What's more important? Your personal brand or company brand? What happens when you put them together?

Since starting my company 3 and half years ago, I have learned many important lessons – few are more significant than the following:

I’ve learned that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is just as important, if not more important, than the brand of the company he or she is building.  In fact, they are inseparable, especially in early-stage startups.

You may be able to debate this statement and claim that a strong company brand should transcend any one person’s brand.  You could even point out that most can’t name the founders of many great companies.  Also, you may be able to say that if the entrepreneur’s personal brand is as strong as or stronger than the company brand, it will be difficult for the entrepreneur to one day separate themselves from the company through sale or retirement.  These are all valid points – but I am going to explain why, especially in early stage start-ups, that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is tremendously important for the success of the company and establishment and longevity of the company brand.

People Buy From a Person, Not a Company

As we go through the painstaking task of finding and hiring a solid group of sales reps for Sand Shack’s products, I have to constantly remind myself that no matter how good our products are, store owners buy from the salesperson, not the company – therefore, it is important to make sure that the people we hire are friendly and likable.  And although I love the products my company sells, I have been told multiple times by some of my larger accounts that they buy from me because they like me, and that if I get somebody to replace me as their sales rep they may not buy from Sand Shack anymore!  Because an entrepreneur is usually the company’s most prominent spokesperson or salesperson, it is important that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is likable – because a company’s early success is based largely on people buying into the entrepreneur, not the company (especially for companies with less than innovative products).

Your Personal Brand Attracts and Retains Talent

It may be difficult to attract and retain talent when you are a small company, and it is even harder if you have a crappy personal brand.  Luckily, if you have a solid personal brand you are much more likely to attract and retain top talent without having to offer them a high salary.  In fact, attracting and retaining top talent is one of the most important things your personal brand can accomplish.  I have been lucky enough to hire and work with a group of very talented people, and although they may read this I will still say that I believe one of the main reasons I have been able to attract them to Sand Shack and not have to pay them too much is that they respect and admire my personal brand (enough bragging already ☺).

The Company Brand and Culture Reflects Your Personal Brand

Just as your personal brand influences your employees, your personal brand is what shapes your company’s culture and brand.  Many times, an entrepreneur’s company has a mission, culture, and brand that is a replica of their own personality.  For instance, Sand Shack’s mission is to protect and conserve our world’s oceans – this is something I am very passionate about.  Growing up, I studied and raised countless species of fishes and at one point had over 30 fish tanks in my room.  Sand Shack has allowed me to leverage and express my love and desire to protect the oceans by organizing and hosting ocean conservation events in addition to donating 5% of our proceeds to the movement.  This mission is not only having a positive impact on our environment, it is shaping the Sand Shack brand – and increasing business due to the associated ‘goodness’ the mission entails.  But the Sand Shack brand would not be associated with this cause had it not been for my personal interests.

The Media Focuses on the Entrepreneur’s Story More Than the Company Story

Any press coverage Sand Shack has received has begun with my story.  My favorite story lead about Sand Shack goes, “He’s the Jacque Cousteau of the fashion world…” This illustrates the importance of my personal brand in relation to the company brand. The press has deemed my story a more appropriate focus for their articles than my company brand.  Reason being? People like to read about people – we would much rather read human-interest stories as apposed to faceless stories about a company.  The lesson I’ve learned from this that you are more likely to get press attention by pitching your personal brand and story than you would by pitching your company’s brand or story.

To wrap things up, I’d like to write a few sentences for those of you who may not know my company or me.

I started Sand Shack after my freshman year in college in 2006 and have since grown it into the most prominent ocean-friendly fashion company in the United States.  Sand Shack products are sold in nearly 200 stores across 25 states.  As for my personal brand, it is growing just as fast, if not faster than the Sand Shack brand.  Recently, I have been able to leverage my skill sets and position myself as a leader in the blue movement, gaining media attention and speaking gigs across the east coast.  As a result of the growth my personal brand has experienced, my company brand has experienced residual growth.  But the catch is that my personal brand relies on the success of my company brand and my company’s brand largely relies on the success of my personal brand.

If you’re an entrepreneur, what have you learned about personal branding through entrepreneurship?

If you don’t know much about the main company I run, check out my company website sandshack.com. Also, consider reading my About page.

