Why is it that the answer is “just be yourself” whenever you ask a marketer how to make your content more engaging or how to attract more paying clients? As if it’s some sort of cure-all.

It sounds helpful. Until you sit down to write and realize nobody has explained what they meant. Because “be yourself” is easy advice to give when you’re not the one risking judgment, rejection, silence, or the vulnerability hangover that comes from posting something that comes from the heart.

So instead, you pull out the version of you that sounds responsible, professional, polished, and credible.

In other words, boring as shit. 

Here’s what happens when you sand off all the corners and sharp edges of your personality in favor of the palatable version. You speak to everyone and no one at the same time.

You start to write. Then you read it back and think maybe this opinion is a little too strong. Your second-guessing causes you to clean it up and make it sound more strategic. You soften that sentence that felt a little too direct. Then add a qualifier so no one misunderstands you. 

And the whole time, there’s this low-grade frustration because the content is technically fine. Nobody would look at it and say, “That’s bad.” But you know it’s not right, and you can’t figure out what to do about it. 

That’s what makes content feel so hard. You’re writing and managing yourself at the same time.

You’ve been pre-editing your voice for so long that the filtered version has started to feel like the right decision.

You’re trying to sound clear without sounding too blunt. Meanwhile, you’re hearing your mother’s voice saying, “No one likes a smartass.”  Maybe you’re trying to find the line between being professional enough and avoiding sounding like a corporate brochure. 

And by the end of it, you just want to pull your hair out. Because marketing shouldn’t be this hard. 

The goal is marketing that sounds like something that would actually come out of your mouth. That doesn’t make you cringe when you send someone to your website, and makes someone think oh—she gets it when they read your words. 

In this post, I’m going to give you three strategies for creating “just be yourself” content that doesn’t feel like a hostage negotiation.

Ok, I’m going to say something out loud that you’ve only ever said inside your head: The thing you want more than anything—more than better content, more than a marketing strategy, more than a bigger social media following—is more money. But you avoid saying it so explicitly because it sounds greedy to your audience. So you dress it up in statements about legacy and impact. And here’s what I don’t think you realize. What you’re really after is what the money can do for you. Lack of money is holding your business back. It’s stressing you out and spiking your cortisol levels, wondering how you’re gonna pay your bills. And it’s making you feel guilty for getting takeout coffee instead of brewing it at home. Here’s how you get there.

Strategy 1: Figure Out What You’ve Been Editing Out

Humans are the most opinionated creatures on the planet. Just ask any social media comment section. But for some reason, we edit out our POV for fear of rocking the boat. 

I say, Rock baby, rock.

That doesn’t mean you go in guns blazing with completely unhinged statements, but having a strong POV will be the throughline of your entire marketing strategy. 

Instead of leaning into our POV, we listen to our brains that, despite billions of years of evolution, still try to protect us like we’re gonna get eaten by a wild animal. We start running a fast calculation in our heads before anything goes public. Is this too direct? Will someone leave a nasty comment? Does this sound professional enough? Should I tone it down?

You might not even be aware you’re doing it. 

You think you’re being thoughtful or considerate of other people’s feelings and experiences, but what’s actually happening is that the most interesting, sharp. true, and authentic parts of your thinking are getting cut before anyone ever sees them by running them through one or more of these four filters.

The corporate professional filter. If you came from a corporate background, this is probably your default setting. You’ve been speaking corporate for so long, you forgot you’re allowed to sound like yourself, and old habits die hard. This filter is where words like “synergistic,” “holistic approach,” and “scalable solutions” live. If the corporate professional filter doesn’t even sound good coming from a corporation, why would a small service-based brand use it? Because when you’re feeling unsure about what you’re putting out there, you cling to what you know.   

