Skip to content
GullySales
Tell us what you need

Personal branding · C-suite and senior leaders

Board seats go to people the chair already trusts, or has read.

Personal branding for an independent director is what carries a name onto a nomination committee's shortlist.

Tell us what you needor call +91 80958 58589

Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

A professional shares her expertise in a recorded interview

In one paragraph

Personal branding for an independent director is what carries a name onto a nomination committee's shortlist. It is what a chair finds when a colleague suggests you, and what a promoter reads before offering a first seat. GullySales writes it with your company secretary's limits agreed in advance.

Also written for

Independent director, Board member, Non-executive director.

For board members and independent directors

Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.

  • “The seat is filled in three phone calls”

    A chair asks two directors he already trusts, and one of them mentions a name. Whether that name survives the next ten minutes depends entirely on what the chair finds when he looks it up.

  • “A databank entry is a record, not a reason to call”

    Being on the register makes you eligible. It says nothing about whether you have sat through a difficult audit committee, or what you did the year the numbers looked wrong.

  • “You cannot talk about the board you sit on”

    Anything material is price sensitive and the company speaks through its filings. The experience that qualifies you is precisely the experience you may not describe.

  • “Wanting seats mainly for the fee is a poor reason to start here”

    If the sitting fee is the point, relationships move faster than writing does, and writing takes several quarters to tell. Better you hear that before the first invoice than after the third.

What we do

What we deliver for board members and independent directors.

Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. A profile built for a nomination committee

    Sectors, the committees you have served on, the qualification that puts you on an audit or a remuneration committee, and how many boards you currently sit on.

    Result: A chair can test your fit against the gap on his board without ringing you.

  2. Records that agree with each other

    Your director identification number, the filings at the registry, your own profile and your firm's page all saying the same thing about the same directorships.

    Result: Nothing for a diligence check to trip over.

  3. Writing on governance that touches nobody's board

    Related party approvals, what a working audit committee agenda looks like, how a newly listed company builds its risk register. Subjects of the craft, never your own companies.

    Result: Evidence that you think about the job, not merely that you hold the post.

  4. A disclosure line agreed before publication

    Your company secretary and your own legal adviser set what may be said and when. We write inside it and keep a record of who approved what.

    Result: One less thing to explain to a chair or a regulator.

  5. An hour on a governance argument you have just had

    Usually a question from a recent committee meeting, taken into general terms so no company is identifiable. We draft from that and you approve every word. If the hour will not survive your board calendar, put the money into the director institutes instead.

    Result: Material in a director's language rather than a copywriter's.

  6. Institute and conference material

    A director's biography, a current photograph and the subjects you will take on a panel, ready for the governance bodies that run director programmes.

    Result: You are in the room where the next nomination gets discussed.

How the result is measured

  • Enquiries that name you or came through your profile
  • Searches for your name, from Search Console
  • Profile views and connection requests from your industry
  • Speaking invitations, press enquiries and podcast requests
  • Posts published against posts planned, and what held up the rest

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

Read the full personal branding page

How it works

How the work runs for board members and independent directors

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Work out whether this is even your bottleneck

    The first conversation covers how enquiries reach you today. If the company's own site is the weaker link, that comes first, and we say so.

  2. 2

    Search your own name with you

    We look at what a buyer sees today: every profile, old listing and photograph. Some of it you will want taken down, and some of it only you can take down.

  3. 3

    Agree what you will and will not say

    The subjects you know cold, the ones that belong to your clients, and the lines your regulator or association draws. Written down before anything is published.

  4. 4

    Rebuild the profiles

    The bio page, LinkedIn and the directories that matter in your field, done once and done properly.

  5. 5

    The routine

    Interview, drafts, your approval, publication. The interview is the only part that needs you, and it is the part that cannot be skipped.

  6. 6

    Hand it over

    The subject list, the drafting notes and the calendar are yours. If you would rather keep it running yourself, that is a fair outcome.

Before you hire anyone

The first thing to do yourself.

It costs nothing, and it shows what a buyer sees before they ever call you.

  1. Search your own name and your practice or business name in a private browser window, and list the first ten results.
  2. Open your profile on each major platform and check that the name, photo, description and contact details agree.
  3. Ask two people who recently chose you what they looked up first, and write down their answers.

Judge any provider

What to ask any agency or ghost-writer.

Useful whoever you choose, including us.

  • Who writes my words, and do I approve everything before it goes out?
  • Which of my own details and claims will you need to check with me before publishing?
  • What will you not write because of the rules my profession follows?
  • Whose account do the profiles and the content sit in, and what happens to them if we stop?
  • What do you count as a result, and what will you not promise?

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

GullySales builds every engagement from three pieces of sales work. This page is not one of them, but the same three steps apply to the business behind it.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
Am I even allowed to publish while I sit on a listed board?
Restrictions apply and they are strict. Listing disclosure obligations and insider trading rules limit what a director may say about the company, its results and anything not yet announced. The consequences land on your registration rather than on ours. Have your company secretary and your own legal adviser set the boundary in writing first, then treat that note as the rule.
Can you get me onto a board?
No. We do not place directors, we hold no database of seats and we have no relationship with any nomination committee. What we do is make sure that when somebody proposes your name, the ten minutes of reading that follows works in your favour.
How long before this makes a difference?
Findability changes within a few weeks of the profiles being rebuilt. An actual approach runs on the board cycle, so the reporting is about searches for your name, profile views and approaches received rather than about seats won.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts, split into our time, your media spend and production.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever the work touches, such as your profiles, your website or your accounts, and time with the people who can answer our questions.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

C-suite and senior leaders

Personal branding for the rest of the c-suite and senior leaders.

Or start from personal branding.

Your next practical step

Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.

Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.

Tell us what you need