If you’ve ever felt the pressure to be the face of your business, constantly creating content, sharing your life, and putting yourself out there, this episode is for you.
We dig into the personal brand vs. logo-led brand debate and the bigger question behind it: What kind of business do you actually want to build? A small business that is built around you or a small business that is able to stand on its own?
Because building a personal brand isn't just a marketing decision, it's a business and lifestyle decision, too.
Chelsea (00:08) Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast, where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business, we don't mean SOB.
Vivian (00:19) Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea (00:39) Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work.
Vivian (00:50) And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Hear ye, hear ye. Chelsea, I imagine ourselves traveling back in time and talking about the separation, not of church and state, but of personal branding and small businesses.
Chelsea (01:10) okay. no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I'm rolling with ya. I understand your reference. That works for me. I just think y'all she gets more and more creative each time with these intros.
Vivian (01:21) I thought you were gonna say I get more and more crazy the older I get, both true.
Chelsea (01:25) Both I was gonna I mean both are true, absolutely.
Vivian (01:28) Yes.
So Chels, why don't you see if they can't gather from that introduction what we're talking about today, what conversation are we gonna have and why is it important to the people?
Chelsea (01:39) Yes. So today we are talking about the separation between our personal lives and our professional lives in the sense of your small business, does it have to be about you? Where do we separate ourselves and the actual business?
Vivian (02:00) Yeah,
and I think, Chelsea, I kind of want to put an exclamation mark here to say this is actually a pretty big decision as far as how you structure your business, right? And the reason we want to have the conversation now is because we do understand that while you can always pivot, it is kind of hard to reverse at times, okay? And so if you are currently in that state or if you have actually thought
Maybe I can grow my business by turn by being the face of my business, right? Like ha having it be a personal brand. There are just some things that we want you to navigate and think about before you jump, like, you know, I I was gonna say head first, but I hopefully you're not diving in head first to anything. Yeah.
Chelsea (02:48) Okay. I mean unless you're like an Olympic diver.
Vivian (02:51) I mean true.
Chelsea (02:52) Okay. So all you Olympic diver small businesses, keep listening. Yes. Before we get started, I want to explain why we are talking about this specifically from my point of view. I have noticed a trend
Of a lot of small business owners being very candid and honest about what's going on in their personal lives. Yeah. There is nothing wrong with that. If you want to share with your followers that you're getting divorced or that you're struggling on, you know, the back end of things and maybe your business isn't doing as well as you would like it to be doing. And you're being honest about that with your target audience, I mean, that's fine. That is up to you. As a small business owner, you are not
required to do that. You don't have to be that candid with your audience. And that's a big part of why I want to have this conversation today.
Vivian (03:47) That's definitely something that's interesting is you always hear the other part of it, which is people are kind of encouraging you to share more and more and more, right? So that line does become very blurry, but I do like the fact that you are giving us permission to say, Hey, if you don't want to talk about your personal life and you don't want this to be a personal brand, that's okay too. Yeah. There can be a separation there. And we're not in the business of telling you guys what to do. We are here to support
you in being able to navigate those tough conversations. Yeah.
Chelsea (04:21) Absolutely. Okay, Vivian. I have my Is it time? It is time. My beep beep beep the marketing hot take. my marketing hot take this week is not really a hot take, personally. Okay. It's I am a very private person and I find it very hard sometimes to share my private life in our like small business branding.
though it's gotten significantly easier. I mean you guys know all about Tim and stuff like that, but for me I'm just a very private person. So I think I appreciate this conversation a lot. And I think small business owners, if you're also very private people, this conversation's for you.
Vivian (05:08) Yeah. You mean you appreciate the fact that it doesn't have to be you don't have to follow what other people are doing. Yeah if they're becoming if they're oversharing. And I use that term loosely because, you know, oversharing to one is not oversharing to someone else. Me, on the other hand, I think for me it sometimes I'm an oversharer in the to the extent where like if I'm just carrying on a conversation with someone, I have a tendency of wanting to like
relate to them. And so if they've just told me a story that's like really sad or really tough, I wanna
Chelsea (05:44) You're just gonna trauma dump on it?
