“…This is Person, from Company.”
Becoming your business
Joburgbrew as an entity will be about a year old in a few weeks, and in all that time, no one has ever introduced me as Brett, from Joburgbrew.
I’ve always been known by other social media or older business titles: this is Brett, he used to be at Cerebra/Fleishman with me, this is Brett, the social media dude, this is Brett, he’s with those guys in Maboneng.
But until this morning, no one has actually addressed me by the business that I actually own.
“…This is Brett, from Joburgbrew”
It took me off guard.
I’m sure a lot of people in my circles know that I’m the owner of a eCommerce store that retails craft beer, but they don’t know the brand yet or that I’m associated to it.
The fact that no one has seen me associated to my own business is my own fault, purely out of a soft brand approach I’ve taken with JB, unlike businesses in the past, I’ve been very soft on selling Joburgbrew. I guess I was trying to create a great startup that will sell and talk for itself.
Though,
The fact that more people have seen myself and my company shift symmetrically into the same space I feel is a great accomplishment! For me it says, Brett, you’ve shed your corporate/ employee clothing, you’re being seen as what you are, the entrepreneur behind the future of eCommerce in South Africa: Joburgbrew.
You’re wearing a T-shirt and sneakers, not buttons and a tie.
When it comes to your business, your identity on social media and in your social circles, how are you presented?
My friends at Cerebra once discussed the idea of the Social Identity, a digital, slightly altered version of your real-world self. The identity you present to the world online.
More than that though, within your social circles, the people you engage with in the real world regularly, how many know or identify you as the your desired person.
You can change your bio, you can edit your profile picture, you can write blogs on the subject you’re now interested in. But until you actually introduce yourself as such and ensure that those who will tell others about you, talk about you in the right topic, you’re still going to be Sue from Sanlam or Steve from Absa.
This takes time, it’s not something that is just going to be “announced”, we’re not all Gareth Cliff. It’s taken me almost a year to get my bouncing entrepreneurial groove back, and still, it’s only just begun to show identifiable results and give emotional satisfaction.
Decide on what you want to be, and be that, don’t skirt around it, no one at the end of the day is going to care which approach you take, soft or hard, one way or another.
If you don’t know right now, that’s FINE!
But make a decision on one of the things you’d like to try, execute, or you’ll sit in a weird limbo, just surviving.
