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Old 10-12-2008, 10:13 PM   #2 (permalink)
vangogh
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The decision to brand yourself probably depends a little on your business and your goals. For example you know the IBM brand. Do you know any of the names running the company? You might, but I doubt any are branded particularly well. Does a lack of personal branding hurt IBM? Not at all.

Take another large company, Microsoft. We all know Bill Gates. He has a brand. Did his brand help or hurt Microsoft? Now that he's no longer running Microsoft does his absence change your perception of Microsoft as a company? Probably not, but because Bill Gates does is a brand he can take that brand to a new company.

Take your particular case. Would your business do better because people know Joel Brown or Orion Networks? You're probably better off branding Orion Networks in this case. If you brand your name then you'll have the additional task of making sure your name is tied to the company name.

On the other hand if you brand your name well then you could more seamlessly move between different businesses. You could in theory sell Orion Networks, start a new company and pick up close to where you left off.

I don't think this is one of those things where it's better to brand yourself or your business automatically. Either can result in success. You need to decide which is more important to your business and your future plans. There's also no reason why you can't brand both your own name and your company name, though it's going to be more work to brand two names as opposed to one.
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