Vivian (05:46) No, I want to it's almost like a little peace offering. They bring me this thing, they've given me this little gift and I feel like I have to give them a little gift back in return. So I tell them a little story or something. And it it's weird that in my mind that's the way communication works. It's like you're sharing something very candid, very personal, and then therefore I feel like I have to share something personal too.
Chelsea (06:09) I mean Vivian also has this t Vivian is much better with people than I am. I've gotten better over the years, but like Vivian wants to ask all these questions. I have a really hard time of asking people questions because I just I don't feel like sharing. And so I don't want you to share either.
Let's move on, Vivian. Let's get started with this actual conversation.
Vivian (06:39) Chelsea, can we take a moment to clarify maybe the conversation today, when we talk about like oversharing and stuff like that, what we're talking about are businesses that are kind of focused on using their personal brand, like building a personal brand. So can you kind of give us a little like context around, all right, I have a small business. I have two options, right? So either I could be a logoed business, which is what?
Chelsea (07:06) Yeah, so as a business, you can be like a like a logo
Vivian (07:11) Logo.
Chelsea (07:12) logo logo to cent logoed centric branding. Sure. And that's gonna be your business and it its branding stands on its own. There is no face right in the branding. Like sure, you're like the owner and you could mention it every now and then, but the main focus is gonna be your logo.
and your colors and your fonts and your brand voice, stuff like that. Yeah. The other direction is a personal brand. So as a small business, yes, I might have like a name for my business, but at the end of the day, it is my voice. It is my face. It is my branding that you see.
Vivian (07:57) Right. So like if you take the example of a bakery, so the bakery itself could stand on its own or I can decide to make the bakery a personal brand, but then it becomes about the baker itself, right? So it becomes about the person that's actually making the items. You can have both simultaneously. A lot of people do one or the other. And there is no right or wrong. It's just dependent on what works best for you. Yeah.
Chelsea (08:25) This is I think the best way to visually see this is for artists or like jewelry makers do this a lot. You will either see a jewelry business that focuses on the name, or you'll see a jewelry jewelry business that focuses on the creator. And
Vivian (08:47) Sure, yeah.
Chelsea (08:49) part of the reason why this conversation is so important is because
When you decide which direction you want to go in, when you make that distinction, that changes your marketing. And you need to be cognizant of am I a personal brand or am I a logo to brand?
Vivian (09:07) Absolutely.
Chelsea (09:07) Small businesses I think have a bigger problem with this because one, you're a small business, you're not like a corporate brand. But two, you are extremely invested.
And what's going on in your small business. Sure. And because of your investment of your time, your effort, all of that, it starts to blur the lines between your personal and your professional life. Which again, nothing wrong with that. But if you want to keep those things separate, you need to lay down some ground rules. You need to make sure that you're actually keeping it separate.
This conversation, Vivian, can also be a little confusing because, you know, as marketers who focus on small businesses, something that we say a lot to you guys as SOBs is to share your story. Yeah. Because that can be a powerful tool for small businesses. But when we say share your story, that doesn't mean you have to become your small business.
Vivian (10:10) Right. It could very simply just be the origins of how your business came to be or where you got the idea for the product or service, or you know, something that because we do understand that storytelling has a way of tapping into people's emotions and being able to quickly make that connection with people. So you can still leverage that without having to make it your whole personal brand. Yes. This episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast is brought to you by.
The SOB community. If you're a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted money and time on marketing help that didn't deliver, or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's skool.com/sob.
So I actually wrote down a few pros and cons, okay, to get you this. And it's very short and sweet, nothing riveting. I mean, you guys could figure this out.
okay so
Chelsea (11:29) It sounded like you said rivet in very
Vivian (11:33) Okay.
Pros of let's say having your personal brand, right? As opposed to like a logoed business where it's more focused on just the business and service, right? if you turn this into a personal brand, you do have a tendency of connecting with people faster, okay? Kind of like what we were just saying about the storytelling. people tend to trust.
people more than they trust like a business, right? So once you kind of introduce being not like a spokesperson, but introduce that component, I think it it does draw an instant connection there or it just does it a lot quicker. And the other thing is you can pretty much sell anything, you guys. It doesn't matter if you are the brand, okay? You can sell
you know, chicken wings, you can sell barbecue sauce, you can sell I mean, eyelashes, like you can turn around and just like pivot as much as you want. So it's much less about maybe the product and service and way more about your influence, right? Yeah. So
Chelsea (12:38) what
you're saying is it's easier for you to pivot when it's a personal brand. Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, it's whatever you feel like that's
Vivian (12:48) Because
you're the one that has the connection with the people and therefore they value your input in your recommendation, right? And so when you start selling a new service or a new product, they're more likely to at least listen and give consideration to that new service or product. Okay.
