Personal branding with multiple areas of expertise starts with a practical question: which of your skills help the same audience solve a connected problem? You do not have to hide part of your experience. You do need to explain why those different skills belong together, and when a separate introduction would be clearer.
This guide is for consultants, executives and founders whose introductions have become a list of roles. The aim is to write a clear introduction and decide how to organise the different subjects on your website.
On this page
- Who is it for?For example, a service-business owner whose offer is difficult for customers to understand.
- What is getting in the way?An unclear service description and an uncertain next step for interested customers.
- What do you contribute?Review the message, define the service scope and clarify the enquiry process.
Find the problem connecting your skills
“Consultant, strategist, trainer and founder” describes roles, but it leaves a prospective client to work out when to approach you. Start with their situation. What decision are they struggling with? What needs to be understood or changed? Then identify the skills relevant to that situation.
My starting point is understanding the problem itself. That principle also applies to a professional introduction: listing tools and titles can obscure the problem you are equipped to address. Several skills can support one introduction when the relationship between them is clear to the reader.
If your audience and overall direction are still unclear, begin with the practical guide to building a personal brand. Here, the narrower question is how to present several areas of work coherently.
Separate interests, skills and services
You might be interested in product design, experienced in negotiation and paid for business consulting. These do not have the same place in your introduction. An interest can be a subject for learning; a professional skill needs evidence; a service also needs a clear scope and deliverables.
For each area, identify the person it helps, the work you actually do and the evidence you can show. These hypothetical examples distinguish a service, a supporting skill and an interest:
Brand positioning: a defined service
- Audience and problem
- A service-business owner whose customers cannot tell what the offer includes.
- Your work
- Review the audience, rewrite the service introduction and explain what an engagement covers.
- Useful evidence
- A permitted before-and-after example with reasons for the changes. Better wording alone does not establish increased sales.
Enquiry process: a related skill
- Audience and problem
- The same owner: customers submit a form but do not know what happens next.
- Your work
- Review the form, confirmation message and response ownership. Make the next step clear for the customer and team.
- Useful evidence
- A process map and documented changes. A claim about improved results also needs suitable before-and-after evidence and its limitations.
Product design: an emerging interest
- Audience and problem
- You have not yet established who would hire you for this work.
- Your work
- Study, practise and analyse examples, presented as learning rather than client delivery.
- Useful evidence
- A clearly labelled practice project. You do not need a client to learn; you do need to distinguish practice from commercial experience.
This is a hypothetical teaching example, not a description of my client work or results.
Choose one introduction or separate paths
When the audience, problem and starting point for collaboration are shared, one main introduction can work. Explain the supporting skills beneath it. Reviewing a service business’s message and its enquiry journey might belong in the same engagement, provided you actually deliver both.
When audiences and decisions differ substantially, separate pages on the same website may be clearer. Give each group relevant examples and an appropriate next step. Separate websites or accounts are not automatically necessary; first check whether clearer navigation resolves the confusion.
- One path: the audience is shared and the skills address connected problems.
- Separate paths: each group needs different explanations, evidence and arrangements.
- Learning area: you do not yet have enough evidence to offer the subject as a service.
Lead with the problem, then explain your approach
Complete this sentence in your own language: “I help [specific group] investigate and address [specific problem]. I use [relevant skills], and my role covers [actual scope].” It need not all fit into a headline. The first part can introduce you; the detail can follow.
Avoid filling gaps with “solving every business problem” or guaranteed growth. Explain when colleagues handle part of the delivery. The guide to choosing a personal branding consultant can help you distinguish advice, deliverables and implementation.
A worked example: three skills, one reason to get in touch
Imagine someone experienced in brand messaging, sales-process analysis and team training. Those skills can serve the same business, but listing them does not explain where an engagement begins.
“Brand strategist, sales consultant, trainer and business-growth enthusiast.”
The titles may be accurate. The difficulty is that readers must work out how they fit together and decide what to ask for.
“I help service businesses understand why customers struggle to understand their offer or stop responding after an initial enquiry. We review the service message and follow-up process with the team, then identify what needs to change.”
“Service businesses” identifies the audience. Difficulty understanding the offer or continuing a conversation explains when to seek help. Reviewing the problem with the team describes the role. The skills remain present through the work, rather than becoming a list of titles.
This is not a universal script. Remove follow-up if you only review messaging. If another team implements the changes, say so. A clear introduction must match the work you actually accept.
Test what people actually understand
Show the introduction to someone from your intended audience without adding a verbal explanation. Ask: “What problem would you approach me about after reading this? What remains unclear?” This is more informative than asking whether they like the wording. Record responses alongside real enquiries, while recognising that a few conversations do not represent the whole market.
If interpretations vary widely, adjust one element: audience, problem or scope. Rewriting everything at once makes it harder to understand which change helped. Initially, clarity in relevant enquiries is more useful than the number of likes on an introduction.
Apply the introduction to your website and content
Your homepage does not need to display everything you know. It needs to help someone decide whether they are in the right place and what to do next. Detailed experience becomes useful after that first decision.
- Homepage opening: name the main audience and problem, then explain your role and the team’s contribution. Avoid replacing this with a row of job titles.
- Individual service pages: bring together the relevant problem, scope, evidence you may publish and a clear way to start.
- Articles: answer questions that arise before a decision. “Why do customers stop replying after a proposal?” fits the example above; an unrelated trending subject may not.
- About page: explain your career and supporting skills. This is where a fuller picture belongs without crowding the first screen.
If you advise businesses and teach music, you do not have to invent a shared problem. The audiences and buying decisions differ. Two clear routes under your own name can be more honest and easier to understand.
Exercise: start with a situation, not a slogan
Complete these five lines in your own notes before polishing the wording:
- Who might need my help, and what is happening when they do?
- How would that person describe the problem in their own words?
- What do I investigate or deliver, and what is outside my scope?
- Which permitted example, explanation of my method or work sample supports that claim?
- What should the reader do next: read a guide, explore a service or request a conversation?
Use the answers to write one main sentence and two supporting sentences. If the explanation needs another string of titles, revisit the audience and situation. The aim is an easier start to a conversation, not a smaller personality.
Common questions
Must I be known for only one thing? Not necessarily. Make the central subject understandable and show how supporting skills contribute. Where the subjects genuinely differ, separate the routes.
What if my career has changed? Base the main introduction on the work you accept today. Explain earlier experience on the About page in proportion to its relevance.
How will I know the wording is better? Ask whether a reader can explain when to contact you and what to expect without additional explanation. That is evidence of clarity, not proof of increased sales.
Source and next step
Caleb Ralston discusses positioning at 12:09 in How to Build a Personal Brand, and topic selection at 33:12. The examples and decision criteria here are this site’s editorial proposals, not a translation of his course.
Complete the five-line exercise and ask someone in your intended audience to read the introduction. Before changing your logo, job title or whole website, check whether those sentences explain the problem and the boundaries of your work.