Episode 8 – You’re Not a Brand (But You Might Need One) Or: Why Humans Are Perfectly Fine Without Branding, Yet Insist on Optimising Themselves Anyway

Hello, I’m Sean Makin, and this is The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing – the podcast where we explore branding, marketing, and the curious human tendency to take something relatively simple… and turn it into a system involving frameworks, diagrams, and at least one unnecessary metaphor.

Now, today’s episode begins with a reassuring statement.

You are not a brand.

You are not a logo.

You are not a colour palette.

And you are definitely not a carefully curated sequence of posts scheduled for maximum engagement at 9:14 a.m. on a Tuesday, as if the algorithm has a particular fondness for punctuality.

You are a human being.

Which is considerably more complex… and significantly harder to summarise in a slide deck.

So find somewhere comfortably impressive to sit, acquire a drink with a name that sounds faintly like a personality trait, and prepare to overthink something that was, until recently, doing perfectly well without being overthought at all.

Part 1: The Curious Rise of Personal Branding

At some point in recent history, roughly around the time everything acquired a profile picture and a headline, humans began referring to themselves as brands.

This was new.

Historically, people had managed quite well being… people.

Farmers.

Writers.

Craftsmen.

Occasionally pirates, who, it must be said, had an excellent sense of identity, but rarely paused mid-voyage to optimise their positioning across multiple channels.

They simply got on with things.

No one stood on a dock announcing:

“Today, I will be aligning my narrative with my long-term strategic identity.”

And yet, here we are.

Encouraged to define ourselves, refine our message, establish a tone of voice… and do it all while remaining effortlessly authentic.

Which is impressive.

Because authenticity has a habit of becoming deeply uncomfortable the moment it realises it’s being managed.

The Moment Humans Became Headlines

There is a particular moment when someone sits down to write a profile headline.

And instead of writing:

“I help businesses grow.”

They produce something like:

“Results-driven, forward-thinking innovator passionate about unlocking potential and driving transformative outcomes.”

Which is undeniably impressive.

But could also describe:

• A marketing consultant
• A software engineer
• A leadership coach
• Or a particularly ambitious kettle

This isn’t because people are unclear.

It’s because they’re trying to sound like something… slightly less human.

The Polished Human

As personal branding has grown, humans have become increasingly polished.

Profiles refined.

Messages structured.

Edges gently sanded down until nothing unexpected remains.

Which is useful.

Right up until the point where clarity quietly turns into performance.

Because humans, in their natural state, are not especially consistent.

They contradict themselves.

They change their minds.

They occasionally say things like:

“I had a completely different opinion about this last week.”

Which, interestingly, is often a sign that thinking has occurred.

Authenticity

Authenticity is frequently recommended.

“Be authentic.”

“Show up authentically.”

Which is excellent advice.

Right up until someone schedules it for 10:30 a.m.

Because authenticity, by its nature, tends to arrive unannounced… often at slightly inconvenient times, and rarely with a content calendar.

LinkedIn

Nowhere is this more visible than on LinkedIn.

A place where humans gather to present highly refined versions of themselves, occasionally bordering on heroic.

You’ll see posts that begin with:

“I wasn’t going to share this…”

Followed by something very clearly prepared, structured, and edited for maximum emotional resonance.

Or:

“Here’s what 10 years in business taught me…”

Which is helpful. Because it suggests the rest of us may be able to skip directly to year eleven.

Part 2: The Problem with Being a Brand

The difficulty begins when people don’t just use branding but start behaving like it.

Brands are consistent.

Clear.

Reassuringly predictable.

Humans, on the other hand, are more… experimental.

They wake up and occasionally think:

“I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.”

Which is not something you’ll often hear from a brand guideline.

The “On Brand” Problem

There’s a moment when someone becomes highly aware of their personal brand.

They begin asking:

“Is this on brand for me?”

Which is a fascinating question. Because it suggests that somewhere, possibly in a well-organised document, there exists a fixed version of who they are allowed to be.

At this point, something subtle happens.

They edit themselves.

Not for clarity.

But for consistency.

And those are not the same thing.

Part 3: What You Actually Need Instead

So if you’re not a brand… what do you actually need?

Clarity.

Not a logo.

Not a tagline.