Sand Shack's logo

My main point in writing this entry was just to give you a quick update on the progress I have made with Sand Shack in recent months despite being faced with possibly the worst economy I will ever have to live through.

The progress that I have made is an accomplishment I am fairly proud of.

Sand Shack products can now be found in 22 states across the United States in over 125 stores.

The milestone was getting into over 20 states nationwide.  The last time I counted Sand Shack products were in 12 states.  And although I crossed this milestone a few weeks ago it wasn’t until a few minutes ago that I actually counted all my accounts and realized this.

As the US has 50 states, my products can almost be found in half of the country!

If you see Sand Shack products this summer be sure to let me know.

So that’s it! That’s all I want to say!

I know I shouldn’t be dilluting my energy and focus on to other projects but I have really fallen in love with the idea of creating a website where entrepreneurs can go on a daily basis and read short, to the point tips on starting and growing a business.  Hence the idea for dailyentrepreneurtip.com was born in my head a few months ago, and for the past few weeks I have been putting together a site that will officially launch in March.

Dailyentrepreneurtip.com is my new website about entrepreneurship

Here is the about page from my new website:

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Daily Entrepreneur Tip – a blog with short daily tips in 150 words or less on entrepreneurship.

How many times have you read to the end a long article only to realize that the main point could have been written in one paragraph?  If this hasn’t happened to you, you don’t read enough.

The truth is, the internet is full of fluff, wasted words, written by inexperienced computer nerds whose only hope is to create a website that will make them money.  Well, you’re here because you are too busy to be reading online fluff, after all, you are, or you want to be, an entrepreneur. Smart move.

Daily Entrepreneur Tip is a website dedicated to saving you time by providing you with content rich posts in 150 words or less.  Each post contains only one lesson and are written by real entrepreneurs running real companies.

______________________

What I need from you all is for you to go to the site and critique it (come back here and post something in the comment section) before it is officially launched mid-March.  Also, if you visit the page, Tip Us Off, I would love to get a tip written by some of the entrepreneurs that frequent this site.

If you write a detailed critique (about 150 words) and tell me what you like and what you think could be improved I will send you (via email) a $5 gift certificate to sandshack.com.  I would also love it if you all subscribed to the new site via email or RSS…who knows, maybe I’ll send you something more for that!

So let me know what you think, and if you have a tip, let me know! Just be sure to ‘tip me off’, not tick me off. heh.

After watching sales of jewelry on sandshack.com explode over the course of a couple hours this afternoon I decided I had to write a quick entry on it before the day is done.

As you may know, today I started a huge marketing campaign to boost traffic to and sales on sandshack.com.  Sand Shack’s main stream of revenue is through our wholesale channels and we have never put the time and energy we should into making our retail website successful.  In fact, over the last few months we only took a few orders over it.

That all changed today.  Since 4 o’clock this evening we have taken over 40 orders on SandShack.com, and although all of the orders have used the $5 gift cards we issued today, there have been enough orders that exceeded the $5 discount, which allows us to still make a little money.  But this promotion is not so much to make money but to drive traffic to our site and generate new customers.  So far it has worked and we are only at the beginning.

Check out the below order confirmations from 4:30pm – 6:30pm today.

Sales should continue, but I don't know if they will continue at this pace

For information on this campaign click here. Please feel free to participate in this campaign by using the gift card code on sandshack.com and buying something nice for yourself.

I’ll keep you updated on the success of this promotion. I will also post on what I learn from all this, so that you can do something similar if you so please.  There is so much to learn from this experience.

Sand Shack's Blue Lobster Logo. A blue lobster is extremely rare in nature.

Sand Shack’s logo is a blue lobster. They are a 1 in 2,000,000 occurrence in nature. Therefore, it is a symbol of how rare a company Sand Shack is and how our products are superior to other companies’ products. Furthermore, it symbolizes the rare elements of the ocean that the Sand Shack is dedicated to protect. This is not to say that we all don’t love eating lobster, but without finding a balance between use and protection of the ocean, we would lose the opportunity to see such a rare creature as seen in the below video, and we would also miss the opportunity to enjoy seafood, scuba diving, and sushi.

In essence, Sand Shack is not about being overly protective of the oceans and beaches, but finding a balance between what we take and what we give back. We take pearls and some shell for our jewelry we sell, but we give 5% of the proceeds back to go towards ocean conservation.

