How branded are you?
7 steps. Score yourself out of 35. Find the one gap to fix first.
You run a company that would impress most people if they ever saw it. They haven’t.
Most founders have no problem being consistent.
You’ve been posting for a while. You might have hired someone to help, it didn’t stick, and you ended up doing it yourself again. You’re getting views. You’re not getting calls.
- 1Silent7 to 12
“I know I should be posting.” You don’t. Other founders do.
- 2Posting13 to 18
Posts go up when there’s time. The account sits at 2,000 to 5,000.
- 3Consistent19 to 24
You post on a schedule, you might have an editor. You get views, but no calls. This is where most founders get stuck.
- 4Pipeline25 to 30
Your DMs fill up with different opportunities. Sales, outreach, coaching calls.
- 5Asset31 to 35
It turns into a flywheel. Reliable opportunities fill your pipeline, even when you’re hands off.
I’ve sat at every one of these. Six companies, two exits, raised millions and made millions, and more than 300,000 people follow me across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and X. Figure out where you’re at now, then fix it so more opportunities open up.
A branded founder is the founder people know, trust and buy from before they ever meet the company.
People buy into people. I’ve watched smaller founders win deals over bigger ones, because the buyer already felt like they knew them.
Polish used to be proof. A clean video cost money and people. Now anyone can make a perfect video for twenty dollars a month. I do content marketing for enterprise brands, so I see it every day. When polish costs nothing, polish stops being proof.
What’s left is the person. AI can make the content. It can’t make the founder. The seven steps below show you where you’re at, and which parts actually need you.
How to score
- Seven steps, scored 1 to 5. Pick the line that is true this month, not the one you plan to make true.
- A 5 means you have a whole system behind that step, not a good month. Score what’s true, not what sounds good.
- Only two of the seven steps need you in person. The other five can be done for you. On those, tick the box if you’d rather not do that step yourself.
Who it’s for
Is every post about the person watching?
What level 5 looks like
Every post is about a problem your buyer has this week. Your company shows up as proof, not as the subject.
What we've seen
We’ve coached 750+ founders and creators one on one. The ones who grew made it about the person watching. The ones who stalled made it about themselves.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
Only you
Could AI, or anyone, have posted it?
What level 5 looks like
It’s stuff only you could say. Your real numbers, the calls you got wrong, what actually happened. An AI tool can’t make that up for you. Neither can a content hire.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
Capture
One planned day a month, or squeezed in?
What level 5 looks like
Filming is one planned day a month, from a shot list. You show up, talk, go back to work. The month comes out of it.
What we've seen
I was my own brand’s operator for six companies. An intern took four months to train, and I still made every call. It was a nightmare.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
Hooks
Do you test more than one hook?
What level 5 looks like
Every video gets two or three hooks. They run as small tests on people who don’t follow you yet. Only the winner lands on your page.
What we've seen
When I stopped testing hooks on my own account, views fell from about a million a month to about 150,000.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
Formats
Do you know your two best formats?
What level 5 looks like
You know the two formats your audience watches to the end, and the month is built on them. New ones get tested on the side, never in place of the winners.
What we've seen
One of my winning formats has done millions of views. The same message in a different format got a few thousand. Lesson learned.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
The ask
Does every post with reach invite one next step?
What level 5 looks like
Every post that reaches people ends with one clear next step. One, not three. Reply with a word, or send your handle. Big reach with no ask is the most common waste we see.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
The loop
Does someone read the numbers every week and change next month?
What level 5 looks like
Somebody reads the numbers every Monday. What held, what leaked, what’s next. Next month’s scripts come out of that report.
What we've seen
I built a YouTube channel to 211,000 subscribers, stepped back, and it kept growing. The early years ran as a loop: post, read, change, post.
Score yourself. Pick the line that is true this month.
Add up the seven. Your lowest score is your gap.
Done
Here’s your report. It’s saved at this link, so you can come back to it.
We've emailed it to you too.
Fix your lowest score first. If two are tied, start with the earlier step. Each step feeds the next one.
Level 5 feels like this: a buyer you’ve never met books a call and opens with “I’ve been watching you for months.”
You can do all seven. Here’s what each one costs, every week.
| Who it’s for | Research your buyer’s week. Write for one person.About 3 hours |
| Only you | Sit with your own numbers and stories until the real ones surface.About 1 hour |
| Capture | One shoot day, from a shot list somebody wrote.8 to 12 hours, monthly |
| Hooks | Three hooks per video, posted as tests, results read.About 4 hours |
| Formats | Track every post by format. Decide monthly.About 1 hour |
| The ask | One next step per post. Count who took it.About 1 hour |
| The loop | Read everything Monday. Rewrite next month from it.About 2 hours |
About 12 hours a week, plus the shoot day. Rough numbers, from my account and our clients.
Years in, I was still doing all of this myself.
Here's the trap
You’re the best person in your company at most things. Content included.
So when someone else does it, it’s never quite right. You take it back.
But you don’t have 12 spare hours a week either.
So it gets done in the gaps. Or not at all.
Nothing to do with discipline. You ran out of hours.
Of those 12 hours, two really need you. The shoot day. And the hour where the real stories come out. The other ten are a job. Right now, that job is yours.
One shoot day a month. Everything after the camera is ours.
You · one day
Us · everything after
Founder Created is built by an operator and a strategist. I’ve built brands from nothing six times. Chris has coached 750+ founders and creators on content. One shoot day a month, a 90-day build with a set end, a system that gets smarter every week, and a brand you own outright when it’s done. Every word your audience hears is one you said.
Every quarter you don’t have a brand, someone with half your business and twice your presence is in the room you should be in.
If you already know you don’t want to be the one running this, watch the training and apply at the bottom.
About 15 minutes with me on why $2M+ founders stay invisible and how we build a brand from one shoot day a month. The application is under it. I read every one.
Not there yet? Follow @buildwith.wil, where the engine runs in public. Score yourself again in 90 days.