Not a carefully engineered sentence involving the words transformational, impactful, and synergy, all standing politely next to each other without ever quite explaining anything.

Clarity.

Because clarity is what allows another human being to understand what you do… without experiencing a brief but noticeable moment of internal confusion.

Now, there is an important distinction here.

You can look clear.

Or you can be clear.

Looking clear is relatively easy.

It involves structure.

Well-chosen words.

Possibly a framework. And, if you’re feeling ambitious, a diagram with arrows pointing in several confident directions, suggesting that something strategic is happening.

Being clear is different.

Being clear is explaining what you do in a way that another person understands immediately… without needing to decode it, reinterpret it, or quietly hope it becomes obvious later.

It is, in many ways, less impressive. And significantly more useful.

A useful way to think about clarity is this:

If someone hears what you do…

Can they repeat it to someone else?

Not perfectly.

Not word-for-word.

But accurately enough that the meaning survives the journey.

Because this is where a surprising number of explanations quietly fall apart.

Somewhere between:

“I help organisations unlock value through transformation…”

…and:

“I think they… do something with… strategy?”

…something important has been lost.

Usually the part where anyone understands it.

A Brief, Slightly Concerning Anecdote About Clarity

There is, somewhere in the modern professional world, a man named David.

“Hello”

This is not especially important.

“Oh”

What *is* important is that David once attended a networking event.

“I did”

Not voluntarily, of course. No one ever does. He had been persuaded by a combination of optimism and a reminder that “it would be good for visibility,” which is the sort of phrase that sounds helpful but rarely is.

David arrived. Collected a name badge.

Crowd noise

And immediately found himself holding a drink he didn’t remember ordering, in a room full of people who all appeared to be explaining what they did using sentences that sounded suspiciously similar.

At some point, someone turned to him and asked the inevitable question:

“So, what do you do?”

Now, David had prepared for this.

“I certainly did”

He had, in fact, spent a considerable amount of time refining his answer. He took a small breath and said:

“I help organisations leverage integrated digital solutions to drive scalable growth.”

There was a brief pause. The other person nodded. Not enthusiastically.

But politely.

Which is, in networking terms, the conversational equivalent of placing something gently on a shelf and hoping it doesn’t require further attention.

They responded with:

“That sounds really interesting.”

Which, again, is something people say when they are being kind.

And then, after a moment, they asked:

“So… what does that actually mean?”

At which point David, who had not prepared for this entirely reasonable follow-up, attempted to explain his explanation.

Errrm

This took slightly longer. Included the word *platform*. And, at one point, involved a small circular hand gesture, as if the meaning might appear if encouraged.

Eventually, after a series of increasingly abstract sentences, the other person said:

“Ah. So you help companies get more customers online?”

David paused.

Considered this.

And realised, with a quiet sense of revelation, that yes.

That is exactly what he did.

He had simply taken a slightly longer route to get there.

And this is, more often than we realise, what happens when clarity is replaced with language that sounds right.

We don’t lose meaning entirely.

We just make it take the scenic route. Toot toot

The Simple Test

There is a very simple test for clarity.

It happens in real life.

Often unexpectedly.

Someone turns to you and asks:

“So… what do you do?”

Now, if your response begins with:

“Well, it’s quite hard to explain…”

…this is generally a sign that clarity has not yet arrived.

If your answer requires:

A framework

A metaphor involving ecosystems

Or a brief historical overview of your thinking

…you may not be unclear. But you are certainly not easy to understand.

And in communication, *easy to understand* tends to win.

One of the reasons this happens is because people aim to sound *right*.

Professional.

Polished.

Reassuringly intelligent.

Which often leads to sentences that sound like this:

“I specialise in delivering scalable solutions that drive measurable outcomes.”

Which is excellent.

Except for the small detail that it could mean almost anything.

It is a sentence that sounds correct but contains very little that a human can hold onto.

This is what happens when clarity is replaced by **familiar language**.

Words that sound like they should mean something quietly standing in for words that actually do.

A Brief Observation About Impressive Language

There is a particular category of words that appear frequently in unclear explanations.

Words like:

• Transformational
• Innovative
• Strategic
• Impactful

These words are not the problem. They are perfectly respectable words. The issue is that they are often used instead of specifics. And specifics are where clarity lives.

