COO @ Kurogo | We Create Thought Leaders Through Personal Branding | x2 TEDx speaker | Advisor, Investor & NED | Law Graduate | I talk about entrepreneurship, agency life and grief

Hey, I’m Lewis! 👋 I'm an operator, builder, and believer in doing work that matters.

For the last 4 years, I helped scale Kurogo, one of the leading personal branding agencies, as Chief Operating Officer, partnering with 300+ world-class founders, CEOs, C-Suite Execs and public figures to grow their influence and impact. I joined in September '21 and within 4 years, we scaled to a 7-figure business, with a global, remote team of 20+. We had clients across the UK, Europe, USA and MENA regions.

I have 5+ years' experience as a Non-Executive Director, particularly within the non-profit and social impact sector. At present, I continue to serve as:

- Vice Chair & Non-Executive Director, Child Action Northwest
- Non-Executive Director, Spring North

Currently, I’m travelling and building quietly behind the scenes - creating space to explore what’s next.

Lewis Alexander Baxter

Five months ago, I went all in on myself.

This is the honest version of what that's looked like.

A recap of '26 so far (can't believe it's nearly mid-March):

Let me rewind:👇 

In mid-October, I left my full-time COO role after four years in agency life. We scaled to 7 figures, hired 25+ brilliant people.

I gave it everything. And I learned more than I could have imagined.

60 to 70-hour weeks, consistently. 

What a ride.

But somewhere along the way, I wanted something different. More control over my time. More freedom to build my own things. Work that fits around life rather than consuming it.

So I left.

Travelled. Australia, Fiji, Bali, New Zealand. A proper reset.

Landed back in London mid-December and hit the ground running. Picked up my first few clients, working with agency founders as a fractional COO and ops consultant.


January and February:👇 

My first working week of 2026, my grandad died.

It wasn't the January I'd hoped for.

Work took a back seat (and rightly so!)

Early February, I moved back to London properly. Got back into a rhythm and slowly things started moving again.

Now at 8 clients, up from 3 in mid-December. Starting a 9th this week (a cool agency in Slovenia!). 

In the last couple of months I've worked with founders scaling to £10k per month, helped one agency go from £30k to £45k per month in under three months, and I'm deep in the weeds on a 'road to £1 million ARR plan' with another.

The honest version of why I started this was never just money. 

It was about building work around life, not the other way around. 

More freedom. 
More travel. 
More saying 'yes' to what matters. 

Space to build something of my own. And eventually, time to give back to charities and social impact organisations too.

I probably undersold myself on what was possible.

The consultancy is growing fast, hitting numbers I'm proud of (but the bigger win is that it's on my terms!)


What's next:👇 

In a few months, I've grown a business with a lot of moving parts.

So I made my first hire. Two days a week. Supporting on my content systems, lead gen, and being an extra brain.

Next, I'll build out a network of partners. 

(Part-time, full-time, or specialist experts in specific tools and ops challenges, so clients get the right person for the right problem!)

Because the goal was never to build myself another job. It was to build something sustainable and intentionally designed.

Oh, I'm also building an agency in a space I genuinely love, alongside a co-founder. 

(more on this soon 👀 )

It's been a difficult few months in some ways. A genuinely exciting few months in others.

I'm learning to hold both.

March will be a BIG one. 🚀

The last Mother's Day card I bought was 2020.

My mum died that July.

Yesterday was hard. 

Five years on, it still is.

It doesn’t get easier. You just learn how to carry it.

One of the first things I did yesterday was message two friends who’ve also lost their mums. 

One is around my age. One is about 30 years older than me.

Both came back with the same thing: it’s always one of the worst days of the year.

Not comfort, exactly. More recognition. The knowledge that what you’re feeling isn’t strange. It just is what it is.

Milestone days have their own weight.

Mother’s Day. 
Anniversaries.
Birthdays. 

The dates that arrive (whether you’re ready for them or not!)

The people who’ve been through it are the ones who don’t need it explained.

But here’s the part I keep thinking about:

A close friend of mine, someone who still has his mum, messaged to ask if I wanted company. 

We went for coffee and dinner.

He didn’t try to 'fix' anything. He just showed up.

And I think that’s one of the things loss makes you notice.

You notice who understands without needing to be asked. And you notice those who show up anyway, even when they don’t fully understand.

Both matter more than people realise.

I’ve always tried to be forward-looking about grief. Not because the hard days go away.

They don’t.

But difficult days are still survivable. And the people around you make them that way.

If yesterday felt heavy for you too, you’re not the only one.

And if someone in your life is carrying it today, you don’t need the right words.

You just need to show up.

