Self branding: it's not what you think (and where to actually start)

You have a solid online presence, you post regularly, and your colleagues say nice things. Yet when someone asks you exactly what you do — a potential client, a partner, a journalist — the answer comes out wrong. Too long, too vague, or so packed with technical detail that the other person stops listening halfway through.

That’s the sign you’ve been working on personal branding without first doing the self branding.

The distinction nobody explains clearly

Personal branding is external projection: what you publish, how you come across, what people say about you. It’s communication. Self branding is the upstream work: understanding who you are professionally, what genuinely sets you apart, and what promise you can consistently keep.

Without self branding, personal branding becomes a shell. It can be polished, tonally consistent, visually refined — and still say very little. Because what’s missing is the content only you can provide: your point of view, your specific expertise, the reason someone should choose you over someone else with an equally well-kept profile.

The most common mistake isn’t posting too little. It’s posting a lot from a vague foundation.

What “doing self branding” actually means

Self branding isn’t an exercise in self-promotion, nor a motivational coaching session. It’s a process of clarification. It means answering uncomfortable questions with a degree of honesty.

Who you are professionally — not on paper, but in reality

A commercial director with fifteen years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector is not the same as another person with the same title and the same number of years. One has built distribution networks in emerging markets. The other has managed teams of twenty people and redesigned the incentive structure. They are two different professionals with different skills, and that difference is exactly the raw material of self branding.

The practical question is: what can you do that someone else with your same title probably can’t, or can’t do as well?

What your point of view is — not your official position

A manager who has always followed directives doesn’t yet have a point of view. Someone who has made difficult decisions, watched a project fail, or changed their mind on something important — that person has something to say.

Point of view is the heart of self branding. It’s not about having opinions on everything, but about having a recognisable perspective on what you know. A CFO who believes cash flow is a more honest indicator than EBITDA for assessing the health of an SME: that’s a position. It’s defensible, it’s specific, and it differentiates.

Who you’re actually talking to

“I work with companies and professionals” is not an audience. It’s the absence of an audience.

Self branding requires you to narrow down. A supply chain consultant who works with manufacturing companies in the north-east of Italy with revenues between €10 million and €50 million knows exactly what to talk about, who to talk to, and what language to use. Someone who declares themselves available “for any type of company” can’t build anything recognisable — online or offline.

The most effective method for getting started

There’s no universal path, but there’s one exercise that works almost every time: ask others before you ask yourself.

Reach out to five or six people you’ve worked with — clients, colleagues, collaborators — and ask them one single thing: “When you think of me professionally, what’s the first word or phrase that comes to mind?”

The answers will tell you two things. First: how you’re already perceived, whether you like it or not. Second: whether there’s consistency across the responses, or whether every person sees you differently.

If there’s consistency, you already have a professional identity. Self branding means making it explicit and bringing it into your communication. If there’s fragmentation — one person sees you as a technical expert, another as a creative problem-solver, a third as a good people manager — then you have clarification work to do before any kind of public activity.

The second step: the reverse test

Have you written a sentence that describes you? Good. Now ask yourself: could someone else in your field say the same thing?

“I help companies grow” — yes, ten thousand people would say that. “I help B2B software founders build an internal sales force when they stop relying solely on word of mouth” — that’s much harder to copy.

Specificity doesn’t narrow opportunities. It attracts them. Whoever has exactly that problem immediately knows you’re speaking to them.

Why experienced professionals struggle more

There’s a curious paradox: the more years of experience someone has, the harder they often find self branding — not easier.

The reason is simple. Over time, you accumulate expertise across different areas, take on roles that shift and evolve, and build a rich CV that’s hard to summarise. The senior professional has done so many things that they no longer know where to begin when it comes to telling their story.

They add everything. They cut nothing. And the result is a profile that says a great deal but communicates very little.

Self branding for experienced professionals requires a deliberate choice: not to recount everything you’ve been, but to decide what you want to be perceived as from here on. It’s an editorial decision, even before it’s a communication one.

Self branding and LinkedIn: the practical connection

LinkedIn is the most immediate mirror of your self branding — or its absence.

Your profile headline, your summary, the content you publish: all of it reflects (or should reflect) the clarity you have about yourself. If your headline does nothing more than state your current job title with no indication of the value you bring, it’s a sign the self branding work hasn’t been done yet.

This isn’t about rewriting your profile with punchy phrases. It’s about having something precise to communicate — and then finding the best way to communicate it.

An HR director who has led three organisational restructurings across different industries has a specific story to tell. Another who has “managed personnel” for twenty years at the same company has a different one. Both are valid, but only once they’re made explicit do they stop being invisible.

Where to start, in summary

No motivational workshops, no visualisation exercises. Self branding is done with three concrete questions, in the right order.

First: what can you do that others with your title can’t, or don’t do as well?

Second: on what topic do you have a recognisable, defensible position?

Third: who are you talking to, with enough precision to exclude someone?

The answers don’t need to be perfect on the first attempt. But they need to exist. Because without them, any communication activity — LinkedIn, events, networking — is built on a foundation that simply isn’t there.