Everyone’s talking about personal branding. “You should build your personal brand,” they say. It’s the hottest thing. But when something becomes the hottest thing, it’s often already oversaturated. And when everyone is doing it, how unique can it really be?
Let me be clear: I’m not dismissing the value of a personal brand. It has its place. What I’m questioning is the method. You’ve seen it—the weekly selfie with a life story on LinkedIn. Tuesday rolls around, and it’s time for an inspirational post. Wednesday? Maybe a motivational quote. The advice to be “consistent” and to have a “content calendar” is preached like gospel.
But here’s the truth: most of it is noise. People don’t care about you as much as you think they do. The majority are just scrolling, half paying attention, and moving on to the next post. That’s the reality.
So, where does that leave you? Personal branding is OK—once you’ve built a credible business with a steady revenue stream. The mistake is in thinking that your personal brand should come first, before everything else. That’s where so many get it wrong.
Focus on finding product-market fit (or service-market fit). That’s what matters. Find paying customers who value what you offer. That’s where your energy should go. Your personal brand won’t pay the bills; satisfied customers will. Once you’ve got that foundation, then you can think about how you present yourself online. But don’t let the allure of LinkedIn fame distract you from what’s really important: building a business that works.
This rush to build a personal brand is putting the cart before the horse. If you’re spending more time curating your LinkedIn posts than talking to customers, you’re doing it backwards.
Get the basics right first. Build something real, something that people actually want to pay for. Then, if you still want to, you can work on your personal brand. By then, you’ll have something truly valuable to share—and people might actually start to care.