Sam G. Winsbury

We Create Thought Leaders Through Personal Branding | 150+ Personal Brands Built | Founder & CEO Kurogo

-- DM for Speaking Enquiries --

We turn entrepreneurs into credible thought leaders through personal branding so they can scale their businesses, unlock untapped opportunities and outlast their competition.

If you’re anything like our clients, you’re an expert in your field. One of the best.

But you just don’t seem to have the reputation you deserve.

You want to be the go-to authority in your industry and become an opportunity magnet.

That way you could…

- Generate inbound leads consistently
- Win clients and customers with ease
- Attract media features
- Attract top talent
- Speak on stage

The list is endless.

We help our clients do just that through the power of personal branding, by:

1. Giving them clarity on their brand and positioning them as industry leaders.
2. Blowing up their social profiles and landing them high-profile media features.
3. Helping them convert their new-found reputation into meaningful opportunities and ROI

And having built 300+ personal brands, we’ve got quite good at it, achieving results like these in the process:

🚀 Jack generated 2.5M views and 6 figures in revenue in 90 days with us 
🚀 Joe and Olly generated millions of views and saw a record month
🚀 Guy added 5 figures of pipeline value in a matter of months
🚀 Shan Grew 24,000 followers and landed $200,000 in sales
🚀 Olie added £50K of inbound revenue to his pipeline
🚀 Sue generated over 8.3 million views in 4 months
🚀 Jemma increased her views by 51,347%
🚀 James became an Amazon Best Seller 
🚀 Tom generated 5M views in 3 months 
🚀 Anna doubled her followers in 1 year
🚀 Debbie generated 11M Views

Your reputation is your biggest asset. Take control of it! 

If you want to see how we could help you build your personal brand, shoot me a dm saying ‘Personal Brand’

If you're not quite ready yet, I post daily content on here showing you how to do it yourself.

Founder

Pret A Manger CEO Pano Christou's journey is incredible.

2000: Assistant Manager
2019: Became CEO

In a world that pushes you to start a new job every 6 months or build a 6 figure business in 3, it’s nice to see there's still a case for working your way up in one place.

Personal Brand Advisor To Leading Entrepreneurs & Execs | 350+ Brands Built | Speaker | Sky, Entrepreneur, Insider | Founder & CEO Kurogo

2020

- Struggling freelancer
- Constantly ignored
- Insecure

2021

- Started taking LinkedIn seriously
- Began building my personal brand
- Started signing more clients

2022

- Hired team members
- Signed loads of clients
- Was the ‘kid with potential’

2024

- Grew rather fast
- Got rather stressed
- Increased my prices

2026

- Run quite a good personal brand agency
- Helped 350+ people build their brands
- Happiest I’ve ever been

What changed? 

1. 6 years of trial and error 
2. Huge focus on authority over everything
3. Realising everything you want is the other side of reach and reputation

More people trusting you as an expert will never not be useful.

So start sharing your ideas/opinions/expertise online.

For 15 years, the growth playbook was “send & spend”.

Run ads → generate leads → sales grinds → numbers game → maths works.

And to be fair… it did work when buying was simple and linear.

2005 buying: see ad → click → buy.

But 2026 buying is not linear.

2026 buying: see you → ignore you → see you again → ask a friend → google you → check your LinkedIn → read comments → watch a video → forget → come back 3 weeks later → then enquire.

It’s not a funnel anymore. It’s a squiggly line.

Inside the chaos, only one thing matters:

Trust.

Because when buyers have unlimited choice and unlimited information, they don’t pick the “best” option on paper.

They pick the option that feels safest.
The one they trust most.

Here’s the truth:

If you still rely on “cheap leads + pushy sales” to do the heavy lifting,
you’re betting against how modern buyers behave.

They do the work before they ever speak to you:

- searching your name
- checking your LinkedIn
- looking for social proof
- scanning for authority
- testing if you’re credible

So if your marketing is only designed for volume

but not designed to create trust…
you’re just paying to enter the messy middle 
(where you’re judged, compared, and forgotten)

That’s why trust-based marketing is winning.

