5 Reasons Why You Need A Personal Brand When You Run A Firm

When you run a firm that doesn’t have your name on the door, you spend most of your marketing time selling your collective brand: your team, your process, your outcomes.

But it makes sense—once you have positioned and are steadily building the right company brand—to give your personal brand every bit as much attention.

Because there are at least five compelling benefits you can reap by taking a strategic approach to how you position yourself.

Generate a new stream of leads and revenue. You’re probably already identifying and/or closing the majority of leads for your firm. But what if you could create a whole new source of leads—that turn into revenue?

Maybe you’re already known by a small group of connected people (say clients recommending you to other clients) for being an expert in your niche.

But consider how your reputation and reach will grow if you start publishing content (articles, posts, podcast, etc.) that you share with more of your ideal audience.

One strategy consultant did exactly that by focusing his content on mergers and acquisitions in the tech space—becoming a provocative voice that produced a whole new stream of leads.

Differentiate from other firms in your space. You might be swimming in a sea of competitors, where clients have a hard time seeing the unique benefits of your firm.

But if they’re reading your thought pieces, listening to your podcast or even experiencing you on a speaking platform—you become a distinct voice, a real human.

Building your personal brand makes your firm into a more compelling destination.

One advisor does this by engaging a national audience with his big idea—it’s now a funnel to the team in his one location firm. Almost a third of his clients are outside his geography vs. none when he started.

Become a thought leader. If you’ve got the right mindset, you can become a thought leader in your industry or your niche—maybe even THE thought leader.

You’ll need to have the interest, time and commitment to dig deep into your subject matter; to think beyond just what’s good for your firm to what’s ahead for the industry.

When you position yourself as a generous thought leader, good things start to happen. The conversations you spark from your big idea, your point of view, go deeper than before.

You’ll start bringing those conversations proactively into your firm. Instead of simply responding to opportunities, you’re leading your niche in new directions and your firm reaps the benefits.

Classic example: Liz Wiseman giving her leadership consulting firm an outsized footprint from her book/big idea “Multipliers: How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter”.

Engage an expanded audience with your big idea. You may be thinking beyond building revenue streams for your firm—maybe you have an idea percolating for yet another business or a change you’d like to make happen in the world.

Building a personal audience and brand around a compelling idea gives you options. Options to morph it into a business, a non-profit or simply a runway into helping others.

Take a look at Marc Benioff of salesforce.com (“no software”) for inspiration in personal brand building that dovetails neatly with how he runs his organization.

Carve out a related niche for yourself. Maybe you’ve created a firm that your people are running as a (mostly) well-oiled machine. But you are feeling like you want more to keep you engaged…

That “more” often looks like a personal platform for a big idea—related to your firm’s core expertise but taking it in a bigger direction.

Sometimes this is a legacy thing—you’re thinking big, thinking transformational, thinking how to keep this alive after you leave the scene.

Just a few of the legacy plays my clients have made: getting high-performing women into leadership roles in tech, making media Millennial-friendly, transforming how families think about their money.

Your personal brand is a precious asset—one you can strategically grow, leverage and morph into a significant platform with the right moves.

The beauty part? You can start right now—and get a jump on the 100-day sprint we all begin soon.

If you’re ready to make this happen in 2020, I’m ready to show you the way. Hit me up and I’ll send you a link to my calendar.