Why Founder Led Brands Are Dominating in 2026 with Milou Pietersz

Most founders think they need better marketing. What they actually need is more visibility.

In this episode, we sit down with Milou Pietersz, founder and CEO of Simply Multimedia and a Forbes-featured strategist who built a million-dollar brand by leading from the front. She shares how founder-led content is reshaping trust, why people connect with people over brands, and what it really takes to turn content into a consistent growth engine.

We also dive into the mindset shift that changes everything, how to think about LinkedIn versus other platforms, and why the right visibility strategy can warm up prospects before the conversation even starts.

Keypoints & Chapter Markers:

00:16 – Why this conversation matters right now

02:08 – Starting from zero and building momentum

05:24 – The turning point behind building a personal brand

08:11 – How trust is built in today’s market

12:08 – Why most founders quit too early

18:10 – Choosing the right platform for growth

Connect with Milou
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miloupietersz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MILOUPIETERSZ/

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Transcript

00:06

Welcome to The Takeover with Tim and Cindy, where we show you how to dominate your market.  Let's get winning.

00:16

If you have been waiting for someone to give you the real talk on what it takes to build a founder led brand in 2026,  this episode is it.  Milou Peters is the founder of Simply Multimedia and she has helped countless entrepreneurs stop hiding behind their logo and start leading with their personal brand.  On the episode today, we are talking social strategy,  brand building  and the moves that actually grew her agency.

00:44

Let's get into it. You're going to love this conversation.  Milou, welcome to the show.  Welcome to the show, Milou Peters. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here. Milou is one of my favorite people. um And after this conversation, you're going to understand why. Expert at social media, all the things.  And I'm excited to chat about founder led brands, which is such a hot topic. It is a topic that is on everyone's mind.

01:11

So, Milou, take us to the beginning. Tell us how you got started  and why you founded Simply Multimedia. Yeah. So  I got started almost by accident.  I'm not originally from the US. As you know, I'm originally from the Netherlands.  I came on a full scholarship here to the US to  play college tennis.  It was never my intention to actually, you know, still be here, but I did meet my husband in college and the rest is kind of history.

01:39

after college, studying media and advertising. I always had the American dream, right? Working for a huge agency or in New York or some type of, you know, American dream. And it was really hard after I graduated to actually find a job. And so I always kind of knew I wanted to do something on my own, but obviously, you know, having zero corporate experience, it felt odd to just, you know, build a business, you know, especially if you haven't had

02:08

that kind of experience. But I kind of took that opportunity as like a redirection  on, okay, maybe I can, you know, start something for myself. Like how hard can it be? Right? You don't know what you don't know.  And so I just started to support myself by coaching tennis  and driving Uber Eats and those types of side hustles while actively looking for social media clients uh to build my own business.  did you

02:34

get started with social media specifically, because you're excellent at it now. Was it always something you were interested in? Where did that come from? Yeah, that's a great question. I actually was never very interested in social media for personal use. You know, when you kind of just post a selfie here and there, but like there was nothing quite behind it. But I was working as a student in a student job for the university selling advertising. Now this was traditional advertising. was selling placement in the student magazine. I was cold calling people locally.

03:03

And  it really felt like, okay, like I can do this for myself, like get clients, call call, whatever it takes and sell them something. But obviously I didn't have a magazine. I didn't have ad placement. And then I started to notice, whoa, people do this on social media and I could manage that for them as that kind of placement.  And then I early on just started taking different free courses like HubSpot and Academy and things like that.  And I was like, you know, maybe I can do this.  But I would say like,

03:32

primarily self-thought along the way.  Interesting. Very interesting. Cause I think you hear most founder stories start from like a passion or something that, you know, the person is excited about, but very interesting. You saw opportunity and now I can probably say just seeing you on social, it's probably turned into something that you're super passionate now, right? On the other side. Yeah, exactly. Um, I think I was passionate about building it and learning, you know, and, and I think that kind of fueled it and

04:02

You know, the better you get at something, the more fun it is. Right. So I think that also, you know, played into it. You've built a significant following on social. You are just one of the go-to experts on Instagram, which I love. How did you start building your founder led brand? Yeah. So I actually started  really from the beginning and that's how I learned social media by doing it for myself.