I've started being more intentional with my weeks. Here's what that looks like for me:

(w/c 23rd Feb edition)

It's my third week back in London. Starting to find my rhythm.

My plan:👇 

- 4 discovery calls for my operations consultancy 
- A full day in Leeds on Wednesday with a new client 
- 2 coffees (making more time for IRL this year) 
- Co-working with aryan on Thursday
- I'm a guest on Sarah's podcast on Friday

Oh, and I'm building a business in an industry I love. The branding and naming kicks off this week. More on that soon.

My non-negotiables:👇 

- Gym x3 
- Clean eating all week 
- Saturday is mine - Reading v Bradford City (my flatmate's a Bradford fan). Then a (brief) visit to the pub.

--

Accountability is easier when you say it out loud. 

Consider this me saying it out loud. 

Curious, what does your week look like? Do you have any non-negotiables? 

--

PS. hi, I'm Lewis! 👋 I share reflections on business, life and travel. Right now, I'm on a mission to design work around life, not the other way around. I'm a fractional COO, builder and believer in doing work that actually matters.

Tonight I'm locking my phone in a box. 📱 

Literally.

I'm heading to a dinner in Soho.

14 founders, early-stage and exited, coming together for an evening of honest conversation and proper connection.

No phones in sight. Everyone fully present.

We don't do it enough.

So, go on. Put the phone down. Even just for a few hours.

You might be surprised what happens when you do.

--

PS. Can't wait for another YES Club event. I've spoke about how awesome these IRL events are and tonight will be no exception. Arthur is the brains behind it. 🙌  

Look forward to catching up with Louis and Samuel too.

“So, what do you do?” 

It's one of the most common questions in the world.

And for a growing number of people, one of the most reductive.

Last Thursday, I went to Charlie Rogers’ launch for his debut book: 

undefinable life design.

I stayed for ~4 hours.

And, you know what really stood out to me? 

Who Charlie brought together under one roof.

Around 60 people, brilliant minds, and real warmth. Genuine conversations - that remind you life and work can be bigger than one label.

That’s why Charlie’s core premise lands so well.

For me, this looks like:

Agency operator.
Business owner.
Charity trustee.
NED. 
Friend.
Son.

All true.

None of them are the full picture on their own.

Charlie and I had known of each other for years, but we probably connected properly last summer. 

I first saw him in action at Life Design Day in September...

(where I spent the day thinking more honestly about what I actually wanted from life and career!)

By that point, I’d already handed in my notice from a 4-year full-time COO role.

Not long after, I went off on a 9-week trip across Australia, Fiji, Bali and New Zealand.

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about something Charlie and I have spoken about at length:

That the 'portfolio career' is not a fallback.

It’s a deliberate architecture.

Multiple income streams.
Multiple interests.
Multiple contributions.

Held together by a common thread.

Most people make life fit around work (without even noticing they’re doing it!).

The more deliberate alternative is to decide what you want your life to look like first, then build work that funds and fits that.

I’m still very much on that journey. But I believe that more as every month passes.

Charlie, congratulations! It was a brilliant book launch, a brilliant room, and a brilliant reminder that we do not have to be defined by one title, one employer or one path.

--

If you’re looking to intentionally design your work around your life, drop a comment below and I’ll pick someone to send a free copy to.👇 

P.S. Fancy buying a copy? Link in comments!

5 agency & creator-led marketing opportunities YOU can apply for this weekend:👇

—

1/ Email Marketing Copywriter
act Copywriting Ltd
Salary: £34K (+ bonuses)
Location: Remote (UK only)

act Copywriting specialise in email marketing and sales page copy for B2B coaches, consultants and course creators. You’ll be writing emails people actually open and read. Funny, sharp, conversion-focused copy that makes clients money. You’ll work closely with the founder and Head of Strategy, with real responsibility early on.

—

2/ Content Lead
Compound Content Studio
Salary: $95K -$105K
Location: Full-time, remote

Compound Content Studio is a B2B SaaS content agency working with technology companies on founder-led growth. You’ll lead written content across LinkedIn and newsletters, interview founders and execs, edit ghostwritten thought leadership, coach junior writers, and own quality end-to-end.

--

3/ Senior Video Editor
Chris Donnelly Ltd
Salary: £55K (+ bonus) (OTE £71.5K - £77K)
Location: London Bridge (Hybrid)

Chris Donnelly has built four businesses before 35, scaled to eight figures, and grown 3M+ social followers. Now he's building the most practical high-performance business YouTube channel ever. You'll own the full video production system - long-form YouTube, Shorts, Instagram content, and thumbnails. Be accountable for retention, performance, and quality while building scalable workflows. 

