Personal branding doesn't need to be icky

Marketing yourself doesn't have to be gross. Here's how to create and promote work you care about.

A friend recently said on the phone, as we discussed Substack and writing: “you're one of the best people I know at marketing yourself.” It was a nice compliment to receive — and something I don’t necessarily think about myself. I just get my head down and do my thing (and have been for a while now). “Please do a post about it,” she asked. So here I am. This is a guide all about marketing yourself online and building a semblance of an online “brand” (and I’ll dig into my relationship with that word later on.)

I am a writer at heart, first and foremost— but there is a reason I love coaching people and have Seth Godin marketing books on my bedside table nestled amongst the novels: I really enjoy the art of getting work out there. I love the Ted Talk strapline “ideas worth spreading”. The spreading of good ideas is how we change the world— there’s no point keeping them in a dusty drawer. I love looking at something objectively and coming up with ways in which it can be easier to digest, ingest and enjoy. I guess, in short, I love that feeling of helping someone figure something out.

Another friend came to me recently, saying she detests self-promotion and marketing herself but understands it is part of the puzzle of running your own business. We had a longer chat and a bit of a coaching session. The tools and ideas session always comes later — first, we had to peel back some layers in understanding her resistance. For her it was a mixture of lack of confidence and direction, the fear of being too visible, and a fear of failure. By the end of the session, prompted by questions, she came up with some tiny steps: she realized she needed to do less, and integrate more. Simplify her website, streamline everything (she was on way too many platforms), return to her core values, make a manageable plan of action for posting and find simple ways to enjoy connecting with people again. Since, her business has picked up, she’s been able to take some time off and she feels excited again.

I’ve been doing this work for almost fifteen years at this point so I know the art of the pivot while staying true to my values. I’ve also worked with some of the biggest marketing agencies in the world (both in my past life as an executive working with global brands and as a client myself with my face being the “brand” on the roster.) I’ve got so much to say on the idea of “the personal brand” right now plus some actually useful tips I’ve picked up along the way — and how I often rebel against all of it.

I find coaching people such a joy. Something I’ve come to realise during so many of these sessions is that many of us actually try way too hard. We overthink things. The most successful memorable people or brands often have the simplest logos and the simplest message and keep at it for years because they believe in it. They do a thing, and they do it well.

In 2015, writer Ann Friedman wrote a wonderful (slightly tongue-in-cheek) piece about the quest to build a personal brand. Back then, it was all the rage, companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and American Express were offering employees “personal brand training” and it was around the time of the GirlBoss. We knew in 2015 where the jobs market was heading — and fast forward to now we’re in such a changing economy which has led to many more side hustles, start-ups, digital experimentation and many people having multiple income streams.

I wrote The Multi-Hyphen Method in 2017 because I could see this also: I noticed pretty much everyone I met (e.g. a taxi driver, an accountant at a wedding, a friend working in a corporation etc) had secret lil side projects! Work and productivity culture was bumming people out — and whether it was for work or a hobby, people were starting up their own passion-based Insta account, newsletters, Etsy page, interiors website or just trying something new. We might not all want to build a ‘personal brand’ — but knowing how to connect online to spread our ideas now feels like a useful basic skill to have. It can also keep our joy alive. Marketing ourselves doesn’t have to be gross — it can allow many of us to work more freely, have better CVs, launch a small business, get book deals, reach more people, receive better opportunities, move jobs more easily and make our interests work for us.

In this piece, I’ve listed below the key things I know about building a brand and marketing yourself. This isn’t something you can ever ‘complete’ by the way. My “brand”, for example, is always shifting because we are always evolving.

Take what might be useful, ignore the rest.

So let’s get into it. Here we go: