Amelia Sordell 🔥

Advice for young women, if you want to have an amazing life;

1. Make your own money.
2. Build an amazing group of friends.
3. Don't be a b*tch.

Your life gets dramatically better when you're financially independent, have the right people around you... and zero interest in tearing other people down.

💜

If you're under 30 and you have absolutely no responsibilities you should be spending as much time as possible networking.

There is never going to be another time in your life where you can go out, meet strangers, and build a network
of people who can help you in the future.

Because as you get older…
you have kids,
a mortgage,
responsibilities,

bedtimes,
bath times,
school runs.
You can’t just pop out for coffees or drinks after 5pm anymore.

I book dinners now at 5.30pm, specifically so can be in bed by 9pm 😂

And yet, your network IS your net worth. I’ve closed £32,000 deals from DMing strangers on LinkedIn and just asking them for a coffee.

Have a KPI of 10 coffees with strangers every month.
Find 25 people on LinkedIn.
Message them.
Offer value.
Offer to buy coffee.

Out of 25:
10 will reply
5 will say yes
That’s 5 new people in your network every single week.

Do that for 12 months… and you’ve added 260 highly valuable people to your network.

I can promise you now, thats 260 people more than your peers have - because they're too nervous, or too lazy to build relationships with real people in real life.

Give it a go. Worst that will happen is you get ignored. Best, is you add a few people to your friendship circle who change the trajectory of your business, and your life.

Business is a numbers game.
And the more people you are willing to play with, the more likely you are to win.

💜

Age 21: Quit my full time job to start my first business.
Age 22: Profitable within 12 months. Get funding to grow my first business.
Age 23: My first business goes bust. Left with £100,000s of stock I couldn't sell.
Age 24: Re-enter the workforce. Get a job after 100 rejections. Start at the bottom.
Age 25: Get 3x promotions within 12 months.
Age 26: Quit my job to give business another go. Find Out I'm pregnant the day after I hand in my noticed.
Age 27: Have my first baby. Rejoin the workforce, in a completely different job function. Start from the bottom.
Age 28: Find out I'm having another baby.
Age 29: I wanted more. Started posting content about it.
Age 30: Hit 24k followers. Quit my job to start Klowt.
Age 31: Grew that business to $500k revenue and a team of 4.
Age 32: Hit $1million in revenue. Team hit 10.
Age 33: Hit $2million revenue. Team hit 17.
Age 34: Burnt out. Realised this isn't what I wanted after all.
Age 35: Unscaled my business to a team of 4.
Now: Never been happier - or more motivated to win. On my terms.

There is so much pressure on people - especially women, to have a neat little story of success.

But in case you needed reminding today, you're dead a lot longer than you're alive. But you're also alive for a lot longer than you think.

You don't have to have it all figured out by 21, 34 or even 67.

You're allowed to pause. Stop. Change your mind. Unlearn. Relearn. Scale and un-scale. Redefine what 'success' looks like to you.

Stop living your life for other people's expectations - and timelines.

Because actually, your life gets 10x better if you don't.

💜

Shamelessly promote your business until you're rich.
Tell your friends.
Tell strangers.
Talk about it online.
Talk about it off.
Talk about it to anyone who’ll listen - and probably a few who won’t.

Wear t-shirts with your logo on. Create a background with your logo for Zoom meetings. Carry a bag with your business details on it everywhere.

Shamelessly promote your business until you get every customer, client, supplier - hit every milestone, every target.

And then when you do that - hire people, and pay them to shamelessly promote your business, too.

No one is going to know your business exists unless you tell them about it.

And if you - the founder, are not willing to promote it, who the hell is?

If you’re scared of being cringe or “too much”? That’s fine.
Be cringe. Be too much.

But also be paid.

Promote your f*cking business.

And keep promoting it until you don’t have to explain what it is anymore - because all those customers you got do the promoting for you.

💜

Like it or not how you dress, matters.

💜

Someone once said to me "i've never met a person who goes to the gym, takes care of themselves... who isn't also wildy successful in their business life"

This triggered me into going to the gym 3-4x a week, religiously since Jan 1st.

I've:
- Dropped 4kgs
- Feel like a little baddie
- And have closed 3x new consulting gigs with tremendous f*cking founders, wanting to use their personal brands to grow their businesses.

If you're feeling sh*t about work...

Go to the gym.

💜

I went back to work just 3 months after having my second baby.
Truthfully, I wore that quick return like a badge of honour.
I thought it made me look like I had my sh*t together.

That I was mature.
Smart.
Valuable enough to be able to have a baby, whilst managing a 18 month old and get right back to work.

And crushed it.

But actually, I was crumbling.

I was tired.
Unsure of myself.
My confidence was shot and to be honest, like a lot of mothers can relate to... totally lost my identity.

