P R O P E R L Y D I F F E R E N T
Personal Branding
Done-for-you positioning and messaging for independent experts. Built around your story and what you're known for. Then words that sound like you, wherever you show up.
T H E P R O B L E M
You’re brilliant at what you do.
You just can’t explain why anyone should choose you.
Someone asks what you do and you pick one of five answers, depending on who's asking.
Your LinkedIn headline says one thing. Your website says another.
The way you actually describe the work over coffee is better than both, and it's written down nowhere.
You know your value. You've just never had to compress it into something someone else can repeat.
S O U N D F A M I L I A R ?
You've rewritten your LinkedIn About page four times. You've had a go at the headline.
You've asked ChatGPT to make it sharper and it gave you something polished that could belong to anyone.
The enquiries you get are the wrong ones. Or the right ones, but they're comparing you to people who aren't as good as you.
Word of mouth got you here but referrals are slowing.
That's where I come in. I find the difference you can't see from the inside, and give you the words to say it. Giving you a properly different position that produces commercial clarity and increases the odds of winning work. It also gives yo the confidence to sell yourself as ‘the real you’. Complete with your passions and beliefs.
T H E S O L U T I O N
Positioning & messaging defined with you, written for you.
▶ A clear position that's yours, so you can always answer why you and not someone else
▶ The buyer you're actually for, and the ones you're deliberately not for
▶ Where you sit against the real alternatives, not just other people doing the same thing
▶ Your elevator pitch. What you say out loud when someone asks what you do
▶ Your LinkedIn headline and About section rewritten and banner redesigned
▶ A short bio you can use anywhere, for intros, panels, proposals and partner sites
▶ A brag bank of stats, testimonials and authority cues to drop into posts, proposals and pitches.
W H Y I T ‘ S D I F F E R E N T
I understand your
challenges first-hand.
I spent 14 years as MD of a London brand agency, growing it from six people to £4.3m. I was positioning brands like M&S Food, Pizza Express and Holland & Barrett.
Then I left and started again on my own. So I know what it's like to ‘be the product’ and to have no team, no big brand name or physical product to hide behind. It's a different kind of exposure.
I don't just hand you a strategy and wish you luck. I write the messaging so you’re all set to focus on sales.
You don't get a framework to interpret, you get the actual sentences. What goes in your LinkedIn headline. What you say when someone asks what you do. The bio you paste into a speaker form for the big event you’ve just landed.
Each hypothesis is run through my Reality Check before I recommend it.
REAL
Is it genuinely true of you. Your experience, your judgement, the way you actually work.
READY
Can you deliver it. Every time, not just on your best day.
RELEVANT
Does it matter to the customer. Is it something they need, want or value?
Fail one and it doesn't count.
There's no point owning a position you can't live in.
H O W I T W O R K S
01 Discover
Before we kick off the project, you work through a short set of questions designed to help you consider and detail the most valuable elements for our work together.
We then do a 2 hour workshop using your answers as a starting point. This helps me gain an understanding of what you know that took you years to learn, and what you've stopped noticing because it's just how you think.
I also look outward. Your competitors and who inspires you, how they're positioned, what they're claiming, their limitations and what nobody's saying at all.
02 Determine & Decide
I take everything away and find the pattern. Where your experience gives you permission to own something nobody else can.
I come back with a recommendation of where you should plant your flag and why.
We work together to make sure your position feels genuine and deliverable by your business and relevant to your audience. You leave knowing exactly which position is yours and why.
03 Deploy
Then I write it. Your elevator pitch, your LinkedIn headline, banner and About section.. Your bio and the words you use when someone asks what you do. Not a positioning statement that dies in a drawer. Actual sentences you can use on Monday.
W H A T Y O U W A L K A W A Y W I T H
A clear picture of exactly who you’re for, what you do and where you’re different
▷ Your brand position defined
Where you stand and why it's yours.
Written so it feels genuine, holds up commercially, and lifts straight into everything you say.
▷ Your flag
One line that's yours. It often ends up as your descriptor or your tagline. The thing people remember you by.
▷ Your audience defined
Who you're for, and who you’re not. Narrow enough to actually guide what you write and who you chase. The second half matters more than people expect.
▷ Your difference made clear
What makes you the obvious choice over someone who does the same thing, named so buyers can finally see it.
The words to carry it everywhere, ready to use on Monday
▷ Elevator pitch
What you say when someone asks what you do. Out loud, in a sentence, without the long way round. Plus the line you want other people to say about you, so referrals come easier.
▷ LinkedIn headline, banner and About section
Rewritten from your position. The first thing anyone reads when they check you out.
▷ Your bio
Short and portable. For speaker forms, panels, proposals, podcast intros and partner sites.
▷ Value & Proof Snippets
A brag bank of stats, testimonials and authority cues to drop into posts, proposals and pitches.
Want to look the part too?
Design can be added once your position is signed off. Logo, colours and fonts etc. scoped to what you need.
PRICE from £2,500
A W O R D F R O M A C L I E N T
Carla helped me clarify my brand, proposition and identity when I set up my new business. I felt she immediately grasped what I was after, and magically turned vague ideas into something compelling that felt just right. It was an energising and fun process too! I would highly recommend her.
