Developing a Patterm of Entrepreneur's Personal Brand in SMEs Total Brand

Although the Branding literature has focused on large corporations, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)- which are one of the foundations of economic prosperity- have unique features such as the strong role of the entrepreneur that differ their branding process from large corporations. Since SME’s brand is influenced by its entrepreneur and founder [13, 26, 44], entrepreneur’s personal brand, a concept which includes his traits, values and role, is defined here as a key variable and its impact on SME’s brand will be reviewed.The framework is developed from literature review, semi-structured interviews and focus groups, and the results are obtained from questionnaires distributed among entrepreneurial SMEs in Tehran province as the major center for entrepreneurial SMEs and Yazd province as another province known for its competitiveness. The model is analyzed via structural equations model using Lisrel software. The results confirm that entrepreneur’s personal brand affects SME’s total brand, via entrepreneur’s influence.