Because:

“I help restaurants get more customers on weeknights”

…may not sound particularly grand. But it is extremely clear.

And clarity, inconveniently, tends to be more persuasive than grandeur.

The Illusion of Complexity.

There is a quiet assumption that if something sounds complex it must be valuable.

Which leads to explanations becoming increasingly elaborate.

Layered.

Carefully constructed.

Until eventually, they resemble something that feels important but is surprisingly difficult to use in a conversation.

In reality, most valuable things are not complicated to explain.

They may be difficult to do.

They may require experience.

Skill.

Judgement.

But explaining them clearly is usually quite simple. And simplicity, while less dramatic, tends to travel much further.

A Brief Return to LinkedIn

Spend enough time on LinkedIn and you’ll notice a pattern.

People sound clear.

They use the right structures.

The right phrases.

Everything appears polished.

And yet, after reading several posts, you may find yourself thinking:

“I understand the tone… but I’m not entirely sure what they actually do.”

This is the difference between structured communication and clear communication.

One looks organised.

The other makes sense.

The goal is not to sound impressive.

It’s not to sound like a brand.

And it’s definitely not to sound like you’ve recently read three articles about tone of voice and are determined to apply all of them at once.

The goal is to be understood.

Quickly.

Easily.

Without effort.

Because when someone understands what you do, something interesting happens.

They remember it.

They can repeat it.

And, perhaps most importantly, they know when they might need you.

Clarity in Practice

Clarity often sounds almost disappointingly simple.

It sounds like:

“I design websites for small businesses.”

Or:

“I help companies improve their marketing.”

Or even:

“I make sure people don’t have to think too hard to understand what you do.”

None of these are particularly elaborate.

None of them require explanation.

And that’s the point.

The slightly counterintuitive truth is this:

The clearer you are the less you need to explain.

Which means fewer follow-up questions.

Fewer clarifications.

And fewer moments where someone says:

“That sounds interesting…”

…while clearly having no idea what you meant.

So instead of asking:

“How do I sound more impressive?”

It may be more useful to ask:

“How do I make this easier to understand?”

Because clarity is not about reducing what you do. It’s about removing the unnecessary effort required to understand it. And in a world where people are already thinking about far too many things that is, perhaps, the most valuable thing you can offer.

Part 4: Reputation vs Branding

Here’s the important distinction.

You don’t need a personal brand.

You need a reputation.

And the interesting thing about reputation is that it behaves very differently from branding.

Branding is something you can construct.

You can design it.

Refine it.

Adjust it until it looks exactly how you’d like it to look.

Reputation, on the other hand, is something that forms… often without asking your permission.

Reputation is built from what people experience.

Not what you say.

Not what you post.

And not what appears in a carefully written paragraph about your values.

It’s built from things like:

• How you respond to an email when you’re busy
• What happens when something goes wrong
• Whether you do what you said you would do
• And how you behave when there is absolutely no strategic advantage in behaving well

Which is inconvenient. Because these are not things you can schedule.

Or optimise.

Or turn into a neat sequence of posts spread evenly across the week.

Branding Speaks. Reputation Answers.

Branding is what you say about yourself.

Reputation is what other people say about you… particularly when you’re not in the room to gently steer the conversation. And the two are not always perfectly aligned.

You might describe yourself as:

“Detail-oriented and highly responsive.”

But if your last three emails began with:

“Apologies for the delay…”

…your reputation may have quietly developed a slightly different interpretation.

Not dramatically different. Just… adjusted.

Like a sentence that’s been edited for accuracy.

Another curious thing about reputation is that it builds slowly and updates very quickly.

You can spend months, even years, building a reputation for being reliable, thoughtful, easy to work with. And then, in a single moment, usually involving a rushed decision, a poorly timed reply, or an email sent just slightly too quickly, you can introduce doubt.

Not complete collapse.

Reputation is generally more resilient than that.

But a small shift.

A raised eyebrow.

A subtle internal note that says:

“Ah. Interesting.”

Which is not a phrase you want associated with your reliability.

The Myth of Control

One of the more reassuring ideas in branding is that you are in control.

You can shape perception.

Define your message.

Guide how people see you.

Reputation does not offer this level of comfort.

It is shaped by patterns.

