Do I Need To Be The Face Of My Brand?

I meet a lot of founders that want to do more to promote their brand but don't want to put themselves "out there". So, the question is, do you need to be the face of your brand in order for it to become successful?

Well, the short answer to that question, is NO. There are plenty of brands that don't have the Founder or CEO at the forefront, look at FashionNova, or Sainsbury's. Now, just because it is possible to succeed as a faceless brand, doesn't mean it is easy. There are some challenges to it that I should probably warn you about. In fact, there are some really strong pros and cons on both sides of the argument.

Truth is, your brand DOES need a face, although it doesn't necessarily have to be yours. So, if you've been battling with this one for a while and you're not sure which direction to go in with your brand. Keep reading.

The Challenges of Not Being The Face of Your Brand and How To Combat Them

Fundraising

So, let's start from the very beginning. When raising funds for your business, if you're not fortunate to have a bank loan, you might want to look into finding investors or crowdfunding. When crowdfunding and pitching to investors, people will pledge when they buy into you as an entrepreneur and not just the idea of your product. People need to believe in your vision but also your ability to see it through. Making the decision to remain unknown will be a roadblock for you in this process, as it will be far more difficult to gain the confidence of those with the money you need to make your dream a reality.

What you can do to combat this is consider the following options:

- Bank loan

- Self funding and/or savings

- Crowdfunding with an ambassador and a lot of PR

I'm not saying you cant find investors without being the face of your brand, of course you can! There are plenty of VCs and Angel investors out there that wont mind this, however, there are a few limits to the extent of support you will be able to gain. Not every pitch has be done on TV like Dragon's Den. But this is a a tricky one and deserves a blog post all on it's own.

Building Trust & Credibility

Once you've launched your business, being the face of your business helps you to build trust with customers. With small, new, unknown brands, customers can be quite sceptical of spending their money and seeing the founder on the platform helps to build trust in the brand's legitimacy. Not only this, but if you, as a founder have credentials and an expert background in your chosen field, you give potential customers confidence in your products and services.

Unlike fundraising, this is an easy one to combat, you can always get a spokesperson on board to be the face of the brand and speak on behalf of your company. Someone with a background in your chosen industry, who is comfortable speaking on your brand's behalf and is able to sell your product.

The Benefits of Not Being The Face Of Your Brand

Pressure

There is a lot of pressure to constantly represent your brand when you are the face of it. If it's a hair brand, you can't be seen without your hair done; or if you're a children's brand, then you can't be found sending out aggressive tweets with curse words. You have an image to maintain that reflect back on your brand and this can certainly add a lot of pressure to you as time goes on. I can understand the temptation to hide away in the shadows and not be the face of your brand.

Privacy

The idea of being on camera all the time and making the behind the scenes of your journey visible can be quite daunting for very private people. I can understand this too. You hear people say that documenting and sharing your journey adds authenticity to your brand and this is very true, but it can definitely be done in a way that doesn't cost you your privacy.

Conclusion

For a lot of people, becoming the face of their brand is the harder option, but when you really think about having to get ambassadors on board, doing tonnes of PR and working twice as hard to make your brand appear approachable and authentic, you might find that it works out a lot easier to just become the face of the brand. This doesn't work for everyone and it is not necessarily the best option for everyone either, but in general, it has a lot of benefits and saves you a lot of extra work.

The bottom line is, your brand needs a face, whether it's you or someone else. Because people buy from people.