The both-sides hedge. This one personally drives me bananas. Because on top of not making up your mind about the thing you’re saying, you’re giving your audience whiplash. You write one clear opinion and immediately surround it with caveats. Which often sounds like: “This isn’t always true, of course.” “Everyone’s situation is different,”  “There are exceptions to every rule,” or  “I’m not saying this never works…” You do this when you’re trying not to alienate people. This filter comes from one of two places: a scarcity mindset or “be polite” has been drilled into you so deep it’s now part of your DNA.

The industry parrot. This is the one you’re probably most familiar with. It’s the one that followed you from student learning your craft into being a new professional surrounded by people who’ve been at it for years. You want to sound credible, so your content starts using the language everyone in your space uses. It sounds safe. And “safe” in marketing is a synonym for forgettable. It’s how you end up with messaging that says something like, “Get peace of mind,” “Integrated approach to massage,” “Let’s find the home of your dreams.” And while they sound fine to you, your ideal customer is reading this and asking themselves where they’ve heard that before. You’ve heard it in webinars and courses and competitor posts enough times that it sounds like what a “real business owner” would say, so you repeat it. The whole time thinking, “It works for them, why not me?” But what you don’t take into account is their particular set of circumstances. It might work for them because the word-of-mouth referrals they spent years and years building are so solid that their message almost becomes irrelevant. You’re comparing someone else’s tenth floor to your second. 

The AI “write me, but better” filter. This is not me about to criticize you for using AI. I use it all the time, and I’ve written some copy with AI early on that is pretty embarrassing. I don’t have a problem with using AI as a writing tool. But I have seen far too many posts that sound like a robot pretending to be you. I don’t even blame you for turning to AI. You’re busy running your business, you don’t have an hour to spend writing out this week’s social posts, but you’re not ready to outsource just yet. Aside from the classic AI tells, the way I can usually tell if something has been written by AI is that it feels like it’s talking at me instead of to me. You may be using words that sound like you’re talking to a person, but there’s a tone shift that’s harder to detect when you’re trying to evaluate your own work.  

Here’s why these filters are so problematic: none of them gives your audience content to challenge their thinking. And that’s what is missing in most business content. We’ve been conditioned to just accept things without questioning them. But questioning is what separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. There’s also nothing for anyone to connect with. They might nod along or write “You’re so right.” in the comments, but there’s no substance to hold on to. 

Here’s a quick way to run a filter check: pull up five posts at random. Ask yourself what point you were trying to make. Would I defend in a debate? A real POV sounds like this: Here’s what I think about this topic, and I don’t care if you disagree. I will die on this hill.

So now, instead of your content sounding like this: “I know some might find this controversial, but sustainable fashion still isn’t accessible to most people.” It sounds like this: “Sustainable fashion is still a luxury. And the industry knows it.” There’s no apology necessary. No qualifiers doing the heavy lifting. Just here’s what I think. Take it or leave it. Either is fine with me. 

So now that you know what you need to do, the question becomes, can you actually do this on your own?

Probably not, and here’s why: you can’t dig the hole and stand in it at the same time. You’re too close. All you see are the walls around you. That’s exactly why the Discovery phase of the DIBS Method exists.

My job in Discovery is to first figure out where to dig, then hand you a shovel, and if you think you want to quit, I’m the one who tells you to keep going. We’re not done yet. But with love.

I’m not here to teach you how to write differently, but to excavate your real opinions and the things you say while ranting to your bestie about how you can’t believe people fall for this crap.

Strategy 2: Stop Trying to Sound Like a Brand. Sound Like a Person.

At some point, someone told you that you needed a “brand voice.” And then you thought to yourself, “Ok, great.”

Wait. How do I build one?

So you searched Google, Pinterest, or Instagram for #brandvoice and got more advice than you could sift through. Mostly repeating the same things over and over about what a brand voice is, best practice tips on how to find it that give you just enough to sound useful, and nothing about what to do with it afterwards.

Most brand voice exercises ask you to choose adjectives.

Are you bold or warm? Playful or polished? Approachable or authoritative? “Energetic or grounded”?

Which sounds useful until you realize most of those words could describe half the brands on the internet. “Warm, witty, and empowering” is a tone, not a voice.

