Shelley Röstlund

The idea also carries an accountability strand: being visible goes hand in hand with owning it.

• The episode title “Stand Up, Be You & Be Accountable” and the closing line “Learn from Steph.
• BE MORE YOU.
• The world will thank you.” state the position twice in one post.

Röstlund introduces podcast guest Steph Lee-Vae, a multi-award-winning creative educator and curriculum manager at Northampton College who also coaches adaptive sports at Adrenaline Alley, helping others “discover their ability within their disability.”

• Lee-Vae evolved through their career and overcame a difficult background to become an education leader.
• They are keynoting the Digital Northants Merged Futures event at the University of Northampton on 26 June.
• EP68 of The Brand Compass Show centres on that journey rather than a set of messaging rules.

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They ask readers: where are you holding back because you are waiting to be “ready”?

Röstlund recounts how cyber security specialist Jake Moore hated his first live TV appearance: studio lights, a countdown and producers talking in his ear.

• When lockdown forced interviews online, Moore practised and became a regular face on major news outlets.
• Röstlund says Moore stopped focusing on how he looked and instead focused on sharing what he loves: helping people stay safe online.
• Their stated lesson: “communication skills are less about polish, and more about passion + practice.”
• The episode is EP72.

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Rather than rely on a view formed since being online in the mid-2000s, they set out to test their sense of what a good, genuine expert looks and sounds like against people who have earned the title. The deliberately wide range of fields was the method: if the same principles appeared in unrelated professions, the standard would hold regardless of industry.

Röstlund reports spending upwards of 36 hours in one-to-one conversations with subject matter experts across a deliberately wide range of fields: a Typhoon fighter pilot, a strategist in healthcare training, a travel and lifestyle journalist, an inclusive creative educator in further education, an executive recruitment specialist, a wildlife artist specialising in leopards, a franchise operations manual specialist, an animal enrichment specialist, a food stylist and content influencer, and a global cyber security advisor. Röstlund concluded that the qualities are agnostic to industry and field, and brought them together as eight principles in the episode “8 Principles Remarkable Experts Live By” on The Brand Compass podcast.

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They present hands-on learning as a qualification, not a gap, and credit detours through operations, franchising and digital marketing with making their advice practical.

Röstlund lays out the path in sequence: a B Com (Hons) Economics degree, work in the fitness industry, a move to the UK in 1998, a first temp job as a purchase ledger clerk for the Duke of Westminster, a first full-time UK role at Dow Jones Telerate, then property compliance and business affairs in the franchise sector.

• From there came self-employed franchise consulting from 2007, hands-on learning in 2008 about turning franchise know-how into an online product through marketing, email sequencing, blogging and social media, a move into social media strategy in 2010, fuller digital marketing strategy in 2013, and brand-led strategy in 2016.
• Today, they focus on personal brand strategy, saying it is the humans behind the business that interest them most.
• The post closes with a clip of a client conversation with Jane Whitfield.

The sequence shows the evolution: franchising to social media strategy to digital marketing strategy to brand-led strategy to personal brand strategy, with each stage building on the previous one. The post includes a client clip.

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It gives newcomers a clear answer to the question: what is the basis of this person's advice?

Röstlund lists the full path into their current work and describes it as "the wiggly way," noting they are not a trained marketer.

• The sequence runs: a B Com (Hons) Economics degree, work in the fitness industry, a move to the UK in 1998, a first temp job as a purchase ledger clerk for the Duke of Westminster, a first full-time UK role at Dow Jones Telerate, then property compliance and business affairs in the franchise sector.
• From there: self-employed franchise consulting from 2007, learning hands-on how to turn franchise know-how into an online product through marketing, email sequencing, blogging and social media in 2008, a move into social media strategy in 2010, fuller digital marketing strategy in 2013, and brand-led strategy in 2016.
• Today Röstlund focuses on personal brand strategy, saying the humans behind the business interest them most.
• The post closes with a clip of a client conversation with Jane Whitfield.

For brands planning a campaign

For a professional services firm, a non-linear career can be a positioning asset. A personal brand program could start by asking each consultant to map their own "wiggly" route and the skills it produced, rather than lead with job titles and qualifications.

Röstlund says they spent upwards of 36 hours in one-to-one conversations with people who have earned the title "subject matter expert," and lists them: a Typhoon fighter pilot, a healthcare training strategist, a travel and lifestyle journalist, an inclusive creative educator in further education, an executive recruitment specialist, a wildlife artist specialising in leopards, a franchise operations manual specialist, an animal enrichment specialist, a food stylist and content influencer, and a global cyber security advisor.

• The purpose was to test whether their own sense of what a good and real expert looks and sounds like holds across industries.
• Röstlund concludes that it does, and packaged eight common principles into an episode titled "8 Principles Remarkable Experts Live By" on The Brand Compass podcast.
• The principles themselves are not listed in the post.

