You’re Losing Clients Without a Clear Brand Personality: Here’s How to Fix It with Alethea Tyler

Colie: Hi, I am joined by Alethea today and we are gonna be talking about brand personality. I know I normally give you like a nice intro and I’m like, this is how we met and all these things. No, we’re just gonna get right into it today because I feel like brand personality is something that a lot of people ignore when they are figuring out their marketing, their messaging, all that good jazz or.

What I see so often is, okay, Colie, but you have such a big personality. And I’m like, yes. But even if you are not as loud mouthed and in someone’s face as me, you still have a brand personality. And so that is what we are gonna be talking about today. Hello. Aha. Welcome to the podcast.

Alethea: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Colie: So first of all, like tell me what you would tell someone about how you work with people and what it is that you do. Gimme the short version. Um, ’cause we’re gonna get into a lot of it in the episode, but like, I feel like that’s a good starting spot because I don’t feel like people are really gonna know what we mean when we talk about brand personality.

Alethea: Yeah. Well it’s funny ’cause the term is something I’ve played around with a lot myself as a messaging person of like brand personality, brand personality strategist, brand strategist. So I typically tell people that I am a brand strategist and a website copywriter, and. I help you figure out what your brand personality is and then how to actually infuse that into your messaging.

Predominantly website copy. So. That’s my very short elevator pitch, but as copy was spice, I like to add the element of infusing personality, which has come obviously brand personality. It’s it’s personality, but it all started with website copy and that’s where copy was spice comes from is this idea of infusing that element of spice of something different, that what makes someone flavorful, what makes a business interesting.

My journey led me to brand personality as that spice, but we’ll, we’ll stop there.

Colie: Yeah. I mean, I feel like when we first get started, we are all a little hesitant to really infuse our own personality into our brand because we’re not quite sure where we want our brand to go yet. I, I just, I will admit up front, I was not that person. I have just always shown up as authentically as I possibly can.

I constantly make jokes that I make my clients. Get on video calls with me because I am a loud black woman and I need them to know that when they hired me to come into their house and take photographs, a loud black woman was going to show up. Now I cuss a lot. I don’t cuss in front of the children ’cause that would just be fucking rude.

But I need them to know, like I need to make sure. That I am somebody that you would wanna have a drink with, because the kind of photography that I was doing was very intimate. I mean, I’m coming into your house, I’m coming into your space, and I’m spending three hours with your family. So once I get there, like if you try to kick me out, it’s gonna be real fucking awkward, right?

Like that’s not a thing. So I have always felt like I should put personality first because what I did was so personal, but what I have seen in other people. As photographers or even other like service providers, is that they don’t want to offend people. They don’t want to really let themselves overshadow the business, or maybe they just, maybe they’re just shy, but the more authentic you are in showing your personality and developing that brand personality, I really think that that becomes what you get known for and why people hire you.

Alethea: Yes. Well, okay. You’ve said a million things I wanna respond to already. So I wanna start with the idea that doing things differently is fucking scary and. It is the way to do it because. Everyone sounds the same, and it’s very rare that actually you have people that are exactly the same personality.

Like you might all be saying the same stuff online, but then you get to know those people and they have a totally funny way of saying y’all or you guys, or na. What the fuck, or WTF, like you get all of these rich little details in person that often don’t come across in marketing. And for service providers specifically, we have such connection based businesses that if that personality is not coming across, you aren’t able to connect with it and it will offend people like Copy with Spice is not for everybody and I.

Specifically went that direction. ’cause I wanted to work with people who wanted to lean into being weird and fun and themselves because you don’t have to be weird. If it’s not authentic, then that’s gonna be weird. Like that’s a bad weird, we’re talking about like you are weird and you want that to come across.

That is my specialty, is helping that come across. So, you know, I think letting your personality shine is something that we all say. It’s something very cliche to say, but it’s like, it really is true that it, it helps you stand out and it will turn people off. But that actually is the beauty of it, is that it helps you find the people that you are excited about working with, that are excited about working with you.

