A personal brand isn't what you think it is.
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Hey, Reader! Last week I soft-launched something I've been quietly building for months. The Personal Brand Visibility Scorecard. I sent it to this list first. No fanfare. No countdown. Just - here it is, tell me what you think. And you did. The responses I got back were everything I needed to hear. People landing on results that felt uncomfortably accurate. People saying "how did it know?" Women surprised to discover the thing they thought was their problem wasn't their problem at all. That last one? That's the whole point of it. Because most of us are solving the wrong problem. And we don't know it until something holds up a mirror. More on that in a moment… 3 myths about personal branding I need to bustIf you’ve been hearing all the buzz around building a personal brand, but not quite sure what it means, then let me break it down for you… 1. A personal brand is not your logo. It's not your colour palette. It's not your Instagram aesthetic.I've spoken to women with 15, 20, 25 years of professional expertise who are invisible online. Not because their Canva templates are wrong. Because nobody — including them — can explain what they actually do in one clear sentence. I asked every single woman I interviewed for this project the same question: "Can you tell me what you do?" Not one of them could answer it cleanly. Not in one sentence anyway. And some of them had been running their businesses for years. A personal brand is the clarity that sits underneath all the visuals. It's knowing who you are, who you serve, what makes you different, and being able to say it out loud without hedging, over-explaining, or apologising for yourself. Get that right first. Everything else is decoration. 2. Your corporate background is not baggage. It's the brand.Every woman I interviewed dismissed at least one part of their professional history as irrelevant, too corporate, or something to move past. Twenty-six years in pharma. Fifteen years in the NHS. Eight years running a publishing consultancy. All of it minimised. All of it treated like a liability rather than the extraordinary foundation it actually is. I call it superpower blindness. You're so close to your own experience you can't see how rare it is. Here's how to reframe it: the women you want to work with don't want someone who figured it out last year. They want someone who's lived it. Your decades of experience aren't the problem. They're the differentiator. 3. You don't have a content problem. You have a messaging problem. This one is the big one. 100% of the women I interviewed said they needed help with content strategy or social media. And I get it, that's what it feels like from the inside. But when we dug deeper? Every single one of them couldn't articulate their offer clearly. Some couldn't describe their ideal client specifically. Some couldn't say what made them different. You can't content-strategy your way out of a messaging problem. Posting more consistently to a confused message just means more people are confused, more consistently. Clarity first. Content second. Always. 2 things I'm loving right now✦ Got a giveaway? Try Wheel of Names This weekend I was supporting Frekkel with their brand launch and we ran a few giveaways. And we needed something to help us. Wheel of Names is exactly what it sounds like — you add the names, spin the wheel, done. No spreadsheet formulas. No "close your eyes and point." Just a satisfying spin and a winner. Turns out it's useful for way more than giveaways too. Picking which student answers next in a classroom. Randomising who speaks first in a standup. Choosing a loyal customer for a monthly reward. If you ever need to pick someone fairly and make it fun — bookmark this one. ✦ Too many emails? Here's how to clean up your inbox in 3 easy steps. Try Leave Me Alone, a visual mass-unsubscribe tool; do this once and watch your daily volume drop. 1 action to take this weekReady to find out which myth has been holding you back? The Personal Brand Visibility Assessment will tell you in 90 seconds. Five categories. One score. Three possible paths. And a free resource that meets you exactly where you are — not where you think you are. Reply and tell me which result you got. I read every single one. With love & curiosity, Spread the Love. Share with a Friend. |
