The Silent CEO's Guide to Becoming the Face of the Company

This morning I was asked about my favorite clients. Who are the executives I most enjoy working with?

The best answer I could come up with is a person I call the “heads-down CEO.” 

The heads-down CEO isn’t the natural showy, salesman type. They earned their reputation and position by getting the job done. They put their head down and did the work.

Then something changed. Their hard work brought them to the C-suite. Suddenly, they found themselves staring down a new responsibility: They’re the reluctant face and voice of the brand. Journalists, employees, clients, and peers want to hear their ideas and stories directly.

The executive realizes that being heads-down is no longer the way forward. It’s time to speak, write, and cast vision.

Fortunately, they have a career full of experience and wisdom to pull from. Their stories aren’t forced. They flow on their own, but many executives aren’t sure how to turn the tap on. Where and how should you start?

The marketing superpower of an executive brand

I’ve worked with executives and founders for almost a decade as a ghostwriter and consultant. The use cases and results of building an executive-led marketing strategy are as unique as the underlying business goals.

• A founder wanted to grow their engineering team. We started publishing on LinkedIn about the company culture, tools the engineers are using, open roles, and various hiring stories. The client was flooded with applications from high-caliber technical talent. They filled everything from specialized engineering roles all the way up to a CTO.

• A marketer needed help promoting a major conference where there were a handful of notable speakers. I worked with each speaker to ghostwrite dedicated articles highlighting the event. Each speaker drew interest from their audience, leading to a sold-out event.

• A CEO was trying to bolster the reputation of his company. I helped him (and other members of the executive team) create personal brands. Within months, competitors were trying to copy their marketing, podcast hosts were inviting them to share, and each executive significantly expanded their personal brands. The company wasn’t aiming for direct sales, but they earned plenty of those as well. 

• I’ve helped other executives bolster email lists, improve sales, earn major media coverage, grow social media followings, foster relationships with influential people in their field, and much, much more.

I’ve heard it said that building a personal brand expands your surface area for luck. The more you write, the more you share stories and ideas openly, the more you become a magnet for ideas. 

With some effort, a personal executive brand can grow huge. First, start small.

Select one platform that excites you

Strategy is a process of elimination. It’s what you don’t do. 

When you’re beginning a personal brand, there are a thousand ways you can direct your energy. You’re not lacking in options. What matters is the thousand options you eliminate so that you can focus all your energy on the one method that resonates with you.

Let’s get concrete. 

You decide to become an engaged member on X. That means you decide to ignore (or hold back) on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. 

Or let’s say you decide to become a go-to podcast guest. That means you don’t spend all your efforts blogging or writing a newsletter. 

You can always expand and diversify your efforts later. But to start, we need one platform and one media strategy that you take seriously.

The easiest place to start is to play on your natural interests. With personal brands, people can tell the person who enjoys what they’re doing from the person who shows up reluctantly. If you love scrolling and posting on X, there’s a good chance you’ll put in the effort necessary to succeed on X. If you hate X as a platform but think it’s a great opportunity, you’re starting on the wrong foot. You’ll be outworked and foiled by the folks who genuinely enjoy it. 

I recently attended a writing roundtable discussion. There were authors, marketers, journalists, and newsletter writers. I was surprised by how many working writers described a disdain for marketing. We made fun of having to make TikTok videos. But if I’m honest, I enjoy marketing. I don’t particularly enjoy creating TikTok-style videos. But I’ve defined what marketing looks like for my business and genuinely have a good time. 

Marketing my business just looks like writing. I author articles like the one you’re reading. I pitch publications that inspire me. I engage on the social media channels that inspire or motivate me. Marketing a personal brand is a game where you define the rules.

If you’ve never built a personal brand before, I recommend starting with a single platform and publishing strategy. Once you’ve gained some traction or learned the ropes, you can expand into additional tactics. For now, select one platform from this list:

• Social media: X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky

• Long-form media: Blog, newsletter, business column (like Forbes Council)

• Speaking: Podcast and radio guest, keynote speaking, podcast host

The only thing not included in this list is writing a book. We’ll get to that later.

Now that you’ve selected a platform, it’s time to answer the big question: What’s your message?

Find your beat 

You have your platform. Now, what do you want to publish or talk about?

I don’t want to get too formulaic here. I don’t believe in just becoming the face of a single idea or industry. In a world where anyone can draft forgettable adages using AI, people want to follow folks with range. They follow people because they have quirks and depth and a variety of interests. 

Finding your beat is less about formulaic topic selection and more about setting guardrails. We aren’t building a generic brand for you. You’re not a lifestyle influencer sharing about your day. You’re on a mission to become a known expert in your field. 