So, uh, love, love, love that of like letting your personality shine through. The other thing too, you said earlier is the idea of personality having to be loud and crazy. And I think you and I are two examples of like, we’re out there. We’re not afraid to cuss, we’re not afraid. I mean, I did a post about like a vibrator and like, come copy.

You know, I’m like, this is not for everyone. And I was nervous to post it. Like, but you know, that’s me and that’s the type of brands that I wanna work with, so that’s okay. But I also think that personality is much more nuanced. And when I say nuanced, I mean that it doesn’t have to be loud and crazy.

Every single person in this world has a personality, like you don’t have to. It’s there, you know? So it may not be loud and crazy. You might not be the F-bomb dropper. Who’s the life of the party? You might be the. You know, dry, quiet nerd. That’s a personality. You might be the like one who’s always supporting and hyping up your friends.

That’s a personality. There’s so many personalities and that also that. That idea of it like, well, okay, pause there because I wanna transition into something of like the idea of brand personality also being separate from personal personality because. For me, you know, I like Copy with Spice is a crazy out there brand and she’s always funny and ridiculous.

But like as a Lithia, a person who has like sad days where I just wanna like wear sweats and eat ice cream, like that’s me too. And I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have our brands represent the full spectrum of our humanity, where I don’t actually think that that’s their job. I think.

When we build a really strong brand personality, we lean into a side of ourselves that we’re excited to share, that’s going to connect with our audience, and that gives us a little bit more of a box, quote unquote, because it gives us a little structure as to what to lean into creatively. So we’re not feeling the burden of having to show every single aspect of ourselves.

So that was a lot.

Colie: It was a lot, but also it, it brings me back around to one of the things that I have consistently heard from my audience. Not just people who have paid me, but people that follow me, interact with me, all these things. They’re like, Colie, you make. Systems seem like so much fun, and so I just know that there’s got to be a way to make systems work for me, and I’m like. And I’m like, I’m not really a fun person all the time. I mean, I play a fun person on the internet, just like Alithea said. I mean, sometimes we really are like putting on a cape or a costume and we’re walking around as our brand. Whereas, you know, I might be having a day where all I wanna do is sit in bed and watch Netflix.

I have had way more days than that, that I care to admit in the last two years. And that’s okay. ’cause I now talk about it. I tell people, I’m like, you know, my clients. I love them because when I tell them, listen, I’m having a day, today is just not the day. We’re gonna pick this back up again tomorrow. They are all fine with it because I am upfront about it and all of the things, but.

I do think that there is some part of your personality that authentically comes across in your brand, and I think that people struggle when they are trying to build a brand personality that has absolutely nothing to do with them as a human. I do think that that’s where the disconnect comes from. Again, if we’re thinking of Venn diagrams, I’m sorry guys, math professor.

I do think that. Everybody’s Venn diagrams between personality and brand. Personality should overlap, but the amount of overlap is going to differ from business person, you know, to business person. And sometimes I even think that the overlap. Is a lot at certain seasons of your business. And then maybe it’s a little bit less, like, let’s say those of us that become mothers, like maybe when you had a personal brand before you had children, there was like a really big overlap.

And now that you’ve had children, you know, you are kind of separating them more a little bit because you do, you do wanna be separate from your brand and so, yeah.

Alethea: Yeah, no, I, I love that point and it’s absolutely essential to make because I think your brand personality takes on all kinds of different roles. You may have a team as well, you might be a product based business, and a brand personality for a product based business that’s not founder facing is gonna be.

Way. We are gonna have a lot more creative liberty there versus a brand like you and I have where we are, the face people are going to be interacting directly with us. Therefore, there needs to be like consistency between how I show up on a call and how my brand is showing up. Otherwise, I’m making people distrust me all over the place and I think.

That’s like what I would say is absolutely step one to brand personality is like, why did you start this business? Why do you care about it? How do you wanna come across? What is your deep, deep, why? Because that, as you know, a strategist helps me figure out. Okay, this is where we wanna start in an anchored way, because your brand personally has to be true to you.

