Building a personal brand that attracts opportunities

In a crowded digital marketplace, having expertise isn't enough – your personal brand needs to work round the clock for you.

Whether you're a founder, consultant or business owner, your personal brand is your most powerful business asset.

This session led by Yetty Williams is designed for SMEs who want to move past the uncertainty of self-promotion, make the most of a limited budget and use generative AI thoughtfully to build a strategic presence that drives real business growth.

Topics covered in this session

• Design your narrative: Stop leaving your personal brand to chance and start building it with intent.

• Scale expertise with AI: Use generative AI to strengthen your unique voice and brainstorm thought-leadership content.

• Connect with purpose: Learn the art of "virtual" networking for more business opportunities.

About the speaker

Yetty is a multi-award-winning digital media marketing expert, AI consultant and EMCC-accredited professional coach and mentor.

With over 20 years of leadership experience spanning global companies like Bloomberg and Shell, Yetty specialises in guiding SMEs and multinationals through the complexities of digital transformation and strategic positioning.

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Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity.

Caitriona: Hello, everyone and welcome to today's Lunch and Learn. My name is Caitriona and I'll be your host today.

For those of you attending a Lunch and Learn for the first time, Enterprise Nation is a vibrant community platform for start-ups and small businesses. I'm pleased to introduce Yetty Williams, who is a digital media marketing expert.

In this session, Yetty will discuss how to make the most of a limited budget and use generative AI thoughtfully to build a strategic presence that drives real business growth.

If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please post them in the chat and we'll do our best to answer them at the end. Today's webinar will be recorded and we will send a follow-up email later today with the recording and further resources. Over to you, Yetty.

Yetty: Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here today and inviting me to speak on this topic, building a personal brand that attracts opportunities.

My subtitle for this session is "from invisible to in demand", so let's get into it.

This didn't happen overnight and my story is one where I've had to live exactly what I'm talking about today. Some of it happened by chance and some of it happened accidentally. What became very clear was that your brand is the one thing you take with you through jobs, opportunities and life.

We live in a world that is deeply connected online and digitally driven. You want to make sure you are positioning yourself the way you want and controlling the narrative so you can attract the right opportunities. Those things do not happen by chance.

Today, we'll talk about how to think through creating a profile and a brand that can work for whatever industry, company or brand you want to attract.

A little about my background. I have over 20 years of experience and have worked at companies like Bloomberg, Shell and Wachovia, now Wells Fargo. I was born and raised in Nigeria, moved to the US where I lived for about 12 years and I've now been in the UK for about five years.

I have an MBA from Yale, where I studied business and strategy. My undergraduate degree was in maths. I also completed a cyber psychology degree last year.

I believe strongly in lifelong learning. Once you find the areas you care about, you want to go deeper so you can serve your clients from a unique and informed perspective.

One thing I've learned from being in the digital space is that technology sits at the centre of almost everything we do. The best way to guide people in using it intentionally is to understand what is happening psychologically when they show up in front of those tools.

Some people are overwhelmed, some are overexcited, some are overoptimistic. The real question is how do we navigate all of that intentionally to achieve our goals.

In terms of reach, I started my brand called Lagos Moms over 15 years ago. That was really where my whole digital journey began. I had a toddler and a baby and I had lots of questions about motherhood. I found support online, but I saw a gap for Nigerian and African women like me who wanted parenting content grounded in our own context and culture.

That simple hobby blog eventually grew into a digital ecosystem. Today, we reach about 15 million visitors annually across our websites, social media, newsletters and other channels. I have over 150,000 followers across social media and over 13,000 email subscribers.

In terms of recognition, I was announced this year as a Forbes over 50 honouree after a very rigorous nomination and due diligence process. That meant a lot to me because it showed that the work and impact were measurable.

I'm also the founder of my consulting work in digital coaching and AI and I'm an author. I wrote a book based on 10 years of research into parenting in the digital age, helping parents raise AI natives while many of them are not AI natives themselves.

I'm sharing all of this to show that I was not following a perfectly mapped path. I was evolving as I went. What stayed consistent was narrative, positioning and networking.

On the screen, I've shown some of the global brands I've worked with, including Google, JPMorgan, Nestlé, Cadbury and Procter & Gamble.

In a noisy world, your brand must work for you 24/7. In the world of search, what are you coming up for?

Each person on this call is offering some kind of product or service to the world. The question is: when people search for exactly what you offer, are you showing up? Do not leave that to chance.

This brings me to the shift from SEO to AEO.

For a long time, we focused on SEO, search engine optimisation. That meant creating content around keywords so that if somebody searched something like "schools in Surrey", your website or article could appear in search.

Now we are increasingly moving into a world of AEO, answer engine optimisation. It is no longer only about keywords. It is about intent.

Someone may now search for "a school in Surrey with tennis facilities" and the engine is trying to find the most authoritative and useful answer to that exact question.