--

4/ SEO & Content Executive
Cedarwood Digital
Salary: ~£26K
Location: Manchester (Hybrid)

Cedarwood Digital is a digital marketing and PR agency based in Manchester. You’ll write SEO-led content, support strategy, manage client communication and gradually build deeper technical SEO skills. A great role for someone early in their SEO career who enjoys writing and wants to get closer to how search and performance actually work.

--

5/ Campaign Manager
The Goat Agency
Salary: £35K
Location: London (Hybrid)

Goat is a global influencer marketing agency working with brands across multiple markets. You’ll manage campaigns end-to-end. From influencer selection and briefing through to delivery, optimisation and reporting. This role suits someone organised, calm under pressure, and comfortable coordinating across clients, creators and internal teams.

--

Every week, I share cool opportunities at marketing agencies and creator-led businesses. All were posted recently. Salaries included.

♻️ Repost to share these opportunities with your network.

The best things I've built didn't happen at my desk.

These are my (unstructured) thoughts on why.

There's something about a conversation over coffee that no Google Meet or Zoom call can replicate. The energy shifts when you're sat across from someone. You pick up on things you'd never catch on a screen. Body language, energy, the natural flow of a conversation.

I think we've accepted a diluted version of human connection and called it 'efficiency'.

As someone building businesses, it's easy to fall into the trap of locking yourself away. Head down, door shut, grinding through the to-do list.  

I've been there.

In my final year of university I was juggling a full-time COO role and my law degree. 16 to 18 hour days were just the reality. When you're in the trenches of scaling a 7-figure bootstrapped business, sometimes that's what it takes.

I'm not glorifying that. But those years taught me something important. 

The real breakthroughs - the ideas that actually moved things forward, the relationships that opened doors - rarely came from being sat at my desk. They came from being in an actual (not virtual) room with someone. From conversations that started as a catch-up and turned into something neither person expected.

Harvard Business Review found that 95% of people say face-to-face meetings are essential to building long-term relationships. 

I'd go further: they're essential to building anything worth building.

Today I worked from a coffee shop in West London, had a meeting with two incredibly sharp guys who are building something exciting (in stealth right now, so I'll leave it there), then moved to a hotel lobby for the afternoon. Different environments, different quality of thinking.

That last part matters more than people realise. Where you work shapes how you work. The coffee shop gives you one kind of energy. The hotel lobby gives you another. Your desk at home gives you another. None of them are wrong - but treating one as the default for everything is.

This is all part of something I'm trying to be much more intentional about. 

Building work around life, not the other way round. Protecting the things that matter - the conversations, the experiences, the moments of genuine human connection - and fitting the work around them. Not the reverse.

It's a different way of thinking about productivity. And I think it's a better one.

This won't look the same for everyone. Not everyone works well in a coffee shop, and that's fine. But getting out from behind a screen and meeting people in person? That part's universal. You'll thank yourself for it.

If you fancy grabbing a coffee, in London or elsewhere, lmk! 🤝 

--

PS. hi, I'm Lewis! 👋 I share reflections on business, life and travel. Right now, I'm on a mission to design work around life, not the other way around. I'm a fractional COO, builder and believer in doing work that actually matters.

KSI just bought a 20% stake in a sixth-tier football club. 

The strategy behind it is worth paying attention to.

He's now a shareholder and strategic partner at Dagenham & Redbridge FC.

It's one of the more interesting moves in football right now.

Here's why I think this matters (for KSI, and for Dagenham):👇 

1/ KSI brings a distribution network most Premier League clubs would envy.

17 million YouTube subscribers. 
A music career. 
A boxing empire. 

He's has spent 15 years building audiences and converting attention into commercial value. Lower league football is desperate for new revenue models.

A creator-owner who knows how to monetise attention unlocks things a traditional investor with deep pockets simply can't.


2/ This isn't his first move in football...

KSI has been president of Baller League UK since its launch in 2025. 

He's already been learning the football business from the inside. 

Buying a stake in a club like Dagenham is the next logical step.

That context matters. 

The club aren't getting a celebrity who turns up for photos. They're getting someone who's been in the space for years now. 


3/ Dagenham has something money can't buy: community loyalty.

Football has something almost impossible to manufacture:

Genuine local belonging. 

In February, Happy Fan Group completed its takeover of the club. 

John Grabowski, who leads the investment group, said the partnership is "a clear statement of our intent" to build a club relevant to both its local community and a global audience. 

That dual positioning is where the real opportunity lives. KSI knows how to serve both. Local clubs at this level rarely get that combination. 

--

KSI said he wants to take the Daggers to the Premier League

(that's a bold claim for a side currently five points off the National League South play-off spots!)

The Wrexham comparisons are already coming. But KSI isn't Reynolds or Mac

And that's the point.

