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Personal branding · Education and expertise

A student picks a lab from a page you have not updated since your PhD.

Personal branding for an academic is the visibility of your work to the people who decide things: journal editors, prospective research students, collaborators and funders.

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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 academic is the visibility of your work to the people who decide things: journal editors, prospective research students, collaborators and funders. GullySales writes and maintains that presence from an hour with you, inside whatever your institution's rules allow.

Also written for

Professor, Assistant professor, Associate professor, Lecturer, Visiting faculty.

Where this sits

For professors and academics

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

  • “Your institutional page is somebody else's job, and it shows”

    A departmental listing with a designation, an office number and a photograph from ten years ago. A student comparing three groups cannot tell what anybody in yours is working on.

  • “A publication list is not a description of the work”

    Fourteen titles in a column say nothing about the question you are chasing or what it is like to be in your group. The students who would suit you best are the ones who cannot decode it.

  • “Editors and reviewers look you up too”

    Before an invitation to review, or to guest edit a special issue, somebody checks whether you are still active in the area. A stale profile quietly costs you the invitations that build standing.

  • “Industry and the press want you and cannot find the door”

    A manufacturer with a materials problem, or a reporter on deadline, searches for an expert. With no plain-language description of your area and no way to write to you, they find somebody else.

What we do

What we deliver for professors and academics.

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

  1. A page a prospective student actually reads

    What your group works on in plain words, what a typical project looks like, what you expect from a junior research fellow or a master's student, and how to write to you without sending the same mail to forty people.

    Result: Applications from students who understood the work before applying.

  2. An hour on a paper nobody outside the lab reads

    An hour of your time between classes about one thing: a result, a rejection, a method that keeps failing. The writing is drawn from it, and in an examination fortnight it waits rather than being written without you.

    Result: A current public record without another job on your list.

  3. Profiles that agree with one another

    Google Scholar, ORCID, the institutional page and any society listing carrying the same affiliation, the same area and the same contact route.

    Result: One searchable identity instead of four half-right ones.

  4. Plain-language versions of your papers

    A short piece per paper explaining the question and the finding for a reader outside the field, published beside the citation.

    Result: Collaborators and journalists who arrive already understanding the result.

  5. A front door for speaking and consulting

    The subjects you take, a short and long biography, a current photograph, and how a conference organiser or a company reaches you.

    Result: Invitations and consulting enquiries that used to go elsewhere.

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 professors and academics

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
Does my university have to approve this?
Almost certainly some of it. Most institutions set rules on who speaks to the press, how affiliation is used and what consulting must be declared, and funders add conditions of their own. Get the position from your head of department or the communications office in writing, because the obligation sits with you.
This sounds like self-promotion, and my field frowns on it.
The work is explanation rather than promotion, and the case for it is that the students and collaborators you want are choosing on what they can read. If the only reason you are considering it is a promotion file, spend the hour on the paper instead, and we would say the same in the first conversation.
I have no free hour in term time.
Then start in the vacation and record two interviews at once, or do not start. A profile written around you without you produces exactly the flat departmental prose that made the original page useless.
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.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on what is being changed and how many of the people who matter see it. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
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.

Education and expertise

Personal branding for the rest of the education and expertise.

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.

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