How Building a Strong Personal Brand Can Help Close Deals

Time for a word association game! 

When we say ‘personal brand’ you say…

Influencer? 

Kardashian? 

LinkedIn bro? 

Sure, all of the figures above will have a good personal brand (even the LinkedIn bro, in theory). You can’t have longevity as a famous person without it – but did you know it’s becoming increasingly important for the humble B2B salesperson too? 

Why? Well, social selling is big business these days. In a world where sales cycles are long and attention spans are short, having a personal brand can build trust and credibility, and help you stick in your prospects’ minds before you’ve even had a conversation with them. 

The more a prospect trusts you, and believes you know what you’re doing, the faster you’re going to be able to close a deal. And we all like the sound of that, right? 

If the thought of building a personal brand makes you want to be slightly sick in your mouth, don’t worry. We’re not suggesting you have to build a millions-strong follower count, or start posting absolute waffle for the world and his wife to see. Far from it. This guide’s going to take you through the what, why and how of building a personal brand – in a sustainable, authentic way for people like us. 

Here’s what we’re going to cover: 

• The Role of a Personal Brand in Social Selling
• Building Trust Through a Personal Brand
• Leveraging Personal Brand for High-Quality Referrals
• Becoming a Trusted Authority in Your Space
• Five Ways to Build Your Personal Brand

Ready to get building? Let’s go.

The Role of a Personal Brand in Social Selling

First up – what is social selling? In a nutshell, social selling involves strategically using social media to reach and interact with prospects, with the ultimate aim of driving sales. 

Having a personal brand makes social selling easier from the get-go. Let’s take an example. Sales professional number one – let’s call him Jack – wants to sell you his software. You’ve never seen anything from him on your LinkedIn feed, and he doesn’t even have a profile picture or a byline explaining what he does. 

His sales nemesis, Jill, works at a rival company. You’ve spotted a few of her LinkedIn posts and like what she has to say – you’ve even had a few conversations in the comments sections of groups you’re both in. Her profile clearly shows who she is and what she does. 

Jack and Jill both send you a DM at the same time, asking for a call. Who’s more likely to get your time? 

Exactly. Jill’s made the effort to build some trust and establish a connection before reaching out. You know she’s credible because she’s shared her industry knowledge in her posts – an approach that stands out in a good way from her competitor Jack. Jill gets the sale. Jack continues to struggle through his lead list, wondering why his nemesis gets it so right all.the.time.

Building Trust Through a Personal Brand

Want to talk a little more about building trust through a personal brand? Great – us too 🙂 

Trust is key to any successful sales relationship. Particularly in B2B sales, when you’re asking a prospect to risk their reputation and potentially tens or hundreds of thousands on your product, you need your prospects to have faith in you. 

If your relationship is built on shaky ground, you’re going to have to work ten times as hard to close a deal. Plus, if something happens to make a prospect not trust you, they’re unlikely to be loyal later down the line – when it comes to renewal, or recommending you to a contact, for example. 

How a Personal Brand Helps Cement Trust 

If prospects know who you are, what you’re about and how you think, they’re more likely to believe that your product is a good one. For example, a certain sales tech software (hmm, we can’t quite remember the name 🤔) has a founder with a strong personal brand on LinkedIn. 

From a quick scroll of his feed, prospects know that he’s an ex-salesperson himself, and that he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the ins and outs of the sales role. That automatically makes the prospect trust in his product, as it’s built by someone like them, for them. See what we mean? 

If you regularly post on LinkedIn, you’re also showing up as a consistent, reliable person – just who you yourself would want to buy from, right? The more you can show human elements like these, the more your prospects will relate to you (unless they’re the snakey, unreliable sort themselves).

Leveraging Personal Brand for High-Quality Referrals

Is there anything better than having a lead reach out to you, saying they’ve been referred by a contact? No? Didn’t think so. 

Referrals are a super powerful way of getting high-quality leads. You haven’t had to spend any time prospecting or warming them up – and to some extent, the trust element is already there. After all, you wouldn’t be recommended if you weren’t good – right? Queue a shorter sales cycle and a higher probability of closing. 

Having a strong personal brand makes others more likely to refer you, even if they haven’t bought from you themselves. If your content positions you as the expert in your industry, you’ll stay around in people’s minds – and you never know whether someone within your six degrees of separation might need exactly what you sell. 

Build a strong relationship with this new prospect, and they might go on to refer you to someone else later down the line. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call building a network.

Becoming a Trusted Authority in Your Space

Earlier on we touched on how a personal brand makes prospects trust you as a human being. But that’s not enough to close a sale – after all, your prospects might have faith you’re the loveliest person in the world, but that’s not the same as trusting your industry expertise. 