And the best way to collapse the timeline for trust? 

Personal brand.

- 89.4% are more likely to trust a company if a senior leader is seen as an expert
- 98.2% say leadership expertise affects purchasing decisions
- 85.9% would pay at least 2x more to work with a leader in their space

The top 1% in every industry are exploiting this.

Over the last few years, I’ve even used it to:

- help 350+ execs build their brands
- generate 100M+ views
- drive £10M+ in pipeline

And I’ve seen the same patterns again and again.

There are 5 trends the top 1% of industry leaders are using to dominate 2026.

I’m breaking all of them down in a new live training:

“The 2026 Personal Brand Playbook: How To Build A $1M Personal Brand.”

If you want your reputation to do more of the heavy lifting…

Join the live training here: https://lnkd.in/e6ZKYnmB

Ps. Everyone who attends will get our FULL LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Blueprint for free (usually £79)

For years, 'having a great product' was enough.

Your work would do the talking... That world is closing. Fast.

Here is what the data says:

→ 90% of executives think people trust them
→ 30% of customers actually do

Pwc call it 'The Trust Gap'.

That gap is where deals are won and lost.

Best way to close it? Personal branding.

When I look at the 350+ brands we have built, the ones who win treat personal branding as a tool, not an ego trip.

They follow a simple flow:

1️⃣ Position

You become “THE person for X”, not “Another option”.

→ Clear proof
→ Clear promise
→ Clear point of view

2️⃣ Amplify

You show up where your buyers already spend time.

→ Content that speaks to their pain
→ Opinion, frameworks, predictions
→ It acts like a 24/7 salesperson

3️⃣ Convert

You turn attention into pipeline.

→ Clear, low friction next steps
→ Nurturing focus, not chasing
→ Ecosystems, not funnels

We are in the reputation economy.

So today I'm breaking down the 5 trends that will separate the top 1% of leaders from everyone else in 2026:

→ The rise of the executive personal brand
→ The shift from posting to positioning
→ Fame vs authority
→ Ecosystem-driven growth
→ How AI will make or break your reputation

If you want your face to be the one people trust in 2026, now is the time to build it.

Join us for our workshop later where I have nothing to pitch to you:

https://lnkd.in/e6ZKYnmB

View company: Kurogo - Personal Branding Agency

In this session, Sam Winsbury (Founder of Kurogo) will walk through the 5 Trends That Will Separate the Top 1% of Thought Leaders From Everyone Else in 2026:

✅ The rise of the executive personal brand (and why people trust individuals far more than companies

✅ Why positioning beats posting (and how authority compounds)

✅ Why fame ≠ authority (and how ‘smaller’ brands are winning higher-value deals)

✅ The “ecosystem” strategy replacing funnels (how modern consumers really ‘buy before they pay’)

✅ How to use AI without damaging your reputation

Plus everyone who attends will get 3 exclusive bonuses:

🎁 Bonus 1: Our Complete Guide To Building A Personal Brand in 2026
🎁 Bonus 2: Our Profile Optimisation Checklist For Free (Worth £79)
🎁 Bonus 3: A Free 30 Day Trial To The Thought Leader’s Academy (Worth £97)

This session is designed for:

- Founders, CEOs, and marketing teams
- Consultants, coaches, and professional services
- Anyone whose business depends on trust, credibility, and reputation

If you feel like:

- opportunities are harder to come by
- sales cycles are getting longer
- competition feels louder but not better
- or you’re being overlooked despite having a great offer

This session will give you the roadmap to dominating your industry in 2026. 