But I was terrified of being left behind in my career.
So, I went back to work.

As a result, I completely overwhelmed.

I missed out on moments at home.
Missed targets I'd set myself at work.
And felt totally depleted.

I had nothing to give anymore.
But most importantly I had nothing to give myself, anymore.

There is no RIGHT time to go back to work after a major life event, if you can afford to make that decision.

But there definitely is a wrong time.

Be kind to yourself.
Listen to your body.

Outsiders might think you look like Superwoman.
But there aren’t any real life medals for wearing that cape.

Amelia 💜

If we haven't met before, hi - my name's Amelia. I built a $4million revenue business off the back of my personal brand, now I post content about how you can do it, too.

I run a weekly live - The Branded Show - where we go through tools, tactics and strategies small businesses can use to stand out, get more leads and make more money. Save your spot here: ameliasordell.com/live/

In case you needed reminding today, most of the world's most successful people have ADHD, Dyslexia - or got really crappy grades at school.

Stop measuring your kids 'success' on a system that is built to fail them.

💜

My first business was a clothing brand - and when it went bust in 2015, I was left with £100,000s worth of stock I couldn't sell.

After listing huge amounts on eBay and bulk selling on Overstock to try and recuperate some of the losses, a friend approached me to take the rest.

"I'll give you £5 a jacket" she said.

£50 less than the manufacturing cost.

Her friend had a big online clothing store - and was 'willing' to take my stock for basically nothing to sell on their shop.. for a large profit.

I remember feeling so hurt by this. My business was going down. I was broke. And whilst this person could afford to meet the manufacturing costs, they chose to use the situation to get a better deal.

I declined.
They got upset.

"How are you going to sell this stuff on eBay and not take MY deal?"

And that was the lesson.

Real friends don’t ask for mates’ rates. They don’t get offended when you don't give them a discount, because real friends are rooting for you to win.

If you're someone who buys from big corporations, or celebrity brands - take a look at your friends businesses, first.

Before you hand your money to already-millionaires, look at who in your friendship group makes a similar product, you can buy instead.

Support from your friends really doesn't cost anything.

If you say you support, small businesses, start with your friends businesses first.

Amelia

💜

Even Simon Squibb had no followers or likes when he first started. Now he has more than Steven Bartlett.

Just f*cking post it!

When I meet people for the first time, I always introduce myself with my full name. Most people don’t do this because they think it’s a bit weird.

But, if people know your first name AND last name, they can:

Google you.
Remember you.
Refer you.
Recommend you when someone asks, “do you know someone who does that?”

I hope this makes you think about how you're introducing yourself to people differently, because in business your name is NOT just an introduction - it's a search term.

And if your customers can't find you... they'll work with someone else

💜

In my first year of business, I made $550,000 with no website and less than 100 likes a post.

If you’ve been waiting to “grow your audience” before you start selling - stop.

You don’t need millions of followers to make serious money. I've got a friend who has less than 5k followers and makes over a million pounds a year!

What you need to make content that’s actually valuable to the people who buy what you sell.

If you’re a brow artist in a small town and your videos get 1,000 views - that’s amazing.

Because there might only be 1,000 people in your whole area who even book brow appointments - and you just reached every single one of them.

We get obsessed with views and likes, we all compare ourselves to these huge creators with enormous accounts but YOU don't need an enormous account to make an enormous amount of money, you just need to create content that is specifically designed for who you're trying to reach.

So the next time you think, “Only 300 people watched that,” imagine standing in a room with 300 potential customers looking straight at you.

A small, focused audience will always outperform a massive, distracted one.

So stop waiting until you “have more followers.”
Start creating content for the people who actually pay you.

Because trust me when I tell you, 100 people watching your content who will actually buy are worth more than 100,000 who just scroll past.

If we haven't met before, hi - my name's Amelia. I built a $4million revenue business off the back of my personal brand, now I post content about how you can do it, too.

I run a weekly live - The Branded Show - where we go through tools, tactics and strategies small businesses can use to stand out, get more leads and make more money. Save your spot here: ameliasordell.com/live/

You can beat 99% of people by just being prepared. Agree? 💜

The quickest way to ruin your reputation is to be nice to people’s faces, and a b*tch behind their back.

Be a nice person. It will get you everywhere.

It’s not hard to wake up early when you stop watching “one more episode.”
It's not hard to stay focused when you delete instagram from your phone.
It's not hard to stay on your diet when you refuse to stock your fridge with the things that might derail it.

Willpower is a terrible strategy.

It works… until you’re;
- tired
- stressed
- hormonal
- busy
- bored
- or just "had a DAY” (relate?!)

So stop building a life that requires you to be strong 24/7.
Make the right thing the easiest thing to do.
And make the wrong thing slightly embarrassing to do.