Now enjoy the video of our mascot. Ain’t he cute?

Part 3 of Brianlinton.com’s Series for Entrepreneurial Success | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 |

As if we don’t have enough new words that have spawned out of the Internet, I have created a new one, ‘blag’.

Before I go on and explain how the word ‘blag’ fits into Brianlinton.com’s Series for Entrepreneurial Success I must first apologize to my British readers for stealing one of their slang words, or so Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary tells me.

“Blag, n. robbery or theft, often a con or a scam; used in British slang”

So anyhow, Brits aside, I have a new, modern, definition for the word ‘blag’.

Blag v. Tasteful bragging about various accomplishments or skills through the use of a blog. n. A blog used to leverage an entrepreneurs accomplishments and credentials, building their personal brand and promoting their company.

Don't be afraid to tell people what you are good at

Blag is a cross between blog and brag, and it is when a person uses a personal blog to showcase his or her accomplishments or credentials in a certain field. But blagging does not carry the same negative connotation as bragging does; by blagging you help create your online image and personal brand. By approaching blagging carefully, you can promote yourself, garner respect in a certain field, and indirectly promote your business.

The importance of business blogging has increased tremendously in recent years. Many people become viewed as a professional or expert on a certain topic because of their blog. Also, the majority of businesses with websites also have a blog, which they use to better connect with their customers through frequent updates and online discussions. The blog has become an integral part of online business and commerce, and its importance will only continue to grow. Blagging is common in business blogs. For entrepreneurs and businesses, blagging is an important part of their blog.

Entrepreneurs mostly start blogging to promote themselves and their company and indirectly generate revenue from their online activities. These entrepreneurs know that in order to be viewed as an expert in their area of business they must showcase their various accomplishments and abilities in their blog. In this way, even if their blog does not generate a dime in advertisement revenue, the results of their blagging may generate a significant amount of income for their business, and the entrepreneur may even be able to generate additional personal income from being invited to paid speaking events or the publication of a book. A blag is one way an entrepreneur can successfully leverage their accomplishments and generate revenue from them.

Not convinced about blagging? Follow the below four points and you’ll be blagging like a pro and see your personal brand improve and your businesses bottom line grow.

Blagging 101

1. Blag tastefully – Nobody wants to hear you brag about yourself

2. Allow a blag to also be informative – showcase your accomplishments and talents, but at the same time teach people how they can do it too.

3. Don’t blag all the time – Just like in conversation, you know when it is the right time to talk about yourself; same goes for blagging

4. Start a blog so you can keep track of all your accomplishments and knowledge in blag format – You’ll be happy you did.

So will ‘blag’ become a household word like ‘blog’, probably not. But what do you think? Are there any blaggers reading this now? If so, comment and tell us a little bit about how you blag.

| Part 1: Have a Great Personal Story | Part 2: Be Serial at a Young Age | Part 3: Blag About Yourself | Part 4: Live What You Sell | Part 5: Be the Nicest Person Your Customers Know | Part 6: Always Ask For Business | Part 7: Always Seek Great PR | Part 8: Get People Talking About You and Your Company | Part 9: Sell Something you are Passionate about and can Easily Get |

Temple University and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute (IEI) have been so good to me.  In this months issue (October) of Entrepreneur magazine the IEI ran an ad for their business school with a photo of me and Sand Shack and Kofi Coffee products.  And not only did they put my picture and name in the ad, but also brianlinton.com and sandshack.com.

So, if you saw me in Entrepreneur magazine and found yourself here due to that ad, please feel free to subscribe to this blog.  I have only been doing this for a little over a month, but I am sure you will find some things of use here.  Plus, if you subscribe, I sometimes send out digital gift certificates for my companies that you can use to get things for free online at sandshack.com (a nice perk with Christmas around the corner).

And although Temple University paid for this ad, this is another example of free PR that has recently come my way.  As a young entrepreneur it is so important to get free PR.  If you are a young entrepreneur, or an aspiring young entrepreneur, realize you make a good story that people want to tell.  Go to your school and tell them what you are doing, go to your local newspaper and tell them about yourself, and enter competitions that will help you promote yourself and your unique position as a young entrepreneur.  And even if you aren’t young, as an entrepreneur you still have a unique story that media outlets may be interested in, so go to them and pitch yourself…sell yourself, and they will sell you and your company in a (hopefully) positive light.

