This is a YouTube video titled "Personal Brand or Business Brand: Which is best?" created in April 2024. The content is a personal and educational monologue by a single speaker discussing the differences between personal branding and company branding, sharing personal experiences and advice on building a business brand that aligns with one's values and lifestyle goals. The speaker reflects on their journey of embracing authenticity in their online presence and the importance of connection in personal branding.
When it comes to branding your business, there are generally two paths you can take. You could do the personal brand path or the company brand path. And I want to talk about these options because one of the most common questions I get when I'm working with people around their YouTube channel is what do I name my channel? Do I name it my name? Do I name it my business name? And I think this is really going to tie into the answer I generally give people. And it's also a pretty relevant topic for me right now is I'm kind of reevaluating my entire brand, basically. So grab yourself a drink. This is a chill transparency video that I've been doing here every Sunday on my channel. I've got some Trader Joe's Matcha tea. It's cold out today. I've got short sleeves on, so let's dive in. Honestly, the main difference between a company brand and a personal brand is you will be the face of your personal brand. And a company brand is more of like the logo, like Trader Joe's. Right. There's no one person associated to Trader Joe's. It's a company. Right. I honestly believe in the online space, whether you want to be a course creator, you are going to be a coach, a consultant, even if you're going to offer one on one services, you've got to start as a personal brand. And I want to talk about why. If someone is going to buy a course from you, they're going to be watching videos from you, they're going to be dedicating time to listening to you, feeling your vibes, basically learning from you. Right. And they are going to need to like you as a person. Same thing. If you're going to offer coaching, that is a very intimate relationship when it comes to coaching. Like, they're expecting trusting you and they need to understand you're going to be the right person and they can put their trust in you. And just being like a business name isn't going to give them that connection that a lot of people need in 2024 to want to buy from them. And in fact, I think a lot of personal brands have a bit of an edge because I know for me, I'm going to buy from somebody that I can connect to. I know for a fact if a podcast that I listen to of somebody that I love, like Stassi, and she recommends a product like Ouai Hair Products, I'm going to buy Ouai Hair Products. Now, Ouai Hair Products is a company, but Sassy is a personal brand. And if she says that's what she's using. Working on her hair health. I'm going to believe her because I connect with her. This was really hard for me starting in my business because I came from working in the federal government for eight years and I had a master's degree in business. So I came from a very button up, like professional world and I felt I, I needed to be this professional person. But when I got started online, I realized I had to be more personal to kind of break out because I realized people needed to like me and connect with me, to buy from me. So when I started my business almost 10 years ago, I feel like I was in this identity crisis. Basically half of me said no, personal suit, all of that. And the other half of me said no, you've got to be over the top and attention grabbing and basically cringy. So if you want to go on a fun journey, pop on over to my mom channel. In fact, I just had somebody email me, say, I think someone's impersonating you on YouTube. And I was like, nope, that's my first YouTube channel. And you can see how I started. I was very over the top, very cringy. But I thought I had to be this extra thing for people to relate and connect with me for me to break out. And then on my business channel I felt that I needed to be very to the point. And what happened was I didn't really make a connection on either side, either YouTube channel because I wasn't being me, I was trying to play a part and my audience wasn't connecting with me. My audience felt it. And it just took me a long time to feel comfortable in being me, feel comfortable in showing up here as me. That's what I've really been working on as well, showing up here on Sunday videos, trying to just make these like, let's sit down and grab a cup of tea, grab a coffee and let's talk about real issues that we're having in business. So if you do look at those videos, please don't judge me on the cringe factor of those because I would hide those if I wouldn't want you to learn from them as a brand. And like I said, I really think it's going to be important for you to be a personal brand, to see the initial growth in your business. For you to show up as a brand, you have to be you, you have to show up as you, your quirks, your all that other stuff. Right? I know sometimes we can feel like, well, we need it to be professional. I need to make my video perfect, but perfect doesn't make connections. And me tripping over my words, me just trying to share with you a little less scripted, a little bit off the script, so to speak, is going to make you feel more connected to me and let me know in the comments. Are these transparency videos fun for you to watch? Like outside of my educational videos? Are these videos allowing you to have a different way of connecting with me than my typical videos? I will say being online almost 10 years now, starting online when I was 29 and now we're looking 10 years from now. You do the math. I just feel more comfortable being me. I honestly don't care what other people think anymore and I realize I am growing my audience quicker just being me, just letting it all go. So let's get back to where we were on the debate. Personal brand versus Company brand. There is one factor that I would put into play if a company brand is the way you want to go. So if you know you want to build and scale a business that you ultimately sell, obviously it's going to be hard to sell yourself your name, right? And I thought for a while because of all the talk and what I thought the guru says was right was building a company brand that I could sell and I burnt myself out because I hated it. I hated scaling my business and being a manager and was too much pressure for me. Where I'm at right now, I want to be a personal brand. I don't want to sell my business. I love what I do. I love the clients I get to work with every day. I am currently building a lifestyle business, one that I can take a Friday off every Friday. I can go to Europe for a week. I can go on vacation for two weeks. I can decide not to work any day of the week that I want and not have to worry about all the other stuff that I need to do. I want to have a business where I can pay my bills and I can pay my two employees bills as well. And that is it. And that is fine because I think we are crammed so much in our head that we need to grow to seven figures or we're not successful. What do you want in your business? Make your brand what you want. I was just listening to Mariah Causes podcast the other day. She was talking about this as well. Kind of how I got inspired and she said.