🗓️ 5th February 2026
⏰ 18.00 GMT / 12.00 CST

View event: How To Build A $1M Personal Brand In 2026: 5 Trends You Must Know

How To Build A $1M Personal Brand In 2026: 5 Trends You Must Know

Helping B2B Service Providers Stand Out Through Story | £2.85MM Generated For Clients | CEO at Ratcliffe Brothers |

I'm a pretty normal guy with a very fast-growing business, mainly because of 2 reasons:

1/ I realised the opportunity on LinkedIn
2/ We capitalised on it 

Now we help the fastest-growing companies in Europe capitalise on the same opportunity. 

Here's the story so far 👇🏻

2020: Joined a personal branding start-up in London and see CEOs using LinkedIn to raise £10M+ rounds and drive £1M+ enterprise deals

2021: Help build BOM to a 327,000+ person LinkedIn community. The opportunity to be had on LinkedIn is very clear

2022: Quit my dream job to start a business with my brother

2023: Hit £100,000 in run rate in 11 days

2024: Hire our first team members and make a gazillion mistakes. We're great at LinkedIn, but we suck at business. 

2025: Things click, we hit £1M ARR and work with some of the most well-known brands in the world - Ocean Beach, NHS, + more.

2026: UK's #1 LinkedIn agency working with a roster full of great brands. On track to close £1M in sales through LinkedIn this year. 

It's been quite the journey. 

Last year we did 27M impressions across our clients LinkedIn account and this year (Q1 2026) we've already booked our clients meetings with: Ford, Blue Origin, Fed Ex, Kroger, + more. 

If you're curious about our approach to LinkedIn or you need support with your B2B marketing, apply to work with us here: www.noticed.co/contact

Or email: morgan@noticed.co

Niall Ratcliffe

The biggest missed opportunity in B2B: LinkedIn.

Yet Canva has already mastered it.

On paper, Canva is a boring software company.

But on social media…

- They have 8.7 million followers.
- 100s of millions of views on content.
- And a growing fanbase of supporters.

I spent the last week analysing their LinkedIn strategy.

I broke down:
✔️ What they do that works.
✔️ The types of content they use.
✔️ How we can steal their approach.

Here are the 7 most impressive things I noticed ↓

What else do you love about Canva’s LinkedIn strategy?

P.S. Follow me to learn more about how to use LinkedIn to market your company - Niall Ratcliffe

🔥 FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEO IS LIVE!! Breaking down our full LinkedIn process - just hit “Visit my website” button 👇🏻

Canva's LinkedIn Strategy

LinkedIn is an echo chamber of bad marketing advice.

“Use this hack to go viral”
“Here’s a trick to gain followers”
“How I sold everyone my dodgy course”

So here are 5 tactics that have actually helped me grow my business through LinkedIn:

(We’ll do £1M in sales through LinkedIn this year)

#1 Optimise For Conversations

- Go through your profile views
- Find 5-10 people in your ICP
- Reach out and see if they need help

#2 Become An Industry Thought Leader

- Share insights on your industry
- Become a resource for prospects
- You’ll become the “go-to” in your space

#3 Document The Journey

- Purely education gets boring
- Be human and share your journey
- People will connect with you more

#4 Use Ads (When The Timing Is Right)

- Wait until you have traction
- Then utilise ads to scale
- This is pouring fuel on the fire

#5 Use Tools Like Sales Nav

- LinkedIn has tools to help you
- They’re incentivised to make them work
- Use them to your advantage

There’s a massive opportunity on LinkedIn for a lot of businesses, you just have to avoid the landlines and stick to the stuff that works.

♻️ Repost if you found this useful

Follow for more LinkedIn marketing content Niall Ratcliffe

Where companies go to get noticed | Trusted by NHS, O Beach + more | CEO at noticed. |

I learned this framework from Steven Bartlett and it made me go all in on LinkedIn 👇🏼

(I wish I had this 4 years ago)

In 2021, we’d just launched the business and we were stuck on where best focus on marketing the brand.

Every “expert” we talked to gave us a different answer.

Post on TikTok → you’ll go viral
Post on Instagram → you’ll get followers
Post on Twitter → it’s where CEOs hand out

Thankfully, we gambled on the right platform for us - LinkedIn. 