04:27

As an athlete, we already have this discipline and consistency engraved in us where it's kind of like all or nothing. And that's how I felt about social media too. And I started to notice, especially early on where people are always  asking,  or they cared about followers, audience sizes, and those types of things on social proof. And I got so tired of people always, you know, believing someone else needs to have the social proof to kind of show you they can do it, which, know, is fair to an extent.

04:55

And so I thought to myself, I need to build this and I'm going to make it happen no matter what.  So that was one of my definitely motivations. And then along with that, I started to notice too, had, you know, influencer friends or friends, marketers who had audiences and I knew what they were charging, not just for clients, but brand partnerships. And I was like, Oh my God,  one brand partnership could replace literally a client I work for day in, day out.  And so I was like, I'm going to make this happen one day.

05:24

I'm going to do that too.  And so I was posting every single day and trying to get better and better and better at it. Wow. And now you've grown significantly and you're helping others do the same. How do you balance, and this is, I know a question that I have, but so many of our audience now listen to this as well. How do you balance building a founder led brand as well as a company brand? Which one should you be focusing on? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's actually funny because when I started out,

05:54

I was building  a founder led brand that was under my business name. So it was kind of like in between like, hey, I am a business, but also, hey, there's a face to the brand. And over time, I actually changed it to completely my personal brands. And I think what every founder goes through, especially if you start out as a personal brand, you kind of become such a face of the brands and it can become unsustainable, right over time. And I think that's when

06:22

I started to separate it more where it's like, hey, as a personal brand, I do a lot more than run an agency and I have more interests. And I think that was a time for me to separate it. But I think most of probably the audience and  founders  that are listening to this go through is they start off as a company brand and now they realize the importance of  having founder led content. So they kind of reverse engineer it. uh Yeah. That's kind of how I started. I think about

06:51

We've always built Pima as its  own standalone brand. And I think it's only more recent that Tim and I have really started to focus on like the founder led side of it.  I think there is benefit to doing both. However, in 2026, there is a significant rise in the desire and the need for the founder to be visible.  And that is like our word for the year, it's visibility, founder visibility.

07:17

How do you see kind of the market or the landscape shaping where consumers are trusting and wanting to see more founder led brand content and wanting to see the person behind the brand? Yeah, so we see exactly the same as you guys right across the board, even like CEOs of  bigger companies that are now  showing up on social media, which, know, years ago, people would have been like, no, there's no way that I'm doing that.

07:42

So we're definitely seeing that as well.  And I think it has a lot to do with  AI in the come up  and not knowing what to trust in our feeds anymore.  so there's a huge fight for building trust with our customer. And the fastest way to do that is for people to connect with people, the faces behind the brands, the teams, and especially  adding sales into that where they're already warmed up to you uh before even jumping on a call. It's like invaluable.

08:11

Yeah, absolutely. I 100 % agree. Time is often like the biggest factor, right? So like founders, they want to show up, they want to do the things, but they're like, I'm running an entire business. How do I do both? So what are some strategies or ways that you  both show up on social and maintain and be super consistent and still run like a very successful agency?

08:33

I think for  being a marketer myself, there's definitely an advantage, right? I already kind of know what to do and things to go through.  For me, it's definitely like, I see it as a way to generate revenue. Like I know if for us to stay relevant and stay in people's faces, if you will, through content, that way we stay top of mind. And so I do see it as a revenue generating activity.

08:57

where I always make time for content.  So I think that's a big factor. And what I used to always say and still till this day is like,  I am my own biggest client. I'm going to treat myself as such because, you know, clients come and go, but I know our brand is going to be here at the end of the day. so  making time for it, I think  is the biggest thing outside of obviously setting up systems, potentially outsourcing to a team and all of that.  absolutely. And that's something that you've helped me with significantly, which is

09:27

carving out time and space to shoot content for the month, right? So it's like, know what my monthly content is going to look like. I schedule it on my calendar. This is my recording day and it's non-negotiable. And I make sure that I get it done because I know I love what you said, Mewdie, which is like this content is revenue, right? It's sales, it's visibility. And every piece of content that you're putting out is directly tied to sales or even to your sales team's performance, right?

09:54

notes significantly for us and our clients. And I'm sure you noticed this on your end as well, where prospects come onto the call a lot warmer, right? With a lot more trust built when they've seen you consistently on LinkedIn or they've seen you and they know your strategies on Instagram. So thinking about content as that bridge between a very cold prospect coming in to one that shows up a lot warmer because that trust has been built through content.

