If you think personal branding is only for influencers, think again.
Personal brand building has become one of the most strategic moves you can make for your business. Whether you’re launching a product, growing a service business, or creating opportunities for the future, an intentional personal brand opens doors that traditional business branding simply can’t.
Today I’m breaking down how to build a personal brand that actually makes you money- not someday, but with a foundation that sets you up for revenue right now or in the near future.
The Personal Brand Landscape Right Now
We’re seeing an uptick in founders building personal brands alongside their companies. Female founders are filming day-in-the-life videos, sharing their entrepreneurial journeys in real time, and being transparent about what it actually looks like to build a brand.
And there’s a reason for this shift: the creator economy is here, and attention is the currency of the 21st century.
But attention alone doesn’t build wealth. When your personal brand is clear, compelling, and connected to offers, products, or partnerships, that’s when you can build something sustainable and scalable.
Two Approaches to Personal Brand Building
There’s no single path to building a personal brand. Here are the main approaches I’m seeing work:
Approach 1: Personal Brand First, Then Product/Service
Think Paige DeSorbo from Giggly Squad. She built a strong personal brand (yes, with the help of reality TV), then launched Daphne the Label– which immediately sold out. She didn’t need to introduce herself to the internet because she already had attention and trust around what her product was about.
Approach 2: Business First, Personal Brand Alongside
One of my recent podcast guests, Allison Luvera, co-founded Juliet Wine and is now building her personal brand alongside it. She’s using her voice to deepen connection with her community and talk about being a female founder. I actually discovered her brand through her TikTok content about entrepreneurship.
The order doesn’t matter. What matters is intention, structure, and story.
Step 1: Start With Your Differentiator
Every personal brand needs clarity- not just in what you offer, but why it matters and what sets you apart.
Finding your differentiator as a personal brand is different than finding one for a business. In business, you do competitor analysis and market research. But in personal branding, there’s just you. One and only you.
Here are three questions to pinpoint your differentiator:
What do you want to be known for?
This might sound a little intense, but I once had a mentor ask: What’s going to be on your tombstone when it comes to the legacy you’re building? That answers the same question.
What have you been downplaying?
Often what we downplay can be our strongest asset for a personal brand. Is there something you’ve put to the side because you have doubts around it? There’s usually something really magical there.
What are your skills and story?
What problem-solving methods do you use? What’s your communication style? What background can you leverage and pull from?
This work is hard because it’s very hard to see your own wine label. You know the wine is good, you know it’s complex- but what do you want to put on the label? What are the top notes and the essence?
Let the Data Drive Your Direction
Don’t be afraid to ask your audience what resonates. If you’re already sharing content, what have people responded to? What are they commenting on? What do they want more of?
I recently did this with my evolving personal brand on TikTok. For the longest time, I thought people would care about my brand strategy skills and how I built my business. But what was actually clicking was freedom-type content- camping, traveling, overlanding, being in nature- and my cult story and how I escaped and rebuilt my mindset from scratch.
That’s what people cared about for me. And I know that from views, but more importantly from comments and engagement.
The way you do your work or the way you get to doing the work is your personal brand. And that’s often more interesting to people than tips and facts around your expertise.
Step 2: Build Your Message Around Value and Resonance
Personal brands that make money show up with intention.
Sharing ideas and insights that solve a problem is the best way to start. Do it in a way that’s about you, but helps others.
Here are some examples I’m toying with sharing:
- How I knew I was ready to quit teaching
- Why I stayed when I knew it was time to quit teaching
These are pivot point moments that other people will identify with. Maybe they’re in a position where they’re ready to quit their job. They can pull from my story. It’s still about me, but it’s in a way that helps them.
The Power of Thoughtful Repetition
Once you have some ideas and insights built off your differentiators, think about the thoughtful repetition of those messages.
Show up consistently with a strong message- you’re building authority. You’re saying, “This happened to me,” and offering a takeaway for others to get there with you.
People need to hear things multiple times before they really get it. Maybe it’s not till the third time they hear your message that it hits different. Or maybe it’s the fifth time. People are in different states in their lives and need to hear it in different ways.
Step 3: Make Your Content Part of a Personal Brand System
Content is how people discover you, but systems are how people move from curious to customer, follower, or loyal audience.
That comes with serving before selling.
A personal brand needs:
- A way to capture attention (your visibility- usually through content)
- A way to build trust (value)
- A clear next step (an invitation of some kind)
For a business brand, the invitation is usually to work with you or buy from you. For a personal brand, it could be to work with you, but most likely you’re solving something so specific and personal that also overlaps with what they need.
Maybe you’re helping them find their next hotel. Maybe you’re helping them put really good outfits together. Whatever it is, there should be an invitation for them to take some action.
A Real Example: Building a System That Converts
I recently heard about a creator, Mz Skittlez, who wanted to start partnering with hotels and doing more travel brand partnerships.
To prepare for brand partnerships, she posted content first before the pitch. She shared a video about traveling to 17 countries with her 7-year-old. Then she posted about picking out hotels in Africa and asked her audience if they wanted her to document her trip.
Hundreds of women in her demographic commented saying yes, they wanted to see it. She used those metrics to pitch hotels, showing them her engaged audience and pointing out that one hotel didn’t have any family-friendly content or photos.
She ended up getting a 14-day trip fully covered. That’s serving before pitching- the same concept as serving before selling.
Your content is the breadcrumbs leading to something bigger eventually. It can be tempting to forget about these structures, but if you want to build a foundation that brings in money, having some sort of content system is essential.
Step 4: Do All of This in Public
You don’t need to wait until anything is perfect.
Magnetic personal brands grow visibly. They learn out loud. They bring people along with the journey.
The transparency builds trust and invites your audience to be a full part of the story, not just a spectator of your success.
Building in public is trending right now because it’s what personal brands do naturally. And honestly, I think it’s setting trends in how businesses approach branding too.
Nothing’s going to be perfect. You’ve got to start somewhere and then evolve from there. A personal brand requires even more iterations and evolution than a business brand because you need to put yourself out there in so many forms.
It’s not just launching a website with a service and people booking it. People have to know and trust you on a deep level to take any further action. And that trust is built through showing up consistently and letting people see the real you.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
We are living in a creator economy, and we’re leaning more and more towards it.
A personal brand is essentially a business in the creator economy. The models are so fluid now- personal brands, lifestyle brands, founders who sell services and have personal brands, influencers who launch product lines.
The models have so much freedom and variety, which means the way you approach building a personal brand has freedom and variety too.
Whether you’re starting with your name or building alongside your company, remember that a personal brand highlights your story, your voice, and your perspective. You’re a connector.
If you build it intentionally, share it consistently, and trust that showing up as yourself is one of the most strategic moves you can make, you’re going to set a solid foundation for making money and creating options.
If you have a business you want to exit someday and move into a different space, a personal brand allows that flexibility. And that’s incredibly powerful.
Ready to Build Your Brand With Strategy?
If you’re a designer or creative ready to build a business with intentional brand strategy- whether that’s a personal brand or business brand- I offer 1:1 mentorship through The Creative CEO program. This 8-week mentorship helps you reboot your thinking around your offers, processes, and business structures.
Building a personal brand is one of the most strategic moves you can make in today’s business landscape. Start with your differentiator, build your message around value, create systems that convert, and do it all in public.
The attention you’re building today becomes the opportunities you’ll have tomorrow.
If this helped you think differently about personal branding, share it with another founder who’s ready to build something meaningful!