Like you are the one who’s going to be doing the business. So if it doesn’t feel comfortable to you, if it feels inauthentic, A, that energy is gonna come across, and B, it’s gonna be super uncomfortable for you to do anything. So completely agree.

Colie: And can I just jump in there because you’ve said something that I try to mention on every single podcast episode that I can. First, I want you guys to hear what she said about being a strategist. It’s our job to pick the part that is useful for you. Like as a system strategist, you don’t need to come to me with all the answers.

I will be asking you the questions that I need to ask in order to get the responses that I need to design and implement systems that work for you. It doesn’t matter what kind of brand personality you have, what kind of business you have, whether or not you are neurodivergent, you have a D, h, D, all of these things.

I take that into account, but you don’t bring that with me. So the same thing I’m assuming goes for you, Athia. You’re not telling them, bring your brand personality to me. That is what we figure out in a professional capacity when you work with me.

Alethea: Yeah. Well, and I love that. I, I wanna add to that point, because I think that’s something that’s really cool about expertise, and that’s the idea of like, okay, if you’re at a, at a beginner level, like you might actually expect somebody to be bringing you all of the answers because you’re more of a doer.

Rather than when you get to the level of like, no, no, no, I, I’ve got this. I know how to help you here. Bring me the word vomit. Bring me the ramble, bring me the random notes you wrote in your notes app at 3:00 AM about something you thought would be exciting in your brand. Like, I want all of that. And I, I like to joke that I’m a professional like dot connector because that’s really what I’m doing is like I’m looking at all of the pieces of things.

From my experience in marketing, in copywriting, in business and all of that, and in you, because I become like, I always joke

Colie: expert in us. Yeah.

Alethea: exactly, and I’m like, I’m going to stalk you online. Like I’m gonna look at everything ever that I can, because I wanna be able to see the patterns of what’s important to you, the way that you approach things, what stands out about you to other people.

So yeah, love.

Colie: So you mentioned that. There was a first step to doing, brand personality, but like, if we had to chunk it down into like, let’s say three steps or three things that you cover, or it doesn’t even have to be three girl, I’m just picking a number. Um, what would you say step or pillar one was, and then what’s the next one?

I.

Alethea: Yeah. So step one is always gonna be like the why. Why did you start this business? Why do you care about it? And I. Think it’s really important to ask yourself why until you really hit like a wall. If you’re doing this for yourself, as as an expert, I would help clients go through that. I don’t make them do that exercise themselves typically, unless they feel very unclear about what it is that they’re doing.

But asking yourself like, why of all the things in the world that you could be doing, you get up every day, even when it’s hard and you stay committed to this. Why is this important to you? Why does this light you on fire? Like. Usually it comes back to death or childhood trauma

Colie: Oh my gosh.

Alethea: Because your why is damn deep.

Like it’s like, oh, I didn’t feel seen in my childhood and now I wanna make other people feel seen, like, or, oh, I never got to like express myself, whatever it is. You know? It typically comes back to like, oh, life is gonna be over and then I won’t have done this thing that really matters to me are like, well, this is how my parents fucked me up, you know? So that’s where I like to start. And then you go into ideal audience because that is by far the second most important piece. You are first, then your audience is really important. Who are we talking to? What are they up to? What do they care about? What are they noticing about brands? How, how do they purchase?

Are they. You know, looking for a solution, or do they have no idea that they even have a problem? Because we can’t figure anything else out until we know who it is you actually want to attract. So getting really clear on that, then I go into, uh, diff like brand competitors and differentiators because we have this beautiful piece of knowing you, knowing your audience.

But now how do we. Find our specific unique slice in the industry that’s gonna be different than everything else because you might have a similar why to another photographer. For example, you might be in the exact same niche and have the exact same ideal clients in to some way. Like, let’s say you wanna do colorful wedding photography.

You know there’s, there are many of those photographers out there. But then it’s like, okay, well how are you different from these competitors? Maybe you’re super pg and Lovejoy and want to talk about Disney. You know, like maybe you’re, you know Exactly. You are not pg, but you def

Colie: Yeah, but I definitely love my Disney. You know, I do. Which is really funny though, because that is something that I connect with my ideal clients like, and I’m not even talking about photography. Yesterday I was on a sales call for a system strategy for someone to join my systems and session program, and at the very end, she starts asking me about Disney because I said, no, like everyone needs to be onboarded by October 22nd.