10:20

Yeah, 100 % exactly like what you said. And similarly, how we've partnered on the LinkedIn sites,  where it's just a huge difference when you know, versus think about, know, getting a cold email, we all get cold emails, right? I see them in my inbox every day.  It usually lacks even a profile photo, let alone let alone can I find anything about you, right? When we're on social media, and whether we're pitching on social media, right? You we can  instantly see

10:48

social media as someone's resume, I can see, you have credibility, I can see your content.  And so it feels like you're talking to a real person versus getting slammed and being a number to a mass outreach in your email.  100%. Yeah, I agree.  What are the biggest mistakes you see founders or even brands make online or on social today? I would say  making content that's too polished. think they're still, you know, we're still

11:18

We,  big brands too, they care so much still about what people think. So would say the number one thing is being too polished where you don't need all the special equipment, an entire media team in-house.  You know what I mean? Like often when we're an extension of a client's team or marketing team,  we don't do that for you, but we're coordinating all the content we need.

11:40

with just an iPhone and natural lighting. So there's no excuses either. And then I think the second thing I would bring up is like they're moving too slow. So especially the businesses, the slower they move. And for social media, it is important to move fast and leave room if something does come up that you really want to jump on or talk about that there is a little bit of flexibility there. So good. So good. Do you find that consistency is one of those too?

12:08

that people will post for a little bit and potentially maybe not see traction or not see the results that they want and then just get in their own way and stop posting. And this is something that I get on with people on LinkedIn all the time. I'm curious if you see this on Instagram, where they're getting traction and it's like, if you just stick with it a little longer, you'll start to see results and I want to like shake them up, you know? No, especially obviously if people DIY it, yeah, 100%. The consistency, like it's just never going to be there, low key.

12:36

And I think, yeah, it's like they get demotivated if the numbers aren't there or on the instant gratification. But exactly like you said, I always remind this  of, I don't know if you know this drawing or diagram where they're digging for gold  and it's taking forever and then they stop. But the gold was right at the end. uh Yeah, it was right there. So literally it is one of those things with branding in general, right? You don't know when it's fully going to click, but trust that things are working.

13:05

you'd never know who's seeing your work, who's thinking about you. And I noticed that all the time in random moments when someone brings up my content or I'm in an email conversation. Recently, I was in an email conversation with a long term brand partner of ours and they were like, oh, by the way, Milou, congrats on the new home. And in my head, was like, how do you even know  that? You post about it on social media and so many more people see that that you don't even know.

13:32

Absolutely. 100%. It's like this long-term nurture in a sense, right? As long as you're showing up consistently, planting trees, right? Literally planting seeds into trees. People are noticing. And even especially on LinkedIn, I see, it's like you may not get the most engagement or you may not get the most comments, but trust me, people are seeing it. And I'll get people at events that say, see your content on LinkedIn all the time. And maybe not the ones that comment or engage.

14:00

But trust me, people are seeing your content. Content is the currency of conversion. I'm really big on that. Milou, you've grown some accounts to like hundreds, thousands of followers. Your  team has generated like millions of impressions across accounts. What are some of the maybe differences between what larger creators are doing that you see work that smaller creators are not doing or tapping into?

14:25

I think larger creators, what a lot of people don't understand, there's a lot of experimenting  involved, uh especially when you're partnered with a team. uh You need to give them room to experiment. That is the biggest thing where a lot of founders like to micromanage this process, right? To protect their brand. And I see this all the time. And what I've noticed that all the accounts that we've really grown and had huge results for, was typically where

14:53

client almost didn't want to be involved. Outside of showing up on camera, tell me what you need from me, I will give it to you. But everything else they almost didn't want any involvement into because either they're too busy or not like they don't care, but they trust us fully in the process. And that's what I've noticed that allows us to really go crazy, if you will. And of course, there's, I don't know, for a lot of people, it feels like maybe there's a risk to it, because you can test a lot of different things and

15:22

I think at the end of the day, you can't play it safe. The safer you play it as a brand, you're just not going to have the impact that you think you're going to have. Interesting. So more testing, more letting go of the reins. On that note, tell us, how do we become better clients? Because I'm an agency  and I know this on the back end as well. You have some clients that you just absolutely love to work with and we're blessed. We have so many amazing clients. Then you get some challenging clients sometimes. in order to...

