Why Your Personal Brand is Your Greatest Business Asset

As someone who started my entrepreneurial journey selling Girl Scout cookies and grew into a true Entreprenista, running multiple seven-figure businesses, I've learned that your personal brand isn't only nice to have – it's essential for business growth. When my co-founder Courtney and I launched Socialfly over a decade ago, we quickly realized that our success came not only from the work we created for our clients, but from how we positioned ourselves as thought leaders, built meaningful relationships and authentically shared our business journey. Over the past decade, we built both our business and personal brand by first and foremost, always consistently showing up and sharing our journey. From social media to writing a book to speaking at events, and getting featured in the press, all of these tactics drove big results for our business. And here’s how we did it...

Building Trust Through Transparency

I'm a firm believer in sharing both the wins and the challenges (or what I like to call, areas of opportunity). Running a business isn't always as glamorous as it looks on Instagram, and being open about that builds real trust. I genuinely love to share as I am able to help other women by  sharing the behind the scenes of bootstrapping Socialfly or managing multiple businesses while being a mom to Mollie while managing a chronic illness. I am able to make authentic connections with like minded women and form even deeper relationships.  People get to know who I am as a person and I am always showing up as my authentic self. How you see me on Instagram or Linkedin is exactly who you will see when you meet me in person.

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The Power of Authentic Connection

Here's something I've learned: business isn't just about your product or service – it's about the connections you create and build. When we started getting daily coffee meeting requests from other women founders wanting to learn from our experience, we knew we had to think bigger to be able to create even more impact. It’s what inspired us to launch the Entreprenista podcast back in 2018. We knew we needed to find a way to help as many women founders have the opportunity to learn from each other, and back then, starting with our podcast was the perfect way to do this.

Creating Your Unique Value Proposition

‍Stand Out Through Story

‍Your story is your superpower. For me, the journey of leaving a corporate job, being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, navigating infertility, enduring a severely complicated pregnancy, and still building successful businesses has shaped not only how I show up but also how I connect with other women. Sharing my story on social media opened doors for even more opportunity to expand my reach. Reporters from Buzzfeed and Healthgrades reached out to feature my journey with MS to inspire and help other women. Similarly, journalists from Inc. and Forbes would consistently reach out to both myself and Courtney consistently for expert insights and features.

By consistently sharing our experiences and positioning ourselves as thought leaders, these incredible opportunities found their way to us. An added bonus of these press features was the boost to our SEO. As a result, our website quickly ranked number one on Google organically for "social media agency”. We also had a content destination on our Socialfly website where we could consistently create our own thought leadership content which also helped to position ourselves as thought leaders, drive traffic to our website which resulted in new clients for our business. 

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‍Share Your Journey

‍Document your growth, your pivots, and your lessons learned. Within six years of launching our first business Socialfly, we grew our agency to become one of Inc. 5000's fastest-growing private companies, but it all started with taking calculated risks and believing in our vision. Even from the early days after leaving our full time jobs to focus on the business full time, we knew on day one we needed to focus on speaking at events and even joined a networking organization which led to us landing lots of our first clients. We always shared what we were working on through social media and through content on our website. People like to do business with people they know, love and trust, and sharing your story and being yourself is one of the best ways to do that. 

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Build Community First

‍Focus on creating genuine connections and providing value. Even from the early days of creating the Entreprenista Podcast, we were always  focused on sharing valuable content. We organically attracted like minded founders to connect on Instagram and subscribe to our email newsletter. Then, in 2021 when we launched  The Entreprenista League. Our community of podcast listeners and Instagram followers at the time immediately began to join the community. Why? Because we had spent years providing value, building trust and asking our Instagram and podcast community how we could provide them with even more value. We created the community for them based on what they were asking for. Always listening to your community is also key! 

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‍Create Multiple Touch Points to connect with your audience

‍ Whether it's through podcasting, speaking engagements, or social media, consistently show up where your audience is. We've reached millions of women through lots of channels, but each interaction stays true to our core mission of empowering women founders.

Leveraging Your Personal Brand for Business Growth

As I always say, just get started. So here’s what you can start doing today to focus on building your personal brand.

1. Start documenting your journey 
2. Share your expertise consistently
3. Focus on building genuine relationships
4. Create content that provides real value
5. Stay authentic to your story

Remember, building a personal brand isn't about being perfect – it's about being real and providing value. When we are able to leverage our personal brands to grow our businesses, we’re able to support our families, hire more people, and create wealth. That's the real power of personal branding – it's not just about you, it's about the impact you can create for others.

And remember,  success isn't built alone. It's built through meaningful connections and collaborations, and your personal brand is the key to making those connections happen.

Want to dive deeper into the strategies and tactics I’ve shared here? Join me inside the Entreprenista League at my next Office Hours and we can talk more one on one!

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