Being good at something and being known for it are two different stages of the same career.
You can spend years becoming excellent at your work while most people outside your immediate circle have only a vague idea of what you actually do. Your colleagues may know. Your clients may know. Your manager certainly should know. Beyond that small orbit, your expertise can remain surprisingly well hidden.
That matters because opportunities often travel through recognition. Someone needs a particular skill, a particular kind of thinking or a particular kind of person, and a name comes to mind. The easier it is for people to connect your name with a specific area of expertise, the more likely you are to become part of those conversations.
Becoming known for something takes time, though. There is no magic LinkedIn post that suddenly appoints you Supreme Galactic Authority on your chosen subject. Recognition grows through repetition, evidence, relationships and consistently having something useful to contribute.
Start by working out what you actually want to be known for
A lot of experienced people have a slightly awkward problem: they can do far too many things.
Twenty years of work can leave you with an impressive jumble of skills, industries, projects, interests and expertise. Ask someone what they do and you occasionally get a five-minute answer involving strategy, people, technology, transformation, leadership, operations, innovation and several other words that cover approximately half the economy.
People need something easier to remember.
That does not mean squeezing yourself into an impossibly tiny niche. It means deciding which parts of your expertise deserve to sit closest to the front of people’s minds.
Think about the questions people already ask you. Look at the subjects you can talk about for an hour without needing to bluff your way through it. Notice where your experience is unusually deep, where you have strong opinions based on actual work, and where you repeatedly see things other people miss.
Somewhere in there is probably a useful starting point.
Specific expertise is easier to remember
There is a reason specialists often stick in our minds.
Imagine somebody tells you, “Michael is a really good business person.” You might agree completely, then struggle to remember exactly why you would call him six months later.
Now imagine they tell you, “Michael is brilliant at helping family businesses sort out succession planning.”
That has somewhere to land.
Specificity gives other people a mental hook. It helps them understand when your expertise might be relevant, which means they can introduce you, recommend you or bring you into a conversation at the right moment.
This can be particularly useful when you are starting a consultancy or moving into independent work. Broad experience still matters enormously, although your network needs an easy way to understand the kinds of problems you might be able to solve.
Your expertise can expand from there. First, give people some coordinates.
Show people how you think
One of the best ways to become known for expertise is to let people see your thinking.
LinkedIn is useful for this because you do not need a publishing empire. You can comment intelligently on somebody else’s post, explain an idea you have noticed through your work, share an observation from a conversation, write about a recurring problem, or offer a useful perspective on something happening in your industry.
Over time, patterns emerge.
If you consistently have interesting things to say about brand strategy, people begin associating you with brand strategy. If you regularly talk intelligently about commercial property, cybersecurity, organisational change or food manufacturing, those subjects gradually become attached to your name.
The key word there is intelligently.
Repeating obvious advice will give people very little to remember. Expertise becomes more visible when you add an observation, an example, a strong question, a useful distinction or a point of view developed through experience.
Give people access to the interesting bits of your brain.
Your work is part of the evidence
People are remarkably good at spotting the gap between somebody who understands a subject and somebody who has simply learned how to talk confidently about it.
Real expertise leaves evidence.
Projects, results, case studies, stories, examples, presentations, recommendations and conversations all give people something concrete to attach to your claims. If you say you are excellent at solving a particular kind of business problem, being able to explain how you have approached that problem in the past makes the expertise far easier to believe.
This becomes particularly important online, where almost anyone can give themselves an impressive title.
“Expert.” “Strategist.” “Advisor.” “Futurist.” “Specialist.”
Fine. Show us something.
Explain how you reached a conclusion. Talk about what you learned from a project. Share a mistake that changed your approach. Describe a pattern you keep seeing. Offer a framework somebody can actually use. The evidence makes the expertise interesting.
I’ve seen how recognition builds on LinkedIn
I’ve spent years on LinkedIn, built a network of close to 5,000 connections and been involved with LinkedInLocal Auckland. One of the things that experience has taught me is how gradually professional associations form.
You see someone’s name repeatedly over several years. They contribute thoughtful comments. You meet them at an event. They share something useful. Somebody else recommends them. Perhaps you have a conversation over coffee, hear them speak or work with them directly. Eventually, their name becomes firmly connected in your mind with a particular subject.
That connection can become remarkably durable.
I can think of people in my own network whose names would immediately come to mind for certain areas of expertise, even if I have not spoken to them for years. Their reputation has stayed in orbit because the association became strong enough to stick.
That is an encouraging thought for anyone who feels they should suddenly become incredibly visible. You can build recognition progressively. Each useful interaction adds another small piece to the picture.
Conversations count as much as content
There is a tendency to treat personal branding as an online activity because online activity is visible and measurable.
Your professional reputation is also developing at conferences, networking events, client meetings, workshops, industry groups, coffee catch-ups and random conversations in lifts.
Often, these interactions create stronger memories than a post ever could.
If you are knowledgeable about something, talk about it. Ask interesting questions. Share what you are seeing. Help somebody think through a problem. Introduce two people who should know each other. Offer a useful idea without turning every conversation into a sales pitch.
Expertise becomes memorable when people experience it.
That can happen in a boardroom, on LinkedIn, in front of an audience or over a flat white in Takapuna.
Repetition matters more than people realise
People are busy. They are thinking about their own jobs, businesses, families, deadlines and the fact that somebody has scheduled another 8.30am Teams meeting.
They may need to encounter the same association several times before it sticks.
That is why repetition matters.
If you want to become known for facilitating complex strategic conversations, mention that work occasionally. Share ideas related to it. Talk about what makes those conversations succeed. Let people see you doing it. If you want to become known for helping businesses use AI sensibly, keep contributing useful thinking in that area.
You may feel as though you have said something five times already. Most people in your wider network probably saw it once.
Recognition comes from enough consistent evidence accumulating around the same idea.
Generosity helps expertise travel
Some of the people with the strongest professional reputations are exceptionally generous with what they know.
They answer questions. They introduce people. They share useful resources. They explain complicated ideas without making everybody else feel thick. They point people towards opportunities and help others solve problems.
That behaviour makes expertise travel.
People remember the person who gave them a useful idea at exactly the right moment. They remember who helped when there was nothing obvious to gain from it. They tell other people about that experience.
Over time, that creates gravity around a reputation.
Your knowledge begins moving through networks far beyond the people you speak to directly.
Give it time to get into orbit
There is a temptation to treat professional visibility like a campaign: decide you want to become known, post furiously for three weeks, become exhausted, disappear for four months, then conclude that personal branding does not work.
Reputation develops on a longer timeline.
It grows through work, relationships, conversations, ideas and accumulated evidence. Sometimes you will see the results immediately. Often, you will discover them months or years later when somebody says, “I thought of you because…”
That sentence is worth paying attention to.
Ask why they thought of you. Ask what they associated you with. Those moments tell you whether the reputation you are building is travelling in the direction you hoped.
Then keep adding to it.
You already have expertise. Start making it easier for other people to see, remember and talk about.
Eventually, when the right question comes up in a room somewhere, your name might be the one that enters the orbit.