But if I was starting again today, I’d use Steve’s framework to choose my channel focus for me:

Step 1: Identify Channels where your ICP hangs out

Take me for example, I have 3 core hang out spots:

- LinkedIn
- My email inbox
- In our office (3 days per week)

That means there are 3 channels you could target me on:

- LinkedIn
- Email
- Direct Mail

Step 2: Rank Them Based On Noise

- LinkedIn: I get ~5 messages per day
- Email: I get 100s of emails per week
- Mail: I get 1 letter per month

Step 3: Assess High-Signal Approaches To Target Them

Signal is a showcase of the effort you’ve put into targeting someone

Sending a generic A5 sales letter = low signal
Sending a custom-made mug = high signal

I recorded a quick video breaking it down in more detail + my thoughts on it ⤵️

♻️ Repost if you find it useful

Follow for more Niall Ratcliffe

My full LinkedIn content strategy as a founder👇🏻

(I average 9 million views per year here)

Since 2022, I've averaged 9 million views every year on LinkedIn. Just on my personal profile. 

In 2022, I would go viral with selfies. 
In 2023, it was all about storytelling. 
In 2024, it was all about sharing short insights
In 2025, I gained 30,000 followers with carousels. 

But in 2026... It's harder than ever to get yourself and your brand out there. 

My focus in 2026: Pre-validation

Making sure that everything I post has some validation that my ICP will enjoy it before I even hit post. 

I recorded a short video walking you through my entire process in detail - let me know what you think :) 

♻️ Repost if this was useful

Follow for more Niall Ratcliffe

I just uploaded my first ever YouTube video!!

Which feels like a huge moment for me. 

Over the last 4 years I’ve:

- Built a 60,000+ follower LinkedIn audience
- Generated over £3,000,000 through LinkedIn
- Worked with global brands on their Linkedin strategies

But I’ve never shown you the actual system we use. 

Until now. 

Last week, I recorded a full 15-minute deep dive into every aspect of our LinkedIn system:

- How turn your profile into landing pages
- LinkedIn’s hidden tools we use daily
- How we use outreach to drive sales
- Our highest-converting scripts
- Our top-performing content pillars
- The ad campaigns that work best right now
- The system to write content that drives leads

+ so much more

4 years of hard work. 
3 hours of prep.
1 hour of filming. 

Weeks of editing to get it right. 

My first video is live here: https://lnkd.in/exn6jBt5

It would mean the world if you could support :)

P.S. If you give it a watch, let me know what you think + what I can do better! This is just the start and lots more to come.

This evening my first ever YouTube video is going live. 

4 years of mastering LinkedIn. 
3 hours of video prep. 
2 hours of scripting.
1 hour of filming. 

And it is finally ready. 

I’m starting with a big swing: 

→ A full 15-minute deep dive showing you exactly how we generate £1M/year in sales through LinkedIn.

I covered: 

- The LinkedIn Pyramid (our complete system)
- Why most profiles repel buyers immediately
- Our content process (what we post and why)
- Our outreach system (15-20 calls per month)
- How these pieces stack together

+ loads of mini tips and tactics. 

A little nervous for this, I will admit. But this video is stacked with insights.

If you want to take LinkedIn seriously this year, look out for my post at 4:00 PM tonight! 👀 📅

Tomorrow, I’m publishing my first ever YouTube video. 

And honestly… I’m a little nervous. 

I’ve spent the last 4 years only posting on LinkedIn, and it had massive returns. 

- Built a 60,000 follower audience
- Drove £3M+ in agency sales
- Invited to speak on stage
- Recorded 30+ podcasts
- Built an amazing team
- Met advisors

But I feel like I’ve been gatekeeping. 

Yes, I share the odd tactic here and there. Or a strategy that’s worked for us. 

I just never reveal the full system. 

So tomorrow, I’m taking to YouTube and ripping off the plaster.

Do I know anything about YouTube? 
No

Could the video massively flop?
Yes

But it’s the most valuable piece of content I’ve ever created for those who do watch it. 

