community of people who are your strongest supporters, any new client researching you will see that you have a bunch of fans, a following, loyal customers, and they will be 10x-100x more willing to buy from you.
I have experienced this over and over. Years ago I was trying to run a business where I did just cold-calling. This type of stuff works, is scalable, and gets sales, but it is extremely hard to convince people that you are legit while having complicated contracts. This type of marketing, where people trust you earlier on because you are legit, allows you to not even need contracts half the time. This is the kind of business you are able to run these days. All the people on YouTube and building social media followings have a much easier time running their business than someone trying to build a boiler room sales environment and forcing their products and services down people’s throats.
People can build six and seven-figured businesses with this boiler room method of sales but now you do not really have to do it anymore. Put yourself out there, use your real name, and if you have a corporate cold website, turn it into a corporate cold website with a personal touch of a picture of you or a welcoming video on it.
People do not buy just the product or service but they need to buy into you before they even know or care about what you are selling.
