Strong People Build Personal Brands Before They Need Them
The worst time to build a personal brand is when you need one.
I’ve seen it too many times. A senior leader gets restructured out of a role. A merger happens and half the leadership team is suddenly available. And then they come to us. Urgent. Frustrated. Starting from scratch at exactly the moment they can least afford to.
Compare that to the executive who made a quiet decision two or three years ago to start showing up. Who wrote consistently, built a body of work, documented their thinking. When something changes in their professional life — and it always does — they’re not starting from zero.
That’s the difference between a personal brand built proactively and one built in a crisis.
The professionals who understand this treat their personal brand the way smart people treat savings. You don’t start saving when the emergency happens. You save consistently before it, so that when something changes you have options. Freedom. Leverage.
A strong personal brand gives you the same thing. Options. You’re not dependent on one company, one title, one set of relationships. Your reputation exists independently. It compounds over time.
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I’m not saying this to create anxiety. Most of the people reading this are doing fine right now. Good roles, good trajectory, no immediate pressure. That’s exactly when to build.
Because the executives who are genuinely hard to ignore in five years started building quietly when things were comfortable. Not when they had to. Before they had to.
Your career will change. Companies restructure. Industries shift. The only thing that stays constant is your name and what’s attached to it.
Make sure something is attached to it.
About Laurent Terrijn
I’m Laurent Terrijn, an entrepreneur and engineer. I see myself as a systems engineer and business builder: I build the systems businesses run on. I’m also a nerd who somehow ended up speaking ten languages. I love learning, and that curiosity pulled me deep into personal branding and artificial intelligence. On the side, explaining AI has become a passion project. I enjoy taking something that sounds complicated and making it simple enough for busy business people to understand. I do it out of curiosity, and because I like sharing what I find out.
More of my thinking at laurentterrijn.com. Want to talk visibility, personal brand, or just grab a virtual coffee? Connect with me on LinkedIn or grab me on WhatsApp.
