I’ve spent the last few weeks writing about building in public from a lot of angles. Why it feels so uncomfortable. What it looks like before the dots connect. And, most recently, what to actually say once you decide to be seen.

This one is a little different. Because there’s a part of this conversation people don’t like to talk about: building in public doesn’t always work.

Sometimes it fizzles. Sometimes it creates tension inside a leadership team. Sometimes a leader shows up for three weeks, gets a lukewarm response, decides “LinkedIn isn’t for me,” and quietly disappears. And sometimes the results are genuinely strong, and the effort still falls apart because the people around it weren’t ready.

In the Build in Public chapter of Theatre of the Mind, I wrote a section called “Avoid the Common Traps,” and it opens with a line I want to repeat here: the process of building in public doesn’t happen without some work and awareness. There are many traps you can find yourself in if you don’t pay attention.

So let’s pay attention. Here are the traps I see most often, why they happen, and what to do instead.

Trap #1: Mistaking Familiarity for Effectiveness

I’ll start with the one I called the biggest trap in the book, because it catches seasoned professionals more than anyone else.

Just because something used to work doesn’t mean it still does.

Experienced leaders have playbooks. They know what landed five years ago. They know how they built their reputation the first time. So when they start building in public, they reach for the same moves: the same tone, the same kind of announcement, the same polished “we’re thrilled to share” update. And when it doesn’t land the way it used to, they look for someone to blame.

I’ve seen professionals blame everything from the algorithm to the economy to Mercury in retrograde. There might be a little truth in each of those. But that’s not where your power lives.

Here’s the reframe: declining metrics aren’t always a crisis. They’re often signals. Fewer email opens. Less post engagement. Slower deal cycles. Those aren’t verdicts on you. They’re information about a market where buyer behavior, platforms, and expectations shift quickly. Clinging to outdated strategies in that environment is a form of resistance, even if it feels like experience.

What to do instead: Before you change anything, take a breath and assess what’s really shifting. Ask yourself:

• What has changed in my market?
• What has changed in my audience?
• How is my ideal client thinking or making buying decisions differently than they did a year ago?

Then use the platform itself to find out. Test, listen, and adjust. Ask your network what they’re looking for, and watch the responses closely.

Trap #2: Panicking and Tearing It All Down

The opposite trap is just as common. A leader notices things aren’t working, and instead of observing, they overcorrect. New positioning. New tone. New topics. New everything, all at once.

That’s the Theatre of the Mind at work. Racing thoughts tell you the whole thing is broken, so the only option is to start over. But a total teardown usually just resets the clock on the trust you’ve already built, and confuses the people who were starting to pay attention.

The line from the book I want you to remember is this: your power lies in your ability to observe, adapt, and lead through change. That requires strategy, not panic.

Reinvention doesn’t always require a teardown. Sometimes the biggest leaps come from subtle shifts: a refined message, a new angle, a sharper offer. The data will tell you where to iterate.

What to do instead: Change one variable at a time. If your posts about strategy are getting quiet responses but your posts about a hard decision are sparking conversations, don’t abandon strategy. Try telling the strategy through the decision. Give it a few weeks. Then look again.

Building in public is, by definition, iterative. You’re allowed to adjust in front of people. In fact, that’s the point.

Trap #3: Forcing Buy-In

This is the trap that does the most damage inside companies, and it’s the one I feel most strongly about.

When a leadership team decides to build in public together, it can be incredibly powerful. But I wrote in the book that mental buy-in must happen willingly from everyone who will be forward-facing, and it has to be connected to a tangible goal. Anything forced creates resentment. And resentment, in the case of personal branding, is a breeding ground for more fears and limiting beliefs.

When a team feels forced to accept an initiative, it will crash and burn. Early efforts are fragile. So fragile that one person’s limiting belief can destroy an entire campaign where hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, are at stake.

What to do instead:

1. Start with the willing. Begin with the leaders who are genuinely excited. Their results will do more convincing than any mandate.
2. Tie it to something real. A raise, a launch, an event, a hiring push. People commit to goals, not to “posting more.”
3. Make it individual. Every person needs their own strategy and their own reasons. Alignment doesn’t mean everyone sounds the same.
4. Leave the door open. The person who isn’t ready today may be ready in six months, once they’ve watched it work for someone they respect.

