What Athletes Get Right About Brand Building (That Most Founders Get Wrong)
I have worked with two former NFL players who made the transition from professional athlete to entrepreneur. Both of them — Terrell Fletcher, a nine-season running back with the San Diego Chargers who became a pastor and category leader, and Seyi Ajirotutu, a wide receiver who built Body Fly Fitness into a premium fitness brand — came into their entrepreneurial work with a set of instincts that most founders spend years trying to develop.
This is not a coincidence. The discipline that makes athletes dangerous in business is the same discipline that made them dangerous on the field: they understand, at a cellular level, what it means to have a brand that is bigger than any single performance.
The Athlete's Natural Understanding of Positioning
Every professional athlete operates within a positioning framework from the first day they are drafted. They are not just a player — they are a position, a number, a role within a system. They know exactly what they are responsible for, what success looks like in their specific context, and how their performance contributes to a larger outcome.
This translates directly into brand clarity. When an athlete starts a business, they tend to know intuitively what they are and what they are not. They do not try to be everything to everyone. They pick a lane and they go deep.
Most founders struggle with this. The instinct in early-stage business is to expand the offer, to say yes to every opportunity, to avoid the perceived risk of being too narrow. Athletes have been trained to do the opposite. Narrowness is not a liability in their world — it is the source of excellence.
The Discipline of Preparation and Presentation
Athletes understand that the visible performance is a fraction of the total work. For every hour on the field, there are dozens of hours of film study, practice, conditioning, and preparation. The performance looks effortless because the preparation was relentless.
This maps directly onto brand building. The brands that look effortless — the ones that seem to generate attention and credibility without apparent effort — are the ones where the preparation is invisible. The positioning is tight. The narrative is rehearsed. The visual identity is consistent. The founder knows exactly what they are going to say before they walk into any room.
When I worked with Terrell Fletcher on his brand narrative, one of the things that struck me was how quickly he understood the concept of a signature story. Athletes tell their story constantly — to media, to fans, to sponsors, to teammates. They know which version of their story lands in which context. They know how to compress a complex journey into a single sentence when they need to, and how to expand it into a full narrative when the moment calls for it.
Most founders have never rehearsed their story. They tell it differently every time, emphasizing different things depending on who they're talking to, never quite landing on the version that is both true and compelling. The result is a brand that feels inconsistent even when the underlying work is excellent.
The Willingness to Invest in Optics
One of the most practical things I did for Seyi Ajirotutu was connect him with a phenomenal branding photographer. The resulting images — including a class held on the rooftop helipad of one of the tallest buildings in San Diego, overlooking the city skyline — became the visual foundation of the Body Fly brand.
Athletes understand optics in a way that many founders resist. They know that how something looks affects how it is perceived, and that perception is a real business asset. They have been photographed, filmed, and analyzed their entire careers. They are comfortable investing in the visual dimension of their brand because they have seen, firsthand, how much it matters.
Many founders treat photography, design, and visual identity as expenses to minimize. Athletes treat them as investments in credibility. The difference in outcome is visible.
The Identity Transition Is the Hard Part
Where athletes often struggle in the transition to entrepreneurship is not in the brand-building mechanics — it is in the identity shift. For most of their lives, their identity has been defined by their sport. The number on their jersey. The team they played for. The position they held.
When that chapter ends, the question of who they are without the sport is genuinely difficult. The brand work is not just marketing — it is identity architecture. It requires the founder to answer, clearly and publicly, who they are now and what they stand for in this new context.
This is where a brand narrative becomes essential. Not as a marketing document, but as a personal clarity tool. The process of articulating a brand narrative forces the founder to make choices about identity — to decide what carries forward from the previous chapter and what gets left behind.
Terrell Fletcher's brand narrative is built around the through-line of his entire life: the discipline of preparation, the leadership of service, and the belief that every person has a category they were built to lead. The NFL chapter is part of that story, but it is not the whole story. The narrative holds the full arc — and it gives him a foundation to stand on in every new context he enters.
What Founders Can Take From This
You do not need to have played professional sports to develop these instincts. But you do need to be deliberate about the things that athletes develop through years of structured training.
Know your position. Be specific about what you do, who you do it for, and what makes you the right person for that work. Narrowness is not a risk — it is a prerequisite for being remembered.
Prepare your story. Know the one-sentence version, the two-minute version, and the full narrative. Practice them until they feel natural. The founders who seem effortlessly compelling are the ones who have done the preparation work.
Invest in optics. Photography, design, and visual identity are not vanity expenses. They are the first impression you make on everyone who encounters your brand before they meet you. Invest accordingly.
Do the identity work. If you are in a transition — from corporate to founder, from one industry to another, from operator to advisor — the brand work starts with the identity work. Get clear on who you are in this new chapter before you try to communicate it to anyone else.
Source: https://strategysolved.com/insights/what-athletes-get-right-about-brand-building