What Building Think Bespoke Has Taught Me

Think Bespoke began in 2010, during a period when I was trying to build a more flexible working life around young children, care for my mother following her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and make better use of the experience I had built across marketing, sales, training and leadership.

At the time, I did not have a detailed plan for what Think Bespoke would become. I knew I wanted to create work that was more independent, more flexible and more closely connected to the kinds of conversations I had always found meaningful: helping people make sense of their experience, communicate with greater confidence and take the next step in their working lives.

Fifteen years later, the business has changed in many ways. The work has become more focused. The clients have become more varied. LinkedIn has changed repeatedly, along with the way organisations think about leadership, reputation, communication and professional visibility.

But some of the central ideas have remained remarkably consistent.

Building a business happens through relationships

In the early years, Think Bespoke grew through relationships.

Former colleagues referred friends and family. People I had worked with in corporate roles reached out after seeing something I had written or shared on LinkedIn. Workshop participants returned months later with a new question. Clients told others about their experience.

There were no shortcuts in that. The business grew because people trusted me with important professional moments: a career transition, a LinkedIn profile, a new leadership role, a difficult question about visibility or a team that needed clearer direction.

That has stayed with me.

LinkedIn is often talked about as a platform for reach, personal branding or lead generation. Those things can matter, but the most valuable part of LinkedIn has always been its capacity to support professional relationships over time.

A profile may help someone understand your experience. A post may introduce an idea. A Company Page may help an organisation communicate its work. But trust is built more slowly, through the quality of the conversations that follow.

Clarity often comes before confidence

Much of my early work involved career planning, resume writing and LinkedIn profile support. Over time, I noticed that the people who came to Think Bespoke were rarely lacking in experience.

They were often carrying more experience than they knew how to explain.

They had led teams, changed industries, delivered complex projects, supported clients, built businesses or stepped into leadership during difficult periods. But when it came time to write a profile, prepare for an interview or speak about what they wanted next, the story could become blurred.

That observation has shaped the work ever since.

Confidence matters, but clarity often comes first. When people can describe what they do, the problems they help solve and the contribution they want to make, confidence tends to follow.

The same is true for organisations. A clearer message, a more considered LinkedIn presence and a stronger sense of what leaders should be known for can make visibility feel less performative and more useful.

Visibility does not need to be loud

One of the reasons I became so interested in LinkedIn was that it gave quieter, thoughtful professionals another way to be understood.

Not everyone wants to walk into a room and immediately take up space. Not everyone feels comfortable with self-promotion. Not every leader wants to become a content creator.

But many people have useful perspectives, significant experience and ideas that deserve to travel beyond the meeting room.

Over the years, I have worked with leaders, subject-matter experts, professionals in transition and organisations trying to find a more purposeful way to show up online. The work is rarely about asking people to become someone they are not.

It is about helping them find a way of being visible that feels credible, sustainable and true to the work they do.

For some, that means a clearer LinkedIn profile. For others, it means contributing more thoughtfully to industry conversations, developing a content rhythm or helping leaders communicate in ways that feel more human and useful.

The aim is not to be louder. It is to be easier to understand.

Teaching matters because independence matters

I have always approached this work as an educator.

My background in training and facilitation has shaped the way Think Bespoke works with clients. I want people to leave with more confidence, but also with greater capability. I want them to understand why something matters, how to make decisions for themselves and what to do when their role, organisation or LinkedIn changes again.

That is why mentoring, training and practical resources remain central to the business.

A strong LinkedIn strategy should not create dependence on an external adviser for every post, update or decision. It should give leaders, teams and organisations a clearer framework for thinking about their own visibility, content and relationships.

The work is often about creating enough structure that people can act with greater confidence and judgement.

The work has grown beyond profiles and posts

Think Bespoke began with career and profile support. LinkedIn quickly became central to the work because it sat at the meeting point of professional reputation, relationships and opportunity.

Today, the work includes LinkedIn mentoring, profile writing, executive visibility, organisational LinkedIn strategy, training, content planning and support for communications, marketing and business-development teams.

What connects these different areas is a shared question: how can people and organisations show up with more clarity, credibility and purpose?

Sometimes that means helping an executive articulate the leadership story behind their profile. Sometimes it means supporting a Company Page that has become little more than a noticeboard. Sometimes it means helping a senior professional consider how their experience might translate into a board, advisory or portfolio career.

The format changes. The underlying work is often the same.

Writing has helped me understand the work more deeply

Writing has become an important part of how I make sense of Think Bespoke.

In the early years, I began blogging as a practical content marketing strategy. I wanted the website to be easier to find, and I wanted to capture the questions that kept arising in client work.

Over time, writing became more than that. It has helped me develop a point of view, notice recurring themes and create a body of work that supports conversations long after a workshop or meeting has ended.

What I am still learning

The world of work continues to change. Technology is moving quickly. AI is reshaping the way people search for information, develop content and think about professional expertise. Organisations are navigating new expectations around leadership, communication, trust and visibility.

In the middle of all that change, I still believe human judgement matters.

It matters when deciding what is worth saying publicly. It matters when helping a leader find language for their experience. It matters when an organisation decides how it wants to be known. It matters when we choose whether to add to the noise or contribute something useful.

Think Bespoke has grown because of the people who have trusted me with those questions over the past fifteen years. Clients, collaborators, former colleagues, workshop participants, referrers and readers have all shaped the work in ways they may not fully realise.

The business has changed since 2010, and I expect it will keep changing.

What has remained constant is the belief that people and organisations are better served when they can communicate their contribution clearly, build relationships with care and show up in ways that feel both visible and genuine.