Chelsea (13:06) I love that.
Vivian (13:07) Yeah. The other one in the last one is
You're unique, so literally nobody can copy you, right? There's not another Chelsea Lily Mojica out there. Like there's just one of you.
Chelsea (13:18) It really just gave my full government name.
Vivian (13:22) Would you guys like her social security as well?
Chelsea (13:25) Five
five five five five five. I wonder if someone has like a five five five five five five five five five.
Vivian (13:32) If
so, they're gonna sue me 'cause I just gave their social security number out. the cons to having a personal brand, you know, you're irreplaceable, which means that you know, clients if you're in a service-based industry, sure, clients may not wanna work with your team. They just may want to work with you directly because you're the person that they're
You know, they signed on. Yeah, they're focused on they signed up for the person that brought them in and kind of sold them on this thing. The other thing is that you're constantly on, meaning, as we all know, you could get a little burnt out, okay, from being perfect.
Chelsea (14:13) Right.
I don't know what Vivian is on today. I'm loving it but
Vivian (14:18) I
just had my first two sips of coffee and I'm digging it. Okay. but it so you do have a higher risk of just running yourself into the ground and and being tired. the other thing is it's risky. Listen, boo boo. If you are prone to saying inappropriate stuff, you may not want to do a personal brand, okay? Because you just gotta get canceled real, real fast and
Chelsea (14:47) I'm gonna push back on
Vivian (14:49) Okay.
Chelsea (14:50) to an extent. To to an extent. If you're gonna create a personal brand and you wanna be loud and proud about what you're about, do it. Just know you're creating a very niche target audience.
Vivian (15:04) Yeah, and I guess maybe what what I wanna say about that is it's risky because a personal mishap can or issue can actually hurt your business.
Chelsea (15:13) Yeah. So I I don't have an actual like a real life this is not a real life example, but this is an example. Let's say you're your personal, you're the face of your business, you're the personal brand, and you get, I don't know, divorced. And for some reason people are very upset about you getting divorced. Wild behavior.
Vivian (15:38) in twenty twenty six, y'all get over it. I know people have been married like four or five times, which is insane. I mean maybe you shouldn't get married anymore.
Chelsea (15:47) okay, maybe that's
Vivian (15:48) That's a game.
Chelsea (15:50) that's what it is. That's gonna be my example. Maybe this is your fifth marriage and so people like Vivian are like, Boo, what are you doing?
Vivian (15:59) No that's Okay, I take that back, listen. That was very insensitive of me to say. We only live one life. And so, you know, maybe five husbands in, like, that's you know, that's your prerogative. I love you. I'm not paying your bills, so it doesn't matter what I say.
Chelsea (16:18) Okay, so Vivian's trying to not get canceled right now, but I'm trying to give my example, which is her first reaction could be someone's reaction. Sure. Because you are the face of the business, it could impact your sales, which is ridiculous. I get that. It also is the way of the world. Yeah. So that that is just one of the cons for if you are a personal brand. Going back to being constantly on
I think now in this day and age, we are moving away from that. And a lot of small business owners are being a lot more candid about what's going on in their lives. Sure. Which I love. And which again is the reason why we're having this conversation. If you want to be very upfront and transparent, that's the word I was looking for. And transparent about what's going on with your audience.
I love that for you. But you don't have to do that.
Vivian (17:19) Right. And and the other one, the last one I have is that and this is probably my biggest sticking point. Okay. people build businesses or have small businesses for very different reasons. Okay. If you wanted to build a small business that eventually one day you would sell to somebody and you would get some type of revenue from it, right? Because you've built it over the years.