Put your phone in another room.
Leave your gym kit by the door.
Set up a direct debit to automate investing.
Don’t “test yourself” with snacks you know you’ll just inhale.

Because when you’re craving sugar, you’re not going to “use discipline.”
You’re going to use whatever’s closest.
So make the apple closest.

I've met and interviewed some of the most successful people in the world.

They are not more talented than you.
They just make better choices.

Everything you want in life is on the other side of just getting the f*ck on with it.
Agree?

💜

Hi, my name's Amelia and I had to liquidate my first business at 24.

I also sent the wrong email to 15,000 people at 28.

And botched one of the biggest pitches of my career at 30.

2 years ago, I forgot to tell finance to invoice 2 clients for 6 months.
... leaving a £50,000 hole in my revenue.

In the early days of my current business, I didn’t properly invest in operations.
It probably cost me £100,000+ in business process errors.

Over the years, I’ve missed deadlines.
Forgot to call important people back.
Send out work I wasn’t proud of.
Picked up sales too late.
Said the wrong thing.
Befriended the wrong people.
Spent £20,000 a month on an office we didn’t need.

I have f*cked up time and time again.
And I’m not talking small f*ck ups.

I am talking huge, career altering, life changing, maybe-this-is-the-end f*ck ups.

But they’re not the end, are they?

There is not a single thing I have said, done, been or become that I haven’t come back from.

We all run and hide from our failures. There are plenty of people on this platform who would love to portray the picture of perfection. Where every customer is happy and every team member thinks the sun shines out of their butt.

But the reality is we all mess up.

But not every loss IS a failure.
And not every success is a win.
Really and truly you can’t win or lose.

You win or you learn.

So, cheers to your f*ck ups.

Besides, if you’re not messing up at least some of the time, you’re probably not trying hard enough… 😉

💜

📸 - Photo taken from being interviewed by FashionTV at London Fashion Week in one of my designs from my first business, a fashion label. Still a highlight of my career 🥹

Success isn’t about being fearless - it’s about being willing to look like an idiot and doing it anyway.

If you're trying to build a personal brand.
If you're trying to generate leads.
If you're trying to grow a business.
If you're trying to succeed at anything in life...

Embarrassment is the cost of entry.

Pay it.

💜

When I first started out - I thought to build a successful business, I needed the apps, the team and the shiny new thing.

What you actually need is friends.

Friends who will support you.
Friends who you can call and rant to.
Friends who understand what you mean when you say you’ve had “a day”.

And to have friendships you have to prioritise them.

See your friends for dinner, find the time for a coffee.
Book it in weeks in advance if you have to, but nurture those relationships.

Because you are the sum of the 5 closest people to you – and investing in those people will always pay the highest ROI.

In your business AND your life.

💜

If we haven’t met, hi hello - my name’s Amelia. I built the UK's leading personal branding agency (as a mum of 2!) + now I teach founders and their teams how to build a personal brand that generates leads and sales (not just “engagement”). Follow me for personal branding tips + the reality of what it's like to build in public 🤓

I’ve built a $4million business off the back of my personal brand - and helped clients turn social media into their most profitable channel.

I host a weekly free live show. You’ll walk away with:
💜 the stuff that makes people trust you fast
💜 Marketing trends, new platform features + viral posts
💜 social-first ways of communicating your expertise.

Join us for the next one: https://lnkd.in/gMqpvwpR

This advice is not for everyone, but if you're ridiculously ambitious and want to be on HUGE podcasts, this is important.

I work clients who have 2,000 followers that say: "I want to be on the Diary of a CEO, High Performance Podcast and Modern Wisdom".

Let me just give you a bit of a reality check.

If you’re a founder building a personal brand, you probably have an interesting story. You probably have a pretty interesting journey, especially from building your business to where you are today.

But no one is going to invite you onto a million+ download podcast if there isn’t a history of you being on other people’s podcasts first.

So before you start aiming for the stars, you need to look at your guest features in three categories:

1. Category three podcasts

These are podcasts with less than 500 downloads an episode. They usually have a super niche audience you want to tap into. They’re not going to give you virality, but they are going to ask you interesting questions about your journey. And you’ll be able to turn that into content for your social media.

2. Category two podcasts

These are podcasts around 10,000 downloads. Mid-weight podcasts. They’re relatively well known but don’t have a global audience yet. They’ve usually got ad hoc sponsorships, they’re talking about a specific topic, and they have audiences that are exactly who you’re trying to speak to. You’re not going to go viral. But you are going to get a strong conversation, a networking opportunity, and content you can share.

3. Category one podcasts

This is the top podcasts in the world. Diary of a CEO. Modern Wisdom. Call Her Daddy. High Performance. Joe Rogan Experience. These are the biggest podcasts in the world. And to reach category one, you have to go through category three and category two.