If you want to take LinkedIn seriously this year, look out for my post tomorrow at 4 PM 👀📅

I just got ranked in the top 10 growth marketers in the UK. 

Crazy! 🤯

4 years ago, I posted on LinkedIn that I was starting a marketing agency with my brother. 

We had no plan, no mentor, no real idea what we were doing. 

Since then, it’s been a flurry of failures, iteration, and results. 

But that’s all marketing is.

Step 1: Try something
Step 2: Fail
Step 3: Figure out why it failed
Step 4: Iterate
Step 5: See results

Every marketing guru loves to tell you that have the secret system to drive growth and drive leads through their marketing. 

In reality, great marketing is just a mixture of failure & iteration. 

And that’s what’s got us to where we are today. 

I’m never a huge fan of lists like these, but really cool to see us get recognised.

Shoutout to the entire noticed. team who are the true superstars making it all happen. And thanks Jeremy & Favikon for including me in the rankings!

We’re just getting started! 🔥

Ranked Top 10!

In 2023, we paid our team to post on LinkedIn. 
↳ Results were okay, not spectacular. 

In 2024, we built an incentives doc. 
↳ People started posting more, results were great. 

In 2025, we did 17M impressions through LinkedIn. 

Not through company content. 
Not through paid content. 

But through our team's posting on LinkedIn. 

It's easily the highest ROI investment we've ever made. 

Here are the 3 things we did to make it happen 👇🏻

1️⃣ Created an incentives doc

So when they hit certain follower counts, they'd win prizes. We gave away: free night away, free weekend away, vouchers, etc. 

2️⃣ Created resources to help them

Post templates, inspiration docs, video training. Anything to make it as easy as possible to create content. 

3️⃣ Championed their success

Once they did post, we shouted about the success. Viral posts? Shouted it out. Gained followers? We shouted it out. 

I went into more detail in this video ⤵️

Lesson: Get your team posting on LinkedIn. 

♻️ Repost if this was useful

Follow for more LinkedIn marketing Niall Ratcliffe

If my LinkedIn account got deleted tonight, it would be disastrous. 

- It's our no.1 lead source
- It drives 9M+ brand impressions
- It's where my network is

I'd panic. Yeah, full panic stations. 

But I think it would take me about 90 days to get back to 10,000 followers and driving leads into the business. 

I wrote a full article on exactly what I'd do if I had to start again from 0 on LinkedIn. 

I even included:

- My highest converting outreach messages
- How I think about profile positioning
- How I would tell viral stories

+ so much more. 

♻️ Repost if you find it useful

Follow for more Niall Ratcliffe

If you're anything like me, you're probably curious about how all of these people shouting about making "millions" through LinkedIn are doing it. Well

Open article: If I Started On LinkedIn From 0, Here's What I'd Do (2026) by Niall Ratcliffe • 9 min read

If I Started On LinkedIn From 0, Here's What I'd Do (2026)

I spent 4 hours analysing Semrush’s LinkedIn strategy. 

Here's how a $1B company built a cult following around the world's most boring product ⤵️

Semrush sells SEO software.

- It's a technical, niche product.
- It’s an extremely unsexy company. 
- Their audience is mid-level marketers. 

Yet they're one of the most-followed B2B brands on the planet.

Here are the 2 things they did to make it happen: 

1️⃣ Employee Advocacy Programme

Semrush don't just post from their company page. They have an entire system to support and incentivise their team to post too.

They have 2,000+ staff. If just 50% posted daily, that's 1,000 pieces of Semrush content flooding social media. Every single day.

Most brands leave this completely untapped.

2️⃣ They Talk The Language Of The Internet

Memes. Jokes. Gen Z humour.

Their product is boring, but their content feels like something your mate sent you at 11 pm.

People don't want to be marketed to. They want to be entertained. And they’ve mastered entertaining their niche. 

In the video, I break down exactly how they do both with some examples. 

