MBA1280 Q&A Wednesday: Can I start a business without being the face of it?

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Hey O. Welcome to the $1RMBA Show. Because your business deserves the best. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And today's episode is a Q and a Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar mba.net Today's question is from Shannon and Shannon asks, can I start a business without being the face of it? I have a great idea for a product that I want to launch, but I don't want to be the spokesperson that represents the brand. If I let the brand and the business be in the forefront and not myself, am I running a risk? Good question, Shannon. Thank you so much for submitting it. And in today's lesson we're going to cover this topic. Can a business when it's getting started be successful if it's just known for its brand, its product, its business? And there's no face to the business business. Many people will be the face of their business. Their face will be on the homepage of their website. They'll be on the videos, they'll get on shows and interviews, and their brand will be synonymous with who they are. This is absolutely the case for many successful companies, past and present, whether it's Elon Musk and Tesla or Steve Jobs and Apple or Walt Disney with Disney. But there are several brands that do not do this right. They just let the brand stand on its own. But at the same time, they are not hiding behind the brand. And we'll talk about that in a moment. So I will give my advice to Shannon. My answer in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Shannon is, can I start a business without being the face of it? And I'm going to give you a direct short answer right now to that question, and that's yes, of course you can. But one caveat. You can't hide behind the business. Those days are over 20, 30 years ago, the common person would not be able to find out who's the founder, who's the CEO of a particular business, or they wouldn't be able to find out easily. But because of the Internet and because of the way information has been shared today, people want to know. Not everybody, but some people want to know who's running this company. And it's not for any reason. It's not for skepticism. It's maybe because they admire your company and they want to know who's behind it. They want to learn more about you. So I'm all for building a great brand that stand on its own without you as a spokesperson. But I don't agree with totally hiding, like, not having your name on your website at all. It's totally fine to have an about page that's linked on the foot of your page where it displays everybody on your team or the founding team for those who want to find out. But it doesn't have to be front and center and you don't have to be on the homepage, on the videos and everything like that. If that's not your comfort zone, totally fine. In fact, I know a lot of companies where the founder kind of started out as a face, but really kind of got tired of it and didn't feel like they're in their comfort zone and hired a spokesperson, hired somebody who actually does all the commercials and all the media and all the interviews for them. A good example of this is Tim Cook. Tim Cook of Apple. Yes, he participates in the keynotes, but he's not a big Part of the face of the business like Steve Jobs was. When Steve Jobs passed away, Tim Cook didn't try to fill those shoes. It's just not who he is. And if you read Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, you learned that Tim Cook is very reserved. So Tim kind of elected to have somebody else, you know, be the voiceover on commercials or share the limelight a little bit with somebody. And that was Jony. I've the head of design at Apple. He's the guy with the British accent that you hear describing the new products. So finding somebody else to do a lot of stuff is possible. Now, obviously this is going to be a little bit more expensive when you're first starting out and maybe not do, but you could still freelance somebody, find somebody, a great voiceover actor that can be the voice of your videos that could help you out. You can also hire some models that can help you with some of your images on your website, things like that. Or even buy stock photos if they're not too cheesy looking. Right. With my business, the $100 MBA and our software company Webinar Ninja, I chose to be the face of the business. I enjoy speaking about my products, I enjoy shooting videos, I enjoy the marketing aspects of things. And I don't feel uncomfortable being the face of my business. That was a conscious choice of mine. But you can also make the opposite conscious choice, saying, hey, I don't want to be the face of the business. I might reserve that for somebody else. Or at the start, I'll let my product be the face of the business, my brand and what I do and how we solve the problems of our users. But I do recommend having somewhere where people can find out who's the founding team, who are the people that actually built this product, why you built this product. An about page can go a long way because I am skeptical when I go to a website and I can't find any information about who runs this team, who is building this. There should be something like an about page or a team page that I can find in the footer or the header of a website. It just adds a bit of credibility. It shows that, hey, I'm putting my name down on this business, that I'm not going anywhere. This