Finding your beat means working backwards from a few points:

• Find your audience: Who are you trying to reach? Let’s get specific here. Maybe it’s the heads of just 30 companies. The narrower your audience, the easier it will be to reach them. First, you must name them. 

• Follow your curiosity: People want to follow people who care. They admire someone who enjoys diving into the weeds of something technical or obscure. This can be certain sports, something technical like engineering, or even something polarizing like certain causes you care about or even politics (though be careful with controversy as the head of a company). List out everything that makes you curious. Some of these can turn into good talking points or tie-ins.

• Lean into your taste: You don’t always have to be the originator of great ideas and stories. Sometimes, you just need to point your audience toward what’s happening in your industry. If you have an inside scoop or know where to look for trending topics, you can become a tastemaker by sharing timely data. 

• Speak from experience: This is the glue that holds the other points together. The superpower of being a public figure is using specific, personal stories to explain larger truths that relate to your intended audience. When you share articles, speak to your audience, and follow your curiosity, the magic is in your ability to personalize it. Tell stories. People don’t want to follow a faceless curator. They want to follow a person. That’s you. 

At the intersection of these topics, you have a vast amount of material. Now, you need a system for publishing consistently.

Build consistency

Consistency is subjective. Being consistent on LinkedIn means publishing 2-3 times per week. Being consistent on X means publishing 2-3 times per day. Being consistent as a columnist might mean publishing once per week or a few times per month. Being consistent as a book author means publishing once every few years.

The point is to work backwards from your ideal platform. For example, right now I’m working on a book. I had to create a new routine just to add consistency to my week. Every morning, before my workday begins, I go to a coffee shop at 6am and write the book for the first two hours of the day. 

I realize not every executive has a free two hours in the morning. The point is to find a system that works for you and keeps your effort and publishing consistent. 

I know many executives who love the writing process. They set aside one day per week or one hour per day to invest in their brand. Others prefer to outsource the consistency to someone like me. 

I meet regularly with all my ghostwriting clients. All they have to do is book time on my calendar once or twice per month on Zoom or in-person in Austin. I do the research and writing. Then, the executive merely needs to approve my work.

You can build consistency into your schedule or you can hire consistency with an expert. But I will say this: You won’t build a substantive executive brand without first building the consistency arm. Anyone can write one excellent article or appear on a good podcast.

The people worth following show up consistently.

Test, invest, and vary

The nature of brand building is testing. You’re running a ton of small experiments and seeing how people respond. 

After some time on one platform, you’ll start to feel a pull towards another. For me, I started longform blogging. Blogging sparked my interest in guest posting. Guest posting inspired me to write journalism-style pieces for major publications. A journalism approach to writing led me to participate in large cultural conversations, which recently pulled me toward X. 

Media begets media. Once you’ve invested for a few months in a single platform, you can try expanding to another platform.

My big recommendation here is to test another publishing method. If you’re used to drafting short tweets, don’t simply jump to Bluesky or Threads. Try long-form writing or pitching podcasts. Pitch yourself for local speaking opportunities. 

In my experience, varying your media types works better than sticking to one format. It also gives you multiple outlets: You have a short-form space for testing ideas. You also have a long-form outlet for exploring the depths of a meatier topic.

This is when the compounding effects of brand building begin to take effect.

You’ve invested a few months into a single platform. You’re beginning to vary your outlets by expanding into new media territory. Now, the long-form and the short-form begin to work together. Long-form article readers follow you on social media. Folks from social media share your long-form ideas.

A social following bolsters your credibility as a speaker. Speaking at a conference increases your social following, so that you’re invited to speak again. As your influence grows, journalists and creators begin to quote your work, giving you earned publicity. 

Your platform eventually gains the attention of media outlets. Publishers want your book. Editors want to host your guest column. Now, the media machine is a flywheel. Ideas spread more easily. The challenge now is not getting distracted. You’ll be tempted to adopt many more media channels because you gain traction across them. 

Expand slowly. Stay consistent. Continue the experiments. Enjoy the results of your effort.

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Most executives don’t spend their careers building a personal brand. They garner a reputation for results by being a heads-down employee and slowly climbing the corporate ladder into a position of leadership.

Once in the executive suite, they’re met with a small surprise: selling is now part of the job. Leadership is storytelling. Leadership is sales, marketing, and recruiting. 

It’s no longer enough to be a heads-down CEO. People want to hear your story. It’s time to share effectively. That can mean building a social presence, speaking at industry events, speaking with journalists, or even authoring a book that demonstrates your expertise. 

Regardless of where you feel your natural skills lie, I know you can find a way to deliver in this new role — in a way that feels right for you. It’s an exciting position to be in. Best of luck.