Aligning Personal Brand with the Business/Corporate Brand

A Personal Brand offers a ‘Unique Value’ to the employer /client, in terms of strengths/ passions of the person, like USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for a product.

Personal Branding, if done in the right way can benefit the organisation brand also, both in the case of employees and entrepreneurs. So what is the right way and what are the guidelines to keep in mind? Let us look at these guidelines in two parts viz.

a)      For Entrepreneurs

·         SME (Small & Medium Enterprises) entrepreneurs, especially start ups can benefit a lot by personal branding as the personal brand (reputation) already exists and it can be built faster compared to a new corporate /product brand.

·         Taking a personal brand to a global scale is also easier compared to taking a corporate brand.

·         People connect better with people rather than corporate brands. A potato chip company tried to have a conversation with me on Twitter recently but I was not interested. But I would have participated had it been a person rather than a product talking to me.

·         Personal Brand can be combined with Corporate Brand. An interesting example is Ratan KK, an entrepreneur based in Mumbai who uses RatanKK@GutsGo as a Twitter handle

• Family Businesses are often closely allied with family brand e.g. Mahindras, Tatas, Bajajs, Birlas and so on. Family brand can make personal branding easier. The second name is already a brand and the first name only needs to be added. In India certain castes/communities are already branded as good entrepreneurs and personal branding can be very helpful to these entrepreneurs to further strengthen the community brand.
• Small and medium business entrepreneurs also find it beneficial in raising finances, as it raises credibility among banks and venture capitalists.
• In case of professionals like doctors, lawyers, architects and so on, personal brand is more critical than organisation, as the client often chooses the service provider based on personal brand.

b)     For Employees

• Employees must align their personal brands with corporate brands and give the organisation/employer the due respect it deserves. For eg putting the company website before the personal website on Linkedin profile.
• The employee can highlight how the values of the company are aligned with his/her personal values
• The employee needs to communicate to the employer how the personal brand is helping the organisation get more business or vendor proposals for example.
• The higher the management level, the more critical personal branding becomes.
• For some employees personal branding is very useful eg Sales, PR/ Corporate Communications and CEO/Top management. While sales people’s personal reputation is critical in getting business, CEO/Top management can find it easy to liaise with government officials, venture capitalists and so on.
• Specialized professions-Other professions like news anchors, journalists actually bring audience to the media with their personal reputation and brand. Personal brand is very critical for such professions and organisations.

Accept it or Not

Positively branded people are forgiven for small mistakes. Negatively branded people are damaged further by each small mistake they do. This is how human psychology works. Strong personal brands can also find it easier to attract and retain talent in their teams. We all want to work for people who have a strong reputation.

As long as personal branding is done in alignment with company objectives, it only helps the organisation and it has nothing to lose.

And I have learnt that the best way to align business and personal brands is "Professional Storytelling". Bon Voyage!

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Brief Profile

Dr Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller and Mega Success Coach. He is based in New Delhi, India and specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is, "Enlarge as a Human Being, Excel as a Social Media Being and Evolve as a Personal Brand"

To know more about Dr Nagpal, visit www.dramitnagpal.com. Contact for personal branding/social media speaking/training/coaching. If you have doubts about the power of storytelling on social media, connect with Dr Nagpal, on Linkedin or Twitter and see for yourself.

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