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Personal Brand or Company Brand: What Should You Build?
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to personal vs. project brands, especially as a solopreneur or small business.
This is not a one-size-fits-all prescription for what you should do with your own brand(s). Instead, it will offer the benefits of either direction so you can choose what matters most to you.
Personal Brand: a human who is doing things (probably you)
Project Brand: a public entity that has its own name, mission, vision, values, and sells products
As some of you have noticed, there’s a lot of overlap between building a project brand and personal brand. I’ll give three examples where personal and company brands are separate, yet also inextricable.
- Tesla and Elon Musk
- Goop and Gwyneth Paltrow
- To Be Magnetic and Lacy Phillips
- Ellevest and Sallie Krawcheck
This tends to happen when a brand becomes so huge that it makes its founder famous (Lacy Phillips), or the founder makes the brand famous (Gwyneth Paltrow).
If you’re reading this article, my guess is 1) you’re not famous 2) your brand isn’t famous yet either. So where does that leave those of us who don’t have fame on our side and are striving to make a well-known…