Taking a sixth-tier club to the Premier League is a long shot.

What KSI is doing at Dagenham is worth paying attention to regardless of where they finish.

-- 

♻️ Repost if you found this valuable. 

PS. Hey, I'm Lewis! 👋 Fractional COO by trade. Curious about where business, culture and sport are colliding. Follow if that's your thing...

5 agency marketing opportunities YOU can apply for this weekend:👇

--

1/ Senior Social Media Executive
Plus 1 Communications
Salary: £31K - £35K
Location: Windsor / Hybrid

Plus 1 Communications is hiring a data-focused Senior Social Media Executive to own campaigns across paid and organic channels. You’ll work across ideation, scripting, production, amplification and reporting, with a strong emphasis on KPIs, testing and ROI. A strong role for someone who wants real ownership over both creative output and measurable growth.

--

2/ Paid Social Executive
The Good Marketer
Salary: £31K - £35K (DOE)
Location: London / Remote options

The Good Marketer is a growing digital agency hiring for its performance team. You’ll be hands-on with paid social delivery across Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn, working across varied client accounts and helping drive results for SMEs. A strong role for someone early in paid media who wants real responsibility inside an agency environment.

--

3/ Marketing Manager
Chris Donnelly Ltd
Salary: £35K - £40K
Location: London Bridge / Hybrid

Chris Donnelly Ltd is hiring a Marketing Manager to support The Creator Accelerator, a creator-led business helping founders build personal brands that drive leads, revenue and opportunities. You’d be working across lead generation, email, landing pages and webinar content. A strong fit for someone who wants a commercially focused marketing role close to creator-led growth and direct response.

--

4/ Creative Strategist
MHI Media
Salary: £45K + performance-related bonuses
Location: Remote (UK timezone overlap required)

MHI Media is hiring a Creative Strategist inside a performance marketing agency focused on scaling DTC brands. You’d be owning creative strategy across paid social accounts, turning performance data into stronger briefs, hooks and concepts that actually convert. A strong fit for someone who understands paid social creative and wants to sit close to both strategy and commercial results.

--

5/ Social Media Executive
Cowshed Collective
Salary: £32K - £35K
Location: Greater London

Cowshed Collective is hiring a Social Media Executive inside a business built around entertainment, creators and social-first content. You’d be helping shape channel output in a culturally connected environment, working close to brands, creators and media-led ideas. A strong fit for someone who wants a social role with sharper creative energy and more relevance to where culture is actually moving.

--

Every week, I share fresh opportunities at marketing agencies and creator-led businesses, all posted in the last 7 days. Salaries included.

🔗 Links to every role in my comments!

--

♻️ REPOST to share these opportunities with your network. 
✉️ SHARE this post with a friend looking for a new role.

Formula 1 had the best racing in the world. 

But, fans just couldn't connect with the sport, the drivers or the story behind it.

For many of us, F1 felt inaccessible. And commercially it was paying the price. 

Drive to Survive changed that.

Before the series landed, F1 didn't fully recognise the extent to this problem. 

The racing was spectacular. But emotionally? It felt out of touch. Drivers said the right things in press conferences. PR teams carefully controlled what got out. The paddock felt like it belonged to a different world.

Then Netflix put cameras in the middle of it.

Three things happened that are worth paying attention to - as a fan, and as anyone working in sport, content, or brand.👇 

--

1/ The paddock stopped feeling like a closed world

Suddenly it felt accessible. 

Fans were seeing what happened after a retirement, after a race win, in the conversations that never made it to broadcast. 

Connecting with drivers as actual people. That connection turned passive viewers into properly invested fans.

True fan engagement. 

(Season 7 of Drive to Survive remains the most-watched sports documentary on Netflix, with 10.4 million views)


2/ A new audience found the sport and actually stayed

F1's social following exploded. A new generation of supporters - many of them younger, many of them women, a huge number of them in the United States - found the sport through the documentary and stayed for the racing. 

The average age of the F1 fan dropped noticeably. 

The sport stopped being a largely European institution and started feeling genuinely global.


3/ The commercial story rewrote itself entirely

Sponsors follow attention. And Drive to Survive created attention in markets F1 had struggled to crack for years. Las Vegas got a race. Miami got a race. 

Oracle signed as Red Bull's title sponsor. LVMH committed to a 10-year global partnership with the sport. 

ESPN's average US viewership grew from around 547,000 in 2018 to over 1.2 million by 2022, and F1 used that momentum to renegotiate broadcast deals from a position of actual strength.

A sport that had plateaued commercially found a completely new gear.

--

The new series drops on the 27th.

What Netflix proved here goes well beyond F1. 

