Do you know your brand relatives?
Do you know your brand relatives?
Not your competitors. Your relatives. This might be the single most underrated concept in personal branding, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Here's the family tree.
Brand Fraternal Twins Same industry. Same audience. Different delivery. Think Brené Brown and Simon Sinek. Both talk about leadership and human behavior. But Brené leads with vulnerability and research. Simon leads with frameworks and "why." Same room, opposite entrances.
Brand Siblings Adjacent space. Overlapping audience. A different problem they solve. Think Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi. Both live in the "build your business" world. But Gary sells hustle and attention. Alex sells acquisition and offers. You'd follow both — for different reasons.
Brand Cousins Different space entirely. But the same type of person follows them. Think Mel Robbins and James Clear. One talks behavior change through mindset. One talks behavior change through habits. Your high-achieving, self-improvement LinkedIn follower probably follows both without thinking twice.
So why does any of this matter?
Because most people build their brand in isolation. They stare at their "competitors" and try to out-do them. Louder, faster, cheaper.
But your brand relatives aren't your competition. They're your context. They're how a stranger figures out where you fit — and how you make sure you fit somewhere specific.
When you know where you sit in the family:
➜ You stop copying your twin and start differentiating from them. ➜ You find the angle your sibling left wide open. ➜ You understand whose audience is already primed to find you — by studying your cousin.
You're not trying to beat your relatives. You're trying to be unmistakably yourself next to them. That's positioning.
"I don't want to be another newsletter in your inbox. I want to be an actionletter. In every edition, I'll include a 'Go-and-Do' [below] to help you take an action step TODAY that improves your LinkedIn™ performance, your business, or even your life."
Go and Do:
Name your brand relatives. One twin, one sibling, one cousin.
Then for your twin, write one sentence: "They lead with ___, so I lead with ___." That single sentence is the start of a positioning that's actually yours.
One More Thing - The LinkedIn™ Spark Community
If today's edition resonated, you'd love the room I built for people who want to take this seriously.
The LinkedIn™ Spark Community is for people who want three things most LinkedIn advice doesn't deliver together: education, accountability, and real networking.
Inside, we focus on:
· LinkedIn strategy that actually moves the needle
· How to become a sharper writer (because writing is the work)
· Content systems, not content luck
· Guest speakers, "hot seat" sessions, and presentations from members themselves
You also get one 1:1 call with me per quarter. This is not a group where you post once and disappear. It's a community where people show up, sharpen each other, and build the kind of presence that compounds.