Why is Personal Branding just another way for women to be judged for their looks and characteristics.

Personal branding continues to be the "buzzword" of 2026 in the Female Entrepreneurial landscape. But is it really going to move your business forward?

At the beginning of this year a new buzz word entered the entrepreneurial chat alongside authenticity and visibility. Personal Branding.

The Female Networks were awash with it: "If you don't grow a personal brand you'll never be memorable and recognised" blah blah blah-di blah.

And every time this was mentioned I rolled my eyes. Because this was yet another way for 1) "gurus" who knew only had a surface-level understanding of branding let alone personal branding to sell you their monthly programme and 2) for women yet again to be judged on their looks and personality rather than their expertise and knowledge.

As a brand designer and strategist, I make it abundantly clear that I don't do personal brands. Because I know that it's just another distraction from them actually progressing their business forward. Having a personal brand is a job in itself (which is why celebrities who have personal brands have an entourage of Talent, PR and Marketing Agents that control the narrative) and not something that any Entrepreneur should be focusing on as they build their business.

So why the fascination? And what should you be building instead if you're a female entrepreneur with big visions and goals?

What is Personal Branding (really)?

Personal Branding - as I eluded to above - is making yourself a brand: your personality, your characteristics, your values and your beliefs. And in an era of building "know, like and trust" (another few buzzwords to throw into the entrepreneurial mix) Personal Branding seems - logically - the best way to help your clients get to know who you are and (hopefully) work with you.

But what it doesn't do is actually focus on what you're good at: your expertise, your knowledge and the very business you're trying to build. And, what you thought was creating opportunities, is actually limiting your impact.

Let's do a scenario: you share an opinion online to your audience - one that you're rightfully able to do - only this time instead of your audience agreeing, they disagree. You lose followers, you get comments telling you that you're wrong (and as we all know, those comment sections can get incredibly vicious) prospects that you were talking to quietly walk away and even some of your loyal clients start distancing themselves from all the backlash.

Now, if you were a celebrity - the team of people around you will start doing damage control immediately after you said it. There would be conversations with press to keep it low key with the exchange of a potential exclusive. Your Marketing team will take over your socials for a while until things calmed down to change the narrative. They may even write you a statement to apologise if it feels serious.

But as a business owner you don't have that team. You're still building your business and no where near that level of help in your business.

And something else happens too. You're the one being judged. Not your business - although that gets impacted in the fall out of everything - you.

The gurus who promote personal branding will tell you "but that's part of business! Not everyone is going to like you!" and that is true. But it doesn't have to end up with you crying yourself to sleep at night because if feels like the entire world has turned against you.

And this is why, when prospects come to ask about my services I tell them not to build a personal brand. They do not have the infrastructure to have one (yet), and you're running the risk of your business dying before you've even got started.

What brand you should be building as a female entrepreneur

Your brand shouldn't need an entire team to run. Not right now, not whilst you're building your business up. As a business owner, the function of your brand is to support the growth and sustainability of the business. So, unlike personal branding, the focus is on the business, not on you.

This doesn't mean that you have to create an entire brand persona for your business separate from you. The way that I work with my clients (and the way that has been the most effective) is Founder-Led Branding.

Founder-Led Branding is a technique that takes the Founder's (AKA: you) vision, values, story and mission, and put it at the heart of the business brand. This gives the business a direction, a position and a value system that can still build that "know, like and trust" but now the focus is on what the business can do, not the founder.

Of course you're still there (you're leading it after all) but you're not taking centre stage, it doesn't need you to work, to increase visibility - which when and if you decide to step back from the day-to-day running of your business allows you to do so without it being such a massive impact to your business.

Why is having a Founder-Led Brand particularly important for Female Entrepreneurs

Women live in a world where they are constantly judged. Our hair, our skin, our makeup, our weight, whether we have children or not, our clothes, our jobs...the list is endless.

So when you build a Personal Brand instead of a Founder-Led one, you're asking the world to continue judging you based on looks and characteristics alone.

When you decide to build a Founder-Led brand instead, you're showing the world that not only your professionalism, expertise, knowledge and voice have value, but also those of your fellow female entrepreneurs too.

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Did you know that my Brand and a Brew sessions have had a bit of a glow up? Now you can do a Brand, Brew and get a personalised Brand Identity Blueprint too!