[00:00] When I started posting about marketing in 2020, I&nbsp; didn't have a positioning statement and I didn't&nbsp;&nbsp; have a niche mapped out. I was a secondyear&nbsp; student sharing what I was learning. Today,&nbsp;&nbsp; that's grown into 620,000 followers on LinkedIn,&nbsp; 190,000 on Instagram, 20,000 newsletter readers,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:18] and 600 paying members of my marketing community.&nbsp; All built completely organically without ads. But&nbsp;&nbsp; to. I built it the way creators do, and that&nbsp; difference is the whole reason it worked. This&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:34] is part one of a four-part series where I break&nbsp; down exactly how I've built my personal brand. Let's start with the word everybody uses and&nbsp; almost nobody defines, which is positioning. So,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:50] what does it really mean? Positioning is what&nbsp; you want to be known for and who you want to&nbsp;&nbsp; be useful to. It isn't your color palette.&nbsp; It isn't your bio and it's not your tone of&nbsp;&nbsp; voice document. It's a decision and you either&nbsp; make it deliberately or the internet makes it&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:07] for you based on whatever you happen to post.&nbsp; This is where a lot of personal brand advice&nbsp;&nbsp; gets it backwards. We're told to figure&nbsp; out exactly who we are. Choose a niche,&nbsp;&nbsp; write the perfect positioning statement, and&nbsp; then start publishing. But if you want to win&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:23] on the internet, it has to be the other&nbsp; way around. The audience comes first and&nbsp;&nbsp; your positioning is the reason they stay. Being&nbsp; known for one thing is what makes you findable,&nbsp;&nbsp; recommendable, and worth following.&nbsp; Here's what we'll go through. First,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:38] the difference between how creators build a brand&nbsp; versus how marketers approach it. Then, the exact&nbsp;&nbsp; framework that built my personal brand and changed&nbsp; my life. And I've turned those four questions into&nbsp;&nbsp; a worksheet you can use to build yours, too.&nbsp; You can find it in the link in the description.
[01:57] There are two ways to build a personal brand.&nbsp; You can plan it all out fast or you can start&nbsp;&nbsp; moving and figure it out as you go. At uni, I was&nbsp; taught the fast way and I was taught it strictly.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:10] Marketing was corporate and transactional. You&nbsp; plan before you're allowed to touch anything. And&nbsp;&nbsp; the whole point of a personal brand was to land&nbsp; you a job. I think that's still the version most&nbsp;&nbsp; people are taught. You think, you define, and then&nbsp; you execute, planning it on paper before you go&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:27] off and do it. The way I built my personal brand&nbsp; went the other way entirely. I published, watch&nbsp;&nbsp; what worked, and got clearer about what I should&nbsp; be known for as I went. There's a name for that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:40] difference, and it comes from Henry Mintbug. It's&nbsp; called the deliberate versus emergent strategy. A&nbsp;&nbsp; deliberate strategy is planned up front. You set&nbsp; the intention in detail and then you execute it as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:53] intended. It's how a campaign works and it's the&nbsp; right call when you already know the destination.&nbsp;&nbsp; An e margin strategy is a pattern that forms over&nbsp; time. One you didn't expressly intend when you&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:06] started. You act. You notice what's landing and&nbsp; the strategy is then shaped by that. Mintberg's&nbsp;&nbsp; point is that deliberate strategy gives you&nbsp; direction but emergent strategy is how you learn&nbsp;&nbsp; what works in practice. Deliberate is writing,&nbsp; "I'm the go-to person for B2B email marketing&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:24] in your notes app in week one, then forcing every&nbsp; post to fit it." Imagine is posting about email,&nbsp;&nbsp; social, careers, and copywriting for 3 months,&nbsp; seeing that the email posts are the ones that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:36] people save and share and only then calling&nbsp; yourself the email person. A marketer fast&nbsp;&nbsp; personal brand is deliberate where you think&nbsp; fast and then do. But a creator fast personal&nbsp;&nbsp; brand is a margin where you do fast and the&nbsp; thinking happens live. The moment you start&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:53] writing a strategy down, you start defending it.&nbsp; You stop adjusting because changing course now&nbsp;&nbsp; means admitting you were wrong. That's a trap of&nbsp; writing your personal brand document in month one&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:06] because you've locked yourself into a version&nbsp; of you that you invented before a single person&nbsp;&nbsp; responded to you. Publishing first means every&nbsp; post becomes a mini testing oneonone. You find&nbsp;&nbsp; out which idea gets quoted back to you, which one&nbsp; gets saved, and which one gets turned into a DM.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:22] The positioning that comes out of that describes&nbsp; something real rather than something you get. So, let's move on to the framework because if&nbsp; a statement isn't the starting point, what is?