Developing a strong personal brand as an executive confers a unique advantage in the marketplace. By cultivating your own audience, you can cut through marketing noise, forge a direct connection with buyers and help future-proof your business.

Indeed, as the human face of a brand, business leaders are uniquely positioned to impact public perception, for better or worse. Four out of five people agree that the right content from CEOs positively impacts consumers’ brand perception. Meanwhile, executives with a poor online brand — or none at all — can represent a serious liability to growth and customer acquisition.

An executive’s brand is the sum of many different components: interviews and speeches, published articles, social media content and commentary, online reviews and more. With so much riding on how you are perceived, personal branding is a vital part of your overall leadership strategy. The ROI — in terms of building trust and relationships with customers, employees and other key stakeholders — can be enormous.