When I started VYINGS, the advice was consistent.
Build your personal brand.
Post more.
Be visible.
So I did.
I spent more time on LinkedIn. I posted more often. I engaged more.
And the numbers responded.
More impressions. More engagement. More followers.
But the business didn’t grow at the same pace.
At first, I assumed I was the problem. Maybe I wasn’t consistent enough. Maybe I didn’t understand the algorithm. Maybe I needed more time.
But if I’m honest, something didn’t feel right even in the beginning.
For more than twenty years, I had been doing consulting work on the side while holding full-time leadership roles. Most of those opportunities didn’t come from visibility. They came from relationships.
My instincts were already there.
But as a new entrepreneur, I felt the need to listen.
Marketing advice. Coaching frameworks. Proven playbooks.
None of it was wrong.
But it wasn’t complete.
Experience gives you instincts.
Entrepreneurship tests whether you trust them.
Then I started spending more time talking to business owners.
Not influencers.
Not marketers.
Business owners.
The people I actually wanted to work with.
And I noticed something simple.
They weren’t really on LinkedIn.
They had accounts. They had profiles. But they weren’t living there.
Their attention was somewhere else.
Cash flow. Staffing. Customers. Operations. Risk. Growth.
They weren’t scrolling.
They were running businesses.
That’s when I stopped looking at engagement metrics and started looking at something more important.
My clients.
Every single one came from a relationship, a referral, or a trusted introduction.
Not one came from a post.
Not one came from an algorithm.
Every opportunity started with trust.
Living in Calgary, I’m starting to understand what people mean when they call it a “big small town.”
There’s opportunity here.
But there’s also memory.
People talk. People compare experiences. People ask a simple question:
Who do you trust?
Reputation travels faster than visibility.
But visibility isn’t useless.
It just plays a different role than I originally thought.
Visibility doesn’t create demand in my world.
It validates it.
When someone refers you, there’s always a second step. Someone looks you up.
They check who you are, how you think, and whether you sound credible.
Not to discover you.
But to decide:
Is it safe to trust this introduction?
That’s how I think about platforms like LinkedIn today.
They’re not where trust is built.
They’re where trust is confirmed.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve watched clients work with consultants, vendors, and IT providers of every size.
Some eventually came back.
Not because I had better technology.
Not because I was cheaper.
Because they felt understood.
People rarely remember the technical details.
They remember whether you understood what they were trying to accomplish.
That has shaped how I work.
I try to understand the business before the technology.
When I speak with a business owner, I ask myself:
- If this were my company, what would I be worried about?
- If this were my money, what decision would I make?
- If I were carrying the risk, what would matter most?
Because technology is rarely the actual problem.
It’s usually sitting on top of something else.
A growth decision.
A risk decision.
A process issue.
A communication gap.
Business owners are not paying for agreement.
They’re paying for judgment.
Looking back, I was probably never the easiest employee.
I asked questions. I challenged assumptions. I spoke up when something didn’t make sense.
In many organizations, that creates friction.
Sometimes because alignment matters. Sometimes because speed matters.
But it also means that challenging a decision isn’t just about the idea.
It’s about the person who made it.
That’s one reason I enjoy working directly with business owners and decision makers.
They don’t need another person telling them what they want to hear.
They need someone willing to understand the situation clearly, challenge assumptions carefully, and help them make a better decision.
Trust isn’t built through visibility.
It’s built in moments where something is at stake.
When decisions are unclear.
When risks are real.
When outcomes matter.
Those moments don’t show up on social media.
But they’re where reputations are formed.
What’s interesting is that as I continue building VYINGS, I find myself becoming exactly like the people I wanted to reach.
I spend less time online.
And more time talking to clients, solving real problems, making decisions, and building relationships.
The same pattern I initially misunderstood.
Being a new entrepreneur has been one of the most interesting parts of this journey.
You learn quickly.
Not from theory.
But from friction.
From trying things that sound right, but don’t work the way you expect.
From realizing that good advice isn’t wrong.
It’s just not always complete.
Maybe visibility still matters.
I believe it does.
But visibility and opportunity are not the same thing.
Visibility helps people find you.
Relationships put their reputation behind you.
Trust gives people a reason to call.
And in my experience, opportunities are still created the same way they’ve always been created.
One relationship at a time.
Strategic insight on IT leadership, risk, and decision systems.
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