Reputation built on people, not platforms.

I help professionals, and the companies they work for, become the name people already trust before the pitch even starts.

Martijn Holtes
Companies I’ve worked with

Siemens

Capgemini

Mercedes-Benz

Nestlé

AKD

Loyens & Loeff

The most skilled one rarely wins the opportunity

If you’re a professional

The most trusted one wins.
You’d think that’s the same person, but it almost never is.

Being good at your job and being known for it aren’t the same thing, and it’s the second one that brings the opportunities in.

People can’t pick someone they can’t see, so it goes to the name they already know.
If they don’t know what you’re good at, you were never even an option.

If you run a company

You hit the same wall from the other side.

The usual move, when you want more opportunities, is to push harder. More company posts, more ads, more money on events.
The problem is, your competitors are doing exactly the same, and people have learned to scroll straight past all of it.

Pushing harder won’t fix that.
What works is giving your own people something they actually want to say themselves.

Being known is about trust, not reach

It has almost nothing to do with how many strangers saw your post. What matters is whether the handful of people who hand out the opportunities trust you.

That trust doesn’t come from a feed. It builds up slowly, person by person, through people who know you well enough to say your name when you’re not there. Those people are your ambassadors, and building your reputation through them, instead of through platforms and follower counts, is what I call ambassadorship.

For a person, your ambassadors are the ones who vouch for you. For a company, they’re the employees and partners the market believes, real people, not a company broadcasting channel.

Build that, and you stop chasing attention. A supplier gets swapped out the second someone cheaper turns up. That doesn’t happen to a partner people trust, they ask for you by name, because no one else comes to mind.

Where do you start?

It depends on whether you’re putting one person forward or a whole company.

Reputation

You’re really good at what you do. But when people read your profile, you sound like everyone else. Same tips, same words, nothing that’s only yours. I help you find the one point of view that’s yours alone, and say it in plain words, so you become the first name people think of.

Thought Leadership

Culture

Most advocacy programs go wrong the same way: they call it taking part, but it’s really control, plus scripts nobody wants their name on. I do it the other way round. Give people ownership of their own name, and the company gets ambassadors it never had to push.

Employee Advocacy

Revenue

If you pitch before people trust you, not much comes back. I work with the salespeople and consultants who have a target to hit, and teach them to build the relationship first, so a conversation turns into a client without sounding like a script.

Social Selling

250K+professionals
950+companies
15+years · since 2011

I’ve helped close to a thousand companies and a quarter of a million professionals. From solopreneurs to famous names like ABN-AMRO, Capgemini and Siemens and everything in between.


What made it work was the structure. We started with personal branding, moved into content, then network growth. For a group of busy senior leaders, that combination was perfect.

Virginie Marco · Marketing & Communications Director, Capgemini

Latest articles

Practical pieces on reputation, ambassadorship, and winning trust in B2B.

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Let’s talk

If this sounds like where you’re stuck, the next step is a conversation. You tell me what’s going on, and I’ll tell you straight if I can help, and how. No form, no gatekeeper, no pitch you didn’t ask for.

Not convinced I’m the right partner? You get your full investment back, minus the actual costs to that point.