Audiences don't need stories to be manufactured. They need access. Genuine access to the people behind elite performance.

Give people a way in. The rest takes care of itself.

PS. Who has watched Drive to Survive? And who's ready for the new series?

Everyone talks about product-market fit like it’s a lightbulb moment.

“We found it. Here’s how.”

But that’s hindsight talking.

The people I love following on LinkedIn are the ones in the thick of it. Sharing lessons live. Not polished retrospectives once the hard work is done.

The reality? Most of the interesting work (ie. the messy, uncomfortable, expensive work) happens before you find the fit. And not many people post about that part.

Right now I’m building a few businesses simultaneously. An operations/fractional COO consultancy, an agency within the sports space, and FUNC - an online health store. 

All at different stages. All still finding their footing in some areas.

And honestly? That’s the part I want to talk about more.

Because the gap between what you think the market wants and what people will actually pay for, consistently, is where most businesses get stuck. 

Agencies, B2B services, physical products. It doesn’t matter the model. The challenge is the same.

A few things I keep coming back to:👇

1/ Validation ≠ revenue:

Someone saying “that sounds amazing” is not the same as them buying. Enthusiasm is easy. Commitment costs something. 


2/ The model matters as much as the offer: 

You can have the right product or service with completely the wrong commercial structure. Retainer, project, subscription, one-time purchase - each one attracts a different buyer and builds a different business.


3/ Distribution is underrated: 

You can have the right offer at the right price and still struggle if you’re reaching the wrong people. How you get in front of buyers matters as much as what you’re selling.


4/ Iteration > perfection:

Waiting until the offer feels fully formed before putting it out there is how you spend months optimising something the market doesn’t actually want.


Still figuring it out. Still adjusting.

But I think there’s more value in documenting the journey than waiting until I’ve “cracked it” to share anything.

Who else is in the thick of it right now?

Jake Summerhayes

Working with founders and business Leaders to craft powerful and authentic personal brands. 

Why? Because reputation matters. 

- 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media

- Brand messages are shared 24x more on personal accounts compared to company accounts

- Customers are willing to pay 13.5x more for elite industry experts

Yet only 1% of LinkedIn's 700 million users share weekly content. 

Our mission at Kurogo is to solve that.

Kurogo is derived from the Japanese ‘Kuroko’ referring to the black clad stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre.

The convention of wearing black implying the invisibility of the wearer on stage. 

We are your Kurogo. 

Directing, driving and delivering your personal brand from the background. 

Giving you the spotlight to excel in what you do best.

Head Of Client Services

I routinely ask our team members to fuck off.

When they:

- Open client chats while on holiday
- Message me when they’re off
- Refuse to step away while being ill
- Go far beyond the scope when unnecessary
- Don’t take enough breaks
- Log on to do some “quick work” on weekends

I’ve far from mastered work-life balance, but I don’t buy into the hustle culture nonsense for one second.

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FHEQ Level 7 Modules:
•	Digital Marketing Current and Emerging Technologies
•	Digital Marketing in Context
•	Marketing, Consumer and Business Insights
•	Digital Marketing Campaign Management
•	Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning
•	Research Methods for Digital Marketing

FHEQ Level 6 Modules
•	Globalisation and Business
•	Managerial Decision Making and Change
•	Managing Projects
•	Researching and Developing a Business Plan for a New Venture
•	Strategy for Sustainability

FHEQ Level 5 Modules:
•	Contemporary Issues in Management
•	Managing People and Organisations
•	Quality Operations Management
•	Retail Management
•	Small Business Management and Accounts

FHEQ Level 4 Modules:
•	Principles of Marketing
•	Business and Society
•	Business Economics
•	Intro to Management and Finance
•	Academic Study Skills

Head of Client Services @ Kurogo | We create thought leaders through Personal Branding

Took over as Secretary in 2021 following the retirement of our previous secretary who had been with the club since the mid 90's.

Essentially the role involves taking full ownership of all administrative duties that enable the club and its members to function effectively. In doing so I work closely with external stakeholders (FA, match venues, league admins, other clubs etc.) while also being the central point for all internal communications.

As part of the NCS award myself and a small team of other sixth form students took part in various community activities in order to better understand important social issues within Liverpool. For the finale of the award we were tasked with organizing an event that would benefit the wider community. After meeting with a variety of community leaders we organised to run a sports day Palmerston High School, an SEN school based in Aigburth. I continued to volunteer with Positive Futures after the NCS award taking part in various different fundraising activities over the next year before heading to university.

Client Services Director @ Kurogo | We create thought leaders through Personal Branding

Jack Gonzalez Hart

If I should die, make sure not to cancel the standups,
If I should die, finish off my client reports,
If I should die, activate my out of office.