It's a good solid business. It has good income coming in. And so therefore, you're able to go and sell the business to someone else that gives you like, you know, $500, $250 for it. If you have a personal brand, it's not sellable, right? Because it's you. You're the personal brand. And so that is one of the biggest things that I think you need to think about as you're kind of navigating and deciding.
Do I want to have a personal brand or do I want to be more of a logoed business where it's not, you know, I can still show up, but I'm not the brand. Yes.
Chelsea (18:24) Let's answer the question how separate should my personal life and my business be? Mm-hmm. y'all
Vivian (18:33) Let me guess what you're gonna say.
Chelsea (18:34) no right or wrong answer. It's whatever you feel comfortable with. You can always change your mind. You can always make a new clear line. Just know it's gonna be effort to pivot.
Vivian (18:50) And there are examples of a ton of people that have done this is maybe they started out on social media. They weren't really thinking about building a business, but instead they started building a personal brand and then they wanted to launch the business and the the logoed business part of it, they're like that needs to be able to be fully functional on its own, regardless of like how present I am. Yeah. You know, in showing up and in representing it. And so to your point, you can pivot. Like I I started the conversation by saying
It's hard to do and and it can be. Yeah. It's gonna be work. I think you you have to think of it ahead of time and actually do things in a way where it's like a domino effect, right? You have to have everything kind of planned out on how you're gonna transition that.
Chelsea (19:36) I feel like a lot of these celebrities create these makeup brands, but they do a pretty good job of keeping them separate. Like it can stand on its own. Of course, they're gonna do like Selena Gomez is gonna do advertising for it, but it's still very separate.
Vivian (19:54) Absolutely. And there is a sweet spot to it. So you don't have to pick one or the other. Remember, we said there are some people that do both. it it just it's also work, okay? To have both things. You're dividing your time into being the personal brand and also the you know, the business owner for the logo business part of it. But the one that I was thinking of as soon as you said Selena Gomez too is the Kardashians, Kim Kardashian with Spanx or not Spanx, Kim Kardashian with
Skims.
Chelsea (20:26) Sure.
Vivian (20:26) Yeah. And so it's like a bra, underwear is all that stuff. Okay. But
Chelsea (20:31) Lingerie?
Vivian (20:32) no. Well, yeah, maybe I don't know. No. I think it's just stuff you wear under your clothing, maybe. Okay.
Chelsea (20:38) Okay.
Vivian (20:39) So, but Skims stands on its own. Yes.
Chelsea (20:44) Yes.
Vivian (20:44) Right. Obviously, if Kim does like a campaign for it, it's gonna have a push on it and probably sales. I'm sure they have it figured out by, you know, how
How many times they can multiply sales by her like getting on there and talking about it, promoting it. But to your point, the business stands on its own, even though she is kind of like the personal brand with it. Yeah.
Chelsea (21:08) Or you could think of it in the sense that she has her own personal brand. She is not constantly talking about no skims. Correct. She is doing other things and building her own personal brand and it's
Vivian (21:21) Separate.
Chelsea (21:22) It's separate. It's kinda together but also separate. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's talk about as a small business owner, you're thinking, What do I want to do? How do I wanna keep this separate? Set clear boundaries. And these boundaries are gonna have to be both mental and physical.
Vivian (21:44) Yeah.
Chelsea (21:44) Yeah. So what do I mean by mental and physical? Have a separate workspace.
And specific work hours. Don't let that bleed into like if you're gonna go past it, don't. So you're
Vivian (22:00) trying to keep it trying to keep it organized so that way it's it's easier for you to compartmentalize maybe right
Chelsea (22:08) Yeah, thank you for clearing up what I'm trying to say. Set very specific, like actual boundaries. These are my work hours. This is where I do my work. Nothing else is gonna be in this space. That sort of thing. you could separate your devices. That can help. That might be a little difficult, but if you can, like maybe you have a tablet, only use the tablet for personal use. Right. Try to do stuff like that. Think about whether you want to be like the actual
face of your business or if you're just gonna be a person in the background. Another great thing to think about, Vivian, are you sharing the people in your lives? So are you sharing your friends and your family? Right.
Vivian (22:51) Right.
Chelsea (22:52) That's a great distinction to make because once you start sharing like people in your life, that's when you really start to blur the lines from personal and professional. Sure.