Press is exactly the same. You are never going to get a feature in The Times if you haven’t already been featured in your local press first.

So when you start building your personal brand, aim for what is achievable.

Get your EA or PR to get you on as many low hanging fruit podcasts as possible - share the clips online to attract more.

The bigger your showreel becomes, the more credibility you build.

And the closer you move to the big podcasts you actually want to be on.

💜

You’re not stuck.

You’re just avoiding the decision you already know you need to make.

You stay in jobs that drain you.
You stay in relationships that don’t challenge you.
You stay as a version of yourself you’ve outgrown.

Not because you like being unhappy.
Because predictability feels safe. Even when it sucks.

But doing nothing is still a choice.

And it’s the one keeping you exactly where you are.

The minute you decide to stop tolerating a life you don’t want, even if you have no idea what comes next, everything starts moving again.

You don’t need certainty.
You need the courage to just f*cking do it.

Because the life you actually want is waiting on the other side of the decision you’ve been avoiding.

💜


If we haven't met before, hi - my name's Amelia. I built a $4million revenue business off the back of my personal brand, now I post content about how you can do it, too.

I run a weekly live - The Branded Show - where we go through tools, tactics and strategies small businesses can use to stand out, get more leads and make more money. Save your spot here: ameliasordell.com/live/

I’m a female founder and a mum.

And honestly, no one talks about the real-f*cking-life reality of building a business.

I’m not talking about the polished highlight reel.

I mean the messy, exhausting parts: the school runs, and negotiating your next funding round as the only woman in the room.

I’ve been questioning why there are so few spaces where women who are actually building and scaling can talk about this stuff properly, without pretending or performing.

So I’m hosting Girl Dinner: a small, curated supper club for ambitious women.

A table where you can share unfiltered stories, feel genuinely seen, and back each other wholeheartedly.

This isn’t just another networking event.
(And it’s definitely not warm prosecco in a basement in London 😂)

It’s for women who want real conversations, and a laugh, with people who actually get it.
The late nights. The self-doubt.
The wins that barely cover the bills… and the ones that feel impossible.

There are only 4 seats left!

If this feels like the kind of space you’ve been craving, fill out the form to join us https://lnkd.in/gEFCzjjD 💜

I went from 0-$500k in revenue in the first year of trading - and I didn’t even have a website.

- I made my logo on Canva.
- I didn’t bother to set up a company page on LinkedIn.
- I didn’t run any ads.
- I didn't buy a domain.

Or even make any cold calls.

But what I did do was recognise that I was providing a service.

And if you're a serviced based business, the ONLY thing separating you from your competition... is you.

Armed with that knowledge, I;

Re-did my LinkedIn profile to mimic a landing page.
Started posting 3x per week, religiously.
Added a min of 50 people to my network each week
(great tool to automate this is Dripify).
Made a point to spend a min of 9 mins per day, commenting on 9 people's posts.

And 4 days from announcing the launch of the business on LinkedIn I got my first 2 clients.

And within 6 weeks, I was oversubscribed.

Because people saw ME.

They didn't see my website, or my logo, or my fancy deck.

They saw ME - and bought into ME. The person delivering the service.

If you run a service-based business, you are the product. So, stop wasting your time on brand aesthetics - because they don’t f*cking matter.

What matters is:

- Leads,
- Cash flow,
- Getting your business up and running.

You can worry about the cute sh*t later.

When you first start out, you don’t need a brand aesthetic - you need clients.

You need sales, not a slogan.

Take it from somebody who has built a multi-million-pound business without a website...

Stop overcomplicating it.

Start making money.

😉

Most founder's don't take personal branding seriously because they think it takes too much time. Here's a simple structure that builds a respectable founder-led brand in < 60 minutes a week ↓

1. Ask a dedicated team member;
Marketing
Social
EA
Admin
To interview you 1x per week

2. Block Q's into 3 sections;
- Problems you see clients/customers/industry experiencing this week.
- Lessons you've learned in business.
- The great work your team is already doing.

3. Transcribe the conversation.
Turn the answers into posts.

Thats it.
That's most of your founder brand content.

And for context I'm a mother of two, I have a relatively small team.
I don't have unlimited time to "create".

I document conversations I'm already having. I tell stories of my journey and I extract from real situations that are happening to me right now.

Content is everywhere. All you need to do is document it! And if you can't find 60 minutes a week to do that, your competitors will.

💜

If your friend has a podcast, rate and review it.
If your friend shares a piece of content, like, comment, save and share it.
If your friend has a business, tell everyone you know about it.

It doesn't cost much to be supportive.

But it does pay an INCREDIBLY high ROI.

Show up for your people.