Because on December 22nd, I am waving goodbye to all of you and I’m not carrying anything into 2026. And she goes, oh, it’s ’cause you have to go to Disney. I said, no, actually, but that’s a really good idea. Maybe I should plan a trip for the last week of December. But like, and then we just went back and forth and I told her that I was going on a cruise.

And I mean, it gave us a whole point of connection. Now, do all of my clients love Disney? Absolutely not. I guarantee you that any of my clients that are thinking of taking their children to Disney, whether they want to or not, I am their first call

Alethea: Right.

Colie: Colie, we’re going to Disney

Alethea: Right. Well, and sometimes it’s like, I love to ask clients what, what they have in common with their favorite people that they’ve worked with, but also sometimes, even if it’s not something you have in common with everybody, it’s something that someone can pin you to in the sense of like, oh, when I think of her, I think of X, Y, Z.

And what we’re really trying to do is like have people recognize us by giving them consistent things to recognize, like one of the things. I’m known for is like my closeup selfies on my stories.

Colie: Okay.

Alethea: random. A random thing I did. ’cause I don’t love taking pictures of myself. So I was like, as close as I can get to the camera to make it funny, this’ll work for me.

And now it’s like something that people recognize as my a copy with Spice Selfies. I’m like, okay. You know, I don’t know if they have, we have that in common, but it’s something to recognize about it. So. Yeah. And, and also that’s where the like. Texture to the brand comes in is figuring out what’s different about you compared to other people in your industry. And that doesn’t mean you’re better or worse. Competitors are just, they’re just knowledge as to peers in your space. But for you, for example, you’re, you’ve got the Disney vibe. But you’ve also got the, I’m gonna say the F word, you know, like, I’m gonna say fuck.

So that’s, that’s texture to the brand. That adds a little bit of nuance and complication to it. So once you’ve figured out who you are, who you’re going for, how you wanna be different from your competitors. Or what you love about your competitors as well, how you wanna be similar, how you wanna be different.

That’s that is when you can actually land on a brand personality because you have those three pieces to bring the picture together of like, oh, okay, this is where I need to lean in ’cause this makes sense in all those ways.

Colie: And it’s really interesting ’cause at least. As a, as a photographer, I don’t think I, I don’t think I thought very much about competitors because what I did was very different than anybody here, really anybody across the United States. And so, you know, if you were looking for this one thing, I was probably, I was one of two people that you were gonna hire because it was very rare.

But for my systems, I feel like I have a lot of competitors. And so the question is how am I different? And. I don’t generally bring my competitors onto my podcast. I just, I don’t think that makes sense. If someone is offering like virtually the same, the same service. To virtually the same audience. Even if we have differentiators, like that’s like feeding my audience the competitors and being like, well, here you go.

You can hire me or them. But the competitors that I’ve had on this podcast, it’s been very interesting because I have thought of ways to be like, yes, we do the same thing, but here’s how we’re different. And hey, all of you that are wedding photographers or that need, you know, Dubsado or HoneyBook integrated with like these other systems like Clickup and like I don’t do any of those things.

And so, you know, even though we’re all system strategists, like we all come with a different flavor. And if I’m not for you, maybe one of my friends are. So I do think that we tend to look at competitors in a negative way when that’s really not how we should be thinking about it. There are enough clients for all of us.

It is only when I have people who come into my world and they are like, I guess, trying to learn from me, and they have the exact same audience that I’m like, no, like I don’t want you to take my process. Even though my, our brand personality is different, like you need to come up with your own process, like, don’t steal mine and then give it to the same audience.

