Imagine starting your own company and having people approach you with opportunities to work together, or having a pool of potential customers excited about your product before it hits the market.
It may seem like an unrealistic dream, but it’s not. When people know who you are, what you do, and what you value, it’s easier to make connections that can further your entrepreneurial journey or career.
The key here is personal branding, or making a name for yourself in the public eye. By building a personal brand, you can attract opportunities instead of chasing them.
What is personal branding?
Personal branding refers to the image of yourself that you intentionally show to the world. Your personal brand gives people insight into who you are, by showing what you value and often what makes you different from others.
For professionals and business owners, it’s a tool you use to build public trust, foster valuable connections, and nurture a relationship with your target audience.
It’s important to note that your personal brand doesn’t just appear on its own. It’s something you craft. You communicate your personal brand on your social media profiles, by how you appear in person, and in the work you do.
Personal brand vs. business brand
Your personal brand is the identity you create and present to the world in a compelling way, while your business’s brand refers to the associations your company has in consumers’ minds.
A business’s brand is built with the help of visual elements like logos and color schemes, while a personal brand depends more on what you say and do. While they may have common elements, they’re two different things.
You may lead or work for several different companies during your career. Your personal brand is what you take with you when you leave a company. The business’s brand stays with the company, even when new team members or leaders come in.
This is one of the reasons it’s essential to think about your personal brand, not just your company. Creating a public identity that aligns with your most important values and highlights your capabilities can make it easier to advance your career, whether you’re looking for a promotion or finding funding for your startup.
The importance of building a personal brand
Crafting a personal brand gives you a competitive advantage, whether you’re an entrepreneur starting a new venture or an employee looking to further your career. Your personal brand makes you more memorable. Not to mention, when people associate you with certain skills and values, it can bring more opportunities your way.
If you’re at the beginning of your personal brand journey, it may feel overwhelming. Since your brand is unique to you, there’s no universal map that’s going to give you a clear path to finding yours.
Personal branding is a journey, and your brand can evolve as you do. But if you want some inspiration, here are 20 motivational quotes that demonstrate the power of a personal brand and can point you in the right direction.
Top personal branding quotes
- “Establish your brand on positive attributes like ‘making meaning,’ ‘doing good,’ ‘changing the world,’ and ‘making people happy’ — not doing in your competition. Think about it: When was the last time you bought a product to hurt a company’s competition?”
—Guy Kawasaki, author, branding expert, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, in his article “The Art of Branding” - “The only brand you can sustain is the one that is authentic to you.”
—Dan Schawbel, author of Back to Human, Promote Yourself, and Me 2.0, on his personal website - “If you love gardening or you love to cook or you love interior design, show your followers. It gives them a better sense of who you are. It shows all these facets of your personality.”
—Eva Chen, VP of fashion at Meta, in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar - “Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semipermanent Google records. Going on a date? Chances are that your ‘blind’ date has Googled your name. Going to a job interview? Ditto.”
—Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek, in his article “Tips for Personal Branding in the Digital Age: Google Insurance, Cache-Flow, and More…” - “The most important lesson I can share about brand marketing is this: You definitely, certainly, and surely don’t have enough time and money to build a brand for everyone. You can’t. Don’t try. Be specific.”
—Seth Godin, business author, in his book This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See - “A personal brand is your promise to the marketplace and the world. Since everyone makes a promise to the world, one does not have a choice of having or not having a personal brand. Everyone has one.”
—Tom Peters, business author, in his article “What a ‘Personal Brand’ Is Not” - “There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice.”
—Michelle Obama, author and former first lady, in her book Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice - “Personality will build stronger connections with people than any amount of professional knowledge or expertise.”
—Krista Neher, author, speaker, and CEO of Boot Camp Digital, in her article “How To Stay Authentic in Defining Your Personality in Branding” - “The things that make us different — those are our superpowers.”
—Lena Waithe, actor, producer, and screenwriter, in her Emmy Awards acceptance speech - “To become more successful, you don’t have to change who you are. You have to become more of who you are. Your personality has a built-in specialty. It’s how you do what you do — and how you do it differently than everyone else. This is your highest value.”
—Sally Hogshead, author and speaker, in an interview with fellow author and speaker Simon Mainwaring - “I never define myself by net worth. I always try to define myself by my values.”
—Howard Schultz, author and former chairman and CEO of Starbucks, in an interview with The Guardian - “The best strategy for building a personal brand is to be 100% ‘you,’ without watering down your personality in any way.”
—Gary Vaynerchuk, author, entrepreneur, and speaker, in his article “15 Tips on How To Brand Yourself Online” - “There are three main factors to consider in the process of creating your brand: 1) Connection with your niche, 2) A shared worldview with your audience, and 3) That you be trusted as a source of information.”
—Jason Hartman, entrepreneur, speaker, and author, in his article “Podcast Your Passion” - “Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable, and trustable.”
—John Jantsch, business author and marketing consultant, in his article “The Definition of Branding” - “Create an ‘About Me’ Page — Tell people about who you are, and most importantly, how you will help them.”
—Chris Ducker, entrepreneur and expert business mentor, in his article “What Exactly Is Your Brand?” - “People relate to people, and if your brand feels like people, they’ll relate to you, too.”
—Laura Busche, author of Lean Branding, in her article “Discover Your Brand’s Voice: A Brand Personality Exercise for Entrepreneurs” - “No one will follow you if you don’t know where you are going.”
—Jack Trout, advertising executive, in a presentation at the AirTime 500 Fall Expo - “Personal branding is about working on your personal style, positioning, and being unique to create a valued brand. This can help you to build your reputation as an expert in your field and to develop trusting relationships with your target market.”
—Kim Garst, author and speaker, in her article “Why Personal Branding?” - “Saying, ‘These are my values, this is what I care about,’ has really drawn the kind of people that I’ve wanted to work with and has given me a sense of purpose in my life.”
—Jonah Sachs, author, designer, and entrepreneur, in an interview with The Growth Faculty - “Brand is much more than identity — a name, a logotype, fonts and colors — and more than communication, such as advertising. Brand is character.”
—Jon Iwata, executive fellow at the Yale School of Management and former chief brand officer at IBM, in an interview with the Yale School of Management
The ultimate personal branding lesson
All the people quoted here may have vastly different personal brands, but they do have one thing in common: They learned how to be themselves.
If there’s one thing to take away from this list, it’s that you have to stop trying to be like everyone else if you want to brand yourself. Personal branding demands commitment to understanding what makes you unique and what matters most. Your personality, skills, and values are the foundational elements of a great brand that represents who you are.
Once you know the core of who you are, you can align your public image with your brand’s story. In doing so, you’ll naturally attract opportunities and connect with others who share your values.
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