&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:36] I have four questions for you. Answer them as you&nbsp; go and by the end of this video you'll be able to&nbsp;&nbsp; identify your positioning rather than having it&nbsp; written fast. The first question is around your&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:49] subject. What could you talk about repeatedly&nbsp; without running out of things to say? Look at&nbsp;&nbsp; your saved folder, your search history, and the&nbsp; tabs that you've got open. What's the thing that&nbsp;&nbsp; colleagues come to you about? What is the topic&nbsp; that you're sending your friends links about at&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:06] 11 at night? That is your short list. Could&nbsp; you write 50 posts on it without repeating&nbsp;&nbsp; yourself? And can you name the person who'd stop&nbsp; scrolling for it? If you can't picture them,&nbsp;&nbsp; the topic is too broad. Because a topic only&nbsp; becomes positioning once it's a specific&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:22] person on the other end of it. For me, that was&nbsp; marketing. In 2020, I was a secondyear university&nbsp;&nbsp; student studying marketing, advertising, and&nbsp; branding. I was job hunting into a pandemic&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:34] and the space I wanted to learn in didn't exist&nbsp; yet. So in June that year, I started an Instagram&nbsp;&nbsp; page about what I was learning, not about what&nbsp; I already knew. In January the following year,&nbsp;&nbsp; I moved it across to LinkedIn as graduation&nbsp; loomed and the job search got real. That's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:50] the part that gives you permission to start. Now,&nbsp; you don't need to be qualified enough to publish.&nbsp;&nbsp; You don't need to be interesting enough to keep&nbsp; going while nobody's watching because nobody's&nbsp;&nbsp; watching for a while. My first year got me to&nbsp; around 40,000 followers on LinkedIn and 25,000 on&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:07] Instagram. And that felt huge, but it built slowly&nbsp; from zero. Now, notice that this is the creator&nbsp;&nbsp; move, not the marketer one. A marketer would have&nbsp; researched the niche and written down the plan,&nbsp;&nbsp; whereas I just started publishing. Question two is&nbsp; all about your argument. What do you believe about&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:25] that subject that a reasonable person would&nbsp; disagree with? The subject gets you started,&nbsp;&nbsp; but it doesn't make you distinctive because plenty&nbsp; of people post about marketing. What makes you&nbsp;&nbsp; distinctive is the opinion you keep coming back to&nbsp; without meaning to. It's the argument you'd have&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:42] at dinner, in the comments, or in a meeting, and&nbsp; the one you'd defend if somebody pushed back. It&nbsp;&nbsp; has to be something a reasonable person could&nbsp; disagree with. Because if nobody could argue,&nbsp;&nbsp; then it isn't a position, it's a description. My&nbsp; opinion is that most of marketing is noise. That&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:59] the foundations are the part that matters and that&nbsp; you should be very critical of nearly everything&nbsp;&nbsp; you see online. Everything I write, teach, and do&nbsp; goes through that lens. So, when a trend blows up,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:12] my first question isn't how do I use this? It's&nbsp; whether it matters at all. And my opinion isn't&nbsp;&nbsp; my content calendar. I don't make posts about how&nbsp; most of marketing is noise. I put everything else&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:24] through that filter. So, I cover the same platform&nbsp; updates and campaigns and trends as everyone else,&nbsp;&nbsp; but it's my angle that's different. Question&nbsp; number three is, what is your mission? What are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:37] you trying to change or help people do? An opinion&nbsp; is the thing you believe and it doesn't tell you&nbsp;&nbsp; what to make, but a mission does. And that is&nbsp; the version you can build a whole content plan&nbsp;&nbsp; on top of, which is where we're going in episode&nbsp; two. My mission is to make marketing simple and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:54] accessible so people can tell the difference&nbsp; between what matters and what's noise. It's&nbsp;&nbsp; never been on a website or in a bio. And it&nbsp; doesn't need to be public, but it does need to&nbsp;&nbsp; be true and specific enough to say no with. Here&nbsp; is what that sounds like in practice. For years,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:12] everybody said that short form video was the&nbsp; only way to grow. And I didn't chase it. Most&nbsp;&nbsp; of my content and most of my business is still&nbsp; carousels and writing because that's what makes&nbsp;&nbsp; marketing simple for the people I'm talking to.&nbsp; The mission chose the format for me rather than&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:28] letting the trend decide. And our final question,&nbsp; what are our audience signals? Who's responding&nbsp;&nbsp; and what are they telling you you're useful for?&nbsp; You pick the direction, but your audience sharpens&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:42] the definition. Audience signal is the feedback&nbsp; the internet hands you every time you press post.&nbsp;&nbsp; And once you can read it, you can stop guessing&nbsp; and start following what's already working. So,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:54] what counts as a signal? Now, it's not likes&nbsp; because likes are the easiest thing to give and&nbsp;&nbsp; they tell you almost nothing. The signals that&nbsp; matter are the ones that cost people something.