The Buyer's Guide
How to Choose a Personal Branding Agency You Can Trust.
The same seven checks this directory runs before any agency is listed, written as a checklist you can use on any practice, listed here or not. If an agency cannot answer these plainly, that is your answer.
This guide is part of the PBA Wiki. Take Before Your First Call and Questions to Ask into every conversation.
New to the subject? The MCG Wiki (opens in a new tab) sets out what personal branding is and where to start in your profession. It is published by Mashman Consulting Group, which runs this directory (our relationship with MCG).
Read the transcript
You have watched CEOs, executives, founders, and creators build their personal brands, and you have started to wonder whether you could build yours too. You read about it. You take it seriously. And then you decide you want help.
So you search for a personal branding agency. What comes back is a wall of people calling themselves the best. Badges anybody can buy. Reviews nobody checked. Press that was paid for.
You realize this is a field built on reputation, with no standard for whose reputation is real.
Personal Branding Agencies is that standard.
The dedicated and vetted directory for personal branding professionals. Agencies, consultancies, and independent consultants, each reviewed against seven published criteria: PBA's Code of Ethics, a published position on AI, personal branding as the primary focus of the practice, a defined specialization, a real website, a verifiable social footprint, and a legitimate legal filing.
Vetting is free. Approval is earned, not purchased. Every application is read, and a PBA representative calls the practice to verify what it told us. Break the code, and the listing comes down.
Browse by who a practice serves, what it specializes in, and where it works, with its price tier shown up front. Or answer six questions in Find Your Match and see how closely each practice fits what you need, scored by a rubric anyone can read.
Reviews come from verified clients only, and a person reads every one. A critical review needs proof that you worked together, and the practice gets the chance to make it right. The PBA Power Ranking is built on those reviews alone.
Vetting cannot be bought. Paid placement is always labeled.
When you are ready, send a practice a brief through the directory, and it reaches them in their Workspace. Save practices to your shortlist, compare them side by side, and read the guide before you sign anything.
Personal Branding Agencies holds every listing to the same standard, in public. Find a practice you can trust, or apply to become one, at personalbrandingagencies.com.
The checks
Seven Questions to Ask Before You Sign.
- 01
Code of Ethics
A signed commitment to the PBA Code of Ethics: a standing pledge against the manipulative tactics saturating this industry. Breaking it, or disagreeing with any part of it, ends a listing.
Ask them: Will you sign a written commitment against bought followers, fabricated press, and invented credentials, and can I read it?
- 02
AI Disclosure
A published position on how the practice uses artificial intelligence. Using AI is not disqualifying. Concealing it is, and so is using it to manufacture a perception a client has not earned. The disclosure is published on the listing.
Ask them: How do you use AI in client work, and will you put that in writing before we start?
- 03
Primary Focus: Personal Branding
Personal branding must account for at least 70 percent of the practice's clients, measured by clients rather than revenue, across its lifetime and every engagement type: at least seven of every ten clients served are personal brand engagements, not incidental to a different business line. A new practice with few clients qualifies when it is explicitly dedicated to personal brands, and a pivot to a new market or business model may trigger a new review. Many listed practices also take on B2B or unrelated work, and that is fine. What is not fine is a practice for which personal branding is a minor offering, listed here on the strength of unrelated work, since this remains a small, specific niche and the directory exists to represent it, not general marketing or business consulting.
Ask them: What share of your clients are personal brand engagements, as opposed to general marketing or business work?
- 04
Specialization
A defined lane, stated plainly. Practices claiming to serve everyone are asked what they actually do best.
Ask them: Who do you serve best, and who would you turn away?
- 05
Verifiable Website
A live site that plainly identifies the business and what it does.
Ask them: Does your website plainly identify the business and what it does?
- 06
Verifiable Social Media Footprint
At least one active, public professional profile that can be independently confirmed to belong to the practice.
Ask them: Which public professional profile can I check to confirm it is really yours?
