Do you have to show your face to market a service business?

You don't have to be the face of your business personally. It could be anyone on your team. But at Protocol, we put a heavy emphasis on showing the people behind the business. That's an important part of how we approach marketing.

Someone asked me about this during my talk at 1 Million Cups Lincoln: if they didn't want to be personally associated with the business, could they still be a client?

My answer was yes. It could be anyone in the business. The owner doesn't have to be the person people see.

Why I want people to see who's behind the business

I believe there's a trend toward people wanting to see the people behind businesses, and wanting to buy from people rather than just this kind of abstracted brand.

For a service business owner, that matters when you're deciding how much of yourself to put into your marketing. You can keep yourself out of that public role and still let people see someone from your company.

Showing face is a really big, important part of our approach. I wouldn't want someone to come into this thinking we only want a company name and a logo.

Who can take that role if you don't want to?

It could be someone else on your team. My suggestion is to choose someone who's comfortable being visible and can talk about the business and the work.

Before choosing, have that conversation with them. Make sure they actually want the role. The point is to let people see a person behind the company, so it helps to start with someone who's willing to participate.

How we turn a conversation into content

One of the things we do is sit down with you for an hour, record, and ask all types of questions. That gets turned into a ton of content.

I think that's a really important foundational piece. We start with a conversation and what the person actually has to say about the business.

What to consider before working with Protocol

If your concern is being the face personally, someone else in the company can take that role. If you don't want anyone from the business to be visible, that's something to discuss with us before deciding. We have a strong preference for showing face.

At Protocol Text, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, our focus is organic visibility: helping service businesses show up on Google Maps, their website, social media, and AI search without ads. That recorded conversation is a foundation for the content we create.