Years ago I was called a “shameless self promoter” in a Felicity Ferret column (in METRO, an NZ magazine) and it crushed me. Building a personal brand is not about feeding my own ego. It’s about serving my family, using my own brand to bring in the right clients for us. It’s serving my team to be able to pay them. And I get to work with people who like me, trust me and this means I can do my best job. I’m what you could call a career octopus. And sometimes I’ve been scared to step up, and other times I’ve been too scared not to. I can tell you the fear of stepping up is worth pushing through. I’ve worked as a Vet Nurse, Tutor, retail manager, Receptionist, Teacher, Author, writer, presenter, speaker, trainer, ECE facilitator, parenting coach, blogger/influencer (before it was cool). I tried working in a factory but only lasted a day. I’m really bad at repetitive tasks! I’ve been working as a marketing strategist since 2011 I launched my own marketing agency Identify in 2015. It grew too fast with poor systems and structure and almost closed in 2018. After three days of hiding in bed, I made the call to stop crying, face my mistakes and transform the business into a healthy one. We changed our model, our culture and our team. I learned what it really takes to run a profitable and fulfilling business, the importance of building and maintaining trust, and growing a personal brand. iI teach you to be a spider and build a web. I work with you one-to-one, in our coaching programme or have online courses. I'm on a mission to help small business owners build a personal brand that builds their business, and helps them create the life they want. I'm a weekly business columnist for New Zealand's stuff.co.nz and host of the podcast MAP IT Marketing