Every day on LinkedIn, I see another post about “building your brand.”

The advice is always the same:

Create a distinctive visual identity
Develop your brand voice
Stand out from competitors
Tell your story
Be authentic

They’re not wrong. But they’re only scratching the surface — quite literally.

These are all outside-in expressions of brand strategy (EQ). Without a clear inside-out positioning (IQ) driving your business strategy, it’s like putting fresh paint on a house with no foundation.

Here’s what these posts miss:

Brand isn’t what you say about yourself.
It’s not your logo, colors, or carefully crafted messaging.

Those are outputs.

Brands are built with a clear positioning as their atomic core, driving business strategy from the inside out. It’s what you fundamentally ARE.

Look at Salesforce.

They don’t just “tell stories” about being customer-centric. They made a fundamental strategic decision: they ARE the end of software. Every business decision, from product to pricing to culture, flows from that position.

Or take Stripe.

They don’t just “develop a brand voice” about being developer-first. They ARE developer-first, down to their DNA. It shapes every hire, feature, and line of documentation.

Or Liquid Death.

They don’t just market water differently. They ARE rebellion in a can. This fundamental decision drives everything — from their aluminum packaging to their heavy metal aesthetics to their “murder your thirst” messaging to their entertainment-first approach. They turned water, the most commoditized product imaginable, into a billion-dollar brand by owning a clear position in people’s minds.

This is why most brand efforts fail.

Companies rush to the outside-in brand work (EQ): visual identity, tone of voice, storytelling — without doing the hard inside-out strategic work (IQ) of deciding what they fundamentally are.

Your brand isn’t a marketing exercise.
It’s your business strategy made visible.

The hard truth? In a world where AI will commoditize features and level the technical playing field, owning a position in people’s minds may be the only sustainable advantage left.

But you can’t own that position through clever copywriting and pretty designs. You have to earn it through clear strategic choices that shape every aspect of your business.

“But wait,” you might say, “my business is B2B — it’s different from B2C.”

Stop right there.

There’s no such thing as B2B or B2C. There’s only Human to Human. People make decisions, not businesses. Whether you’re selling enterprise software or canned water, you’re trying to own a position in someone’s mind.

The posts aren’t wrong about the importance of brand expression (EQ). They miss that this is the outer layer of the onion. You’re just putting lipstick on a pig without clear positioning driving your business strategy (IQ).

Time to go deeper than the LinkedIn advice.

Your success depends on it.