Angie Hicks, co-founder and current Chief Customer Officer of Angi, recently appeared on the Problem Solvers podcast and chatted with Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine.
If you own or manage a namesake business, you may relate to the question Angie often hears: Wait…Angie’s a real person?
“Oh yeah, I get that all the time. That is why our marketing team wanted to put me in the commercials many years ago,” Angie says.
As an entrepreneur, it can be tempting to forego being the face of your company, especially if you’re a shy introvert, as Angie describes herself. However, it can also be a useful business tool to make yourself a marketing asset for your company and to learn how to be comfortable in that role.
Here are some of Angie’s key takeaways on the benefits of being a spokesperson for your brand, and finding a balance between your personal life and professional image.
Having a person as the face of your brand makes it easier to connect with customers.
“People like people much more than they like brands,” Angie says. Giving customers a person to associate with your brand allows you to foster a more personal connection.
“It’s hard to build a relationship with a brand. It’s much easier to build a relationship with a person,” adds Feifer.
Take advantage of having a personal face of your brand that customers can connect with by sharing your entrepreneurial story with customers and making that integral to the brand’s legacy.
“That entrepreneurial story is an incredibly powerful story,” Angie says. She emphasizes the importance of being authentic when speaking to her personal experience as co-founder of the business. “There’s no spin on the story, there’s no extra frills.”
Use your personal voice to tell the story of your company in a way that is authentic to you, giving customers an easy way to relate and connect.
Draw a line between the personal and the professional.
Feifer notes that the scariest part of being the face of a brand can be the feeling of exposure.
Feifer and Angie both stress the importance of having a small percentage of your whole personhood that you use to publicly promote your brand. While it’s important to be ready to be recognized at the grocery store as the face of your company, and to interact with customers as that face, you can also choose to keep most aspects of your personal life private and separate from your brand.
Angie emphasizes the importance of preparation and having go-to talking points when interacting with customers or media.
Clearly define your role as a face of the company.
Angie says it’s important to decide on a clear role for yourself as the face of your business.
Angie says she’s not an expert in home improvement herself, but she uses her role to speak with service providers and give a voice to their feedback.
Angie says her position as a public figure for Angi allows her the luxury of having conversations with service providers and using their feedback to make the business better. Having a spokesperson allows you to humanize your brand and gives customers someone they feel comfortable speaking with.
Embracing the role of spokesperson has allowed Angie to foster trust, authenticity, and connection with customers. If you’re the face of your own business, make sure to keep your Angi business profile up to date with your latest project photos and reviews, and continue to engage professionally with homeowners.
To listen to the full podcast episode, click here.
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