How to Make Yourself More Relatable as a Business Owner

Being taken seriously is important when you run a business, but being serious all the time is another matter entirely. Customers, employees, partners, and even potential investors are dealing with a person, not just a company name, job title, or carefully polished LinkedIn profile. Letting them see a little more of the person behind the business can make those relationships feel much more natural.

That doesn’t mean sharing every detail of your life online or trying desperately to appear “authentic.” In fact, forced relatability usually has the opposite effect. The goal is simply to communicate like a human being, show some personality, and give people enough of a sense of who you are that they can connect with you.

Let People See More Than Your Job Title

One of the simplest ways to become more relatable is to stop presenting yourself purely through professional achievements. Reading

about Mike Savage, for example, gives you his

business background as CEO of 1-800 Accountant, but his wider online presence also touches on personal interests ranging from cars and technology to architecture and koi. That broader picture makes a business leader feel more like a person with genuine interests rather than simply a name attached to a company.

You don’t need an unusual hobby or a fascinating personal story to do the same thing. The point is that people have interests, experiences, opinions, and motivations outside work, and occasionally allowing those things into your professional presence can make you much easier to connect with. Perhaps you love running, cooking, travel, gaming, books, DIY, or spending weekends coaching a local sports team. You don’t have to turn any of these things into your “personal brand.” Mentioning them naturally is often enough.

Tell the Story Behind the Business

People are usually more interested in how a business came to exist than its official corporate history. There is a big difference between saying, “Our company was founded in 2018 to provide innovative solutions,” and explaining what actually happened. Maybe you spotted a frustrating problem in your previous job. Perhaps you started working from your kitchen table, made plenty of mistakes, and gradually found a better way of doing something.

Those details give people something to relate to, so share the moments that shaped the business, including some of the uncertainty involved. You can talk about your first customer, an early setback, a decision that changed the company’s direction, or the moment you realized the idea might actually work.

You do not have to turn every story into an inspirational tale of overcoming adversity. Sometimes the ordinary details are the most interesting because they sound like real life rather than marketing copy.

Talk Like an Actual Person

Business language has an impressive ability to make simple ideas sound unnecessarily complicated. You are not “leveraging cross-functional synergies.” You’re getting two teams to work together. You probably aren’t “facilitating a strategic realignment of resources” either. You’re moving people or money to where they’re needed.

Clear, natural language makes a business owner much easier to understand and, as a result, easier to relate to. This matters particularly on social media, in videos, newsletters, presentations, and interviews. If your everyday speaking voice is warm and straightforward, but every post suddenly sounds as though it has been approved by six lawyers and a corporate communications department, people will notice the gap. Professional doesn’t have to mean stiff. You can be knowledgeable without sounding distant.

Admit That You Don’t Know Everything

Running a business does not magically provide the answer to every question. Being willing to say “I don’t know” can actually strengthen credibility when it is followed by a willingness to find out. The same applies to mistakes. If something went wrong, acknowledging it and explaining what changed as a result can be far more convincing than pretending everything has always gone perfectly.

This is especially useful when communicating with employees. Leaders who feel they must always have the answer can unintentionally discourage other people from speaking honestly. If the owner can admit uncertainty, ask questions, and change their mind when presented with better information, it becomes easier for everyone else to contribute. There is confidence in being comfortable enough to say you are still learning.

Show Up Where Your Customers Are

Relatability is difficult to build from a distance. Depending on your business, that might mean spending time on social media, attending industry events, visiting stores or worksites, joining community events, responding to comments, or simply speaking to customers regularly.

You don’t need to be available 24 hours a day. Boundaries are healthy, particularly as a company grows. But there is value in making sure customers occasionally hear directly from the person behind the business.

Share the Work in Progress

Businesses tend to show the finished product. Customers see the new website, successful launch, renovated office, big contract, finished product, or celebratory team photograph.

What they rarely see is what happened before it. Showing a little of that process can make your business much more interesting.

Perhaps a new product went through 15 versions before everyone was happy with it. Maybe the team spent an afternoon debating packaging. Perhaps you completely changed your mind about an idea after testing it with customers. Behind-the-scenes content works because it removes some of the polish without undermining professionalism. It shows that good work involves experimentation, decisions, revisions, and occasionally getting things wrong.

Just be sensible about what you share. Commercially sensitive information, employee privacy, customer data, and internal disagreements do not need to become content.

Give Credit Generously

A business owner who talks as though every success happened because of them can become difficult to relate to very quickly. Talk about the people who contribute. Celebrate employees who have done excellent work. Mention the colleague who came up with the idea. Thank customers who provided useful feedback. Recognize suppliers, partners, mentors, and other people who helped the business develop.

This isn’t false modesty. Business is collaborative. Giving credit also tells people something useful about your leadership style. It suggests that you notice other people’s contributions rather than viewing the company purely as an extension of yourself. And when something goes wrong, avoid doing the reverse by publicly finding someone else to blame. Taking responsibility where appropriate says far more about a leader than taking all the credit when things go well.

Have Opinions Without Manufacturing Controversy

You are allowed to have a point of view. In fact, having thoughtful opinions about your industry can make you far more interesting than somebody who only repeats safe corporate statements. Talk about trends you find useful, common practices you think could be improved, or lessons you’ve learned from experience.

The trick is not confusing personality with provocation. Some business owners discover that controversial posts receive attention and start chasing that reaction. Attention is not necessarily trust. If every opinion appears designed to start an argument, the audience may remember the controversy more than the business.

You don’t need to be deliberately bland, either. A considered perspective backed by experience can demonstrate expertise while still sounding personal.

Don’t Try Too Hard to Be Relatable

There is a slightly strange paradox here: the harder somebody tries to look relatable, the less relatable they can become. Customers can usually tell when a supposedly spontaneous video has been through numerous takes or when a “personal” story exists mainly to funnel readers

toward a product. Not every post needs a lesson. Not every hobby needs to become content, and you certainly don’t need to copy whatever style of personal branding happens to be popular this month. Choose what you are comfortable sharing and keep the boundaries that make sense for you.

Listen More Than You Speak

Being relatable isn’t entirely about what you reveal about yourself. It also comes from taking an interest in other people. Ask customers what they think. Listen to employees without immediately preparing your response. Pay attention to recurring complaints, questions, and suggestions.

Then demonstrate that you heard them. If customers repeatedly struggle with one part of your service and you improve it, explain what changed. If employees suggest a better process and you adopt it, give them credit. If someone asks a good question online, answer it properly rather than sending a generic response. People tend to feel connected to businesses when they believe the relationship goes both ways.

Listening also keeps you grounded as the company grows. The bigger a business becomes, the easier it is for its owner to become separated from the everyday experiences of customers and employees.