15:50

produce exceptional results, right? You have to be a good client as well. I a hundred percent agree with that. So tell us like as founders, how do we just become better clients to work with overall and not micromanage the process? Yeah, I think one thing would be, you know, changing your mindset before going into this process to really decide you're going to trust the process. You're going to work, you're working with an experienced team, right? You're not hiring freelancers. And so telling yourself, I'm going to fully give into this process.

16:19

Tell me what you need from me and the rest is all on to you guys. Because oftentimes people pay people to manage them.  And it's pretty crazy because you're actually, you pay a lot less money to manage people and tell them what to do.  And so I think that is a big thing. then, you know,  ask the teams you work with. This is something I ask my team all the time. Like, how can I set you up for success? To where like, what do you need from me to be successful?

16:47

Because what happens as well is if you're going to manage the process too much and tell people what to do and have too much input, they're not going to take accountability for the results or the lack thereof. em And I think that is important. um Even when I hire people with YouTube and things like that, like, this is all you.  I'm a marketer too, but everyone does things a different way. So do whatever you got to do and we can go from there.

17:14

Yes, so good. That is key value right there. Trust the process. And if you're hiring experts, let them be experts. Right? I love that. Let's talk about the different social channels. You know, if a brand or founders thinking about LinkedIn versus Instagram, TikTok, where do feel like they should be leaning to build authority and potentially even generate leads and revenue?  Yeah. Now, lately, as you know, I actually really love the combination of Instagram and LinkedIn.

17:43

Right. We've worked with you on the LinkedIn side of things a ton.  And LinkedIn  is great for lead generation and building thought leadership because of the nature of the platform, right? The way you can filter people, people are actively looking to work with others  and  being the professional platform that it still is today. Now, Instagram is great for brand building. And of course it can generate leads over time as well, but it's a lot more awareness focused.

18:10

And this is a lot of the conversations I'm having with prospects today as well, where it's like, what are we leaning into? Are you in a phase where, hey, I'm just brand building right now. We're not actively looking to get leads because our sales team, you know, gets a ton of leads. Then maybe we can be more focused on Instagram and building more awareness and community  versus, hey, you know, we are actively looking to generate leads and see an ROI rather quickly than focusing more on LinkedIn or combining the two at the end of the day.

18:39

Love that. So good. So good. And I 100 % agree. Take us behind the scenes into Milou's brain and into your day to day. What are some of the biggest challenges that you face as an agency owner and how do you manage? How do you do it all? Yeah, I think the biggest challenge as an agency owner is, you know, as an agency owner, we talk about all these clients and how they need to behave. And I think even for myself still,

19:08

letting go of like, you you build this business and it's your baby and it's from scratch. And it feels so personal to me, right? I always say business is personal. So I care a lot about the people we work with, about the results we get, about what things look like. And sometimes a little bit too much. Now I've gotten way better over the years. But I think that is still one of my biggest challenges on

19:34

you know, letting go and  still managing a team while growing, having growth pains, right, while scaling. Yeah,  I would say that is the biggest challenge while, especially when you're ambitious, you know. Yeah, you've got big growth goals and it's balancing that growth and ambition with operations and managing a team. It could be a lot. It could be a lot. But you're doing it with such grace and you are killing it. So big, big thanks to you. You have a phenomenal team. I love your team.

20:02

Let's narrow down on LinkedIn specifically. So we've been collaborating on that platform, helping to grow your followers, get you leads. What made you want to really start doubling down there and what are some of the biggest shifts that you've seen on LinkedIn specifically? Yeah, so I've always had a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn, right? I was always repurposing content there just to kind of staying relevant, but I was never focused hardcore on lead generation. Here and there, I would see an inbound lead, but nothing all too serious.

20:31

And last year we started to really implement more sales systems.  Because fortunately, I mean, we've been very much inbound based based on my personal brands, but I really reached a point where I was like, okay, what do I need to reach the next level on the next level? And obviously, you know, sales is  key in scaling and growth. And so we started doing a lot of lead generation implementing sales, like even on the personal brand side of uh Instagram,  but I wasn't doing that on LinkedIn before now.

