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Hello and welcome to the 193rd edition of Fresh Salmon.

If you’re new here, swim back through past issues 👉 they’ll get you caught up.

Hot take to open: most “personal branding” advice is just marketing with makeup. 

Lead magnets, funnels, and conversion hacks are useful, but they’re not your personal brand. Brand is what people feel about you when you’re not in the room, and what they say about you when you’re not in earshot.

This edition gives you a clean framework to build that feeling, turn it into trust, and still sell - without turning your feed into a walking billboard.

Meet our primary partner for today’s edition: Roku. Check them out 👇

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

1) First Principles: What a Personal Brand Is (and Isn’t)

• Brand (corporate): a customer’s gut feeling about a product/service/org.

• Personal brand: the market’s gut feeling about you - built by your stories, actions, and consistency at scale.

If your content looks like everyone else’s and says what everyone else says, you’re not “building a personal brand.”

You’re performing a persona. That’s why all the AI-polished sameness feels dead on arrival.

[Litmus test]: If someone could swap your name out with three other people in your niche and nothing breaks, it’s not a brand, it’s a commodity.

2) The Source Code: Your Bobby Flay “Sauces”

On Iron Chef, Bobby Flay shows up with pre-made sauces, the secret base he drizzles on anything and wins. That’s his source code. You need yours.

Build a warehouse of brand assets you can reuse:

The 3 Stories Every Brand Needs

1. Backstory (Origin)
   Where you’re from, birth order, parents, why your earliest years shaped your operating system. This is context that quietly explains your decisions.

2. Inflection Point (Fork-in-the-Road)
   The moment everything changed - a risk, a mentor, a failure, a bet. Heroes are made at forks.

3. Proof Story (Outcome with a Scar)
   A specific client or personal win you earned the hard way—complete with mistake, fix, and result.

Write these once. Then slice them as shorts, long-form, podcast bits, and keynote beats. And yes - keep adding sauces (punchy phrases, metaphors, one-liners) you can deploy on command.

Meet our primary partner for today’s edition: Roku. Check them out 👇

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

3) Correct Contrarian: Different and Right

Contrarian ≠ controversial. The internet is full of hot takes no one believes. Your job is to be a correct contrarian - say what others won’t and anchor it in reality.

Exercise:

• Make two lists:
  (A) “Things everyone in my niche says” → Your NO-FLY list.
  (B) “Things I believe need nuance or are flat wrong” → Your POV list.

• Turn each POV into a crisp, ownable line:

  • “The more you learn, the more you earn.” → “The more you apply, the higher you fly.”

  • “It’s always a great time to buy.” → “Sometimes waiting saves more than winning.”

Speak from your core. If it’s just cosplay contrarian, it won’t hold.

4) Observation Beats Instruction (When You’re Early)

If you’re still building proof, start with observations instead of lectures.

• Bad: “Here are 3 tips to buy a home.”

• Better: “Did you know 80% of first-time buyers in our city chose X this year? Here’s why that surprised me, and what I’d do differently.”

People resist being told what to do by strangers. They lean in to “here’s something interesting I noticed”, and stay for your take.

Hook patterns:

• “Did you see this?” (screenshot + your POV)

• “Everyone says __. Here’s what they’re missing.”

• “I messed up __. Here’s what I’d do differently.”

5) Build Curiosity Gaps (Move the Punchline Up Front)

If the best line lands at :27, your viewer left at :03. Front-load your punchline:

• Start with the bar.

• Then context.

• Then the steps.

A simple re-edit (first line up, b-roll layered, captions tightened) often 2-4×’s retention.

Small inches → big leaps.

6) The Anti-Webinar (Sell Without the Slime)

Classic webinar formula = hype the problem, dangle the “3 secrets,” sell hard, teach nothing. It still works - for people you don’t want as customers.

Try the Anti-Webinar:

• Tell attendees upfront you’ll actually teach.

• Teach the framework completely (they’ll still want help doing it).

• Ask permission to present your offer at the end.

• Make the middle step the CTA (guide, teardown, live working session), not “book a call.”

People want DIY first. After 1 a.m. with the IKEA box open, they want Done With/For You. Give them the plan; be the partner to execute it.

7) If Your Views Are Low: Don’t Quit. Get Better at Story.

Views are a lagging indicator of story skill and signal strength. If it’s not working:

Fix the skill, not the soul:

• Trim the preamble. Lead with the most interesting sentence.

• Use real nouns. “A client” → “Jesse, a Denver nurse buying her first duplex.”

• Add tension. “We almost lost the deal at underwriting because __.”

• Land the plane. Know the ending before you hit record.

8) Personal Brand ≠ Persona: Add the 20–30% People Remember

The content that converts isn’t just the “three steps.” It’s the human texture that makes people care.

Weave in your 5F Affinity cues (pick 2–3):
Food, Faith, Family, Fitness, Fashion (swap one for your thing: hiking, music, cars, teams, biohacking).
These create micro-bridges with your ideal buyer. People rarely walk up saying “great tip #2” - they say “your daughter’s Taylor Swift story got me,” or “I’m carnivore too.” That’s the glue.

9) When to Sell (Without Killing the Vibe)

Most feeds fail because every post is a pitch. Flip it:

Design micro-commitments (signals) → then sell:

• DM me for the guide

• Free teardown session (limited seats)

• 30-minute Zoom class → teach → invite

You’re not chasing sales in public; you’re collecting signals in public then converting in private.

The Key Takeaways:

• If it could be said by anyone, it belongs to no one.

• Store your sauces. A reusable source code beats chasing trends.

• Teach more. Sell clean. Design middle steps people want.

• When in doubt, tell the story. A product without one is a commodity, and commodities compete on price.

Different beats louder.

Honest beats optimized.

Posted beats perfect.

Meet our primary partner for today’s edition: Roku. Check them out 👇

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

That’s it for this week! If you found this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend.

See you next time!

Do what is good for your soul ❤️

All the best,

Vivek

PS. Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways in which I can help you and your business:

#1: B2B Marketing and Go-To-Market Advisory for your business.

#2: 1-on-1 Personal Coaching and Mentoring on anything related to Marketing and Go-To-Market Strategies for you.

#3: Promoting you or your brand via this newsletter.

For any of these things just shoot me a reply, and we will arrange a time to chat.