How to build a powerful personal brand in 4 steps without the use of artificial intelligence!?

We find ourselves catapulted into a world of AI everything. Supposedly, it’s designed to make things easier, quicker, and better at expressing what you want to say than…well, yourself. 

But what’s the catch?  

Yes, it provides some great tools—automation methods can streamline the mundane and creating things at ease has become the norm. But within the ocean of artificial intelligence, are we losing touch with ourselves?

I’ve been working with a client who is building a new way to pitch and position herself and her business. She needs her personal brand to match who she is: a transformational health & high-performance coach who has pivoted from her corporate career to help high-achieving women overcome burnout, overwhelm, and self-doubt.  

We’ve been using The Shine Effect Framework to pull out my client’s gold. This involves helping her bust through her limiting beliefs, while building five key pillars of clarity, confidence, communication, connection, and client conversion to make her shine, and to use this as the foundation of her all-important personal brand story. 

As we were honing my client’s story, we decided to plug her proposed pitch into ChatGPT. You’d think that would be a good idea…

And it was…kind of. Within an instant, we were swimming in various ways to express my client’s story. 

But as we were presented with more and more options, we began to get lost. Not only were we unclear whether ChatGPT’s fifth response or twenty-first response was better, we were beginning to forget which response actually sounded like my client. 

Her gold was getting diluted, and her superpowers reshaped in such a way that she started to forget what her strengths were, and how she wanted to express them in a way that was unique to her.

Most importantly—her authenticity, her realness, her rawness and her vulnerability was now gone. ChatGPT did its job—it produced an AI-generated version of my client, and it simply wasn’t her. It could have been anyone. 

“People Buy People” 

I’ve been reflecting on my old school sales days—the ones pre-computer, let alone AI. I’m talking about the days of walking into buildings and collecting compliment slips to build a contact list.

(I’m probably giving away my age with that—authenticity, right there.)

However, in the days of door-knocking, cold-calling, and in-person meetings, people were getting to meet, see and experience YOU. 

Your energy, your smile, your presence. 

From that experience, they would choose to deal with you or not. What they saw was what they got, and what they got was a real sense of the other person. 

Fast forward to 2025, and understanding who the other person truly is has become far more difficult. Most likely, first impressions are courtesy of AI, only to find that often there’s no congruency to who that person really is or what their business delivers.

If there’s one thing that has remained true throughout my career, it’s this: people buy people.

That means if you can share your humanity with another person, you are far more likely to make a real connection that can lead to an aligned and profitable partnership.

In an age where authenticity is becoming a rare commodity, I think the days of B2C or B2B will transform into H2H—Human to Human.

From product to service businesses, solopreneur to teams, human connection will be more desirable than ever. If people don’t feel your humanity, no one wins in business.

Building An Authentic Personal Brand Is Your Biggest Competitive Advantage  

If we know that people connect with people, although it may seem easier to get ChatGPT to craft your personal brand, it’s only through offering the world the real you that you will stand out from the AI-assisted crowd.

The real version is the best version of you, and that includes all of the little idiosyncrasies that make you, you. 

Your unique qualities are what connects you to others, pulls them deeper into your world, and builds trusting, lasting relationships. Our humanity is the most important thing we have to offer, so being real resonates. Being your authentic self will ultimately attract the right people and opportunities. No AI-generated version of you can do that. 

So without ChatGPT doing this all for you, how do you build your authentic brand?

Four steps to build an authentic personal brand without the use of artificial intelligence 

Step 1: Understand your unique strengths and skills

There’s various tools and exercises you can use to help with this, but understanding your distinct qualities and strengths is the foundation of an authentic personal brand. Delving into a strengths assessment can be a great way to bring to light what you’re naturally great at. I use a tool called TalentPredix. It highlights your top talents and shows you at a deeper level what you’re naturally good at. When you can work to your talents, work…well…it ceases to be work. It becomes play.

Step 2: Understand who you are talking to and why you’re talking to them

This doesn’t just mean understanding the positions and titles of those you’re speaking to, it means understanding the overarching message you’re communicating to them. To ensure that you connect with your audience, you need to know who your audience is—their values, their desires, their needs. Knowing this will help to make sure your tone, language and message resonates. It will make sure your connection with them is that much deeper.

Step 3: Be YOU! Humanity and vulnerability wins the day 

We want genuine interaction. AI cannot (currently at least!) emulate the detailed and unique make-up of an individual human. Sharing personal things about yourself may feel vulnerable, but it’s these stories that often connect the most, and make your audience remember you.

Step 4: Be patient, and trust the process

Remember, there's no shortcut to building an authentic personal brand. Yes, you might be able to pay someone to write your posts or use tech tricks to get your name out there quicker, but a strong personal brand comes from how you show up every single day in every interaction, whether online or offline. That will, in the end, pay far more dividends than copy-and-pasting the latest response from ChatGPT.

^{Written by: Adele Leah  |  Images: Unsplash  |  Last Updated: 14 January 2025}