Tone can’t tell you where the voice comes from, how it was shaped, what it refuses to say, what it believes, what it notices before anyone else does, or what it sounds like when you stop trying to make it acceptable.

So you assemble something that sounds pretty good with no way to tell if it’s really your voice or a composite made up of the story you’ve been telling yourself the whole time.

That’s how you end up with a voice that feels almost right.

It sounds competent. Maybe even sound like a version of you. But when you sit down to write, you feel like you have to climb into it first or ask, “Would my brand say this?” as if your brand is a person standing over your shoulder with a clipboard.

That’s the tell.

If you have to keep performing the voice to use it, it’s probably not your voice. It’s a costume you’ve gotten good at wearing.

A worksheet can’t tell you whether it will resonate with your audience.

And asking your loved ones for feedback is almost as useless. When you ask them to tell you if “I help moms reconnect with their bodies after childbirth” sounds good, they’ll either tell you yes, because they don’t know what they should be listening for since they’re not your audience, or they’ll tell you what you want to hear because they love you and don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Maybe both.

And “does this sound good?” is the wrong question anyway.

Plenty of messaging sounds good and does absolutely nothing. It sounds clean. It sounds professional. It sounds like something that could live on a website without embarrassing you. But sounding good is not the job.

The job is recognition.

The right person should read it and feel a little exposed. Not in a manipulative way. In the “how did she know that?” way. In the “that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to explain” way.

That doesn’t happen because you chose the right three voice adjectives. It happens because your message was built from something more specific than what you want people to think about you.

A brand voice tries to manage perception.

A human voice reveals perspective.

That’s the difference.

A brand voice asks, “How do I want to come across?”

A human voice asks, “What do I actually think? What do I notice that other people miss? What am I willing to say plainly because dancing around it isn’t helping anyone?”

When you sound like a person, your content stops reading like a positioning statement and starts sounding like the person behind the business. A person with taste. Discernment. Pet peeves and a way of explaining things that can only come from lived experience.

Building marketing on top of a brand voice that you’re only somewhat sure sounds like you only keeps your business stuck in neutral. No one’s booking a call. 

By the time Identity is complete, you have a brand message that makes you smile because you know it’s true, and it’s yours. You understand it from the inside out.

Then we try it on for size. Make sure there’s no awkward bunching in odd places.

If your words only work on paper, and you can’t say them without cringing, apologizing, or immediately trying to soften them, we keep going.

I’m not gonna let you walk out the door with your tag sticking out the back of your shirt.

Strategy 3: Treat Every Self-Edit Like a Data Point

The advice to “show up as your authentic self” is usually where things start to go off the rails.

Authenticity sounds great in theory. But it requires a certain level of vulnerability.

In practice, it can feel like ripping the front door off your house and then wondering there’s a draft.

This is where people either overcorrect and start oversharing or retreat into the safe, polished version of their content. 

You don’t need to rip the mask off all at once, but you do need to notice when you put it on.

Every time you catch yourself softening a sentence, deleting an opinion, adding a qualifier, changing a phrase into something more “professional,” or rewriting a post because the first version felt a little too much, don’t immediately try to fix it.

Write down why you did it. Sit with the discomfort of why you felt the need to take a step back. Use it as an opportunity to keep the proverbial training wheels on while getting comfortable with vulnerability without exposing yourself to anyone other than yourself.

That’s how you turn data into noticing patterns: noticing where you self-edit the most. 

Is it when you’re disagreeing with the industry standard? Maybe you’re afraid someone will question your credibility. That they’ll think, “Who does she think she is”? 

Maybe you only do it when you’re talking about your pricing? Deeply held beliefs around money often make talking about being worthy of receiving what we’re worth challenging. 

Does it happen when you use a specific platform? For me, that’s LinkedIn. Maybe your Instagram sounds like you, but your LinkedIn sounds like you in a pant suit. 

Those patterns matter.

