Why you should be building a Founder-Led Brand as a Female Founder

As the popularity of Personal Branding rises, Founder-Led Branding is a powerful alternative for Female Founders who don't want to publicise their entire life online.

It's 2019 and I'm at my first ever networking event: a backroom of a pub in Middleton. I'm listening to the guest speaker talk about Social Media and using it to market my new business that I only started last week. Whilst scribbling notes in my notebook (new, obviously, can't start a new chapter of my life with an old notebook) she mentioned something that hasn't been able to leave me since:

"Make your Facebook public, that way people can get to know you and your personality."

The reason why it stuck in my head is because it was an immediate "No" as soon as she said it. My life is not for the entire world to peer into, critique or have opinions on. And considering I have kids that's an absolute no-no for me.

Unbeknownst to me, this was the start of my journey towards what I now call today Founder-Led Branding. A way of building a brand identity that is connected to you, without having to expose your entire life.

What is Founder-Led Branding?

Founder-Led Branding is when the identity of a business is influenced by the founder: their story, their vision, their values. Most female-led businesses start this way: they've found a gap in the market or have a cause they want to pursue (Because no one else was doing it) and so their businesses do start down the road of founder-led branding.

But with the noise of the internet, the guru's shouting "Buy my thing to get £10k months!" that brand that was once pivotal to the beginning and growth of the business disappears under a sea of AI, courses and challenges.

Founder-Led Branding cuts through that noise, makes you focus on what you really want and allows you to make the right decisions for your business to get there.

Founder-Led Branding VS Traditional Brand Identity Methods

This is probably a good time to mention that there are other brand identity methods: Personal Branding and Business Branding. Both have their own advantages but for Keppel Leopard Creative, our preferred method has always been Founder-Led.

Personal Branding is currently having a surge in popularity. With the online space getting louder and louder, talking about your services and what it features just doesn't work anymore. Everyone offers the same thing - so now it's about finding what is unique about you and shouting as loud as possible.

Which is fine - unless you're like me and don't like the idea of sharing every minute of your life with complete strangers.

Personal Branding traditionally is for Celebrities. The ones that I saw "papped" going to get groceries in trashy magazines, or appearing in a glossy 2-page spread talking about their life so far. For celebrities, they have an army of help to keep their personal brand looking prestine: agents, PR experts, marketing experts, coaches that help them stay in shape, talk to the media and everything else in between. And security - because even celebrities get tired of always being in the public eye.

For business owners it's unlikely you have access to any of that. And whilst you could do it all yourself the priority is for you to run your business, not try to become the next influencer.

Meanwhile Business Branding focuses purely on the Business. It has it's own story, vision, values and is completely disconnected from the founder. Great for when you've got a team as you merge their vision and values into the business - but if you're a solopreneur it can make the business feel cold (plus, you're forever trying to figure out if you say "we" or "I").

Founder-Led Branding is a combination of the two. It takes the emotive story and vision from the founder, and merges it with the business brand. It means that you're not having to build both a Personal and a Business brand (which is hard work) but you can build them naturally together.

Why is Founder-Led Branding good for Female Founders

Here at Keppel Leopard Creative I've always built Founder-Led brands through my different services. For me it was logical: why build two brands when you can combine them both? They are doing the same job: selling the products and/or services of the business. And for female founders especially building a Founder-Led Brand has significant benefits.

As a female entrepreneur, starting and running a business is significantly more challenging than our male counterparts. First there's the financial side. Only 1% of female-led businesses are successful in winning external funding (Rose Review 2019) so growing our business - or paying for an army of PR and Media experts - is usually out of the question.

Then there's the society side: societally women aren't seen as leaders, we're not seen as being able to run our own business and even more likely to be able to handle money. So before you've even started society is already telling you that you won't be good at it (FYI: we are bloody good at running businesses so keep going!)

Finally there's the network side. Most women leave employment in positions where they haven't been able to create a network. When I was made redundant from my 9-5 I had zero people in my network, this meant going out (or more like waddling out at 7 months pregnant) and building that network from scratch.

With a Founder-Led Brand you are immediately associated with your business. You can use your business journey and your aspirations to emotionally connect with your audience and turn them into clients.

Founder-Led Branding is also 100% based on truth. When I work with clients either on Design in a Day or Brand Intensive, we aren't creating a palatable version of you to present to the world. Instead, we're basing it all on everything who you are, what you do and how you do it.

And for Female founders, knowing that they're not performing online reduces that feeling of being an imposter. How can you be an imposter if you're making none of your achievements and expertise up?

Should you build a Founder-Led Brand?

If you're a female founder who wants to grow her business then you should be building a founder-led brand. And the chances are you already are, it's probably stuck under a plethora of freebies and programmes telling you how you should market your business.

So to start off here are some things to consider when discovering your founder-led brand:

1) Write down your entire business journey from the beginning for where you are now. Don't skip any parts this is at the soul of your Founder-Led Brand.

2) Think about who you want to see you and your brand? What are they like, and why do you connect with them so easily.

3) Imagine your brand walked into a party: what would they be wearing? This will get you to consider the visual side of your brand (design).

And if you get stuck, you can always drop in for a brew.