The personal branding advice you're being sold is wrong for you

The standard advice for building a personal brand is

> Put on a show.

> Build a character.

> Perform.

Personas work when the goal is reaching everyone.

If you're trying to become a creator, an entertainer, an influencer with broad reach across every industry, then the persona is the product.

The performance is what you're selling so the bigger the character, the bigger the audience, the bigger the check.

If you're in B2B, running an agency, a SaaS or a service business then your ICP isn't the general public. It's a niche micro-community of business owners. It’s people who understand marketing because they do marketing.

They know what a performance looks like because they've performed themselves.

You can't out-persona someone like that.

The moment a sophisticated buyer smells a character, they route around you because they know exactly what it is.

What works with this audience is the opposite of what everyone is teaching.

You have to be raw, true, direct.

In other words, you have to be informative.

Simply put,

If you're targeting consumers, have a personality. Play the character. Give them the show.

If you're targeting business owners, present findings. Skip the character entirely. The buyers you want are looking for expertise, and every ounce of theater you add is drowning it out.

The founders winning in B2B right now don't have "brands" in the traditional sense. They have reputations for being direct, honest, and useful about a specific thing.

– Wiz

P.S. Building the direct, no-persona version of a founder brand is exactly what we do for the dozens of founders inside mogul media. Book a call to see how we’d build it for your account.