What Does Google Say About You?
Twice in the past couple of months I've had business owners ask me roughly the same question: how do I build a reputation in my industry, and what should my personal brand look like alongside my business brand?
It's a good question, and not one most small business owners have time to think about deeply. So I decided to start where any potential client would start – I Googled myself. The top two results were my social media profiles, which was expected, but it wasn't until page three that my role as a trustee of a local charity popped up. Interesting right?
For service-based businesses, this matters more than most of us realise. Business brands influence decisions for sure - but if you are selling trust, which most services are, customers make the final decision based on the person behind the business. Harvard Business Review has noted that professional and personal success depends on persuading others to recognise your value, and in 2026 that persuasion is happening online, usually without you in the room. The numbers back this up: 99% of buyers say thought leadership is a factor in their decision-making, and 73% say they trust it more than traditional marketing. In other words, people are weighing up whether to work with you based on the expertise, ideas and points of view you share, write and stand for.
Your business brand and your personal brand are stitched together whether you like it or not. The logo on your car, the tone of your website, the way you respond to a review, the photo on your LinkedIn profile, the charity you support – it all adds up to one impression. Underneath it all sit your core values. If you haven't spent time articulating what yours are (for example: honesty, craftsmanship, community, reliability – whatever genuinely drives you), it's hard for anyone else to get a clear read on you. Clients pick up on values quickly, and they use them as a shortcut for deciding whether you're "their kind of person" to do business with.
So where should you focus your energy? LinkedIn is the heavy hitter for service providers, particularly if you work with other businesses (B2B). Personal profiles on LinkedIn generate 561% more reach (the unique number of people seeing your content) than company pages sharing the same content, driving 2.75 times more impressions (the number of times your content pops up on someone’s feed) and five times more engagement (likes, comments, shares). That's a compelling case for posting from your own profile rather than hiding behind a business page. Format matters too – posts with images get twice the engagement of text-only posts, and video content gets five times more engagement than any other format. You don't need to become a content machine. One thoughtful post a week is enough to shift the needle.
Beyond social media, there's a whole layer of supporting media that does the heavy lifting for positioning. A simple digital playbook or guide – a well-designed PDF that answers the questions your clients always ask – gives you something credible to hand over, and it tends to get shared. Guest speaking at a local business group, Chamber of Commerce event or industry webinar puts you in front of a warm audience who are already primed to listen. Being quoted in a trade publication or local paper, appearing on a podcast in your niche, or writing a guest column all add layers of third-party credibility that you can't buy with advertising. In a small community, this sort of thing compounds faster than you'd think. A talk at the local business breakfast, a piece in the community paper about the charity you support, sponsoring a kids' sports team, running a free workshop at the library – these aren't marketing gimmicks, they're reputation builders, and they're often what people remember long after they've forgotten your last Facebook post.
The good news is that building a reputation doesn't require you to become an influencer or post daily reels. According to a recent piece in SUCCESS magazine, some of the most effective founders build strong personal brands through writing rather than video, and through teaching rather than entertaining. In other words, you don't need to perform. You need to be useful, consistent, and recognisably yourself.
A few simple steps to get started:
Google your own name and see what comes up – and ask a friend to do the same, because their results will be different from yours.
Write down your three or four core values, and use them as a filter for what you say yes and no to.
Tidy up your LinkedIn headline so it describes the value you offer, not just your job title.
Make sure your profile photos across platforms are the same, and actually look like you.
Pick one place where you'll share your thinking regularly – a weekly email, a LinkedIn post or a blog – and stick with it.
Say yes to one speaking opportunity in the next six months, even if it's a ten-minute slot at a local networking group.
Decide what you want to be known for in your community, because if you don't define that, your audience will do it for you.
Your reputation is being built right now, whether you're paying attention or not. The only question is whether you're shaping it or leaving it to chance.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on how you're showing up – or a hand pulling the pieces together into something that genuinely reflects you and your business – I'd love to have a chat. Drop me a line and we'll find a time for a coffee.