💜

I spoke at the London School of Economics last night.
A University I was far too stupid to attend.

The room was full of ambitious young, 20-something-year-old female entrepreneurs.
All wanting to build something big.
All wanting to change the world.

I was on a panel with 6 other insanely successful female founders.
And the question the room kept asking was:

“What business should I start?”

Let me just be really clear about something - DO NOT start a business just because you want to be someone who owns one.

You will lose money.
Lose time.
And lose the will to do anything because of the stress if will out you under.

I know because I did exactly that.

When I was 21, I started a fashion brand. Eitherside.

(I still have a few key pieces - I was actually wearing a 2023 sample from the line last night).

Year one, it worked.

From the outside, it looked successful.
I got funding.
Was stocked in 15 retailers.
ASOS wanted us to be on their site.
I was achieving enough to make me think I was onto something.

Year two, it failed.

It would be easy to say I got unlucky.
Or that the market was hard. Or even that one of our biggest stockists left me with £120,000 of stock I couldn't sell (true story).

But the real reason that business failed was because I didn't believe in it.
I started that business because I wanted to start a business.
And I liked clothes.

So, a fashion brand I started.
And it worked for a while.

But your business will expose every single bad quality you have.
As founder and as a person.

And when it gets hard, which it always does - you need to really believe in what you're doing to keep going.

You can't get through that on the basis that you just want to put "Founder" on your LinkedIn profile.

Building a business is one of the most brutal self development journey's you will go on.

You have to have the delusion to think that what you're trying to do is possible - but at the same time be willing to fail at it every single day.

So, early-stage advice to anyone thinking of starting a business - but doesn't know what that business is yet:

You do not need a business idea.
You need a problem you believe in enough to keep solving - even when solving it feels like sh*t.

💜

If you're a founder + are not willing to promote your own business on social media, 2026 is not going to be your year.

💜

There is power in being disliked. Because if you’re not willing to be hated by the people who don’t matter, you’ll never be loved by the ones that do.

Agree?

💜 ️

Whatever you're is that you're avoiding doing because you're scared of failure: Just f*cking do it.

You'll either get:
A great outcome.
Or a great story.

Either way, you win.

Thanks for having me John Reynolds + Extraordinary Life Stories.

You can watch my episode tonight at 6:30pm GMT on Bloomberg TV, sky channel 502 🥹

💜

Agree?

Most people introduce themselves like this:
"Hi, my name's Amelia. Nice to meet you".

But if someone wants to:

- Google you
- tag you
- refer you
- find you again

… your first name only is f*cking useless.
There are thousands, probably millions of people with your name. So;

Use. Your. Full. Name.

Why your full name matters (way more than you think):

1. Search

People will look you up after they've met you.
You can't look someone up without both their first and last name.

2. Referrals
Nobody refers you by your job title.
They refer you by your name.

If they only half-know it, they won’t intro you.
They’ll intro someone easier.

3. Trust
Full name = real person.
First name only = “random person”

If I can’t remember your last name, I can’t talk about you in rooms you're not in.

Simple fix:
From today, introduce yourself like this:

“I’m [First + Last]. I help [who] get [result] without [pain].”

And make it match everywhere:

LinkedIn name + headline
URL / handle
email signature (+ = free advertising when people forward your emails)
calendar link
pitch deck / proposals

You' be surprised how many successful people still don't uders

If people can’t repeat your full name, they can’t recommend you.
And recommendations are how you build a profitable personal brand.

And a business.

💜

If we haven’t met, hi hello - my name’s Amelia Sordell. I built the UK's leading personal branding agency (as a mum of 2!) + now I teach founders and their teams how to build a personal brand that generates leads and sales (not just “engagement”). Follow me for personal branding tips + the reality of what it's like to build in public 🤓

I’ve built a $4million business off the back of my personal brand - and helped clients turn social media into their most profitable channel.

I host a weekly free live show. You’ll walk away with:
💜 the stuff that makes people trust you fast
💜 Marketing trends, new platform features + viral posts
💜 social-first ways of communicating your expertise.

Join us for the next one: https://lnkd.in/exRG8GCm

Prioritise fun.

Yes, work hard.
Yes, set big goals.
Yes, chase them.

But prioritise fun.

Not when the work is done.
Not when things calm down.
Not “one day”.

Now.

With your friends.
With your family.
With your kids.

Because life is not a dress rehearsal.
And there is no prize for building a life you were too busy to enjoy.

💜

No matter who you fall in love with, you will get hurt.
Because when you love someone enough to be honest, honest causes friction.
People are human.

Life happens.
You don't load the dishwasher right.
They don't message youback quick enough.
Maybe you have different love languages.
They snoore when they sleep.

Forget the little grudges and insignificant hurts.