♻️ Repost if you find it useful 

Follow for more LinkedIn marketing insights Niall Ratcliffe

2 ways to approach LinkedIn as a founder in 2026 👇🏻

It’s incredibly easy to drive sales through LinkedIn.
It’s also incredibly easy to get views on LinkedIn.

But it’s very tough to do both at once.

Because they both require drastically different strategies.

Want to drive sales?

↳ Only post content on your niche
↳ Build content pillars around paint points
↳ Focus on thought-leadership
↳ Optimise content for conversations
↳ Track: Profile views + engagers

Want to drive views?

↳ Go broad, with general topics
↳ Aim to be relatable
↳ Use photos & selfies
↳ Create mass-appeal content
↳ Track: impressions + engagement

There is a massive opportunity on LinkedIn right now. 

Just make sure you choose the right strategy. 

♻️ Repost if you found this useful 

Follow for more LinkedIn marketing content Niall Ratcliffe

In 2021, I was doing everything the LinkedIn gurus told me to do.

- Commenting on 50 posts/day
- Posting at a certain time
- Jumping on trends
- Writing short lines
- Sharing selfies

If there was something I could optimise, I was optimising it. 

And it was kinda working. We were doing about £300k a year in sales through LinkedIn.

Then I chatted to a friend who spend 15 minutes/day on Linkedin and was still driving £2M+/year in sales to his business. 

Something seemed off, so I dug a little deeper. 

Turns out 99% of the things I was doing weren’t moving the needle at all. 

So, I quit. 

I quit doing 7 things that would take me hours every single day. 

Now we made £1M/year in sales through LinkedIn and I spend less than 30 minutes per day here. 

I wrote a full article breaking down exactly what I quit + what we do now 👇🏻

♻️ Repost if you find this useful!

Follow for more Niall Ratcliffe

In 2022, I was doing everything the LinkedIn gurus told me to do. I was commenting on 50 posts before I shared my own content. I was tracking the opti

Open article: I Quit These 7 Things on LinkedIn (Then Made £1M) by Niall Ratcliffe • 8 min read

I Quit These 7 Things on LinkedIn (Then Made £1M)

I’m going LIVE tomorrow to show you exactly how we sign clients through LinkedIn. 

Over the last 3 months, I’ve been very vocal about the fact we’ll make £1,000,000 through LinkedIn this year. 

But we won’t be the only agency to do so. 

Sam runs a 7-figure agency who drive a massive amount of their sales through LinkedIn. 

ColdIQ do $6M ARR with a huge focus on client acquisition through LinkedIn. 

Tomorrow, Sam, Alex, and I will be going live with Louis Butterfield to show you exactly how we do it. 

If you want to drive sales through LinkedIn this year, this is a must watch. 

Save the date 📅 

P.S. Any topics you’d like to see my cover? Drop them in the comments

$2M generated from 1 video/week → 122/250 founders (and counting)

Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️, Niall Ratcliffe and Sam G. Winsbury

3 of LinkedIn's most respected agency owners in 1 room.

We've all spent 100s of hours here. Maybe 1000s.
So why are we still relying on referrals?

Because there is SO MUCH content out there that just straight up isn't helpful.

Otherwise, we'd all be swimming in clients, right?

But these guys have built 7-figure agencies from the ground up.

Niall Ratcliffe (noticed.) 
Alex Vacca (ColdIQ) 
and Sam G. Winsbury (Kurogo - Personal Branding Agency) 

So if you want to know how the best agencies in the world close clients on LinkedIn,

Then this event was made for you, amigo.

45 mins.
no pitch.
🫶

How The World’s Biggest Agencies Close Clients Through LinkedIn

taplio

The Battle

Sam G. Winsbury

Niall Ratcliffe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreSam G. Winsbury's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNiall Ratcliffe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Sam G. Winsbury

Niall Ratcliffe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sam G. Winsbury's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNiall Ratcliffe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSam G. Winsbury's LinkedIn Performance