It’s also difficult to hand it down to someone or sell it if your name is ingrained in the company.

If this doesn’t concern you, then it is nothing to worry about.

Many gurus teach that people buy from people, therefore it is best to build a persona. I used to believe this too…

Then I realized people buy from places they trust.

If they trust a brand they are just as happy buying from that company as they are an individual. It can just take a little more effort building trust in a company compared to an individual.

With a company brand, someone else can easily take over without upsetting existing customers. This is because the value of the company is not reliant on you being the key individual.

Sometimes a company is excessively tied to a persona…

For example, Apple is a huge company brand, yet the persona of Steve Jobs has taken over the company to such a degree that if something happened to
Steve, Apple could well plummet in the future (as happened in the past when he left for a while).

The same happened for Chrysler with the coming and going of Lee Iacocca. On the other hand, Richard Branson and Bill Gates are prominent front figures. Yet, Virgin and Microsoft as companies are not reliant on either persona to survive as a company.

Yes, Richard and Bill are very much in the public limelight, but their involvement in their companies is seen as separate from their individual selves.

Building trust has to be carried out regardless if you are the brand, or if your company is branded. More on that later too…