By behaviour.

By small, repeated moments that no one thinks are particularly important at the time…

…but which accumulate into something very definite.

It is, in many ways, the long-term memory of your actions.

Which is slightly concerning.

Because, unlike a brand guideline, it does not come with an edit button.

The Quiet Power of Consistency

Now, this is not an argument against consistency.

In fact, consistency is exactly how reputation is built.

But it’s a different kind of consistency.

Not:

“Do I sound the same in every post?”

But:

“Do I behave in a way people can rely on?”

Because one creates recognition.

The other creates trust.

And while recognition is useful trust is what people actually make decisions with.

The slightly uncomfortable truth is this:

You already have a reputation.

Everyone does.

It exists in:

• Past conversations
• Previous work
• Messages you’ve sent
• Decisions you’ve made
• And, occasionally, things you’ve said slightly offhand that turned out to be more memorable than intended

The question is not whether you have a reputation.

It’s whether it reflects what you want to be known for or whether it has been assembled, piece by piece, through a series of entirely reasonable but slightly inconsistent moments.

Unlike branding, reputation rarely announces itself.

It doesn’t begin with:

“Delighted to share…”

It doesn’t arrive fully formed.

It doesn’t require a launch.

It simply becomes clear over time.

Through patterns.

Through experience.

Through other people quietly thinking:

“They’re good at that.”

Or:

“They’re reliable.”

Or, ideally:

“I’d work with them again.”

And that last one, inconveniently, cannot be engineered through language alone.

Now, this is where branding still has a role.

Branding helps people understand what to expect.

It gives shape to your communication.

It makes things easier to recognise.

But reputation is what confirms whether that expectation was correct.

Branding makes a promise.

Reputation delivers, or quietly adjusts, that promise over time.

The Real Focus

So instead of asking:

“How do I build my personal brand?”

It may be more useful to ask:

“What experience do people have when they interact with me?”

Because that experience repeated often enough becomes your reputation.

And the interesting thing is this:

You can spend hours refining how you describe what you do.

Perfecting the wording.

Adjusting the tone.

Rewriting the sentence until it feels exactly right.

But in the end, people will form their understanding of you based on something much simpler.

What it’s actually like to work with you.

And that, unlike a headline is very difficult to fake.

Part 5: Where Branding Does Help

Now, having gently dismantled the idea that you must become a fully optimised personal brand it seems only fair to acknowledge something important.

Branding, in moderation, is actually quite useful.

In fact, when used correctly, it can prevent a surprising number of mildly confusing conversations.

Branding becomes useful in very practical situations.

For example:

• When you run a business
• When you need to explain what you do more than once
• When you would prefer not to reintroduce yourself from first principles every time you meet someone

Or, more simply:

When you would like people to understand you… without requiring a follow-up explanation involving hand gestures and a whiteboard.

In these moments, branding stops being an abstract idea and becomes a tool.

Branding as a Tool, Not a Personality

This is the key distinction.

Branding is something you use.

It is not something you become.

Because the moment branding becomes a personality, you are placed in the slightly awkward position of having to maintain it.

Consistently.

Forever.

Which is demanding.

Even for people who are very good at remembering things. And nearly impossible for people who occasionally forget why they walked into a room.

“Why did I come in here?”

When it’s working properly, branding does three very simple things:

It makes you easier to understand.

It makes you easier to remember.

And it makes you easier to recognise the next time someone encounters you.

That’s it.

No mystery.

No hidden layer.

No need for a twelve-step framework involving alignment, transformation, and a diagram that looks faintly like a transport map.

Just:

“Ah, I know what they do.”

There is something deeply reassuring about recognition. When people understand what you do, they don’t have to think about it again. And humans, as a general rule, are quite fond of not having to think about things more than once.

It saves time.

Energy.

And reduces the likelihood of them inventing their own, slightly incorrect version of what you do.

Which they will do.

With confidence.

Without clarity, people will fill in the gaps.

This is not malicious.

It is simply efficient.

If someone hears:

“I work in strategy…”

They may interpret this as:

• Marketing
• Business consulting
• Something involving spreadsheets
• Or, occasionally, something that sounds important but remains slightly unclear

And once that interpretation has formed, it tends to stick.

Not because it’s accurate.

