Personal Brand > Business Brand

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to pull off? Turning a personal brand into a business brand.

I’ve been able to do it successfully with many of those I’ve mentored. Myself? I’ve failed multiple times. For a few key reasons…

If you don’t remember who I am, I’m Scott Oldford. I mentor, advise and invest in Online Businesses. I write this newsletter when I can’t sleep and I’m procrastinating on other stuff I should do.

So…. moving a personal brand business into being a business brand is tough— if you didn’t know… it is— most of the time it doesn’t happen.

Here’s why:

#1. The amount of connection you will have with a personal brand is much greater than with a business brand.

People connect with people, and due to this, it’s difficult to have someone connect with a business brand.

What does this cause? You’re going to generally have slower growth with a business brand than a personal brand.

#2. This means that when you go from a personal brand to a business brand you end up suffering with your revenue.

Further, in order to have a business without a personal brand, it requires more expenses.

Thus in order to do this you have to prepare for lower revenue, higher expenses and lower growth.

What a wonderful combination.

#3. Most of the time when someone attempts to transfer from a personal brand to a business brand is because they are “on the way out”.

Rarely does someone transition their brand due to the limitations of #1 + #2. So guess what happens?

They do it at the exact time when it is most difficult— because when you transfer from a personal brand to business brand, it’s an entirely different business.

It’s a business, disconnected from you. For someone who hasn’t done this before, it’s generally the first time they are a true business owner and it has a learning curve.

#4. Your product, delivery, and team is now what someone is buying, and it isn’t you.

That means if your product stinks, the company stinks.

See… when you have a personal brand, someone is buying you.

Your energy, your vibe, your outlook—you!

If YOU aren’t there, that means what you sell, has to really work… OH and…

#5. If you aren’t there to sell the thing… that means the company has to sell the product.

The problem with this?

A personal brand allows you to sell by using your energy, vibe, vision and outlook. By doing this, you can “pull” people's awareness levels of the problem up quickly.

Without it? It’s not as easy.

I’m really making a great case for changing your personal brand to a business brand— aren’t I?

As I said, I’ve messed this up multiple times myself and through doing that, I’ve been able to do it successfully for others.

In 2017— I tried, it didn’t work.

In 2019— I tried again, that time it worked worse (though I ended up building an 8-figure company).

And… then I stopped trying to do it.

Instead, I realized an important lesson.

If you’re building your business with your personal brand, you must separate yourself over a long period of time as it fundamentally changes everything about the business.

Instead, I’ve found (through trial and error) that your better exiting your business as a brand through phases that can take 3-5 years— and if done like this, it can be done successfully.

But…. “Scott, if my personal brand is working… why exit?”

There’s a couple core reasons:

#1. Entrepreneurs have a 5-7 year interest pattern. This isn’t always the case, however, most Entrepreneurs I meet cannot do the same thing for more than 5-7 years.

Problem is? When they go into the next thing… if they don’t have this done they blow up the business, instead of selling it.

#2. It allows for an actual exit. I bought a business earlier this year and it had a personal brand directly attached. I would of paid a LOT more if it was doing the same revenue and profit WITHOUT that personal brand.

#3. Entrepreneurs want freedom. Not having to show up and still making money? That’s freedom.

On Thursday, I’m hosting a workshop on lead generation, marketing and sales… everything I’ve learnt from helping 100’s of business scale to 7-figures.

The reason I bring this up is…

LeadCraft is the brand I attempted to turn into it’s own brand back in 2017 and it didn’t work.

See… I stopped talking about funnels, marketing and sales… back then… I felt like I failed at seperating me from the brand… but I only gave it 6 months (my core mistake).

BUT… every business needs effective marketing…

BUT… I know while my brand will keep marketing and sales near and dear to it’s heart… I can’t have the impact that I could having a brand dedicated to it.

So, what am I doing?

Phase #1: I’m launching the workshop I’m doing this week.

Phase #2: I’m launching an intensive for 250 Entrepreneurs who want to go deep with me for 6 months.

Phase #3: We will launch our own funnel, low ticket offer and my intensive will be converted to a group program.

Phase #4: We will launch LeadCraft Mastermind and LeadCraft Live with a few partners.

Phase #5-10: Will depend on the success of the first 4 phases.

I’ll be involved for about 2 years in this model, however, this time, I’m involving 4-5 other marketing experts and influencers.

A band of experts and influencers… instead of a single personal brand— a brand of brands.

Strategically… LeadCraft has the potential to be product “A” in our ecosystem for our customers of our 10+ other business offers.

It ties into our media play and our SaaS play— in many ways, it’s the perfect potential “entry”

Will it work? Or will it have the same fate as back in 2017? I don’t know.

However… my approach for using my personal brand is much like a celebrity uses it when they own the company— in this approach, it has shown to work, if given the right timeline, strategy and approach.

I’ll keep you posted.

BTW… make sure you get in on that workshop… it’s $95 bucks for 3 hours of live training on all my good stuff 🙂 

Click here… 🙂 

-Scott