Personal Branding

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(Excerpt from the book “Entrepreneurship: Starting An Enterprise, Having An Innovation Mindset” by Josiah Go and Chiqui Escareal-Go. Book is officially endorsed by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Go Negosyo and available in all branches of National Book Store and Power Books)

From an investment perspective, entrepreneurs must have integrity as part of their personal branding – – a term used to describe the image of one’s self in the public’s mind from previous choices made that will affect the future level of personal influence, which is part of self-awareness and self-mastery. Like product branding, personal branding creates good or bad brand association based on specific attributes associated with a person.

Having good personal branding will be advantageous as the entrepreneur becomes investable. The Chinese call this “shin diong” (creditworthy). Each success adds, “shin diong” to their personal branding, each wrong move removes “shin diong” from their personal branding.

Before raising funds and as part of your authenticity, ensure that your personal branding must be credit-worthy and funding-worthy. If the entrepreneur has previous loans that were not paid or not paid promptly, if the entrepreneur didn’t pay suppliers promptly and fully without even negotiating with them, if the entrepreneur issued bouncing checks and found nothing wrong with continuing these practices, then raising funds would be difficult. By then, banks and financial institutions would have permanent records of their bounced checks and may have closed their checking account, or word may have gotten around of their non-payment habits as well as their lack of integrity. Consider also some of the bad practices of business partners below where word can go around quickly so these must be avoided.

  • Integrity issue
    • Collection deposited to own account instead of company account
    • Transferring funds from company to personal bank account
    • Charging personal expenses to the company
    • Padding expenses
    • Getting personal commission from company’s deals
    • Intellectual property of the company registered in own name instead of company name while using company funds
    • Borrowing or using lots of money without board approval
    • Creating bogus board resolutions
  • Planning issue
    • No alignment on where to take the business to the next level
    • No alignment on how and when to take corrective action
    • No financial plan for massive expansion
    • Propensity to take unnecessary “short cuts”
  • Priority issue
    • Lack of accountability, acting like they work only for themselves and not considering other partners
    • Not spending enough time in a partnership business while using company resources to build own image publicly
    • Mismanaging internal operations – confusing publicity with good management skills
    • Valuing loyalty over competency in promoting people to key positions
  • Political issue
    • Blaming others as non-supportive to save face while having no remorse
    • Delusional self-image
    • Having a sense of entitlement by hanging on to power and position
    • Changing agenda to avoid discussing real issues

Remember, what each one of us does today is a rehearsal for the future, and things have a way of getting back – – good “karma” for good deeds, bad “karma” for bad deeds. While business partners must be committed to efficiency, effectiveness and impact, they must also watch out for maintaining non-negotiable values that build culture.

One thought on “Personal Branding

  1. Pwede po ba akong maging isang negosyante na isa man akong mangingisda at highschool
    lang po ang natapos ko ? Pangarap ko pong umasenso sa pagiging negosyante ng inyong produkto ba water Philippines. Anu po ba ang dapat ko pong gawin? Sana po pwede ako, salamat at God bless po

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