But because it’s convenient.

Branding, when done well, reduces this.

It replaces assumption with understanding.

Which is generally a step in the right direction.

The Role of Consistency

Now, consistency is where branding often gets slightly misunderstood.

Consistency does not mean repeating the exact same sentence until it becomes part of your personality.

It means that when people encounter you…

they don’t feel like they’re meeting a completely different version each time.

You are recognisable.

Not identical.

Familiar.

Not rehearsed.

Because there is a difference between:

“This feels consistent.”

…and:

“This feels scripted.”

And humans are remarkably good at detecting the second one.

A Brief Observation About “Content Strategy”

At some point, branding tends to introduce something called a **content strategy**.

Which is, in essence, a plan for what you will say, when you will say it, and how often you will remind people that you exist.

This is sensible.

Right up until the moment you sit down to express a thought and realise you are about to do it… on schedule.

For example:

“It is Thursday. I will now have an insight.”

Which is efficient.

But does occasionally give the impression that your thoughts are arriving according to a timetable.

The “Delighted to Announce” Phenomenon

There is also a recognisable rhythm to how people communicate online.

At any given moment, someone is:

“Delighted to announce…”

Which is wonderful.

But does create the subtle impression that everyone is permanently on the verge of announcing something.

Even if that something is:

“I have updated my job title and have a snazzy new profile pic of me on holiday riding a camel.”

Branding, when overused, can begin to make life feel like a sequence of announcements.

Which is slightly exhausting.

For everyone involved.

The Danger of Overdoing It

The difficulty begins when branding moves beyond being helpful and starts becoming controlling.

When every message is filtered.

Every idea adjusted.

Every sentence quietly checked against whether it feels “on brand.”

At this point, something important is lost.

Not clarity.

But flexibility.

And flexibility, for humans, is rather essential.

Because people:

Change direction.

Develop new ideas.

Discover things they didn’t expect to care about.

And occasionally say something slightly different from what they said last week.

Which is not inconsistency.

It’s evidence of thought.

Branding Should Support, Not Contain

If your branding cannot accommodate change it is no longer helping you.

It is containing you.

And being contained by your own messaging is a slightly unusual situation.

Particularly when you were the one who created it.

So instead of asking:

“How do I build my personal brand?”

It may be more useful to ask:

“How do I make it easy for people to understand, remember, and trust what I do?”

Because that is what branding is for.

Not performance.

Not perfection.

Just clarity repeated consistently enough that people don’t have to think too hard about it.

Because in the end, branding works best when it’s almost invisible.

When it supports communication rather than replacing it.

When it helps people understand you without requiring them to interpret something that sounds like it came from slide 14.

Which, while often very well designed is rarely where understanding begins.

Part 6: The Freedom of Not Being a Brand

There is something deeply reassuring about not being a brand.

Because it means you are allowed to change.

To learn.

To say something today that you may quietly reconsider tomorrow.

Which is not inconsistency.

It’s progress… behaving slightly untidily.

In the end, the goal is not to become a perfectly consistent message.

It’s to become a clearly understood person.

And those are not the same thing.

One is designed for presentation.

The other is built through communication.

And communication, as we’ve discovered, works best when it sounds like a human…

Not like a slide deck.

Even if that slide deck is beautifully designed, logically structured, and quietly waiting on slide 14 to explain everything.

So where does this leave us?

You are not a brand.

You are a person.

Which means you are allowed to evolve.

To contradict yourself.

To occasionally write something that doesn’t quite fit your previous post.

And none of this is failure.

It’s simply what happens when thinking is involved.

Because in the end, people don’t connect with brands.

They connect with people.

Even if those people occasionally begin a sentence with:

“I wasn’t going to share this…”

And if you do accidentally become a brand please try not to describe yourself as “passionate about synergy.”

Not because it’s wrong. But because, somewhere, a kettle is already doing it better.

Thank you for joining me for this exploration of personal branding a world in which humans attempt to describe themselves clearly, consistently, and professionally while still being, at all times, entirely themselves.

Which is an ambitious brief.

Until next time:

Stay curious.

And remember

You don’t need to become a brand. You just need to be someone people understand.

The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and many other platforms where humans occasionally pause to reconsider their headline… and then quietly change it anyway.