Like that is stepping over the line. But otherwise, it’s good to have a little healthy dose of who your competitors are so that you know when you are better qualified to help a particular lead. And if you’re not the best person and it’s not something that you want to do or be known for, by all means send them to someone who is better

Alethea: Right, right. Well, it’s like we all have the right, we have the perfect people for us. Like there are a lot of people out, there are a lot of copywriters out there, and a lot of clients that are perfect fit. For those copywriters, that would not be a perfect fit for me. And that comes down to a personality thing for me.

Like, I like to write more fun, more wild, more out there copy or, or really help brands develop a, like I have, I do some serious copywriting for some serious brands, but it’s, that’s not the majority. It has to be a very specific project. Whereas there are copywriters out there that love to write for, you know, luxury eco brands and it is a much more tame brand personality, and that’s okay.

Like that’s not my niche, you know? So yeah, I agree. There’s enough for everybody. Absolutely.

Colie: So once you’ve got these three pieces in place. What comes next? And you specialize in website copy, but then should we be sending or taking the same ideas and kind of sprinkling them throughout all of our messaging, whether it’s, you know, website copy, sales copy, email copy. Are there any differences like in how you should apply this or does it really get applied to like all messaging in your business the same way?

Alethea: That is a great question and it’s actually even bigger than just messaging, like brand personality. And often why I call it brand strategy is because you’re going into so much more. You have all those fundamental pieces that lead to brand personality, which is the most fun part in my opinion. But brand personality inform.

Freaking everything, like it’s gonna inform brand photography, it’s gonna inform design, it’s gonna inform maybe internal structure of your business as well, like brands for example. Pixar is, you know, a very creative brand and that actually goes all the way into the internal structure of their business.

The way that they set up their meetings is so that everybody gets a seat at the table and can be heard. In the same way, rather than having the most important people be the ones to speak. So that like idea of creativity and freedom of thoughts is literally baked into like the DNA of how they run their company.

So it’s actually so much bigger than just messaging. But for example, you know, as a funny, like funky brand. I have crazy wild colors. It wouldn’t make sense for me to have a super black and white website because my brand

Colie: That would be very

Alethea: is not that exactly. So like it informs design, it informs my brand photos that are weird and like me eating peppers and doing weird things, you know, it wouldn’t make sense for me to have like a girl boss suit on and just be like really serious typing at my computer ’cause that’s not the vibe.

But then of course it also informs my messaging and it informs my marketing too, of how I go about things. Like what, what type of, do you hop on trends? Is that actually aligned? If you’re gonna be like a. A rebel brand. You’re not hopping on trends unless you’re doing something disruptive to that trend.

You’re also not gonna say things that are traditional. If you’re a rebel brand, like that wouldn’t make sense for your brand personality. So you might cuss, you might, you know, push against the patriarchy. You might, whatever rebellious looks like for you and your industry, that’s gonna apply to the trends that you hop on or off that’s gonna apply to the content you post your design, your, the words that you use.

It applies to absolutely everything. As to your question about the differences between messaging for different, you know, sales copy, website copy, email copy, um, there are slight differences. And I would say that it’s like you have to think always about the person on the other, on the other end. And it’s almost like a date.

You know, like when you’re on a first date, you’re gonna be a little bit more. Reserved in the sense of like, you’re probably not gonna go for 10 outta 10 crazy right off the bat. You know? I would say, I would say that’s like your website copy versus Instagram captions. It’s way looser, way more casual, so you could go a little bit more casual there.

Sales copy’s gonna very much depend on your brand personality. A sales page is gonna be more. Professional typically because you typically have a lot of information to communicate and you’re tapping into more marketing strategy, you know, to actually sell something. But like emails can be like mid-tier, I would say.

You know, between website copy is the most formal. Mine is not formal at all, but it’s still the most, it’s the most polished of my messaging. My emails can be absolutely unhinged, but my social media is probably the most unhinged.

Colie: Well, so the, okay, so listening to you say that, I’m wondering if it’s about longevity because one thing that I will say when I talk to people who are like social media strategists, they’re like, okay, no. People put more thought. Into what they’re posting on their feed, because unless you archive it, it lives forever versus what you put in your stories.

