In this episode of The Overthinker’s Guide to Modern Marketing, Sean Makin takes a gently sceptical look at one of modern business’s favourite obsessions: personal branding.

“You are not a brand,” he begins, and from there, unpacks how we somehow went from being perfectly functional humans to carefully optimised profiles, complete with polished headlines, scheduled authenticity, and just enough jargon to confuse everyone involved.

With dry wit and quietly sharp observations, this episode explores why sounding impressive often comes at the expense of being understood, how clarity beats complexity every time, and why your reputation, not your branding, is what people actually remember.

Along the way, expect familiar moments: the networking conversation that goes nowhere, the LinkedIn post that says everything and nothing, and the creeping sense that perhaps we’ve overcomplicated something that used to work just fine.

This isn’t an argument against branding, it’s a reminder to use it as a tool, not a personality. Because in the end, people don’t connect with perfectly constructed messages.

They connect with people who make sense.