As a solopreneur or small business owner, you probably dream of making it big. Truly, who wouldn’t want to be up there with the big names such as Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, and so on? But of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day, so it’s okay to start small and work your way up to a bigger, better brand.
Personal branding even when expanding
Most brands start out with one idea by a single person. Basically, you start your own brand by learning how to sell yourself and the products or services you offer. You conceptualize your idea, create a plan of action, and then put everything into place.
Butcher, baker and candlestick maker
As a startup, you’re both boss and employee – everything is done by you. You communicate with clients, manage social media accounts, do all the promotional campaigns, answer calls and emails, provide customer service, and so on. Its fun, but it can be exhausting, especially as your small business grows. So you start to consider working with other people to help lighten your load as well as take your business to the next level.
It can be challenging to transition your personal brand to a business brand. The trickiest part is working with other people – you need to begin letting go of some of your responsibilities in order for you to focus more on the things you do best. You need to learn how to delegate, to assign people to the work they can contribute the most to, and let go of some of the control you have over your business.
You need to transition your brand from “me” to “we.” It takes a lot of risk, knowing that you’re handing off some of the reigns over to other people, when you used to be the one holding all the cards.
Preparing for transition
Also, when you start working with other people, these people also start affecting your brand. You’re not the only one who defines your business brand anymore. These people become part of your brand, so what they do also reflects upon you.
The transition from a personal brand to small business brand can be challenging, but as long as you hire and work with people who care about your brand and who agree with your vision, then you can become quite successful in your transition.
Here are last week’s post from your Personal Branding authors:
- 15 Ways to Prepare Your Personal Brand for Startups by The Young Entrepreneur Council
- How To Update Your Personal Brand After Changing Careers by Crystal Washington
- Fear Your High School Reunion! by Nance Rosen
- Create a Stress-Free Work Environment by Ceren Cubukcu
- What to Do When You’re Afraid of Networking by Heather Huhman
- Easily Achieve the Smooth Sale by Elinor Stutz
- 10 Common Personal Branding Mistakes to Avoid by Brian Horn
- How You Answer This ‘Warm-up’ Question May Leave You ‘Out-in-the-Cold’ by Skip Freeman
- For Personal Brands, It’s Self above Service by Maria Elena Duron
- Prepare Yourself to Ask Better Phase Two Questions by Jeff Shuey
- Interacting with Social Influencers Creates Awareness for Your Brand by Susan Gilbert
- Are You Listening? by Leslie Truex
- Don’t Be a “Know It All”: No One Will Hire You! by Beth Kuhel
- 5 Ways to be More Successful Starting Today by Ken Sundheim
- Conferences and Your Career by Marc Miller
