By Chantel Brayley

For 18 years I introduced myself as somebody from somewhere. The work was always credited and I was never sitting in a corner feeling unseen about it. Being the marketing lead at a brand people already love is a genuinely great place to stand: the brand answers the first three questions for you, and everyone in the room knows roughly what you are about before you speak. 

At Petal & Pup, I was the first full-time team member and grew the marketing team from just me to 18 people, through a buyout and an IPO under AKA Brands, and I did all of it with a name behind me that already meant something.

Then I went out on my own, and the name behind me was mine.

The strategy comes with you. I had built a content engine before. I had built hundreds of them. What nobody warns you about is that the product is now you, and you arrive with opinions, a face and a life, and no logo doing the first three questions on your behalf.

People care about who they are working with

People choose to work with me because they have listened to me for six months, or followed my journey and decided I am who they want in the room when it gets hard. Marketing is a really emotional career path. We are attached to this stuff and we take the numbers personally, and it still has to be data-led. Personal brand content is the one place both of those things live at once. You are telling people how you think, and then watching which of those thoughts actually moved someone to email you.

It builds a resilience you cannot get in-house

Putting your own name on something is a different sport. In-house, a campaign underperforms and the team carries it together. On your own, you publish a point of view and it either lands or it sits there quietly, telling you something about your judgement. That is uncomfortable, and it is also the fastest professional growth I have had in years (nobody warns you about that part either).

Build somewhere you own

The first thing I put out as a personal brand was a podcast, which in hindsight was the right order. An hour of somebody’s week (in the car, at the gym, folding washing) is a completely different order of trust to a scroll. I have taken it live too, through a series of events built around connection, because community shouldn’t only exist as a statistic on a slide. 

LinkedIn came after and does a different job. It is my shop window, where I show the work and the people doing it: a team member doing something brilliant, a collection launch, a job ad, an opinion I would happily defend in a room of people who disagree with me. I treat it like a channel, which means a point of view, a rhythm and someone (me) actually looking at the numbers. It’s also not the space in which I perform the highest, showcasing myself as a personal brand on Instagram has proven far more powerful in a world where the socially native are making the decisions. LinkedIn feels like a place often for sales, and even though I’m my product, I’m in it for the long haul.

Founder content is teaching all of us

Making the content myself has made me better at the day job. There is a whole new era of founder-led content happening right now, made fast, by the founder, at a volume no brand marketing team would get signed off, and it mimics every other shift I am watching in this industry, where speed and closeness to the customer are winning. You learn that faster as someone making it than as a strategist reviewing somebody else’s calendar.

If you are a marketing leader weighing this up, start before you leave. Build the muscle while you still have a team around you and a salary landing, because it takes a while, and you do not want to be doing it in the same month you are chasing your first client. Be ready for it to feel self-indulgent for a good stretch (it passes).

Chantel Brayley is a brand and eCommerce marketer, and the founder and host of the If You Know You Grow podcast. 

Image: Supplied

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