SADIE VISICK - EXEC & LEADERSHIP COACH ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑
W H Y M E
Fourteen years running a brand agency, repositioning names you'd recognise. Then I left, and started selling my own brain for a living. Same problem, no team to hide behind.
Since going solo I've been doing this work for expert founders. Some solo, some in small partnerships.
And I noticed the work always arrived in pieces. A bit of positioning here. Some messaging there. A new headline because the old one felt off.
Which meant things got redone, cost more, and often didn't land. Built from the top down instead of the foundations up.
So I built the better version - Properly Different.
The whole thing, in the right order, in one go.
Not three months and a budget you can't justify. All of it, at a size you can actually buy.
W H O I T ‘ S F O R
Consultants, advisers and specialists who are brilliant at what they do, but stumble when they have to explain why anyone should choose them.
You've grown on reputation and referrals. The work is good. But the words have never caught up with how good you are, and you can feel it costing you.
Most of what you get from this is written down. But the thing people notice first is that they stop hedging. When you know exactly where you stand, you say it faster, you charge more easily, and you stop apologising for the price.
It's especially for you if:
▸You've been quietly worried your positioning sounds like everyone else's, but never had time to fix it.
▸ A competitor you know is weaker keeps winning work you should be getting.
▸ You're about to start a real push on LinkedIn, refresh your website or go after bigger work and you know the words need sorting first.
W H O I T ‘ S N O T F O R
▸ You've got a team. If the positioning has to work when you're not in the room, and other people need to be able to sell it consistently, that's Company Brand Positioning. Different evidence, different output, different price.
▸ You've just left a job and haven't started yet. This works when there's something to dig into. Real clients, real work, a track record of what you're good at. Too early and we'd be inventing a position rather than finding one.
▸ You want to keep all your options open. This only works if you're willing to be specific about who you're for, which means being clear about who you're not for. If narrowing feels like closing doors, you're not ready.
▸ You want it done 100% for you, not with you. I do the heavy lifting, the digging and the thinking. But it's built on your experience and your judgement, so I need your attention for a few hours across two weeks.
Roughly happy and just want a second pair of eyes?
That's The Difference Audit, not this.
C A S E S T U D Y
From three job titles to one ownable idea
Michael had a genuinely broad portfolio career. Corporate change consulting, fractional creative leadership and coaching.
Three job titles, three audiences, and no easy single line that covered all of it.
The challenge was therefore finding the one strength that held across every role. And as is often the case with personal brands, it was there in his biography, not in his services list: whatever the organisation was going through, Michael was the person who held things together. Particularly the people, the individuals and the team as a unit.
He hadn't seen it. That's usually how it goes, because it's the thing you're too close to notice. Once we had it, the messaging became a question of how to present a wide set of experience as one coherent idea rather than a list of separate offers.
Since launching, Michael's been able to put himself in front of corporate leaders with more authority, and he's no longer dependent on referrals to fill his diary.
Note: this project included visual identity and a website build. Not typical. Most clients already have both, and identity can be added if not.
❝ I came to her with a genuinely complex brief. She took the time to understand what I actually do, found the positioning that holds it all together, and only then moved into the execution... it’s terrific because the thinking behind it is right. That’s rarer than it sounds. ❞
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑
MICHAEL STOREY
EXECUTIVE COACH & CREATIVE CONSULTANT
FAQs.
Can you add on design?
Yes. We can scope creative work as a bolt-on once your positioning is clear.
It sits outside the core work and has its own price. Positioning first, design second.
What exactly do I walk away with?
A clear market position, researched, analysed and decided.
One strong recommendation, not a menu.
A messaging kit: the words, value and proof points, tone of voice and an elevator pitch you can use straight away.
Your LinkedIn banner and profile sorted.
And the confidence to promote your business with the passion and clarity it deserves.
Won't narrowing my positioning cost me work?
It feels that way, which is why most people stay broad and end up sounding like everyone else.
Being clear about who you're for doesn't turn work away. It makes the right people choose you faster and stops you competing on price. Y
ou can still take the odd off-piste job. You just stop building the whole business on being a maybe.
How is this different from a marketing agency who charge monthly?
An agency sells you activity. Content, posts, a calendar, all charged monthly.
This fixes the thing underneath all of it. What you stand for and how to say it.
Get that right and everything you post has something solid to work from. Get it wrong and you're just making noise faster.
Plus you get me all the way through. No junior team, no handover, no being passed on once the contract's signed
Can't I just do this myself, or with ChatGPT?
Of course. It can be helpful. But most people end up with fifteen tabs open and more confused than when they started. ChatGPT will happily give you something that sounds distinctive with no idea whether you can actually deliver it. The hard part isn't generating options. It's knowing which one is genuinely yours, and being honest about whether you can hold it. That's the bit you can't do about yourself.
How long does it take?
2 weeks from kickoff to handover, plus a 90-day check-in.
What if I'm not sure it's right for me?
Book the intro call. No pressure, no pitch, just a chat to see if it's a fit.
If it's not, I'll tell you, and point you somewhere more useful if I can.
R E A D Y W H E N Y O U A R E