Because the goal of a relationship isn't to avoid being hurt, it's to find someone amazing enough to worth hurting for.

💜

When you’re ambitious, you dream big.

You’ve got these massive goals and milestones you want to hit, and the leaders of the dreamers inspire everyone to come along for the ride.

But the issue with having big dreams is it can be so hard to see what that map is to get there.

And that lack of direction is often what makes us feel lost.

I can really relate to that.
I have HUGE dreams – and sometimes they’re so big that you’ve got no idea where to start.
And so don’t.

You sit in that lack of direction, and then lose all sense of it.

But if you’re a dreamer you don’t have to achieve your dreams today.

You just have to do one thing that moves the needle towards it.

You want to start a business?
Go and research your competition.
You want to start building a personal brand?
Go and optimise your social profile.
You want to find the love of your life?
Register for a dating app.

No great things were achieved by dreamers who just dreamed.
You have to take action.

But if you’re unsure what that action should be, just do one tiny thing that moves towards it.

Because tiny things compound into climbing huge mountains x

💜

If we haven’t met, hi hello - my name’s Amelia. I built the UK's leading personal branding agency (as a mum of 2!) + now I teach founders and their teams how to build a personal brand that generates leads and sales (not just “engagement”). Follow me for personal branding tips + the reality of what it's like to build in public 🤓

I’ve built a $4million business off the back of my personal brand - and helped clients turn social media into their most profitable channel.

I host a weekly free live show. You’ll walk away with:
💜 the stuff that makes people trust you fast
💜 Marketing trends, new platform features + viral posts
💜 social-first ways of communicating your expertise.

Join us for the next one: https://lnkd.in/gMqpvwpR

I spoke to a business owner last week who told me that they didn't want to be the face of their brand.

Because their brand didn't have a 'brand' yet.

She had just started their business.
She wanted to be focused on like doing all the marketing for the business, and they're getting the website set up and all this kind of stuff.

Let me give you a reality check.

- 92% of people trust an opinion over from a stranger over a company brand online.

- founders get 561%, more reach on their personal social media than their company, social media,

- and leads that come through your personal brand are 7x more likely to conver than on any other channel.

If you're saying you want to build a profitable business form the ground up and you don't have any investment and you are the driver of that business and you're not building a personal brand, 2026 is not going to be your year.

💜

Most founders don't take their personal brand seriously, because they think it takes too much time.

Here's a simple structure I use to create 30x pieces of content in < 60 mins of my time every week.

1. Team interview me on topics I want to talk about.
2. We record the interview.
3. The answers are turned into short, 30-90 sec videos.
4. We add captions (tech like CapCut does this automatically).
5. We then export the video AND the SRT file (the text file of the captions).
6. Video goes on TikTok.
7. SRT file gets pasted into LinkedIn. Add context or image if you want - this post came from a video.
8. If both do well, we turn the text into a carousel on Canva for Instagram last. Because instagram is the hardest to grow on.

This is the main reason I record all of my content in video format.

Even if I end up hating the video, the idea and the content is documented - and can therefore be executed by my team, without much more of my input.

If you can't find 30-60 mins a week to build your founder brand, your competitors will.

💜

I ran a $4 million dollar personal branding agency and there was only ever one reason why clients fired us.

The last five years I've been building and growing the UK's leading personal branding agency, Klowt.

And during that time we have worked with hundreds and hundreds of CEOs
and founders.

We've helped these people get millions and millions of organic views.

And there was only ever one reason why our clients fired us and it wasn't because our work was bad.
It's because our communication was terrible.

We'd split feedback across:
- Email
- WhatsApp
- Slack
- and "quick calls"

We'd agree things on phone calls verbally and then never follow up in writing.
And sometimes work would go out that the client had given feedback to amendments hadn't been made and we'd have to delete and apologize.

And of course I then spent all of my time...
- onboarding
- offboarding
- on feedback calls
- and then replacing the clients we'd lost.

It was exhausting.

So, about 18 months into this merry go round we created a content bible each client's content bible.

It contained:
- content plans
- their strategy
- the tone of voice
- everything that you need to know to create and approve
content at scale.

But then we had a separate scheduling tool.

Which meant that content being copied across from the planner
to the scheduler sometimes got missed.
Mistakes got made.
Last minute edits never got actioned.
Repeat of sh*t show #1.

So, 2 years ago we switched to Planable.

Planable is amazing because you can create plan, get feedback
and internally and externally approve content all in one place.

And schedule it, too.

The best part about it is there's two different views.
There's an internal view - you can talk to your internal team about the content that's been created in the plan.
And then there's an external view - where you can share links with your clients
for them to approve add comments or post themselves.

And they don't even have to log in to do this.