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:06] What gets saved because somebody wanted to keep&nbsp; it? What gets shared because someone wanted to&nbsp;&nbsp; be seen next to it? What gets quoted back to you&nbsp; weeks later because it's stuck and it turned into&nbsp;&nbsp; language they use? And what lands in your DMs&nbsp; because it hit a nerve and they wanted to tell&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:22] you about it privately. Watch for the topic that&nbsp; keeps pulling those reactions and the specific&nbsp;&nbsp; thing people start coming to you for. That's your&nbsp; audience telling you what you're useful for. How&nbsp;&nbsp; do you tell what to lean into? Well, you look for&nbsp; the repeat. One post doing well is a fluke and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:39] chasing it will send you around in circles. The&nbsp; same theme landing three four times is a signal&nbsp;&nbsp; and that is the one that you build on. The sweet&nbsp; spot is the overlap between what you actually want&nbsp;&nbsp; to keep making and what keeps landing because&nbsp; that's what you can sustain once the novelty of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:55] posting wears off. But what if you're early and&nbsp; you have no audience and no feedback yet? Well,&nbsp;&nbsp; the signal is quieter, but it's still there.&nbsp; You just need to read a different one. Start&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:07] with what excites you, the topic you can't stop&nbsp; making things about, even when it's getting five&nbsp;&nbsp; views. Then look at your own space as the reader&nbsp; because you're a consumer before you're a creator.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:19] What makes you stop and comment? What topics get&nbsp; you excited? What do you feel compelled to repost?&nbsp;&nbsp; The posts that pull that out of you are showing&nbsp; you what works and you already have that instinct&nbsp;&nbsp; before you're on the other side of it. Then&nbsp; treat your real responses as gold because one&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:35] thoughtful DM from a stranger tells you more&nbsp; than 100 passive likes ever will. That's how&nbsp;&nbsp; I started watching what I was drawn to and others&nbsp; and which of my own posts quietly got saved. The&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:47] strategy only sharpened later once there were&nbsp; enough people responding to see a pattern.&nbsp;&nbsp; My audience went from students to graduates&nbsp; to working marketers to a paid community and&nbsp;&nbsp; a business. So, who I was talking to changed&nbsp; every few years. But what never changed was&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:03] the mission underneath it. Making marketing&nbsp; simple and cutting through the noise. And&nbsp;&nbsp; that's the reason I didn't have to start again&nbsp; from zero each time. My audience was never my&nbsp;&nbsp; positioning. My point of view was. That's&nbsp; the difference between choosing a niche,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:18] which is just picking a topic, and developing a&nbsp; point of view you can carry across any audience. Here's where you're expecting the big mistake.&nbsp; The decision I'd rebar if I could start over,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:32] and there is one. I spent too long trying to&nbsp; cover everything, worried that if I got specific,&nbsp;&nbsp; I would shrink my audience. And it took me a&nbsp; while to trust if you're speaking to everyone,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:45] you are speaking to no one. The thing I would&nbsp; tell myself is that being early is when you can&nbsp;&nbsp; afford to test because no one's watching yet.&nbsp; Once you've got followers and a brand people&nbsp;&nbsp; recognize, testing gets harder and you've got&nbsp; expectations to manage. With no eyes on you,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:02] there's nothing to protect. So you can experiment&nbsp; properly and get as specific as you can without&nbsp;&nbsp; boxing yourself in. The rest I wouldn't change and&nbsp; not because it was perfect because it definitely&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:14] wasn't. It's because I don't think positioning&nbsp; is a job you ever finish. Over the last year my&nbsp;&nbsp; identity has shifted again from something&nbsp; like a thought leader to an entrepreneur&nbsp;&nbsp; and I'm walking the whole thing out all over&nbsp; again. I still get lost in the writing and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:30] the publishing and even running through these&nbsp; four questions today. I can see my own answers&nbsp;&nbsp; moving and a clearer path showing up as I&nbsp; go. So that's my lesson for you. Personal&nbsp;&nbsp; branding isn't a document you write once and&nbsp; follow. It's a practice you keep rerunning as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:46] you change. Look back at where we started with&nbsp; deliberate versus emergent and you'll see the&nbsp;&nbsp; direction was deliberate and the definition&nbsp; was emergent. I picked the lens, and a few&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:58] hundred,000 people told me what it was good for.&nbsp; So, if you've been answering along, you should&nbsp;&nbsp; have four things. Your subject, your argument&nbsp; inside it, the mission you're building on,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:11] and a way to read what your audience tells you and&nbsp; adjust as they change. That's your positioning.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's maybe not the comm's document you're used&nbsp; to as a marketer, but it's got me this far,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:23] and I think it will help you, too. I've built a&nbsp; positioning statement worksheet with HubSpot that&nbsp;&nbsp; walks through those same questions so you can&nbsp; get yours out of your head and onto the page.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's free and it's linked in the description that&nbsp; gives you the what. In episode two, I will give&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:40] you the how showing you my content calendar,&nbsp; the tools I used to create, the batching,&nbsp;&nbsp; and share the details on the month I trusted the&nbsp; system so much that it fell over. Subscribe to the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:52] HubSpot YouTube channel and turn on notifications&nbsp; so you don't miss it. And I will see you there.