We kick off our July marketing theme by tackling personal branding — which, despite sounding like something you’d find printed on a suspiciously expensive notebook, is actually quite useful.

We talk about why personal branding isn’t really about vanity, self-promotion, or becoming a LinkedIn superstar — thankfully, because that sounds exhausting. It’s about being deliberate with how people understand who we are, what we stand for, and why we might be useful before that first proper conversation even happens.

We also get into the awkward early days of posting online, why AI can help shape a narrative without replacing the actual thinking, and why deleting your professional history when changing industries might create more work than it solves. Along the way, there’s Canada Day, Paris, old-fashions with maple syrup, and the usual amount of self-inflicted microphone-related anxiety.

Personal branding may not close deals on its own, but it can make the next conversation a lot easier. And honestly, we’ll take all the help we can get.

In this episode, we make the case that personal branding doesn’t have to be cringe.

It’s not about pretending to be a guru.
It’s not about posting for the sake of posting.
And it’s definitely not about outsourcing your entire personality to AI and hoping nobody notices.

It’s about being intentional.

Because whether we like it or not, people already form an opinion of us before we’re in the room. They search. They scroll. They ask around. And if we haven’t shaped that narrative at all, someone — or something — else will do it for us.

We talked about:

• why personal branding helps before the first conversation, not magically at the end of the sales process
• why showing up consistently feels awkward before it feels useful
• how AI can support the thinking without replacing the thinker
• why your career history still has value, even when you change industries
• and why “nobody liked my post” is not the same as “nobody noticed”

Also, there’s Canada Day, Paris, and a suggestion involving maple syrup in an old-fashioned. So, you know, serious business thinking as always.