21:00

you we connected and  you know everything about LinkedIn. And I was like, I really want to, you know, give this a go again.  And so we started shifting into a platform that we weren't as comfortable in and we weren't seeing results in just to kind of amplify everything we're already doing.  And yeah, it has taught me so much as a marketer and an individual and grown us exponentially from there.  love it.

21:26

What were some of the early results or signals that told you like, okay, this is something worth continuing to invest in? Yeah, I think you will notice quite quickly how impactful it is even just to, you know, meet with people, in, get in in front of people that are actively considering your offer. You will see that rather quickly from the work that's being done as well. Well, at the same time, you're building thought leadership, right? So it's not like you're doing one or the other.

21:56

but you're continuing to build your brand while leads are starting to  show interest.  And then you will quickly see that, you know, it's all about timing with a lot of the prospecting, right? And leads where there comes a point where you run into a lot of people like, oh, we just had this conversation in house. Yes, I would love to talk. And I noticed that for myself too, if I get called DMs or people that pitch me, as long as the timing is right, I will hear you out, you know, but if I'm not actively looking,  it's a different story. So,

22:26

You know, trust again, also trusting the process,  being in marketing, I know it's  a trusting the process situation, but even people having  that show a bit of interest and allow you to pitch to them on a call and,  and,  and stay in touch with you. That showed me immediately like, okay, there's something there and I need to continue to evolve from my ends  to make it work as well.  good. love seeing your growth on LinkedIn. It's been powerful.  Where are you seeing the market hitting?

22:55

Right. Not just LinkedIn, so overall as a marketing agency, what shifts are you seeing? What trends are you seeing people in to give us the inside scoop? Yeah, obviously founder led content, like we said, huge, right? Whether you're a business brand or personal brands, I always say you don't have to be a personal brand to act like one,  but really sprinkling in more founder led content overall.

23:18

So that's obviously huge. feel like founder led content is that word that has replaced authenticity,  you know, that we use so much last year. And now I see everyone talk about founder led content.  And I also think  long form content  is going to be huge because it just lives on whether that's, know, email marketing that we add often to our social clients,  or it's doing LinkedIn articles  that are SEO optimized.

23:47

em Especially with AI models, you know, that can now bring up search results, bring you up literally in  their SEO, em as well as YouTube. So I think long form content is sustainable for brands over time and powerful.  absolutely. Absolutely. I definitely cosigned the long form. think that's so powerful, especially with how much AI generated content is out there.

24:15

you know, showing up as a personal brand and then also adding insights in long form.  I mean, you're just continuing to plant trees and then these AI models, right? Are going to start to pull in your content from things that you post on things like YouTube and LinkedIn articles, which are searchable. So a hundred percent agree. That is really awesome.  Um, let's talk about how people can get in touch with you. What do your services look like? How can people hire simply multimedia to transform their online presence? Yeah. So  I am.

24:44

on Instagram all day, every day, just by my name.  If you want to get  the quickest way to get in touch with me,  people can work with us on their organic social media management to have their channels  managed from end to end,  as well as email marketing. And we even do a little bit of PR,  but the goal is really to shift our clients from just having their social media platforms into their own audience as well with email and optimize their strategy based on their business goals.

25:14

So good. Milu and her team have my highest recommendation. They've done such an exceptional job on my personal Instagram. Truly a team that I absolutely love collaborating and working with. So definitely everybody get in touch, reach out, reach out on LinkedIn, reach out on Instagram.  And then this is our last question, Milu, when we ask all of our guests on the show, what does winning mean to you? think winning means to me  having an impact, like having a personal impact in the work I'm doing.

25:44

while at the same time taking care of the people around me. So I've noticed this as I grow my business on what's important to me.  And I think that's something we all need to balance as founders and CEOs on, yes, growing the business, but not at the cost of the people that  are doing that with me and are helping me build this. And I think balancing that has been really important for me in order for it to continue to be something that's fulfilling and that I can sustain for a long time. em

26:14

Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us on the TakeOver Podcast. We'll talk soon.

26:21

There you have it, ladies and gents, another Power Pack episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  If you have not yet, make sure you are subscribed to the show. We come out with episodes to help you dominate your niche and scale in your industry. Hit that subscribe button and make sure to reach out to us.  Send us a message, connect with us on LinkedIn, Tim and Cindy Dodd. We'd love to hear from you.  Okay, remember, domination is not a destination. It's a way of life. Stay winning.