Vivian (23:02) Sure, sure.
Chelsea (23:03) And this whole conversation we're having because
When you decide where you want to keep that line, when you decide whether you want to be a personal or a logoed brand, that changes your marketing.
Vivian (23:19) It does. It changes the content. It changes the way maybe that you're sharing the product or service. And maybe even like it changes the mission of the of the business a little bit, right? The messaging, yeah.
Chelsea (23:34) I was gonna say the messaging Yeah.
The way that you talk to your target audience changes when you're a personal brand.
Vivian (23:44) Absolutely. Mm-hmm.
Chelsea (23:45) I want to point out though, your branding may not be personal, but it should still be clear and personable.
Vivian (23:56) Right.
Chelsea (23:56) Yeah. Okay. So
It may not be like, this is who I am personally, but you still need to try to connect with your target audience. Yeah.
Vivian (24:06) I think the the difference in approach, and you guys have probably seen this done effectively so well, just in various examples. The difference is gonna be for one, the how much access maybe you give people to insight into your life, like what to what you're doing. I will say that even within a personal brand, when you were talking about the expectations and stuff, even if you decide
I want to have a personal brand and that's how I'm gonna approach this. You can still set expectations and boundaries with it, right? So like maybe you don't ever talk about your marriage, maybe you don't ever talk about your family, but maybe your personal brand is like I I like following someone on Facebook who she's a artist and her whole thing is she's an artist and she's teaching you at the very beginner level how to create these really cool like
paintings and stuff and she's launched a business from it but her personal brand I don't know where she lives who she's married to I don't know if she has kids or not it's all focused on her experience as an artist how long she's been doing it you know the types of products that she uses and everything and so she still has very clear boundaries around the way she's showing up even though she is
Chelsea (25:32) The brand. The brand. Yeah. Yeah.
Vivian (25:35) The key message that we want you to leave with today is there is no right or wrong way to do this, okay? Sure. Really, it's about your comfort level. We want you to thr to think through those pros and cons that we stated earlier. But other than that, you guys can figure out there are different variations to the way you can do a personal brand and the way that you could do a logoed business brand, right? So
Decide which one works best for you and never forget you can always change it down the road.
Chelsea (26:05) Absolutely. Yeah, we with a little work. With a little work. Yeah. We just want you guys to sit down and have this conversation with yourself. Yeah. Because when you're very clear about what you're willing to do, that helps you be very clear in your marketing.
Vivian (26:21) And because nowadays in twenty twenty six, I don't know how many of you out there, I mean, maybe besides me, feel like you're being bullied into creating a personal brand, but that's what it kind of feels like. It's like, you know, they the expectation is there that as a small business owner, everyone thinks that maybe you should be the face of the brand. Not the case. I mean, you guys do what works best for you and what you're building a business for. And like I said, the there could be very good reason not
Yeah. To have a personal brand, especially if if you're like Chelsea here and you don't like people and you know No, I I mean that's not gonna end well. I w
Chelsea (27:01) To be here to help you guys think through your marketing. I do not want to be here to tell you guys about my daily life. You don't want to know. It's not interesting, and I don't feel the need to share it. But marketing, I will talk about marketing with you guys all day long.
Vivian (27:21) All day long.
Chelsea (27:22) That's what we're here to do. I love it.
Vivian (27:24) Okay. And since we are here to talk about marketing all day long, we invite you to spend all day long with us. And what we would love for you to do is go and listen to all of our previous episodes because now we are bumping up against 200? Almost
Chelsea (27:41) that's
Vivian (27:42) episodes. Yep. So we have plenty for you to listen through various topics. If anything, we just want to remind you that.
Our conversations are always very candid and hopefully they're different than what you hear in other marketing podcasts. we want to
Chelsea (27:57) Buzzwords.
Vivian (27:58) Yeah, we wanna keep the conversation real all the time and also make it okay for everyone to understand like marketing changes, businesses change, people change. It's all right to, you know change. To change. Yeah.
Chelsea (28:11) Absolutely. make sure you're following. Leave us a review, pretty pretty please. That helps us get in front of other small businesses, other SOBs, and go be the best SOB you can be.