Planable's put together a free social media communication kit. It has;

- kick off call frameworks
- email templates you can steal
- an etiquette playbook (I think a lot of people on the internet need one of those)

And a ton of other stuff that stops service based projects turning into bin fires.

You can grab it free, here: https://lnkd.in/enhyqwzx

Trust me when I tell you service based businesses - especially marketing agencies need to provide an experience to thrive in 2026.

It's not enough to just be amazing at graphic design or social media, you have to provide your client with an experience that makes them want to stay.

And if your communication is rubbish then i t doesn't matter how good the rest of your work is.

Agree?

💜

P.S - I've legit paid Planable more money as a customer than they paid me to post this AD 😂.

When I first started my agency, I charged £25 an hour.
By 2024, we charged £2500 a day.
And let me tell you, the difference between a £100 client and a £100,000 client is how much aggravation they give you.

I joke, I joke.
Kind of 😂

A 100 client doesn’t think you’re valuable.
They think you’re replaceable.

You’re one option on a long list of people who “do the same thing” for the same price. They see you as just another option.

So often, they don't respect your time, your energy - your work.

But a £100,000 client has a completely different psychology.

They know there’s a very small number of people who can do what they need done, at the level they need it.
And they’ll pay whatever it costs to get the right person.

So, if you’re stuck serving the masses when you want to be serving the premium end of the market, your positioning is wrong.

And that’s exactly why you need to build your personal brand.

When your content clearly communicates that you’re:

- Highly valuable
- Highly strategic
- Highly paid

You stop getting “Can you do it cheaper?”
And you start getting, “When can you start?”

High-ticket clients don’t care about price.
They care about trust, credibility, and perceived value.

If you want to stop losing premium clients to people who simply position themselves better, this is the moment to fix it.

I just launched 52 video lessons on how to do this. Get it now. It will never be this price again: https://lnkd.in/ek7REgzU

I don't have an exit.
I didn't get £15 million in funding.
I haven't built a team with a headcount of over 100 people.

I am still a successful entrepreneur.
And so the f*ck are you.

Because if you quit your job.
Started a company.
Employed yourself.
And are making a living from it - you ARE a successful entrepreneur.

90% of businesses fail in the first two year - including ones that got millions in funding.

So, if you’ve fallen into the trap of comparing yourself to people who’ve raised £20 million and are spending half of that on their social media presence…

STOP.

You are killing it.

If you’re running a profitable business and actually making a living from it, you’re a heck of a lot more successful than most of them.

💜

If we haven’t met, hi hello - my name’s Amelia. I built the UK's leading personal branding agency (as a mum of 2!) + now I teach founders and their teams how to build a personal brand that generates leads and sales (not just “engagement”). Most people post for attention. My lot post for income. Follow me for personal branding tips + the reality of what it's like to build in public 🤓

I’ve built a $4million business off the back of my personal brand - and helped clients turn social media into their most profitable channel.

I host a weekly free live show. You’ll walk away with:
💜 the stuff that makes people trust you fast
💜 Marketing trends, new platform features + viral posts
💜 social-first ways of communicating your expertise.

Join us for the next one: https://lnkd.in/gMqpvwpR

He averages 8 likes on LinkedIn.
He can still attribute £10,000,000+ in revenue to personal branding.
True story.

This is a real friend of mine.

Harry Hugo + GOAT figured something out early:

Most new clients didn’t come from their website.
They came from people.

A speaking gig Harry (or his co-founders Arron and Nick) had done
A podcast appearance
A back-door referral

So they scaled that.

They hired a videographer, 2 editors, bought serious kit… and started posting a daily vlog.

The videographer’s brief was simple:

1 insight
1 moment of entertainment
1 piece of social proof
In every single 5 - 8 min long episode.

It was then published that day, every day at 5pm.

Not to get likes.
To build trust at scale.

Harry has said it drove:
£10m+ attributed revenue (vlog as the first touchpoint)
Hiring: 50 applications/week → 900/week in 90 days
Recruitment: less need for recruiters + better culture fit
New business: warmer convos, easier sales, more inbound

3 years later, GOAT was acquired by WPP in 2023 for a reported £200m.

Not because they were “the best”.
Because they became the best known.

Most agency founders think “personal brand” means the founder posts more.

GOAT treated the *team as the distribution plan.

And that's how you turn 8 likes into £10m in revenue.

If you want the specific tactics behind how GOAT approached marketing + growth - Harry Hugo is speaking at Agency Accelerator: Marketing & Growth.

Tickets → https://lnkd.in/egQ87YCS

Was this helpful?

💜

I’ve been thrown from a horse 2x times.

The first time I was about 10 years old. My grandfathers horse, Annie, bolted at the top of a hill and I was too small to hold on.

That hurt.

The second time I was about 13, learning how to show jump. My horse stopped dead on the second jump.

