Brandon Smithwrick didn't study marketing. He graduated from fashion school, looked out at thousands of other students at his commencement, and asked himself one question: what's going to set me apart? That question has guided every professional move he's made since.
His entry into personal branding wasn't a calculated strategy. It was a competitive reaction.
"I literally saw the thousands of students in the audience," he told Paxton Gray. "We all just graduated. We're all going after four types of roles. So what's going to set me apart?"
The answer: associations. He wanted to own a word in people's minds. At the time, that word was fashion. So whether through Instagram posts or showing up at events, he made sure that when people thought of men's fashion, his name came up.
That tactic matured as he moved from fashion into tech. And the fashion background gave him something most marketers overlook: the habit of looking outside your own industry. At Ralph Lauren, the team studied what Valentino and Tom Ford were doing. He brought that same lens into tech.
"I was looking at what the beauty brands were doing. Beauty is crushing it online. How can we do that for tech?" Because no matter what industry you're in, it's still one social feed. "They're going to go from seeing a Toyota ad to a Nike ad to their friend's content to my content."
Brandon has a system for what most people call doom scrolling.
His Instagram saves work like a Pinterest board, broken into folders: one for ad copy, one for content creation, one just for angles. The most important folder? Hooks.
"When a video stops me in the first five seconds, I can adapt that for my content. So I'm going to save that hook."
Time spent on social feeds directly into his content strategy. He knows when he's saved enough for the week, and he moves on.
When he started posting on LinkedIn, the goal wasn't influence. It was recruitment.
"I was just trying to get jobs. We're all going to be applying for the same roles. How can I get the recruiters to see what I'm doing?"
The approach: post about platforms and strategies he was studying, then connect with every talent recruiter he could find at companies he wanted to work for. When LinkedIn's algorithm still had a domino effect, a single like from someone at Google would surface a post across that company's entire network.
"There were times I got reached out to by recruiters because they saw my content. I didn't really apply for jobs. I focused on creating content that would get me hired."
That logic still applies today, Brandon argues. Most roles never hit a job board. Headhunters are on every major platform. If you're talking about the right topics and connecting with the right people, you can skip the line.
This is the most common roadblock Paxton Gray hears, and Brandon's answer is practical.
Speak to the version of yourself from five years ago. What did you wish someone had told you? What did you not know then that you know now? That gap is a content library.
Treat every question someone asks you as a content prompt. If one person is asking, others have the same question. "If someone asks you how to save their first $1,000, they're not the only person with that question. That's fundamental content. That's one to reach the masses."
He doesn't sugarcoat this one.
"You can't be scared to look stupid. That's definitely part of the job."
But beyond accepting criticism, the broader point is this: to build a brand that sticks, you need a real perspective. Not a hot take for its own sake. An actual point of view you're willing to stand on.
"If you're just a go-with-the-flow type of person, building your brand is going to be tough." He's said publicly that starting a Substack is now the worst advice in the industry. Not everyone agrees. He's fine with that.
For people who feel like they don't have a strong perspective yet, Brandon's advice is simple: don't force it.
"Don't try to have a hot take for the purpose of having a hot take. That's where you get a lot of pushback."
Instead, start noticing where you quietly disagree. In your field, what advice do you see repeated that you think is wrong? What would you do differently? That discomfort is the raw material.
"It's probably just a muscle you train over time. You're seeing things differently, and you just have to feel comfortable saying it."
One concrete example he keeps returning to: optimize for saves, not likes. Likes are passive. A save means someone thought the content was worth keeping. That's the signal worth chasing.
He uses AI constantly. He also has a hard line on where it stops.
The concept that shifted his thinking: cognitive offloading. The more you hand a task to AI, the weaker you get at that task. When you stop writing your own emails and start relying on AI to check your voice, you eventually stop trusting your own voice at all.
"If writing is inherent to me, I can't outsource all my writing to AI. Because then my words start to change, and now I second-guess my own voice, and now I don't even know my voice."
For tasks outside his core strengths, though, he hands them off without hesitation. He runs an AI agent that scans his downloads folder every Friday, deletes screenshots, and organizes files he hasn't opened in days. He's given AI its own email address and trained it on how his Google Drive is structured so it knows where to file incoming documents.
"Use AI for the things that don't matter so much to you. But never outsource your true gifts."
This is the question that requires the most care, and Brandon doesn't shy away from it.
"Don't lose your job when we're trying to build a personal brand."
Most people forget they signed agreements that make them a representative of their company. You can't take a hot take and make your employer look bad. You can't partner with a competitor. These are real constraints.
The workaround: use your personal brand to amplify what your company is already doing. If your company has a presence at a conference, show up online for it. If there's a campaign worth talking about, talk about it. That makes employers far more comfortable with what you're doing on your own time.
Transparency helped too. Every Saturday, he'd spend two to three hours gathering the week's questions, pulling from his save folders, and batching all his content for the following week. He kept that up for two and a half years, open about the process with both his audience and his employers.
And when it came time to interview for new roles, he was direct: "I am very visible online. That won't stop." Some companies passed. Others hired him because of it.
When Paxton Gray asked where people should begin, Brandon's answer was immediate.
Start with your story.
He recalls working with a VC founder who had raised a $23 million fund and had never once talked about it publicly. She was posting consistently, but skipping the most compelling material she had.
"Don't wait too long. If I'm talking about working at Ralph Lauren, it hits different now versus ten years from now."
Stories have an expiration date. Career lessons become less fresh over time. The experiences you have today are the ones your audience can connect with right now. Use them before they go stale.
"Leverage all your personal stories, all your lessons, how you got promoted, how you got to the space you're in. Because who knows when that's going to be obsolete."
When Paxton Gray asked for a software recommendation off the beaten path, Brandon didn't hesitate: Whisper Flow.
It's a voice-to-text dictation app that changed how he works.
"I don't type a single thing anymore. From my newsletters to emails, I'm literally just talking everything out, and it does it perfectly every single time."
He uses it to build AI workflows by simply talking through his entire system out loud. Faster output, less friction, and a process that scales.
Brandon never studied marketing formally. Most of what he knows came from the field, and from one early boss in particular.
Ryan Babinsie, his first CEO, later went on to found Jolie, the shower filter company. Early on, Babinsie pushed back when the young marketer wanted to scrap a strategy after one bad post.
"He was basically just telling me: one post not doing well doesn't mean the whole thing should be thrown away. Keep trying, keep iterating."
He also didn't hand-hold. As an intern, Brandon was planning photo shoot campaigns, styling shoots, and traveling with Nordstrom on a road show. He had to figure things out on his own.
"Almost them not babying me, at that level where I felt like I didn't know enough, they would just teach me to trust my gut."
An SVP later put it plainly: a basketball in my hand is worth nothing. A basketball in LeBron's hands is worth $20 million. "You have a natural talent where I don't have to coach you through every single thing."
That lesson grew him up professionally in a way he didn't fully understand until he talked about it on this show.
Learn how to increase, scale, and grow your revenue through content: https://www.contenttocommas.co/
Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsmithwrick
Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/
Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.
Brandon is a trailblazer in content marketing and social media strategy. Renowned for his innovative approach and award-winning strategies, Brandon has transformed marketing campaigns for leading brands across Fashion, Tech, Music, and Beauty. As a motivational speaker, he offers exceptional insights into creating impactful content and driving brand success.
Brandon’s expertise is evident from his tenure as Head of Content at Kickstarter, where he led groundbreaking crowdfunding campaigns, to his role at Squarespace, where he orchestrated record-breaking Super Bowl social media strategies. His work has garnered accolades and features in prestigious publications like Hypebeast, AdAge, and Complex.
