There’s this moment I think about sometimes. It happened years ago in Washington, DC, during one of those brutally cold winter days where the air feels almost sharp. My dad had a congressional hearing happening that morning, and I flew in to support him. Everyone else showed up in predictable navy wool and quiet scarves. I, on the other hand, arrived dressed like someone who never got the memo that “judicial proceedings” meant “blend in.”

It wasn’t on purpose. I just have a fashion degree and a personality, and apparently those two things make you stand out on C-SPAN.

Anyway.

I walked into the building in a champagne-colored coat, big hair, and a very committed red lip. Even with a wrist brace on, the security agents were basically racing each other to help me get my coat off. My aunts were trying not to laugh. My dad was shaking his head in that way parents do when they’re proud but pretending not to be. I remember thinking, This is ridiculous. I am literally not the important one here.

But everyone was looking at me.

And here’s the thing. I wasn’t doing anything special. I wasn’t making a speech. I wasn’t holding a title. I was simply visible.

That stuck with me more than the rest of the day.

Later, one of the FBI agents assigned to my dad’s background check walked up and shook my hand like I was some kind of celebrity. “I feel like I know you already,” she said. “I was the one who went through all your stuff.” She said it like she expected me to be flattered.

I wasn’t. I’d spent months arguing with my dad about why I absolutely would not be scrubbing old photos of me living my early twenties. I was twenty-two. That’s what humans do at twenty-two. He acted like the world might collapse if someone saw me dancing on a table at Señor Frog’s. Meanwhile, I was annoyed that my life had been combed through for microscopic imperfections, only for that same agent to greet me like we were old friends.

It was a weird moment. A small one. But it taught me something I didn’t have language for at the time.

Sometimes people see you long before they acknowledge you.
And sometimes, you’re visible to everyone except the people who are supposed to value you.

Women consultants know this dynamic too well.

You can be the person keeping clients afloat, fixing their systems, saving their launches, smoothing over their team drama, and turning their chaos into something that looks intentional. You can be the quiet backbone of other people’s wins. And still be underpriced, overlooked, or completely skipped over for someone louder but less qualified.

That DC moment reminded me how frustrating visibility can be. How random it feels. How much it feels like luck instead of strategy. But here’s the part I didn’t understand back then.

Visibility isn’t an accident.
And it sure isn’t luck.
It’s a brand.

A real brand. Not a logo. Not a color palette. Not a tagline that sounds vaguely inspirational. A brand that shows people who you are before you ever walk into a room. A brand that does the talking for you before your résumé even hits the table.

Because the truth is, I stood out in DC that day for the same reason the women I work with finally start getting the clients who “never had budget before.” It wasn’t the coat or the lipstick. It was the clarity. The distinction. The refusal to blend in just because everyone else did.

Women like us were not made for whispers.

But most of the women consultants I meet built their entire business whispering without even realizing it. They built brands based on being “professional,” not powerful. They show up polished but forgettable. They sound smart but not singular. And the market notices that. Not in a malicious way. More like how we scroll past something that feels fine but not memorable.

Look.
If you are a woman consultant in finance, HR, ops, or any field where competence is expected but charisma is optional, you already know what invisibility feels like. It shows up in small moments.

The client who raves about your work but picks a cheaper vendor next quarter.
The prospect who says they “love your energy” but can’t quite tell what you actually do.
The referral partner who introduces you as “kind of like a coach but also strategy… I don’t know… she’s great though.”

It’s not that you lack talent. It’s that you’re hiding in plain sight.

And unfortunately, the market pays in direct proportion to what it understands and remembers.

Here’s where the extraordinary brand comes in.

An extraordinary brand does three things really well.

First, it makes your expertise unmistakable.
The kind of unmistakable where people know instantly if you’re their person. They don’t need a discovery call to figure it out. They recognize you in the way you talk about your work. The thoughtfulness. The conviction. The clean point of view that feels like fresh air.

Second, it makes your presence inevitable.
You stop competing with the consultant next to you and start becoming the consultant the industry talks about. Not because you’re louder. But because your brand sharpens your identity instead of diluting it. You become the person people reference in meetings when your back is turned.

Third, it makes your pricing unquestionable.
When your brand carries clarity, confidence, and actual resonance, the math changes. Clients don’t nickel-and-dime you. They don’t “circle back.” They don’t ghost. You stop getting passed over for mediocre offers and start getting picked first. Not by accident. By design.

This is how women build uncommon wealth.
Not by working more hours.
Not by shouting online.
Not by taking every client who appears with a pulse and a budget.

They build wealth by being undeniable.

I work with women every day who are quietly extraordinary. Women who have run multi-million-dollar systems behind the scenes. Women who have fixed organizations on the brink. Women who have practically built empires without a title to show for it. But because their branding is unclear or generic or overly “professional,” they’re treated like they’re interchangeable.

You are not interchangeable.
But your brand might be making you look that way.

And I say that with love, not judgment, because I’ve been there. I’ve swallowed myself to fit into places that were never built with women like us in mind. I’ve dimmed my ideas to avoid being seen as “too much.” I’ve replaced my confidence with apologetic competence more times than I’d like to admit.

Until I realized something simple.

If you’re the backbone of your client’s success, you deserve to be the headline of your own.

The women who break into wealth that feels unfair to everyone watching are never the ones playing small. They’re the ones who finally decide blending in is costing them too much. They stop choosing brand “safety” and start choosing brand truth. They let their identity be an asset, not an afterthought.

That day in DC wasn’t about fashion. It wasn’t even about confidence. It was about the subtle power of being seen, even in a room where you weren’t the focus. The second people noticed me, the energy shifted. Doors (literal and metaphorical) opened without effort.

That’s what a real brand does.
It moves the room before you do.

If you’ve been feeling overlooked, underpaid, or oddly invisible despite your competence, maybe it’s not your work. Maybe it’s the wrapper your work is sitting in. Maybe people are trying to help you with your metaphorical coat because something about how you show up says, “There’s something special here.”

The question is whether your brand confirms it or hides it.

Women consultants are not missing opportunity. They’re missing recognition. But recognition isn’t earned by grinding harder. It’s earned by becoming unmistakable.

Sometimes all it takes is one shift. One decision. One red lipstick moment where you decide you’re done whispering.

And who knows. Maybe someone will look at you one day and think, “I feel like I already know her.”
Not because they went through your stuff, but because your brand finally told the story you’ve been living all along.

It’s funny how visibility works.
You can spend years waiting for it, only to realize you were the one holding the dimmer switch.