For brands planning a campaign

The interview set could serve as a diagnostic: firms could use the eight principles as an assessment grid in a personal brand workshop, scoring each consultant against them. The principles are available only in the episode audio, so listen to the episode before building a session around them.

Röstlund introduces Steph Lee-Vae as a multi-award-winning creative educator and curriculum manager at Northampton College, and, outside the classroom, an adventurer and adaptive sports coach at Adrenaline Alley, helping others "discover their ability within their disability."

• Lee-Vae is set to keynote the Digital Northants Merged Futures event on 26 June at the University of Northampton.
• Röstlund says the conversation covers Lee-Vae's journey to becoming an education leader, their thoughts on the importance of personal brand, how they evolved through their career, and how they overcame a difficult and challenging background.
• The episode is EP68, "Stand Up, Be You & Be Accountable."
• Earlier guests include a digital, data and defence specialist, an executive search and recruitment specialist, a South African wildlife artist, a global cybersecurity advisor, a healthcare training strategist, an operations manual specialist, a corporate podcasting specialist, a former Typhoon fighter pilot turned speaker and trainer, an animal enrichment specialist, and a former Lieutenant Colonel turned leadership coach.

For brands planning a campaign

The introduction pattern is the useful model: career evolution and a difficult turning point, rather than a list of wins. A program could build each consultant's segment around the moment their career changed direction and what they had to become visible to do next.

It gives prospective clients a sense of what working with them could offer.

Röstlund recounts that Jake Moore found his first live TV appearance frightening: studio lights, countdowns and producers talking in his ear.

• When lockdown moved interviews online, Moore grew more comfortable, practised and became a regular face on major news outlets.
• Röstlund says Moore stopped focusing on how he looked and focused on sharing what he loves: helping people stay safe online.
• The lesson is that communication skills depend less on polish than on passion and practice.
• The post asks readers where they are holding back while waiting to be "ready."
• The episode is EP72 on the Brand Compass Show.

For brands planning a campaign

This makes the case for repeated, low-stakes practice—such as online interviews before broadcast—over a one-off media-training polish session. The takeaway for firms: have consultants rehearse on the subject they care about most.

Introducing creative educator and curriculum manager Steph Lee-Vae, the post traces Lee-Vae’s evolution through a difficult background into an education leader, points to a keynote at the Digital Northants Merged Futures event, and closes with the line "Learn from Steph.

• BE MORE YOU.
• The world will thank you."
• The episode title, "Stand Up, Be You & Be Accountable", carries the same idea.

For brands planning a campaign

A programme built on this material should start with what each consultant already does well and what makes their background distinctive, rather than impose a template of messaging and presentation rules. The accountability framing gives participants a natural way to take responsibility for following through.

Examples: Source 1

The turning point, in Röstlund's account, was moving attention away from appearance and towards the subject Moore cares about, helping people stay safe online. Röstlund's stated lesson is that communication skills are less about polish and more about passion plus practice, closing with the question of where the reader is holding back while waiting to be ready.

Röstlund takes one guest’s before-and-after, draws out a general rule and turns it into a direct question for the reader.

For brands planning a campaign

Media and speaking training can be structured as repeated, low-stakes reps using material the consultant already knows deeply—not as presentational polish. The waiting-to-be-ready question offers a strong opener for a workshop or coaching session.

Examples: Source 1

They report spending upwards of 36 hours in one-to-one conversations with people who have earned the title of subject matter expert, deliberately spanning fields: a Typhoon fighter pilot, a healthcare training strategist, a travel and lifestyle journalist, an inclusive creative educator in further education, an executive recruitment specialist, a wildlife artist specialising in leopards, a franchise operations manual specialist, an animal enrichment specialist, a food stylist and content influencer, and a global cyber security advisor. The range tested whether the qualities of a good expert hold regardless of industry; the episode sets out eight principles.

The post invites readers to bookmark and listen to an episode that samples several industries to test an industry-agnostic claim.

For brands planning a campaign

The material offers a ready-made diagnostic frame for a consultancy: which of the eight expert behaviours each consultant already demonstrates, and which they lack. It also shows Röstlund building a themed episode series around a client’s brief, rather than only interviewing one guest.

Examples: Source 1

Their path runs through an economics degree, the fitness industry, a move to the UK in 1998, temp work as a purchase ledger clerk, a role at Dow Jones Telerate, property compliance and business affairs in franchising, self-employed franchise consulting from 2007, hands-on learning of online product marketing in 2008, a move into social media strategy in 2010, wider digital marketing strategy in 2013, brand-led strategy in 2016, and personal brand strategy today, which they describe as being about the humans behind the business.