My body did not.

That hurt even more.

But the thing that hurt most was the knock to my confidence. The little voice in my head both times that told me that because I hadn’t managed to hold myself on this beast of an animal, I was inferior and therefore should never do what I love to do (ride) again.

The last time I fell, which would have been around 17 years ago, was actually quite bad. Like, body-bruised-terrified-to-get-back-on-the-horse-the-following-day, bad.

Did the trainer call my mum and dad? No.

Did they listen to me wimped and crying about not wanting to jump again?

No.

They made me get back on the horse.

Not a peep to my mum and dad.

Not a single get out of jail free card.

Today, I ride almost weekly and it’s one of the things that brings me so much joy in my life. Joy I have passed onto my daughter.

I’m telling you this because, we’ve all experienced our own version of being bucked off a horse.

We’ve all tried and failed a;
Job interviews
Dating
Businesses
Careers
Friendships
Marriages…

In short, life is hard. Failure is inevitable. Pain is guaranteed. And you will suck at 90% of the things you try and accomplish first time.

Get used to it. It’s all part of your story. And what a bloody great story you’ll have to tell your grand-babies one day when you can tell them all the times life kicked your ass, and all the times you kicked it right back.

Life isn’t about how many times you get thrown off, it’s about how many times you saddle back up.

Oh, and wear a helmet.

💜

If we haven't met before, hi - my name's Amelia. I built a $4million revenue business off the back of my personal brand, now I post content about how you can do it, too.

I run a weekly live - The Branded Show - where we go through tools, tactics and strategies small businesses can use to stand out, get more leads and make more money. Save your spot here: ameliasordell.com/live/

Your personal brand is more than your current job. It's your reputation.

And your reputation is the foundation of your career.

Taking the time to build your reputation and take control of what your future looks like will always pay a high ROI.

💜

If we haven’t met, hi hello - my name’s Amelia Sordell. I built the UK's leading personal branding agency (as a mum of 2!) + now I teach founders and their teams how to build a personal brand that generates leads and sales (not just “engagement”). Follow me for personal branding tips + the reality of what it's like to build in public 🤓

I’ve built a $4million business off the back of my personal brand - and helped clients turn social media into their most profitable channel.

I host a weekly free live show. You’ll walk away with:
💜 the stuff that makes people trust you fast
💜 Marketing trends, new platform features + viral posts
💜 social-first ways of communicating your expertise.

Join us for the next one: https://lnkd.in/gMqpvwpR

I spent 5 years building a £25m business that the startup world convinced me I wanted.

And it nearly cost me everything that actually mattered.

I worked 80-hour weeks.
Sacrificed my social life.
Vacations.
Birthdays. Sports days. Weddings.
Time with my kids.

I burned out.

For what?

A multi-million pound valuation…
and a life I hated living.

I still remember the moment I realised that I didn't actually want this.

I was on holiday with my family.
My dad playing with my kids in the pool.
I was on my laptop, fresh off a Zoom call.

It was my birthday.

I snapped.

Not because of the hard work.
Everything is hard work.
Because I was running on fumes and pretending it was “ambition”.

Success is really easy to chase when you don’t stop to define it.
So you borrow someone else’s definition.

- Bigger revenue
- Bigger team
- Bigger title
- Bigger valuation

But “bigger” isn’t actually strategy.
It’s a trap.

Because the unexpected bill always shows up:

Your health.
Your relationships.
Your peace.
Your enjoyment of the life you're supposedly trying to build.

And one day you wake up with the thing you thought you wanted
…then realise you built a cage.

It took for me to nearly have a nervous breakdown to realise that.

So I changed how I think about ambition.

I have a team of 4.
I pick my kids up at "normal time" every day.
I hang out with them on the weekends.
I say no to sh*t.
I have an awesome business that has given me an awesome life.

Not the other way around.

If you're reading this and relate, ask yourself - honestly;

1 Does your business make your life better - or worse?
2 Is this what you wanted success to feel like?
3 Given the chose, would you choose this again for the next 5 years?

Because you do have a choice.
It's your life.

And if your business requires you to disappear from yours to succeed… it’s not really success.

You're going to be dead in a few years.
And within 30 years of that, no one will even remember your name.

So, I guess what I'm aksing is - what are you optimising for:
impressing people… or enjoying your life while you've still got one?

Big headcount doesn't mean you have a 'big' business.

💜

Jake Paul got knocked out by Anthony Joshua - but won the business of boxing.

He went into boxing because the audience was dying.

He knew that if be entered that market - the audience that he had built, would follow.

And as a polarising character - one that people love to hate - would pull more views from people who wanted to see him win AND get his ass kicked by "real" athletes.

Jake Paul has made $92 million from his fight with Jo

is a marketing genius.

Agree?

💜