Unable are the loved to die, for the value we build for shareholders is immortality.

Life before Bailey:

- Nail 4 Red Bulls a day
- Logging onto Slack at 9:15am
- Stay up till 1 am watching TikToks

Life after getting him:

- Up at 6am for morning walks
- Client retention is up 23% (coincidence? don’t think so)
- Team love me more when they see him chilling in my office on calls
- I have to get up and go outside multiple times a day to take him on walks
- More LinkedIn clout as a dog parent

If you’re struggling for routine/structure, get a dog 🐶❤️

P.S. Should I start building his personal brand or am I too late already?

"How do I get a job at Kurogo"?

We’re adding a new team member almost every month right now, and I get asked this question every week.

Here’s what you must believe to thrive at Kurogo 👇🏻

- Radical responsibility
If you say you will do something, you do it.
No blaming, no excuses, no “busy week mate”.
You own your work, your learning, and your tasks.
So you gotta pull your weight.

- Constant improvement
You look at your work and ask where you can push more.
You ask for feedback. You take it on the chin.
You give feedback with care.
You care about getting better every week.

- Client obsession
Clients are the lifeblood.
You think about them before you think about yourself.
You go beyond the scope when it is right.
You are more ambitious for their brand than they are.

- Equality
Titles aren't the most impressive thing to us.
Age does not matter.
Great ideas can come from any voice on the call.
You treat everyone with respect.
Above all, you are kind in a hard industry.

- Pride in the basics
You meet deadlines.
You keep your promises.
You communicate clearly and often.
You deliver work accurately the first time.
You take pride in things most people are lazy about.

At Kurogo, the people we hire are the foundation of our success.

I can say with utmost certainty right now that every person on the team is one of the best at what they do. 

Honestly, what more can you want as a leader?

More than half of our hires over the past year have discovered the company through one team member’s personal brand.

And this lad isn’t even a part of our senior team.

Now imagine how much top talent you can attract if everyone from your leadership team were building their personal brands.

If you want the best people to join your business, don’t sleep on EGC (employee-generated content).

Post through personal profile = good 👍
Post only through company profile = waste 👎
Don’t post anything ever = bad 👎👎

Optimise your profile and post = good 👍
Not optimise your profile and post = waste 👎
Not optimise your profile and no post = bad 👎👎

Post well written, formatted content to help people = good 👍
Post unoptimised random content to help people = waste 👎
Post motivational quotes with no value = bad 👎👎

Connect with targeted people and network = good 👍
Connect with random people and no talk = waste 👎
Connect with everyone and pitch = f*cking 👎👎

--

Download our full guide to personal branding (see comments) = good 👍

Kurogo - Personal Branding Agency Branding Agency turned 5 last month, so we asked our team why they love working here, this is what they said 👇🏻❤️

We asked our team what the best part of their job is 

The true cost of not building a personal brand is that:

Reputation compounds, but so does silence.

The market doesn’t reward hidden operators.

It rewards visible thinkers.

You don’t need to be an influencer.
You just need to be findable.

Because when recruiters, founders, or investors look you up and see nothing…

You’ve already lost half the battle.

📷 - me when Sam G. Winsbury asks me to post more InDuStRy InSiGhTs

We’re a team of 21 people in 3 continents.

These 5 tools stop us from going insane having meetings all day ⬇️

1. Slack: every time I have to use Teams I almost cry
2. Loom: NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS A 60 MINS MEETING
3. Fathom: so that I don’t have to rely on my brain to remember stuff
4. Notion: makes complicated shit easier, also makes everything look good
5. Canva: makes creativity easy for artistically challenged people 🙋🏻‍♂️

When your content is so dangerously good, LinkedIn decides to keep it a secret.

We’ve packaged the system we use to build personal brands that actually drive revenue into one  guide:

🚨 How To Become The Authority, Sign More Clients and Grow Your Business In 2026.

Growing a business in 2026 is a bit of a minefield.
What worked a few years ago doesn’t work the same anymore.

Cold outreach gets ignored.
Ads get more expensive.
Buyers take longer to decide.

And the most frustrating bit…
You’ll often see competitors who aren’t even as good doing better than you.

It’s not luck.
The market has changed.
People don’t buy like they did in 2016 anymore.

Back then, it was simple:
Ad → Click → Buy.

Now the journey is messy.

Prospects research you.
Check your profile.
Look at your content.
Ask their network.
Watch you for months before reaching out.

So when you consistently share your thinking, ideas and expertise online:

- Prospects trust you before the first call
- Sales cycles shorten
- Your content becomes a 24/7 salesperson
- Opportunities come to you instead of the other way around

That’s exactly what this guide breaks down.

