Five Inspirational Personal Branding Examples from Agency Owners Across the Globe
OK, I know you’ve probably never woken up thinking, “I must spend today promoting myself”, or “Today, let’s build my own personal brand as agency owner.” Nobody does that, right?!
But in a market where many providers offer exactly the same services, your personal brand is an amazing tool for standing out – in a good way. For sharing your expertise and showing what makes your agency different in a non-douchey way.
That then means you can charge your worth for every project. If you’re wondering why your competitors are being invited to all the cool podcasts and you’re not? And why they get to work with all the fun clients?
If you’re wondering how you can become THE go to person and agency for your dream clients, you need to build your personal brand! So let me inspire you. Personal branding is for everyone, and it works!
I’m going to show you 5 personal branding examples and give you tons of inspiration to help you increase your own visibility as a digital agency founder. I’ll share content and branding from 5 people in the global digital agency space and pinpoint exactly what you can learn from them.
It’s time for you to come out of hiding if you’re the agency founder, because when you do this your agency will stand out amongst its competitors – and you’ll attract more of your well-paying dream clients.
Personal branding examples and what to learn from them
1. Branding legend Corey Dodd – Elk Creative
Corey Dodd designs brand identities and user interfaces with a focus on strategy and customer experience, and he’s the founder of the amazing creative design studio Elk Creative. Correy is super well-loved amongst agency communities! So, what can you learn from his approach?
Well, it’s amazing how he visually links his personal brand website with his agency site. He has similar visual themes running throughout – his colours are blue and yellow and on his personal site he uses them in reverse.
Both sites really complement each other – after all, Corey is the agency founder! I imagine his personal brand values are that he’s super approachable and doesn’t take himself too seriously, so he shows personality in spades.
In the copy he uses plenty of emojis and the text is just so much fun. His About section says I’m your new best friend or sometimes I talk about stuff in front of people – I love it!
His blog section introduces the things that he thinks – it’s brilliant! Building your personal brand is about deciding how you show up for your audience and sharing your expertise in a relatable way. Corey has this nailed – his agency simply must be fun to work with!
When you promote what you do, show personality in spades, it’s OK to have fun with your marketing. Just because you built an agency that works with corporate clients, doesn’t mean that your marketing has to be bland. Infact show who you really are to stand out in a good way. People work with people.
2. London Web Girl – Cheryl Laidlaw’s Personal Branding
Cheryl leans into her niche building websites for her clients in a day, and she’s smashing it on Instagram. You’ve got to check out her account!
So, what can you learn from Cheryl? Pick a niche and you’ll get noticed. Don’t hide behind fancy graphics – you’re the star of the show and so is your team. People want to get to know you!
Let’s face it, website projects can be stressful, so show your clients what it’ll be like to work with you and your team – show up and be visible. And when you pick a niche – as Cheryl has with the building sites in a day offer – you stand out much faster.
3. Community builder Lee Matthew Jackson – Event Engine
Lee’s Agency Trailblazer podcast and Facebook community is super well known, and we also know a lot about him. We’ve never seen him without a baseball cap, he’s a family man and oozes agency tips. And, he’s one of the nicest guys I know!
Lee helps thousands of online agency owners across the world fall back in love with their businesses. His podcast has over 12,000 downloads a month – go and check it out!
Make sure you listen to episode 185 where he and I talk about personal branding. Yes, I’m part of his fan club! And there’s so much you can learn from Lee.
The Secret Sauce to Personal Branding
This is my secret sauce for helping my agency clients unlock what their personal brand stands for, and you’ll be amazed how this gets your creative juices going.
No-one wakes up wanting to market themselves or to develop their personal brand! So, how do you overcome this roadblock?
When I’m working with my Wunderstars coaching clients, I get them to imagine exactly how they don’t want to come across to their audience – we talk about their anti-version. Let’s look at Lee’s anti-version. This is what I imagine Anti Lee would look like!
- Super formal
- Never shares about the realities of running your own agencies as a working parent
- Is super busy
- Has fancy cars
- Goes on exotic holidays
- Obviously he’s never out of a suit… or off his phone – he’s just too important for that!
What would your anti-version look like?
What can you learn from Lee as an agency owner? Be you – people work with agencies because they want that personal touch.
Don’t hide behind a corporate mask and sound like everyone else.
If you love wearing baseball caps – no need to change that – you can still attract your dream clients. Lee tells us in this IGTV interview how he landed one of his biggest agency deals doing just that.
Another learning from Lee’s personal brand: his branding travels well across different platforms, from events, podcasts to his Facebook community. Even when he’s on stage, you get the real Lee.
Choose a platform you truly love to build your influence and audience. For Lee, it’s podcasting, but you can do this too! This vlog on how to attract dream clients by sharing your stories will help you.
4. Personal Branding from Sales Champion Victoria Fleming
Victoria is the face of her software sales consultancy Buzztastic – she works with the tech sector. When you go to her website you’re hit with energy through the choice of photos, design and tone of voice.
Victoria oozes approachability and energy, and this is exactly how she shows up in her videos and in her talks. And, this is what her clients get when they work with her.
If you want a more traditional sales trainer, she’s not your woman, but she specialises in helping SaaS companies, so this is perfect for her crowd. What you can learn from this?
Even if you have a team around you, don’t be afraid to make yourself the star of the show, people want to get to know the person behind the brand.
This is especially important in markets where many people and website agencies offer a similar service – this is such a brilliant marketing opportunity.
Another thing I love – she’s completely herself. She leans into her qualities – this makes it easy to keep up across her content. When you consider how to shape your own personal brand to build your influence, build it around the real you.
5. Content Marketing Legend Kim Doyal
Before you think personal branding can only be done if you’re a complete extrovert and love sharing pictures of yourself, I want to show you my fifth amazing personal branding example with real grit: Kim Doyal.
What you can learn from Kim is that it’s absolutely fine to transition your personal brand as your focus changes. Kim started off as a WordPress chick when she launched her personal brand in 2018, and she’s constantly evolving it.
She helps busy entrepreneurs focus on the right things to get financial freedom. Kim plans to move to Costa Rica and her content planner and courses are super popular.
Her understated, down to earth style works. What you see is what you get – no flashy photos or designs in sight. It’s OK to evolve. Find what you love and simply be brilliant at it.
More inspiration for developing your Personal Brand
If you need some more inspiration, try one of these:
My vlog with a 5-step process for creating a powerful personal brand… from scratch during your next coffee break!
Plus if you’re stuck with ideas for what content to post to show your expertise, get my 30 days of content inspiration for digital agency owners, you’ll never run out of ideas again!
And if you’re ready get the help of a marketing coach for growing your visibility as agency owner, check out my Wunderstars coaching programme.
I love working with digital agency owners so I know how to motivate them to change things so they get better marketing results! Plus I make sure to explore all your WUNDERS! This is what we’ll be uncovering together:
W: Knowing what your why who & where
U: Discovering your uniqueness
N: Nailing your niche
D: Designing your brand identity
E: Executing a plan of action
R: Increasing your revenue
S: Stretching you out of your comfort zone
What are you waiting for? If you’re ready to have a chat, get in touch.
Message me – I’d love to share some quick wins with you! Tell me in the comments below which personal brands have inspired you in the agency world. I can’t wait to add more examples!