A screenshot of the article on startupnation.com

I recently had the opportunity to revise and rewrite some of my recent articles on brianlinton.com for an article that was published on StartupNation.com.  If you are not familiar with StartupNation, it is a leading website on entrepreneurship. Check out their website and also check out the article that I wrote that was published there.  Here is the link, and if you don’t want to use it you can just read the article below it.   Either way, it is the same article.

When I first started Sand Shack three years ago I was determined to succeed.  I read piles of books on business and I was sure I had it down.  I found a product I knew I could easily get and thought I could easily sell.  Because I grew up overseas, I knew I could buy beach-style jewelry in Thailand and sell it for a mark-up in the United States.  I prepared everything I thought I needed.  I created a name that was catchy, easy to remember, and reflected the product I was selling.  I made business cards, product labels, and formed an LLC.  And then I hit the streets of Cape Cod, product in hand and not a clue as to what I was doing.  I didn’t make a sale that day. I lacked experience and confidence.  I went into countless stores, and all the owners were very kind and encouraging, but none of them bought.  I didn’t know what I was doing; I still had a lot to learn.

I didn’t make a sale on my first day because I was inexperienced and not confident enough in my product or myself, and buyers could see that in me.  However, I was still motivated to succeed, and therefore, the next day I went out again.  I worked the streets so hard that day; I must have walked miles and miles in search of that first account.  And then, when it seemed like I had failed again, I walked into a surf shop on the main street of a small Cape Cod town and made my first sale.  Needless to say it was the best feeling in the world.  After that moment I had the confidence I needed to establish over 100 Sand Shack accounts across 12 states, and create a company that would help put me through college and buy my first house.

Below are some of the things I have learned as a young entrepreneur since I began Sand Shack three years ago.

Sell Things Close to Home

The biggest mistake an entrepreneur can make is to choose to sell a product they know nothing about or have no passion for.  Just because selling a product can make you money does not mean that it is the right product for you to sell.   It is so important to sell something you are truly passionate about, because if you aren’t passionate, your customers will know and your business will suffer.

So when you are choosing what your company will sell, take note to the following steps.   Following these three simple steps will not guarantee your success, success will be based upon your merit to sell what you chose, however, following these steps will ensure that you enjoy, and are passionate about, what you are selling.

1. Decide what you are passionate about. What do you love?

2. Find out what product or service you can easily offer.  What can you offer that is already close to home?

3. Research the market for the items you have chosen.  Can you make money offering these products or services?

Think Big

Always think big.  Set a high sales target for you to reach in one day.  When I tell myself I need to make over $2000 in one day, I will usually make it.  But if I don’t have a goal, if I don’t think big, and sit around my house, my companies don’t grow.  So, set yourself a goal for tomorrow and exceed it.

Don’t Make Excuses

If you need to do something, don’t make excuses that inhibit you from doing it.  For instance, when I have a sales meeting with a customer I don’t simply go home after the meeting is done.  There is an unlimited amount of possible customers for Sand Shack’s jewelry, hats, belts, or flip-flops.  You will be surprised at how much you can fit into a day if you don’t make excuses.

Always Seek Great PR

Nothing lifts you up more than a positive story about you or your company.  If you are a young entrepreneur there are plenty of media outlets that would love to broadcast your story to the masses.  Visit the offices of your local newspaper or write to a magazine that might share interest in your story, introduce yourself and give them a compelling reason to write a story about you and your company.  Recently, my companies and I were featured on the front page of the business section in the local newspaper’s Sunday Times.  It not only made me feel great about myself and what I am doing, it brought in more business.

Get Smarter

I’m sure the readers of this article are all smart; you wouldn’t have read to this point if you weren’t.  The reason you are reading this is because you want to get smarter!  Never be content with your current amount of knowledge.  The more you know, the more comfortable you will be when doing business.  Expand your knowledge of not only the focus of your business, but of everything.  Right now you are expanding your knowledge and getting my insights into how I do business.

Obviously, following these steps does not guarantee success, but I believe they all play an important role in an entrepreneur’s life.  More entrepreneurial advice and updates on my company can be found at brianlinton.com.

Please feel free to contact me at brian@sandshack.com