Inside you’ll find:

→ The 9-step Authority Engine we use with clients
→ How to position yourself so people actually listen
→ The G-A-C content system that drives growth, trust and clients
→ How to social sell without being a LinkedIn knobhead
→ The lead capture and conversion ecosystem that turns attention into revenue

If you’re a founder or marketing leader trying to grow in 2026, this is the system that’s working right now.

To get free access:

1. Like this post
2. Comment “AUTHORITY”
3. Make sure you’re following me so I can share ✅

“I don’t want to be one of those LinkedIn people.” Fair.

But the issue is… 

You’re already being judged.

By:

- Prospective hires.
- Agencies pitching you.
- Founders considering you.
- Recruiters building lists.

And if the only thing they see is:
“Head of Marketing at X” (company name, not platform)

You look like everyone else.

Your thinking is your edge.
But if you never publish it, it has zero market value.

I’m not saying go the random selfies and hustle posts route.

But in 2026, documented perspective matters more than ever, because:

If you don’t shape your narrative, someone else will (usually poorly).

So with that in mind, what impression do you get of me from this work setup?

This is who you’re talking to when you say you’re ‘taking it in-house’ btw

Personal branding is NOT about boosting your ego.

It’s the system that turns quiet experts into market leaders.

Personal branding is actually ridiculously simple:
- Show your work
- Show your thinking
- Stop hiding behind a logo

The market doesn’t buy from ghosts.

We work with founders and leaders every day.
The ones who grow fast aren’t always the smartest.
They’re just the most visible experts in the room.

They’re not loud.
But they’re visible.
Big difference.

Personal branding done right is not “look at me, I’m special”.
It’s:

→ Here is how I think
→ Here is how I solve problems
→ Here is proof I do it in the real world

People trust that more than a shiny website and a values slide.

Numbers back it up:
- 82% of customers trust a company more when leaders show up online
- Brand messages spread 24x more through people than company pages
- Customers pay more to the expert they know by name

So when leaders say “I don’t have time for LinkedIn”, I hear:
“I don’t have time to build trust at scale.”

Your content is the only thing that wins you deals while you sleep.

So it’s up to you…

You can either control your reputation or let silence do the talking for you.

If you want to control your reputation and become the authority, but don’t know how to begin, start here: https://lnkd.in/e_KKi5ZG

Right here's the truth with LinkedIn content:

Your first two lines decide everything. Fuck them up and your post is invisible.

You can spend an hour on a post.
Pour your soul into it.
Share your best framework.

But if the hook is weak, nobody sees it.
You are shouting into the void.

I like big views.
I love leads more.

We use a simple way to write posts that both grow and sell:

1️⃣ First: find the right angle

Same idea.
Two options:

- “5 tips to write content”
- “How I pulled 100,000 views from one post”

One is homework.
One is clicks 💷

Good angles:

- Create curiosity
- Feel unexpected
- Go against the crowd
- Sound a bit extreme

“Good and bad” dies.
“Best and worst” wins.

2️⃣ Channel your inner psycho editor

You only get one or two lines before the reader has to click “see more”.
Miss that and nothing else matters.

Two ways our elite writing team writes hooks:

- Cliffhangers for stories
- Promising value for how-to posts

Then we stack the posts with:

→ Personal proof
→ Clear payoff
→ Numbers
→ Key pain points of one clear person we're speaking to

“I got 187,392 views with this hook framework. Here is how you steal it.”

That gets clicks from the right people.

3️⃣ Deliver or get called clickbait

Once they click, we owe them.
We keep the body:

- Stupid simple (grade 8 level)
- Full of white space
- Built around a clear process or framework

High perceived value + low effort to read = holy grail.

Your hook wins attention.
Your post's body earns trust.
Both together build authority 🤝🏻

I'm in a generous mood today, so here are 228 of our best hooks:

https://lnkd.in/e5fX5YKT

P.S.

Join our waitlist for free personal branding workshops (no pitches ever, I promise)

https://lnkd.in/exVYf5Pc

If your leaders are invisible online, your company might already be losing the trust game.

Your board think “brand” is logos.
Your execs think “visibility” is speaking at one conference a year.
Your marketing team post safe beige nonsense from the company page.

Meanwhile, your buyers stalk people, not PDFs.

They check who runs the place.
What they believe.
How they think.

82% of customers trust a company more when senior leaders show up on social.

Leaders who:

- Share how they make decisions
- Admit when they got it wrong
- Talk like a human, not a press release

When a CEO posts every week, three things happen:

1. Trust goes up.
People see a real person, not a logo, behind the promise.

2. Influence goes up.
Decision makers think “I know how this person thinks, I can bet on them.”

3. Alignment goes up.
Teams stop guessing the strategy, because they can read it in plain sight.

—

Personal branding for leaders is not vanity.

