You spent 20 years building a reputation. Then you left corporate and suddenly a lot of the things that made that reputation visible disappeared with the job.
You expect to miss the salary, the team and maybe even the IT department.
You don’t expect to miss being important.
I know because I’ve done it.
I left a Head of Marketing role at ISPT expecting to walk into another corporate job. Five times I got to the final two. Five times they picked the other person.
Consulting started as favours. Then it was time to be in or out.
What I realised later was that my employer had been doing far more of my marketing than I knew.
Here are five things it did for me, and what you need to do now that it doesn’t.
1. Your title introduced you
Inside, your title did a lot of the explaining. People knew roughly what you did before you opened your mouth.
Outside, “former General Manager” tells people what you were. It doesn’t tell them what they should call you about now.
What to do: Write one sentence that says who you help and what they should call you about.
If you can’t say it out loud without wincing, keep going.
2. Buyers don’t want your responsibilities
Your CV lists what you were responsible for. Budgets, teams, portfolios.
Useful history, but buyers aren’t choosing you because you managed a $20 million budget or had 40 people reporting to you.
They want to know what that experience means for them.
What to do: Take your three proudest pieces of work and rewrite each one as the problem you solved and what changed.
Before and after. Plain words.
3. Your track record lived in people’s heads
Inside, everyone knew about the turnaround you led, the mess you fixed or the difficult project you somehow got over the line.
Outside, nobody knows unless you tell them.
What to do: Get your proof out of your head and put it somewhere a stranger can find it.
LinkedIn is an obvious place to start because prospective clients are very likely to check it.
4. Work arrived on your desk
In corporate, work found you.
Now you have to give people a reason to send it.
Your network says lovely things but doesn’t send work.
That’s not because they don’t rate you. It’s because they can’t explain you.
What to do: Tell 10 people exactly what kind of work you’re looking for.
Specific beats polite.
5. Someone told you it was good enough
You had a boss, a board and a team.
Feedback arrived whether you wanted it or not.
Now you can put something out and hear absolutely nothing. That silence can send you down all sorts of unhelpful rabbit holes.
What to do: Ask three people you trust how they’d describe what you do now.
If their answers don’t match, that’s your gap.
You don’t need to become an influencer
Good news.
None of this means posting every day, having an opinion on everything or finding a LinkedIn voice that isn’t yours.
Most visibility advice starts with what to post.
I start with the person.
What should someone call you for?
Why should they choose you?
How do you say it so it still sounds like you?
Get that right and you can be much more selective about what you put out.
Where to start
Maybe you’re still deciding, just out or a year in.
I’m running a 55-minute live working session on exactly this for senior people moving from corporate into consulting, advisory or fractional work.
It’s for people who know they have the experience, but haven’t yet worked out how to translate it for the market.
You’ll leave knowing what people should call you for and the three things to do over the next 10 days.
You’ve already built the experience and the reputation.
The job now is making sure the market can see what to call you for.