Creating a brand helps validate who we are as professionals, even if things don’t go well for us. The experience of having a company (and going bankrupt) validates us; they say it’s better to associate with people who have gone bankrupt several times because we hope they have learned from their mistakes. We trust that they won’t make them again. On the other hand, someone without experience doesn’t inspire as much confidence in us and, just as it happens to us, it will happen to our potential partners. Now, how will they know what experience we have if we don’t tell them? You don’t put on your resume – or in your experience – “I created a company in 2010 and it went bankrupt in 2012.” In our society that still feels uncomfortable, although less and less, fortunately.
The story must be told.
Sometimes we create startups that have achieved a certain level of recognition, and that opens doors. Don't you ever feel that when someone is introduced to you and you've already heard something about them, you like them more? It also happens when they introduce us to you, but for that, you have to tell your story. My ventures have not been as recognized as I would like, but when someone knows what I've done (even if it hasn't gone well) there is more confidence, like the smile is bigger when they recognize me for something.
This is the time when some people still recognize me for the TW Awards, even though I haven’t done them for 4 years (as some of you know, I’m going to do them again this year, it’s a personal challenge). But I don’t get recognized as much for the things I’ve done from 2015 onwards, like DecideNow – a platform for listening or data capture on social networks, which I didn’t continue promoting – or Trend House (my Influencer Marketing agency). I do Colombian English , which started out as more of a hobby and makes me laugh, but not many people know it’s mine. Or for the blog in El Tiempo .
Companies come and go, your name stays.
But you don't write about failures on the company blog, first because if you've already failed, why write on the company blog? Second, because the tone of that blog should be (in general) more corporate, more formal. You talk like the company. But on your personal blog (mine is on omargamboa.com ), when you write from the entrepreneur's perspective and not from the company's, you can take liberties that you don't have on the other side. You can tell what you feel, what yo vietnam email address u think, how it went, and what you learned, even if you failed. That generates a lot of trust, that validates.
That's why you have to tell your story and build your personal brand. Companies and brands come and go, but your name will be with you for life.
And if you start to build a good name, the next venture will have a little more support just because of that. You no longer start from scratch in terms of marketing. When you meet a new company, but they tell you "it's from the same guy from Mensajeros Urbanos," you say "oh, that must be good" (by the way, keep an eye on Rafa Socarrás's next ventures).
And how do I build my personal brand?
There are many ways. As my friend Mauricio Jaramillo says , there are no dogmas, no rules or infallible methods. Above all because each case is different. But there are techniques that help guide you through the process. One is to get advice from someone who knows the subject. For example, with me, just casually, hahaha.
I talked about this in the post “ How to create your personal brand? ” And, like everything, you can also learn with Google: There are tons of courses, tutorials and lists of tips.
In conclusion, it is worth creating a personal brand and not focusing only on the commercial one. The commercial one may be bigger than us as individuals, but the personal one will never leave our side.
@OmarGamboa
You can find other articles at omargamboa.com/blog/