Last month I was running one of my training sessions for our Thought Leadership programs at Just Connecting. Fifteen executives, all with fifteen-plus years of experience.
One of them asked:
“Ok Martijn, I get it. Positioning myself and posting is important, but what should I post about and how? I don’t have time to dedicate one or two hours a week to writing, and I want to stay far away from those terrible AI-written posts.”
So I asked why she was so interested in the industry, and what shaped how she sees it?
Simple question, hard to answer.
She had plenty of expertise and experience to build a point of view from. Nobody had ever asked her that question before.
We start too quickly
Everyone is rushing to use AI for personal branding. AI has all the answers, it’s easy to use, and let’s all agree we’re all a bit lazy. The problem is that optimising headlines and rewriting About sections for your profile won’t get you anywhere if you skip the hardest step.
We go straight to “how do I look?” before answering “what do I want to be known for?”
Skip that step and it’s like decorating your house before pouring the foundation. It looks nice until everything comes crumbling down.
Your profile, your content, your conversations, they all need an anchor. Without it, you’re optimising without a solid foundation.
That anchor is your backstory.
What makes you different
Your backstory isn’t your CV. It’s the collection of experiences that made you see your industry the way you do.
- The client who changed your mind.
- The failure that taught you more than any success.
- The moment you realised everyone was approaching something the wrong way.
That’s the stuff AI will never know about. And from what I’ve seen, it’s exactly what your audience is looking for.
It’s difficult to get that backstory straight. Believe me, I’ve been struggling with it for the last three years. Last week I updated my personal website and finally had a breakthrough.
The six questions I asked myself
1. Turning Point
“The moment that changed my perspective on my industry was when {blank}”
Be specific. When did it happen? What shifted?
2. Expertise
“People often seek me out for guidance on {blank}”
Not your job description but your expertise. What do people keep asking you about?
3. Contrarian View
“My experience taught me that most people get {blank} wrong because {blank}”
What has your experience shown you that goes against common wisdom?
4. Driving Mission
“The industry challenge that energizes me to solve is {blank}”
Not what you sell. What you care about fixing.
5. Signature Insight
“The one thing I want every professional in my field to understand is {blank}”
If you had one message, what would it be?
6. Leadership Topic
“Based on answers 1 to 5, the industry conversation I should lead is {blank}”
The conversation you want people to associate with your name.
You don’t need to get this perfect on the first try. Write your answers, let them sit for a day, and then come back and sharpen them.
From six answers to three statements
Alright, that was the hard part, now the fun begins.
Once you’ve answered the six questions, combine them into three positioning statements:
Your Angle (Answers 1 + 3)
Your turning point plus your contrarian view. This becomes the content that challenges your industry’s thinking.
Your Authority (Answers 2 + 4)
Your expertise plus your mission. This becomes your positioning, what you help people do and why.
Your Voice (Answers 5 + 6)
Your signature insight plus your leadership topic. This becomes the consistent message people hear from you everywhere.
How this works in practice
My example in social selling:
My Angle:
Early in my career, I realised selling should be about helping, not quota-chasing. Most people treat sales as a competition rather than a collaboration. My content challenges that assumption.
My Authority:
I help professionals build trust through social selling that prioritises human connection over automation.
My Voice:
As AI handles more of our processes, the professionals who win are those who create real human connections. That’s the conversation I want to lead.
Three statements that guide my LinkedIn profile, my content, and who I connect with. When I’m stuck on what to write, who to connect with, or what to do, I go back to these.
Do this before you touch AI
AI is a tool. A good one, but it still needs guidance and direction. And the best direction isn’t a prompt template from someone’s viral post. It’s your positioning statements.
From now on, use your Angle, your Authority, and your Voice in every chat. It will help you draft content that sounds like you. Definitely not perfect, but way better than a general “copy-pasted prompt” you found somewhere on the web.
Your backstory is the angle AI needs. Without it, you’re outsourcing your thinking to a machine that doesn’t know you, your audience and your business.
And outsourcing your thinking to AI? That is a stupid idea.
The ones who stand out aren’t the ones with the best-optimised profiles, or the most polished message. They’re the ones who know what they stand for, and let everything else flow from that.
Your backstory already exists. You’ve been building it for years. You haven’t written it down yet.