The Unglamorous Work Behind a Personal Brand, According to Will McTighe

In a recent LinkedIn post, Will McTighe discusses the sustained, often invisible work behind building a personal brand. This article reports on McTighe’s post and examines the practices he describes; it is not written by McTighe.

“The glamorous part is very real. It just sits on top of a large pile of unglamorous work.”

Growth takes more than a viral moment

McTighe challenges the impression that a handful of popular posts quickly produces a large following or lucrative brand deals. As he frames it, those visible outcomes are only the surface of a longer effort. His own account begins in February 2024, when he had 3,000 followers. After posting every day for a month, he had reached 4,000—a gain he describes as decent, but far short of the rapid growth many people expect.

According to McTighe, that early pace led him to treat posting like a job. The point of his account is not that consistent publishing guarantees a particular result, but that audience growth involves sustained work beyond what readers see in the finished post.

A routine built around learning

McTighe describes a process of reviewing each post, recording what worked and what did not, and forming a hypothesis to test in the next day’s writing. He also says he repeatedly revises the opening lines, which he identifies as the focus of most of his writing time.

“Every post gets a note on what worked and what didn’t, with a hypothesis on why. The next day’s post tests that hypothesis.”

That method makes experimentation central to his approach. Rather than treating a post’s performance as a verdict, McTighe presents it as feedback that can inform another attempt. When a post underperforms, he asks trusted people for their views; when one succeeds, he revisits the idea months later with updates intended to make it more useful.

Relationships and format matter, too

McTighe’s account also includes direct outreach. He says he sends messages to people he wants to learn from and connection requests with a personal note. Alongside those conversations, he tests different formats, including text, cheat sheets, visuals and video.

These details broaden his argument beyond writing frequency. In McTighe’s view, building a brand involves a cycle of deliberate practice: observe, ask for feedback, revise, and try different ways of presenting an idea. The work is partly creative, but his description gives it the structure of a repeatable routine.

The visible result rests on hidden effort

McTighe closes by connecting his early growth to the work he continues to do to maintain his brand. His post offers a practical counterpoint to the polished image of online success: audiences may see the following and the partnerships, while the daily analysis, outreach and revisions remain out of view.

As McTighe’s account suggests, the visible rewards are real, but they sit atop accumulated effort. His central message is that personal branding is less a sudden breakthrough than a long-running practice of learning what serves an audience and improving the work over time.