Trap #4: Leaving Key People Out of the Loop

Closely related, but different: sometimes the issue isn’t that people are resisting. It’s that nobody told them what was happening or why.

In the book, I called this being on different pages. A CFO or another member of the C-suite isn’t included from the outset, doesn’t understand why outside help was brought in, and makes collaboration dreadfully painful. If the leadership team thinks of marketing and branding in an older, narrower way, they may feel the approach isn’t quantifiable, even when the data reports show significant progress.

And the progress can be significant. I’ve seen that in just one month, a C-suite team can grow their online visibility by +9k% and increase followers by 350%. But if a team’s resistance creates a fracture and blurs the rewards of those results, it feels like everyone is drinking directly out of a firehose. The water turns on, full blast, and the knee-jerk reaction is to shut it off immediately, by any means necessary.

That’s what makes this trap so frustrating. The results can be working while the effort is failing.

What to do instead: Before anyone hits publish, have the internal conversation. Explain the goal, the timeline, and how you’ll measure progress, in language that makes sense to the people who will be judging it. If you’re in a corporate role, the same principle applies on a smaller scale: keep your internal team informed. No surprises. Visibility outside the building is much easier when there’s understanding inside it.

Trap #5: Going It Alone Without Expecting Pushback

Not everyone builds in public as part of a team. Many of the leaders I work with are doing it individually, inside a company or alongside one.

If that’s you, here’s something I wrote in the book that I want you to hear clearly: when you don’t go to market as a team, you have to be prepared that others around you will not always understand what you are doing or why you are doing it, even if it could potentially benefit them in the process.

The trap isn’t the pushback. The trap is being surprised by it, and letting that surprise convince you to stop.

What to do instead: Expect questions, and decide ahead of time how you’ll answer them. Know your company’s guardrails before you bend them. Align your content with the business so your visibility reads as an asset, not a risk. And remember that courage, not permission, builds momentum. You can respect the rules and still refuse to make yourself invisible.

Why Avoiding These Traps Matters: Reinvention Requires Visibility

It would be easy to read all of this and decide building in public is more trouble than it’s worth. I want to push back on that, hard.

The point of naming these traps isn’t to scare you off. It’s to help you stay in the game long enough for it to work. Because the third GIST point in that chapter is one I believe more now than when I wrote it: reinvention requires visibility.

In a crowded space, differentiation by building in public is your engine. In a shifting market, reinvention is your compass. You can’t reinvent quietly and expect the market to notice. If you’re pivoting, launching, raising, or stepping into a bigger role, people need to watch the shift happen. That’s how they come to believe it.

I feel this personally right now. Building Dirty Hippie while running The Borden Group means I’m reinventing in public, in an industry I didn’t come up in. I don’t get to skip the awkward parts. None of us do. But the leaders who avoid the traps are the ones who get to the other side with credibility intact.

Visibility doesn’t dilute your credibility. It defines it.

A Quick Trap Check for This Week

If you want something practical to do before Friday, take ten minutes and answer these honestly:

• Familiarity: Am I repeating something because it works, or because it used to?
• Panic: Have I changed too many things at once? What’s the one variable I’ll test next?
• Buy-in: Is everyone who’s forward-facing doing this willingly, tied to a real goal?
• Alignment: Does everyone who will judge the results understand what we’re doing and why?
• Pushback: Have I decided how I’ll respond when someone questions my visibility?

Any question that makes you wince is your starting point.

So, Here’s the GIST (Growth/Impact/Strategy/Trust):

1. Signals aren’t verdicts.

Declining engagement or slower responses are information, not failure. Observe what’s shifting before you react, and don’t confuse familiarity with effectiveness.

2. Adapt, don’t demolish.

Reinvention doesn’t always require a teardown. Change one variable at a time and let the data tell you where to iterate.

3. Buy-in has to be willing.

Forced participation breeds resentment, and resentment can sink an entire campaign. Start with the willing, tie it to a tangible goal, and bring key people in from the outset.

4. Reinvention requires visibility.

The traps are real, but staying invisible is the bigger risk. Building in public is how the market watches you change, and decides to believe it.

Building in public isn’t about getting it right the first time. It’s about noticing when something’s off, adjusting with intention, and keeping the right people with you while you do. Avoid the traps, and you give your visibility the time it needs to compound.

Sources

[1] Borden, Melanie. Theatre of the Mind. House of Lola, LLC, 2025. Chapter 3, “Build in Public.”