When you know that that shit is going away in 24 hours, you can be completely unhinged because number one, not everybody’s gonna see it. And number two, it is gone. Like. 24 hours later never to be seen from again, unless you put it in a highlight. And I kind of think of, and, and you know, upfront, I’m not a website copier, uh, copywriter.

I am not a copywriter in general, but as someone who’s constantly helping people. With their copy inside of their CRMI am constantly going back to but what’s on your website? Because if you hired a copywriter and you made that type of investment for your website, you should be reusing all of it. Like I have so many episodes on recycling your website copy.

Listen, if your copywriter wrote it for your homepage. It is good enough to be anywhere inside your CRM, your emails, your proposal, your questionnaires like, so I always feel like website copy is foundational and what you get there, I mean, ’cause that’s one of the first things that they say about writing emails for a launch, right?

They’re like, okay, but what’s on your sales page? 70% of what you have on your sales page can be recycled for your launch emails. And I just feel like website copy in general is the starting point for all of this.

Alethea: Yes, absolutely. And I think what you said too about website copy being foundational is the reason that it tends to be like the most. It’s not, it’s the most comprehensive. Whereas on Instagram, you’re typically breaking something down into a smaller idea, so you wouldn’t use literally as much language as you do in your website copy.

But yeah, absolutely. Like website copy is so foundational and yeah, I, I think website copy is like the most fun thing in the world because it’s

Colie: I mean, you write it, but also maybe that’s why you write it because you’re, you know, you love it. So I wanna ask you an off the cuff question, because I’ve never actually thought about it in this way, but now I’m curious, like, I think that we all understand how brand personality comes across in messaging.

Like in our visuals, like all of those kinds of things. But where is something that brand personality shows up that no one would really consider that that’s where brand personality should be? Like, do you know what I’m saying? Like, where is that one part where brand personality really influences it and we would just never consider that.

Alethea: Yeah. Well, I have an example. You can tell me if you think that this is surprising. I think it’s surprising, but I have a brand that I’m working with right now who they’re launching this awesome platform and shout out Holly, she’s the coolest. We love her. She came up with this really cool idea for a platform for hairstylist, and we did, we started with brand strategy.

This project has been a project I’ve been working on for the past year, so it’s been a massive, massive build. We actually got to build the inside of the platform. Her brand personality was like every man down to earth. We’re, we’re fun, but we’re also super casual. We’re not high tech vibes. We’re not Apple Creative.

We’re, we’re Target, we’re Levi’s. We’re Budweiser like we are for the people vibes. And so when we were building out the actual platform, I got to write internal copy for it. But one of the things was that there were some things that got. Built by the developer that I was like, this actually doesn’t make sense for the brand personality, because if it’s gonna be simple and straightforward when people are filling out a profile, then we need to make it simple and straightforward to literally use.

So we included prompts and we made like everything kind of a step by step, ridiculously easy process because their brand personality was all about being for the people and simple and digestible vibes. So. I thought that was like, Ooh, this is a fun application of brand personality.

Colie: You know, I’ve never really thought about that in terms of the software that we use, but absolutely. If your brand personality is not high tech. Like really, like really all these bells and whistles, if you will. You probably don’t want your technology to come across in that way. So, no, that’s a great example.

I mean, I’ve literally never thought about the fact that the tools that you’re, you know what, let me take that back. There is one example that I can think of. Squarespace. I feel like when photographers first got on Squarespace, it was really the website tool that lots of people, lots of photographers rather, wanted to use because it put the emphasis on the photos and not the words.

Because so many photographers are like, no, I just need a portfolio website. Right? And I’m like, no, but what is Google gonna look at if, if you don’t have words? Like, I don’t understand. But I do think that that’s a good example of something that someone used because they were literally trying to hide behind their photos.

Like they wanted the photos to be front and center and themselves, and maybe copy and things like that to be secondary. So that’s the only example that I can think of off the top of my head. That’s like tech related.

Alethea: Yeah. Well, and what you said too is, is why audience comes before brand personality, which comes before everything else. ’cause if you don’t know your audience. Then you might make some very different decisions. If you didn’t realize that it was photographers who wanna hide behind you know their photos.