- 07
Legitimate Legal Filing
A registered business entity, or a properly filed sole practice. Whatever form the practice takes, it must exist on the record somewhere we can check.
Ask them: Under what name and where is the business registered?
Red flags
What the Code of Ethics Rules Out.
Every listed agency has signed a commitment to each of these. Any practice that will not make the same commitment is telling you something.
Organic growth comes first
We do not buy followers, engagement, or manufactured social proof, for our clients or ourselves. Paid amplification is a legitimate tool and we use it, but it supports earned effort rather than substituting for it.
AI is disclosed, not concealed
Artificial intelligence is a tool, and we use it openly where it helps. We do not let it do the heavy lifting of a client's intellectual property or speaking voice, we do not present generated work as human craft, and we do not use it to build a perception the client has not earned.
Earned press, honestly earned
We do not fabricate media features, pay for disguised advertorials presented as earned coverage, or invent credentials.
Truth in results
We do not promise outcomes we cannot control, and we report client results without inflation.
Identity before image
We build brands on who the client actually is, never on a persona designed to deceive their audience.
Transparent pricing
Our fees, deliverables, and terms are stated before engagement. No bait pricing, no surprise upsells mid-contract.
The client owns the brand
Accounts, audiences, and assets built during an engagement belong to the client, always.
Price tiers
What $ to $$$$ Means.
Every listing carries a price tier: the average total a client pays for one project or engagement with the practice, in US dollars, as the practice states it. The scale is the same for every agency, consultancy, and independent consultant in the directory.
What the ranges measure
Each range is the average total a client pays for one project or engagement, in US dollars. It is not a monthly fee and not a quote. Each practice states its own tier when it applies.
| Tier | Average total for one project or engagement (USD) |
|---|---|
| $ | $2,500 or less |
| $$ | $2,501 to $7,500 |
| $$$ | $7,501 to $10,000 |
| $$$$ | $10,001 or more |
How practices charge
- A one-time project fee. One price for a defined piece of work with an end, such as positioning or a media kit. It is already a total.
- A monthly retainer. A fee every month for ongoing work, often with a minimum term.
- An initial engagement, then monthly. A first period of a set length, such as three months, then month to month.
- Hourly or per session. A rate for each hour or session, common in coaching and advisory work. Ask how many sessions a typical engagement takes.
Each listing's Billing line, beside its price tier, says which of these the practice uses, with its minimum commitment where it has one, and the directory filters by it. A practice that bills $1,000 a month on a 12 month retainer is in tier $$$$, because the tier counts the whole engagement; its Billing line shows why.
How to compare them
Put every option on the same footing: the total for the first engagement period, then the monthly cost after it. For a retainer or an initial engagement, multiply the monthly fee by the months you commit to. A fee of $3,000 a month with a three month initial engagement, for example, is $9,000 for the first period and $3,000 for each month after that. Set that total beside a project fee, and compare what each one delivers.
A tier is the practice's own statement of its average, not a quote. Where a listing also describes its fees, read the two together and ask the practice which applies to you. Ask every practice for the total, the term and the deliverables in writing before you engage; the Code of Ethics requires fees and terms to be stated up front.
Choose the Shape of Help, Not the Size of the Firm.
Agencies, consultancies, and independent consultants are listed here under the same vetting and ranking standards. What matters more is how the work is done: Done For You, where the practice executes on your behalf; Done With You, where you do the work under their direction; or a mixture. Some practices also work in an Advisory role: they advise, and you or your team do the work. Every listing states which, along with a price tier from $ to $$$$, so you can compare before you make contact, and the directory's filters narrow by any of them.
Then check the record. Reviews here are verified as coming from real clients, the PBA Power Ranking cannot be bought, and anyone can report an agency that breaks the Code.
Every Agency Here Already Passed.
Skip the checklist. Every listing in the directory has been checked against all seven and signed to the Code of Ethics.