If you can build authority in your space, you’ll be thought of as the go-to option for solutions. If all that sounds a bit confusing and mysterious, it doesn’t have to be. You can become a trusted authority by sharing valuable insights, engaging with communities and participating in industry conversations. 

By sharing your thoughts and solutions, you’re offering your audience help – and showing them who they can turn to in their time of need (for a product like yours).

Five Ways to Build Your Personal Brand

Ok, we know you’re convinced by now. But what does building a personal brand actually look like in practice? Let’s find out. 

Consistency in Content

Scroll the feed of any LinkedIn bro (you know the type – the ones that have more white space than actual words in their posts, and are selling a course that promises to 50X your LinkedIn followers in 21 days) and they’ll tell you the same thing about being consistent. Wake up at 4 am every morning, read 2 books and run half a marathon before 6 am, then post every 30 minutes until the end of time. Miss a slot, and your engagement WILL suffer – unless you pay someone like them to help you…

We’re happy to tell you that this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s best to be realistic about what you can actually achieve when it comes to posting on LinkedIn – sales professionals are busy people, and we’re sure you’re no different. Aim to post every day, and you’ll only keep it up for a week or 2. Aim to post twice a week and you give yourself a fighting chance of sticking to it. 

There are plenty of tips and tricks you can try to keep yourself on track – we like blocking out the same slot each week to batch write content, to make sure you’re not scrambling for something on the day. 

You also want to maintain a cohesive and professional image across all platforms. There’s no point in posting about your expertise as a seller of multi-thousand-pound products on LinkedIn, but then sharing your not-super-professional weekend activities on Twitter. A good rule of thumb is to imagine that prospects will search for you on every platform out there. Use them wisely. 

Prioritize Value for Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Stuck on what to write? Think about how you can best solve the problems of your target audience. Help them, and you’re instantly providing value. Did someone say instant trust? 

If you need help with how to position yourself as the solver of all your ICP’s problems, talk to your marketing team. They should (obviously) already be your best friend – and nobody’s better placed to show you what messaging’s working, what’s not and what you should post about next. 

Be sincere 

This one’s kind of a given, but we’ll say it anyway. It’s cool to show that you care when it comes to B2B sales. Be flippant or careless in your interactions, and you’ll struggle to build a relationship based on trust and respect. 

We’re sure you’re always perfectly lovely when you’re online anyway – but a quick check of anything you post to make sure the tone is clear to everyone is never a bad idea. 

Utilize Tools for Efficiency

If all of this is sounding like a lot of work, it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of tools you can use to help streamline your processes and personalize your interactions at scale.

One of them is Surfe (hello there!). You can use it to pre-write DM templates, which need just a touch of personalization before they’re good to go, and then sync all these messages with your CRM. By keeping track of every relationship you build, you’re well on your way to making every single prospect feel like the only prospect in the world. 

Bring the Human Touch 

Everyone is automating everything these days. And don’t get us wrong, that’s (mostly) a good thing. Who doesn’t want their systems and workflows sped up? 

It also presents an opportunity for you. Present yourself as a real human being, rather than a mysterious figure clearly using Chat-GPT, and you’ll stand out from everyone around you. Think about your personal brand as the first step to building a personal relationship, and you can’t go wrong. That means empathy and understanding in all communications – no exceptions.

Let’s Wrap It Up! 

There, that wasn’t so scary now, was it? 

All jokes aside, build your personal brand now and you’re building countless opportunities for your future self. The best bit is that it doesn’t have to be difficult, either. Nobody’s going to be better at sharing what you know than you – be professional, helpful, and most importantly yourself, and the prospects will come.

Now, time to go and give the Kardashians a run for their money. Good luck out there!

FAQs About Building a Strong Personal Brand 

Why are B2B sales based on personal selling? 

B2B sales cycles are often long, involve multiple parties and involve tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. The buyer needs to have a certain level of trust to proceed – which is where personal selling comes in, as they’re far more likely to trust another human rather than a faceless brand. To establish trust in yourself and what you sell, you need to be constantly building relationships and working on creating a strong network around you. 

Why is your personal brand so important? 

In the world of B2B sales, your personal brand is important to make your prospects trust you and understand that you are an expert in what you do. Get these two things right – and they’re much more likely to buy from you, and potentially make referrals later down the line. Building a personal brand – so you automatically jump to mind when a prospect thinks of a tool or solution – is a great first step to establishing a strong connection with the people you’re selling to. 

Why is it important to begin establishing your personal brand? 

Now is the right time to begin establishing your personal brand in B2B sales. LinkedIn has 3 million users sharing weekly content – out of over a billion users. In other words, posting content is a surefire way to stand out against your competition, and start establishing yourself as a credible person to buy from. The sooner you start establishing your personal brand, the more opportunities you’ll create for yourself in the future.