It is how you export your judgement at scale.

It is how you turn “our values” from poster fluff into visible behaviour.

💬 If you don’t know where to start, grab our free guide from the link in the comments, it’s a new resource we built to help you leverage LinkedIn to scale your business, reputation, and audience.

LinkedIn is a lot like dating.

And there are two types of people on LinkedIn.
(Both are doing it wrong).

- First type:

They propose on the first date.
They connect with you and immediately hit you with:
“Hey mate. Loved your profile. Want to jump on a quick call to discuss how we can 10x synergies?”

Instant ick.

- Second type:

They never propose at all.
They post for months.
They get followers.
They get DMs like “this is really good”.
They get profile views.

And they do absolutely nothing with it because they’re scared of being “salesy”.

So they stay in the talking stage forever. Neither wins.

The sweet spot is what we call hand raises 🙋🏻‍♂️

That’s when someone is basically telling you:
“I’m interested in what you do.”

Examples of hand raises:

• They view your profile
• They like and comment regularly
• They follow you after a strong post
• They join your newsletter
• They DM you with an actual question
• They keep showing up

These are hot prospects.
Not because they’re ready to buy today.

But because you’re already on their radar.
So your job is not to pitch them.

Your job is to start a normal conversation and nudge.

➡️ Here’s the simple play:

1. Spot the hand raise

Profile views. Repeat engagers. New followers.

2. Send a normal message

No pitch. No calendar link. No “just circling back”.
Something like:
“Alright mate. Seen you’ve been engaging on a few posts. What side of marketing are you focused on this year?”

3. Listen, then help

If they mention a problem, you can share something useful.

4. Only then offer a next step

If they keep asking questions, they’re basically inviting it.

—

If you want the full breakdown of how to sell effectively on LinkedIn, we put the blueprint in this ultimate guide. I’ll leave a link to it in the comments for you.

Most founders post for likes. 
Smart founders post for leads.

Here is how I think about content when we build accounts at Kurogo:

This is based on: 

→ building 350 accounts
→ Writing over 40,000 posts 
→ hundreds of millions of views)

Your content has 3 jobs, not 1:

- Growth content → pull new people into your world
- Authority content → prove you are the safe, obvious choice
- Conversion content → move buyers from “interested” to “where do I pay?”

Miss one of these and you’re wasting your time. 

Every post should look like this:

- Hook that stops the scroll
- Clear point of view
- Proof you’re not chatting nonsense
- Takeaway or CTA
- Ideally, a complementary image

Not viral cringe fluff.
Not vague “authentic” nonsense.
Not oversharing for your dopamine fix.

Just ideas/opinions from lived experience.

Hope this helps ✌️

80% of businesses fall into one of two marketing camps. Both are shite.

➡️ Camp 1: No marketing

These are the people who say:
“We just focus on doing great work. It speaks for itself.”

Lovely sentiment.
But in 2026, great work is table stakes.
There are thousands of people doing good work in every industry.
If nobody knows about yours, congratulations.
You’ve become the best-kept secret in your industry.

➡️ Camp 2: Send and spend

These are the people who say:

“Just send more emails.”
“Run more ads.”
“Book more cold calls.”

So they:

- Blast cold emails
- Hammer the phones
- Spend a fortune on ads

And yeah… they convert 0.1% of people.
Which technically works.

But the moment they stop sending or spending, the pipeline disappears overnight.

It’s basically marketing on life support.

—

What if I told you there’s a third option?

➡️ Authority Positioning

Instead of chasing attention every day,
You build a reputation that brings people to you through:

- Content
- Ideas
- Perspective
- Proof

Suddenly, prospects show up already knowing you.
Already trusting you.
Already halfway sold.

We see it every week.
Someone messages our clients saying:
“Been seeing your posts for months. Can we talk?”

That’s not magic.
That’s what happens when trust is built before the sales call.

—

If you want the full breakdown of how this works, we’ve just put it into a step-by-step system called:

💡 The Authority Engine.

It covers:

- Positioning
- Content strategy
- Profile optimisation
- Social selling
- Lead capture

Basically, it teaches you how to stop chasing leads and start attracting them.

I’m not selling you anything, just drop me a DM saying “TAE” and I’ll share free access 😊

📷 - How the team used this exact system to get these insane results for Shan Hanif

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The Battle

Lewis Alexander Baxter

Jake Summerhayes

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The Battle

Lewis Alexander Baxter

Jake Summerhayes

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Lewis Alexander Baxter's LinkedIn Performance

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Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreLewis Alexander Baxter's LinkedIn Performance