That is a subtle but important shift. Search is now more intent-led. AI tools are trying to determine the best answer to a person's question, not just a keyword match.

So your content is no longer static. It is not just your website or blog. What you say on LinkedIn, on social media, on Substack, on podcasts, in guest features and across all platforms is now connected.

You need to ask yourself: what are you showing up for? Have you ever searched for your own name, your brand name, your services or your products? You need to know how your narrative is currently being presented online and what role you are playing in shaping it.

To show how this works in practice, let's look at a possible conversion journey.

Someone may first stumble across a video of yours on Instagram. Then, later, they may come across an article you shared or wrote. After that, they might see a review of your work on Google.

Then they may find your Substack or newsletter. They might hear you as a guest on a podcast. They might come across a lead magnet or free guide you have created.

Each of these is a touchpoint. Together, they begin to build familiarity, trust and recognition. Eventually, you want them to take action. That could mean booking a call, downloading a resource, joining your mailing list or buying from you.

This is why your personal brand matters. You are not relying on a single post or platform. You are building connected visibility.

Now I want to introduce one of my frameworks. I call it the seven Cs to slay with digital.

The first is calendar. You need a content calendar. You need to know what you are talking about, when you are talking about it and why. A lot of people struggle with consistency because every time they sit down to create content, they are asking, "What should I say now?" A calendar reduces that cognitive load.

Think about the next six months. What matters in your industry? What seasonal events, customer needs or business moments should shape your content?

If you are a bakery, for example, you might be thinking about Mother's Day, graduations and holidays. If you are in wellbeing, you may align content with awareness weeks or seasonal habits.

The second is content. Some of your content will be original and some can be curated. You do not have to create everything from scratch. You can share other people's content as long as you add your own perspective and thought leadership.

You also need to remember that if you are selling something, people need to know that. Not every post should be sales-driven, but your audience should understand what you actually offer.

The third is consistency. Content may be king, but consistency is queen. You cannot show up once in January and then disappear for the rest of the year.

If you say content or social media does not work, but you are not consistent, then you have not really tested it. AI can help with this, but only if you know what you want it to do.

The fourth is creativity. Nobody wants boring content. I do think the digital space has gone a bit too far into speed, hooks and attention tricks, but creativity still matters.

Whether it is a post, article, webinar or video, how are you drawing people in? How are you making them want to hear more from you?

The fifth is call to action. After someone watches, reads or listens to your content, what do you want them to do next? If someone likes your work, can they easily find you, book with you or buy from you? Do not make people guess.

The sixth is conversion. You want people to move from passive engagement to becoming customers, clients or leads.

The seventh is captivate. Once someone enters your world, how do you keep them there? How do you nurture them, serve them and build repeat business or additional opportunities? That is the real value of a strong brand ecosystem.

Now let's talk about how AI can help.

I'm not going to tell you which AI platform is best today, because that depends on your business and use case. The more important thing is understanding what you need the AI to do.

That said, I do want to share a simple framework I use to prompt AI effectively. I call it RTIO.

The first is role. Tell the AI who it is acting as. For example, "Act as a senior personal brand strategist and content creator who helps consultants move from invisible to in demand."

The second is task. Tell it exactly what you want. For example, "Write an engaging LinkedIn post targeting new consultants who are struggling to be seen."

The third is input. This is where you tell it what to use. For example, "Highlight that expertise alone is not enough in a crowded marketplace. Mention that I moved from hobbyist to working with brands like Google and JPMorgan. Use the idea that consistency is queen."

The fourth is output. Tell it how you want the result formatted. For example, "Write this in a tone that is empathetic and professional, with a strong hook and a clear call to action."

This is how you move from generic AI content to something that actually reflects your voice, expertise and goals.

AI can save you huge amounts of time, but only if you are clear on your message and intention first. So I want to leave you with this.

Whether you are a founder, consultant or business owner, your personal brand is one of your most powerful business assets. It works around the clock for you. It can attract opportunities while you sleep. But only if you are intentional about how you build and position it.

Thank you so much. If you want to connect with me, you can do so on the Enterprise Nation platform or on LinkedIn. I'd be happy to continue the conversation there.

Caitriona: Thank you. If anyone has any questions, please do pop them in the chat.

In the meantime, I have a question here. What are the biggest mistakes SMEs make when trying to build a personal brand online?

Yetty: That's a great question. One of the biggest mistakes is trying to be everything to everybody. The best thing you can do is think about one kind of person when you create your content.

Ask yourself: who exactly am I talking to? Maybe it is a 40-year-old mother with two children under five who is extremely short on time. If that is the person I am writing for consistently, then my content will become much clearer and stronger.

You can always go wider later, but first go deep. Be known for something specific rather than trying to reach everyone at once.

Caitriona: Thank you. We've just come to the end of the session now and I don't see any other questions in the chat, so I think we'll leave it there.

Thank you so much, Yetty, for your presentation today. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We'll be sharing the recording and further resources in a follow-up email this afternoon.

Yetty: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

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