business is not going anywhere. This is who I am. I these types of messages are sent when people can find who's behind this business, even if they're not front and center. Some of the best entrepreneurs, some of the best founders, leaders are not extroverted, they're introverted and they're good in small groups and they're not really interested in being the face of the business. It doesn't mean you're not going to be successful. It doesn't mean that you're going to be shooting yourself in the foot, marketing wise. But you have to be conscious of the fact that, that that's something that you're not going to do. While some people will do, it'll be a differentiator. You need to make sure that your product and marketing stands on its own two feet. I also want to say it doesn't have to be one or the other, right? You can have a great product, the product represents itself. No face to the product, no leadership on the front page or anything like that. But at the same time, you are not hiding from the fact that you are creating this product or you're behind it. You are doing interviews. You are on social. A good example of this is Slack Slack. If you go to their website, slack.com, it's all about the product and what it does. But the founder, Stuart Butterfield, is very open and talks about his product like it's his baby. Outside of the website, outside of its marketing materials. He does interviews, he's on podcasts. And if you want to find out who started Slack, you can find it. You can know what his story is. And if you go to slack.com in the footer, they have a link called Leadership and it shows who started this company, who's running this company. And Stuart Butterfield's picture and name and position is all there. So you have some choices as long as you're transparent and being honest about the situation. Let your product and your brand be the face of the business. But if somebody wants to find out, you provide the information. So therefore they're not wondering, well, who is this person? Or why is this founder not putting their name or saying who they are? It's your way to say, hey, I'm not the kind of person that wants to be the face of the business, but I'm still proud of what I built.

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To wrap up today's lesson. You don't need to be an Elon Musk. You don't need to be a Walt Disney. You don't need to be a Steve Jobs and be the face of your business if you don't want to be. If that's not your comfort zone, if that's not your skill set, that's totally fine. Build a business. Build a brand that people love. You can always find other people to speak on behalf of the company for PR and marketing and all that stuff. But keep in mind, people like transparency. So give them a way to find out who you are and who's behind the company. A leadership page and about page can go a long way in showing people that you're proud of what you built. And one more thing, it doesn't have to be one or the other. You can start your business out where you are the face of the business. But as the business grows, your role, your prominence sometimes will have less of an effect. Your team is going to grow. You're going to find other people that are better at what you think you were good at. The business and the brand will, will have its own identity. One of the things I learned from the book Anyone Can do it back in the day, when I read it back in 2001, was that your business is sort of like a baby at the start. You got to coddle it, you got to really take care of it. Then it becomes a teenager, you know, an adolescent. Then it becomes an adult, and it really has its own identity and it kind of grows into something else. And you, who you are and your charismatic self doesn't have the same effect anymore. It's really about the brand and the business because it's kind of become such a household name. So a transition can happen and that's totally fine. There are stages in business and you can do different things for different reasons at different stages. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now. If you love Q and A Wednesdays and you want to ask a question, just ask me with an email at Omar mba Net. Thank you, Shannon, for your question today. It really helps get these answers out there. Many people have similar questions. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the best companies I can think of, that its founder, its leader, wasn't the face of the business and was incredibly successful, is Nike. Phil Knight is an incredible leader, incredible entrepreneur. But for most people around the world, they've never heard of Phil Knight. If I say the name Phil Knight, they have no idea who I'm talking about. He made Nike a lifestyle brand. He made Nike have a whole meaning on its own. And he also made other people, his sponsored athletes, whether it's Michael Jordan or Barry Bond. And he also let other people be their spokespeople, their sponsored athletes. Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, all these people. And for the most part, you really didn't know who was behind Nike unless you kind of dug a little on their site. If you're interested in learning more about Nike, I can't recommend this book enough. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. One of the best business books I've read ever. Period. Pick it up and you'll know what I'm talking about. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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