Maybe you would go with, you would design a whole platform based on a personality that doesn’t make sense for that audience.

Colie: I mean, I feel like we’ve already given the audience so much to think about. Is there anything else that you think that we should know about brand personality as we are perhaps trying to explore our own and figure out what that means for ourselves and for our business?

Alethea: I think that there’s a misconception, I think, around brand personality that. There, it’s, it’s a limiting box and I think that actually what’s so wonderful about it is that it is a guided like structure in terms of how to. Show up. I think as business owners it’s incredibly, I mean, I’ll just fucking out myself.

Like I get overwhelmed with how much there is to do and show up and post and right and on and on and on, and having like knowing this is my sphere, this is how I get to come across, gives me so much help. When I’m doing anything of like even coming up with a post of like, well, is it fun? Because my personality is, my brand personality is fun.

So if it’s not fun, I’m not fucking doing it. Like I won’t take a sales strategy on that’s not gonna be able to be made fun ’cause it’s not aligned. But it gets to be this like beautiful filter that you run everything through. And I find that guidance to be like. Just so invaluable because of the fact that you have to make so many decisions all of the time, and it’s like gives you a lane to kind of stay in.

That’s your own beautiful lane that you’ve carved out to fit you. So that’s, I don’t know if that answers your

Colie: It does, and I

Alethea: share.

Colie: I love that you’re talking about it as a filter. Because for example, if you had this brilliant idea for an offer, which many of us do, Hey guys, I have ideas on the toilet in the shower while I’m driving, like all of the things, right? But I feel like. If we’re really like looking at our brand personality and what that means for the ideal audience that we’re trying to go at, no matter how good the offer is that you thought about, if it’s not aligned with your brand personality, if it’s not aligned with the audience and the clientele that you are actually seeking, I don’t care how fucking good it is, it’s probably not a good fit for your business and you either need to figure out.

The pivot that it takes to make it aligned with your brand personality or you’re not doing it like yes.

Alethea: Well also to jump off of that, the reason I used to not require brand personality or strategy first, and I would just jump straight into website copy. And for that exact reason I stopped doing that because you often end up in a place of like. I want it to sound fun or I wanna, you know, be crazy and out there, and then you get there and you’re like, wait, did this make sense?

Like, I don’t know if that’s the direction I should have gone. And there was no. Of course there was strategy behind the actual words going on to the website, but there wasn’t the bigger picture strategy of like, is this for me to do? Am I the person, the brand to do it this way? Why am I doing it this way?

And exactly to your point of like everything comes from that foundational place of. What am I what? What am I doing here? How am I going about it? It’s why I call my brand personality Guide the recipe book, because it’s the foundational ingredients of your business and gives you that thing to come back to of like, oh, that’s not aligned for me.

Because we got a lot of ideas, like you said, as entrepreneurs all the freaking time.

Colie: I mean, this brought up one final question, Elithia, and it’s, it’s actually, it’s kind of selfish because it’s what I tell my clients about systems, and I’m wondering how this fits in with brand personality. So for example. I think most of the things in our business are not set it and forget it, but lots of people hope.

It’s like you had a website designed. You’re like, oh, I have to pay this 10 K and then it’s gonna last me forever. No, it’s not. Your offers are gonna change. Your brand personality might change your systems. Like all of these things might change. And when I help people with their systems, I’m like, everybody should be looking at their systems at least every six months.

I would prefer quarterly. Like that’s my, that’s my sweet spot. You should be going through everything to make sure that it’s still aligned with your business. It still fits with your offers. There’s nothing that you can improve, but this is making me think about brand personality. And your brand personality should not be, you know, like a rollercoaster.

It should not be here one month and here the next month, but like realistically. When is it that we should be looking at our brand personality to make sure that like other things haven’t like seeped in that we’re unaware of? Like on average, how, how much should, like you, you called it the recipe book.

I’m gonna go with that Alithea. So if you have this like big messaging brand personality guide, how often should you be like really looking at it to be like, is this still aligned? Does this still fit me? Yeah.

