Valuable and Visible: Redefining Personal Branding by Leading with Impact Over Image

Build credibility and make a meaningful impact without chasing followers

You've built real skill. You've solved real problems. But in a world that rewards visibility, doing meaningful work isn't enough. Recognition matters. Yet the modern version of "personal branding" feels exhausting.

Somewhere along the way, personal branding became synonymous with self-promotion, follower counts, and algorithm-chasing. For thoughtful professionals and students like you, that version feels performative at best and misaligned at worst. And yet invisibility is no longer neutral. If your work is going to matter, your ideas have to travel.

In Valuable & Visible: Redefining Personal Branding by Leading with Impact Over Image, award-winning marketing lecturer Vanessa Errecarte offers a different path: a service-first approach designed for professionals who want credibility, not clout.

Real-world case studies and success stories that come from professionals like an optometrist, an embryologist, a leadership coach, a reality TV contestant, and more demonstrate how service-first personal branding transforms careers across diverse fields.

This is not a book about becoming famous for being famous.

It is a smarter way to become known for something that matters.

For MBA students, graduate students, mid-career professionals seeking career advancement, entrepreneurs, leaders, undergraduate students, and academics ready to build owned audiences and measure success by contribution rather than clicks, Valuable & Visible proves that when substantive value drives visibility, credibility follows despite an increasingly performative marketplace.

Through Errecarte's proven EPIC Framework, readers learn how to clarify their positioning, package their knowledge into intellectual property, and build sustainable visibility rooted in valuable contribution.

Readers will also discover:

• The TRUTH framework and Fab Four question set that positions your expertise in a counterintuitive, novel way that captures attention and establishes authority with your target audience.
• A recycled social strategy that prioritizes consistency and value over algorithm hacks, allowing busy professionals to maintain visibility in just a few hours per week.
• The SERVE script for creating authentic video content that overcomes vulnerability and builds genuine connections without performance anxiety or self-promotion.
• Practical exercises for building owned audiences rather than relying on platforms controlled by others.
• Strategic methods for measuring success through impact and professional opportunities rather than follower counts.

VANESSA ERRECARTE, MA, MBA, is an award-winning lecturer and marketing consultant who created and teaches one of the nation's only for-credit MBA courses in personal branding at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. She also teaches an array of other popular marketing courses and has been twice named Teacher of the Year. A Poets & Quants "Best & Brightest" MBA honoree recognized her as a "favorite professor," and she considers it one of her life's greatest honors to be trusted by students as they chase their dreams.

For more than two decades, Vanessa has helped thousands of organizations and professionals clarify their value, stand out, and create meaningful impact. She is the founder of Marketing Simplified, a widely recognized consulting and training agency honored as Business of the Year, a frequent speaker at major industry events, and a contributor whose insights have appeared in the Financial Times. Dedicated to service, she lends her expertise to multiple boards and philanthropic efforts. Outside of work, she's happiest soaking up time with her family and friends...and earning the carbs she loves with her workout shoes.