They tell you where the real voice is hiding.

The goal here isn’t to chastise yourself when you notice you’re performing. Performing is a form of self-protection. And usually has a reason, even if that reason is outdated, inherited, or built on some old experience where being fully yourself didn’t feel safe.

So instead of asking “Why am I still doing this?”

The better question is, “What am I afraid will happen if I stop?”

Once you know what you’re protecting, you can decide how and when to let go.

Not every thought belongs on the internet. Not every opinion needs to become content. Not every vulnerable detail needs to be packaged into a lesson so strangers can clap for your emotional availability.

But sometimes you’ll realize you’re pre-empting judgment that may never come. 

And that’s where DIBS takes the work from journal exercise to usable messaging.

We don’t just notice that you’re self-editing and call it a breakthrough. We follow the pattern all the way down. Then we ask how do you turn your true voice into language you can use without feeling like you’re standing naked in traffic?

The journal exercise is great for helping you see the patterns, but you still need to know what to do with that information. That’s where DIBS comes in. We take what you’ve uncovered and pressure-test your thinking. Is this something you still believe that no longer serves you, or is this something you believe, but haven’t felt confident enough to say out loud?

The difference between those two questions is the answer to whether we’ve hit paydirt or need to keep digging.

What If I Don’t Have Anything Interesting To Say?

I think you’re confusing interesting with original. Nothing is truly original anymore. Every thought, opinion, or idea has already been held by someone (or, more likely, several someones) somewhere.

The way you should be thinking about it is, what do I have to say that is honest and could only come from my individual set of circumstances, values, and lived experience?

I would also argue that being unoriginal is a good thing. If people care whether your idea sounds like something they’ve heard before, if they’re someone else in your industry or someone outside your ideal audience, who cares what they think? You’re not talking to them.

If your ICP hears your take and agrees, it means you’re reaffirming what she already knows or suspects, and that builds common ground. It makes her want to know more about you and helps build trust, and invites her deeper into your world. Until they become a paying client.

Your Marketing Gets Easier When You Stop Fighting Yourself

When people hear “your brand needs to sound like you,” what they actually hear is, 

“Great, so I have to be the brand forever.”

And as a solo business owner, that fear makes sense.

Because right now, you probably are the brand in a very literal way. You’re the one writing the posts, answering DMs, on every discovery call, managing the inbox, creating offers, delivering the work, fixing the website, remembering to follow up, and trying not to forget that Instagram exists.

It’s easy to see how finding your brand voice can feel less like freedom and more like a pair of handcuffs if you’re required to personally pour yourself into every sentence.

A personal brand with no foundation becomes a bottleneck. You need to build a brand with your energy at the center of it.

One that says:

Here’s what we believe.
Here’s what we don’t say anymore.
Here’s the hill we’re willing to stand on.
Here’s the language we use because it sounds like us.
Here’s the language we don’t use because it makes us sound like everyone else.
Here’s what our audience needs to feel before she can trust us.
Here’s the difference between sounding polished and sounding true.

The goal is a brand voice that sounds like you and doesn’t collapse the second someone else writes a caption, drafts an email, or touches your content calendar.

It requires a brand built from your values, your ideas, your point of view, your standards, your way of seeing the problem, and the specific language your right-fit clients use as a point of recognition.

Your real voice starts to come through when you realize you no longer need the performance.

Take the Next Step Toward Better Marketing?

If your content feels completely off, almost right, or something in between, there’s a reason. And it has nothing to do with needing a different strategy or tactic.

You need a solid foundation underneath your words.

The DIBS Method™ is where you find it. It’s the prerequisite work that makes everything else click. It solves the mystery of why every other framework or course you bought never fully worked, despite you being smart. The problem was never you. The frameworks and courses all assumed you already did the foundational work the right way. 

If you’re ready to let go of the version of yourself built for everyone else’s comfort and start showing up as the one your right-fit clients have actually been looking for — 

[Apply for DIBS →]