Tweak Your Biz » Marketing » Boost Your Personal Profile To Grow Your SME Business

Boost Your Personal Profile To Grow Your SME Business

by Eamonn O'Brien on April 5th, 2012
16 Comments



Why should people buy from your company? Sure, you’ll need to have a mix of compelling offers, superior service, value for money, easy access and so forth. But increasingly that’s not enough. Your company may need a ‘personal’ credibility boost to win more business.

At a time when information overload is spiraling out of control…

…we find ourselves filtering the gazillion messages competing for our attention – just so we can function.

And in the process, many of us are reverting to more old-fashioned approaches when making purchases.

  • We are relying less on mainstream advertising (aka interruption marketing) and more on word of mouth, direct experience and perceptions to make our buying decisions.
  • We are placing greater store on sources of information we trust more – our friends, peers and selves.

What’s the point?

Help prospective customers to place more trust in you as well as what you offer.

How do you engender more trust in your company?

  • In addition to offering great products that meet or exceed expectations – consider investing time and energy in your personal brand.
  • In the same way that investors place as much (if not more) reliance on their assessment of those seeking investments as they do to what they propose; customers are increasingly drawn to the credibility of the people they buy from.

In fact, for many smaller businesses – the credibility of the promoters of a business and the business are one and the same thing. They are joined at the hip.

Related: A Fine Line:’Personal Brand’ Vs. Personal Achievement

The lines between your own reputation and those of your business are becoming increasingly blurred. Knowing that – boost credibility in your personal brand by:

# 1. Becoming more visible offline and online

  • Make it your business to be seen and heard where your prospective customers are.
  • Give people reasons to associate you with your company brand and the value you offer collectively.

# 2. Becoming known for something

  • Become the ‘go to’ person for topics that matter to your prospective customers and can complement what you want your business to be known for.
  • As Dan Schawbel put it during a recent interview in Forbes about owning your brand space:

”The best CEO’s are able to leverage their authentic personality in order to attract attention to their company…A brand personality   delights consumers and makes them more interested in what your company sells”.

Put simply – lending your personal credibility to that of your company can make a world of a difference to the level of trust prospective customers may place in your business.

Related: The Rise Of Social Celebrities

Over to you

What’s the best example you’ve seen of personal brand being used to boost the fortunes of a business? Why did this work so well?

Image: “3d small people worshipping to a gold idol./Shutterstock“



Category: Branding, Business Networking, Marketing Strategy, social media

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The Author:

Eamonn is the CEO of The Reluctant Speakers Club, a leading provider of public speaking courses in Ireland. To learn how he can help you gain more trust and inspire others with your ideas, email eobrien@thersc.ie , call +353.1.5311196 or log onto http://www.thereluctantspeakersclub.com http://www.thereluctantspeakersclub.com

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  • http://www.bloggertone.com Niall Devitt

    Great post, Eamonn! 

    The name of my biz is “Beyond the Boardroom” – however over the last few years, my personal brand has outgrown my business brand. 

    Initially, this was even something that I was a bit uncomfortable about (probably cause I’m Irish) but now it feels like to continuing to build my personal brand is by far the better option for me.  

  • Elishbul

    Thanks for that Eamonn, you are hinting on another issue: the Karmic benefits of being generous with what you know by sharing online and offering welcome support to people using your expertise. It raises your likability and if visible enough, a level of familiarity that will lead to real world sales leads, as there is a lower perceived risk in dealing with someone so visible online.

  • Epobrien

    Great way to put it Niall, there’s no doubt that most of us are finding that we have to pay more attention to our personal brands, both for business and professional development reasons.

  • Epobrien

    Hi Eilish, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Giving of yourself creates immense goodwill – both towards you and your business. Time and effort spent on your personal brand can really increase the level of trust associated with you. And, as you know, credibility counts.

  • http://www.zoealexanderuk.com/ DaddyBlogZAUK

    Eamonn, you hit the nail on the head! This is something we are actively researching at present for our maternity brand as we have seen that being able to offer back on a social level, information, help, guidance, experience and support to expecting mums is what they need from us! We’ve been down this road so it’s good to share the knowledge to those who have just started the journey to parenthood. Thank you for the recommendations!

  • Epobrien

    Delighted you found the article helpful & it sounds like you’re gearing up on this front already – well worth the effort.

  • http://www.smartsolutions.ie/blog/ Elaine Rogers

    Great article thanks Eamonn
    No 1 resonates with me and requires more work…

  • Debi Harper

    As always Eamonn,I love reading what you have to say. I am a big fan of the personal brand mixing with the biz brand. I like to get to know the person behind the business and to me knowing the person helps cement a friendly biz relationship.This sticks with me and creates that instant note in my head that pops up when people say “I am looking for an accountant or an electrician” . I choose our accountant because of how supportive he was online and willing to go that extra mile in helping. Looking forward to reading more from you, think I am becoming an Eamonn addict:)

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    I definitely agree about documenting the agreement, but I would also add that *when* you document is also quite important. If you do it too early in the relationship it can create an imbalance in the partnership, but equally if you do it too late that can also cause problems.

    I was involved in a startup once and while we had a shareholder agreement early on looking back on things it was probably done too early. As the business evolved it was too hard to go back renegotiate it later as the business evolved and somewhat contributed to me leaving the startup.

  • http://www.thesmarttrain.com/ Elaine Rogers

    A great read Janine,

    When people are involved, subjective is also close by. It’s hard to be objective when so much subjective strategies worked to get a business up and running, and successful.
    Then things can begin to change, grow, or divide. A strategy is all-important in the smallest of professional partnerships. They can only ever be “textbook” if you take the human out. And it is human that makes great business, so we won’t be losing them any time soon. We need to learn to separate personal and business, and leave professional differences in the office, and enjoy and develop our personal relationships – if they are intertwined of course. I have had both positive and negative experiences mixing business with family members and friends.

    Communication, and a good plan is key :-)

  • Janine Gilmour

    Hi Elaine – you’re bang on. Business is personal, as well as professional, so learning how to disagree constructively is essential. Avoiding contentious subjects until things are really fractious makes it more difficult to find inspired “Yes, and …” answers.

  • Janine Gilmour

    Interesting comment Richard – do you think the imbalance was caused by different levels or types of knowledge? I’ve seen a lot of shareholder agreements and often time the power of the partnership comes in sharing knowledge so that all parties are able to make informed decisions. It sounds like that might not have been your experience so I’m curious if you had an outside or impartial person you were able to consult?

  • Janine Gilmour

    That Niall. Even then it’s tough going when issues arise. Feelings get hurt, values appear to be challenged, mucky “stuff” happens. My natural inclination is to AVOID conflict … but that’s not at all the same as avoiding meaningful discussion is it?

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    Early 2000′s a lot going on in the Tech world, and not a lot of knowledge on how to create that kind of bootstrapped company. The actual agreement was reviewed for me, by my own lawyer, but that basically covered the legal aspects.

    It’s a bit hard to sum-up the whole story in a comment post, but to answer your question it was in my early 30′s and mostly came down to a lack of experience on everyone’s part.

  • Janine Gilmour

    Hi Richard, sounds like a hard won but valuable lesson. What would you say to someone in your shoes now?

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    Hmm, I kinda of go back to my first comment. Before you lock everything down into some sort fo formal structure you have to have sufficient knowledge and sometimes that takes time before those topics become visible.

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