Alethea: that’s a great question and unfortunately I don’t have like a time answer for you. I have an emotional

Colie: Okay, that’s even better.

Alethea: You know, they’re in, in my recipe book that I give my clients, they have a cheat sheet. So that’s something that’s referring back to their, you know, brand personality and main, their tagline and their main messages and their brand principles and all of that good stuff.

So that’s something that would be looked at on in like often if you’re going to accept a partnership or whatever, you might go and look at that. If you’re going to do a post you go, you’re going to look at that. So that’s something that like you would be looking at quite often, but when to know that it’s like off because I love what you said.

It’s so true. Things evolve. We change, we grow. We are in different seasons of things. And the beauty of brand personality and brand strategy is that it does help you have longevity rather than just. Today I’m gonna be fun and crazy. Oh, now I wanna rewrite my website copy. ’cause I wanna be serious. Like, that’s a much more of a rollercoaster experience, whereas when you’ve actually taken the time to think critically about it, it it’s much, much longer.

I would say that the, the symptoms of needing a refresh are when it starts to feel like. Uncomfortable. Like there are things that maybe you wanna talk about that you don’t feel like you have room to talk about. I had this happen for me recently of like. You know, I’ve been this fun, funky copywriter. I was like, but I also am doing a lot of deep thinking over here.

Like I read the 700 page brand personality books. Like I look at marketing in my free time. I’ve read countless marketing books, like I’m Nerd and I really care too about words and helping people understand the function of them in a really fun way. It’s like. I’m missing this huge part of me that wants to come out in my brand.

And so I went back to my brand personality and I updated it because it didn’t feel like there was room for me to be showing up in the way that I wanted to. So I would say those symptoms are like, you can’t talk about the things that you wanna talk about. You’re not attracting the people that you wanna be working with.

That’s a huge indicator that

Colie: Ding, ding.

Alethea: is like

Colie: If you’re not watching me on a video, I was pointing. Ding, ding, ding. Yes ma’am.

Alethea: Yeah. And you know, I think too, if you are, if you’ve started to change your offers quite drastically, it’s most likely going to be a rearranging of ideal audience. At the very least, your brand personality might stay the same, but your messaging is going to change.

Your positioning might change as well. So there would be pieces that would be updated. Yeah.

Colie: Aha. This conversation has been absolutely fascinating. And guys, I wanna tell you, her business name is copied with spice, so please don’t go looking for her name on the internet. It is gonna be linked in the show notes, but also like something that she has linked in her IG profile, and I’m sure it’s on her website too, is her personality quiz.

So I would encourage all of you guys to visit the show notes, click the link and go take the personality quiz.

Alethea: Yes. Yeah, that was a nerdy project for sure, but it’s got all kinds of results on there, like who you are, but also what that famous brand. Examples of that marketing examples, messaging examples. It’s loaded.

Colie: Uh, Athia, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. Like it has, it has been a real treat. I mean, I’m always obsessed with brand personality, but you’ve actually given me a lot of things to think about on this conversation. That doesn’t actually happen a lot. So, I mean, thank you for joining me.

Alethea: that. Thank you for having me.

Colie: yes. All right, everybody. So, you know, I always give you homework. I mean, the quiz is the first thing, but the second thing is if you have never really given thought to your brand personality and how it is overlapping with your human individual personality, I would really encourage you to think about these things.

And like Alithea said, I think one of the things that I’m gonna walk away with this conversation with the most is. I think when some of us go to make an offer or we go to do something on our website or we go to post something on Instagram or record a podcast episode, whatever it is, sometimes we’re like, should I be doing that?

Like I wanna do it, but for some reason something’s like holding me back. I want you to consider whether or not your brand personality is that filter that you need to run it through, because what you may want to do as a person, as a human might not be the right choice. For posting it on something like your business or your website or whatever.

So maybe that’s just a new filter that all of us need to like really consider using as we are putting forth our business onto the internet and talking about our offers and creating content and all of the things that we are required to do in order to stay afloat. But But that’s it for this episode. See you next time,