The post illustrates the work with a client clip featuring Jane Whitfield. Ask for details of a typical programme.

For brands planning a campaign

For a professional services firm whose senior people have mixed, non-linear backgrounds, this is a directly usable frame: the detours are the differentiator and should be surfaced, not written out of the bio. Röstlund can credibly speak to a room of ex-operators and career changers, not only trained marketers.

Examples: Source 1

LinkedIn posts promote each episode with a short narrative about the guest, what they overcame and why the conversation matters, often closing with an invitation to listen. Guests across the material span education, cyber security, executive search, wildlife art, corporate podcasting, military aviation, animal enrichment and operations.

For brands planning a campaign

Partnership activity would most naturally attach to the interview format itself: a themed episode series, a guest drawn from a partner’s field or client base, or an episode built around a brief the partner supplies. The short-form promotional post can carry a partner mention without changing the format.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

They refer to an episode as “my episode” and point listeners to the show on their usual podcast platforms. The posts don’t say who owns or operates the show.

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The post is a historical example rather than a statement of a current engagement.

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The post gives no dates for the role.

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The post gives no dates for the work.

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Their teaching follows the same pattern as Röstlund's: a longer conversational format (a 75-minute webinar) promoted by a short LinkedIn post carrying one opinionated idea, such as "It's time to stop saying 'my Substack.'" Both are former operators in another field who moved into advising people on their own visibility.

Chavis' advice is tied to one publishing platform and to a background in journalism and food writing.

• Their sessions cover platform mechanics such as optimising a newsletter and tracking early growth.
• Röstlund's material draws on interviews with subject-matter experts across many industries and a background in franchising and operations; the focus is how experts behave and communicate, not how a platform works.

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Both argue that first contact with an audience has moved somewhere other than the website: Conley notes that buyers now ask Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini what a franchise costs and never click through, while Röstlund's posts explore how a person comes across when they speak.

Conley's subject is franchise development and candidate lead generation — website traffic, email versus texting, and where AI fits in the funnel — while Röstlund's is personal brand and communication for the individual. Conley speaks from a single long industry career; Röstlund's argument draws on a deliberately cross-industry set of interviews.

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Röstlund makes a similar move when a guest's before-and-after becomes a stated rule and a question for the reader.

Gleba's material covers ecommerce and email marketing execution and agency operations for direct-to-consumer brands.

• His examples come from his own client work and community, rather than interviews with outside experts.
• Röstlund's advice focuses on personal brand and communication for individuals, illustrated by other people's careers.

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Their account of joining Foxwell Founders before a heavy trading period makes the case that the right community shortens a learning curve: other people's answers are already in the room.

• Their advice to meet clients and colleagues in person rather than stay remote is a low-cost habit a consulting firm can copy.
• Gleba also writes from the operator's side of agency work, so a firm whose consultants serve DTC ecommerce clients will find their examples closer to clients' commercial language — retention flows, pop-up conversion, campaign cadence — than a personal-brand method would be.

The tradeoff is method.

• Gleba's posts explain how an agency runs and how a community helps an owner, but don't cover individual positioning, interview technique or establishing credibility as an expert.
• Their posts offer no equivalent to a campaign built around a consultant in a recorded interview and their career story, or a personal-brand curriculum to buy or adapt.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Their webinars lay out a syllabus: what the platform is and offers, connecting with others to socialise a brand, optimising the page to establish a brand experience, and driving and tracking early growth.

• One session is tailored to food and drink, showing how Chavis adapts the same course to a sector.
• Their argument that a newsletter carries its own name and is a brand to build on gives consultants a concrete instruction they can act on the same week.
• A firm that needs its people publishing regularly under their own titles would get a defined hour of training and a repeatable template, not open-ended coaching.

The tradeoff is breadth.

• Chavis's posts focus on one publishing platform, writing and audience growth, with little about handling a live interview, appearing on camera or turning a career story into a credibility argument.
• Their webinars are public and open to anyone, rather than shaped around one firm's consultants or client base.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

They write from twenty-five years in franchising and diagnose a shift: candidates now ask an AI assistant what a franchise costs and whether it operates in their area, get a synthesised answer and never visit the website.

• Their prescription — texting, LinkedIn, and a short personal thank-you video — applies to franchisee recruitment the same kind of advice needed to put consultants in recorded interviews and promote their career stories.
• A consultancy whose consultants sell into franchise development would find that diagnosis directly usable in client conversations.

The tradeoff is scope.

• Conley's posts focus on franchise development lead generation and the changing funnel, not on building one person's standing as a subject-matter expert.
• They offer no coaching structure or curriculum the firm could lift for its consultants.
• Conley's posts have no counterpart to the interview-and-promote mechanism at the centre of the recommendation, so choosing them would mean rebuilding the programme from a different starting point.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2