Today we’re talking about one of the most well-meaning, commonly used bits of brand voice advice.
It’s an exercise that we’ve probably all done.
But it’s really kinda…not that helpful in the grand scheme of things.
And that exercise is:
“Pick three adjectives that describe your voice.”
We’ve all done it.
Maybe you even picked them from a list in one of those workbooks we talked about in the last episode.
Or someone handed them to you, or you got a few when you worked with a designer.
Maybe a copywriter — like myself — asked you this question.
Bold. Warm. Approachable. Fun. Witty. Confident.
These are probably sounding a little familiar.
And honestly?
Beautiful words.
Love them for you.
But also?
They’re really, definitely not voice.
Now, they can definitely give you a starting point.
But by themselves?
Not all that helpful.
It’s like, “okay cool, I’m bold and fun, I guess I’ll just…go be that now in my writing.”
What does that actually do for you?
What are you supposed to do with that when you’re writing a caption about your offer?
Or responding to a tough client email?
Or trying to explain your personality to the writer you just hired?
Or to ChatGPT?
So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Well, more specifically. What I’d suggest you do instead 🙂
And look — I’m not here to roast your voice guide. I’m really not here to roast anything, ever.
I’m not even saying those words you’ve picked are wrong in any shape or form.
I’m just saying those adjectives alone are incomplete.
Now, dont get me wrong, this girl loves a tone word.
But tone words by themselves? They just don’t give you enough.
They’re not going to help you make decisions.
They’re not going to help you show up with more confidence.
And they’re definitely not going to help you feel better about writing for your business.
BUT, they will give you clues.
And they can be good, as long as you build off them.
Before we move on, I think it’s important we get clear on what I actually mean when I say brand voice — and where tone words fit into the whole picture. So prepare yourself for a side tangent:
Brand voice, to me, is made up of three core things:
- Vocabulary – The words you use. The ones you love. The ones you avoid like the plague. (👀 Looking at you, “empower.”)
- Rhythm – This is how you write. Others might call this cadence. Are you all about long, winding sentences? Short, snappy ones? Structured like a poem? Built like a rant? (This bitch loves a comma.)
- Feels – This is tone. But I call it “feels” because it’s not just about how it sounds. It’s the emotional throughline. It’s the energy your words carry when someone reads them — and the energy you feel when you write them.
When I’m working with a client to get clear on these 3 things, they usually fall into one of two camps:
- Group 1: They already have a voice — it’s just living in their head (or buried under years of content) and they don’t know how to explain it to someone else yet or write from it on purpose.
- Group 2: They’re in a transition phase. Maybe they’re going from being a personal brand to building something bigger. Maybe it’s two founders trying to find one shared voice that doesn’t just sound like a ping-pong game between their personalities. Maybe they just haven’t felt connected to their voice — or their business — in a long time, and they’re excited by the idea of finding that juice again.
If you’re in Group 1, we can measure it.
We can look at the content you still feel connected to.
We can look at client convos, proud DMs, even Slack threads — and reverse engineer what’s working.
We can pull out the patterns, see your rhythm, vocabulary, tone.
And I can give you a guide that helps anyone write like you.
It’s already there.
We’re just naming it. Putting it down on paper.
But if you’re in Group 2?
We’ve gotta forget the vocab and rhythm for a beat. And zoom right in on those feels.
Your voice isn’t shaped yet. You’re not feeling solid in it, so we’ve gotta focus more on building up what they vibe will be before we worry about the details.
Now, that being said, the details usually reveal themselves in the process anywhoo.
If you try and do it the other way around, in my experience, you’ll end up reverses engineering the feels to match the vocab, etc, and it’ll feel a little hollow.
You’ll get sick of it fast.
And you’ll end up right back here.
No thank you.
The feels are the backbone or heartbeat or some other analogy for your voice.
Starting here is how you build a voice you a) are stoked about b) is uncopyable.
So… what now?
You might be thinking: “Cool, Steph, you want me to get clear on my feels. But you don’t want me to use my tone words?”
Exactly. But, not exactly.
Like I said, I loovveee me a tone word. I’m not saying your tone words are bad.
I’m saying unless you give them context, they’re not going to be useful. Like we talked about in episode 2 with the workbooks.
Words without emotion behind them? Without nuance of your perspective in association with that word?
They’re just words on a page.
Your brand doesn’t need more words, it needs a whole ass energy.
Not just for your audience, but for you.
So you actually feel connected to what you’re creating.
And you know, what to actually have some fun writing for your business again.
Enter: Brand personality
Voice and personality are closely linked. They play together.
When I run a Voice on the Rocks session, we’re technically talking about voice.
But we’re also building a world around your brand. This is just how I see it.
That world has three things:
- Setting – where your brand lives
- Character – the personality or persona behind your brand
- Voice – how that person talks
Like your very own brand imagination land.
When you ground your voice in all three?
It stops feeling like this thing you have to force or strategize to death.
It starts feeling like something you can come back to and play from every time you write.
Want an Example? Meet My Brand. A tiny snippet.
My brand?
She’s a bartender.
Not a polished cocktail waitress. Or one of those fancy bowtie-wearing mixologists.
We’re talking bartender in a dimly lit, moody little speakeasy.
There’s a jukebox somewhere playing Jukebox Hero.
The bar looks like it was decorated by someone who couldn’t decide between a library and a dive.
There are battered shelves full of dog-eared books and half-empty bottles.
There’s a neon sign in the corner that buzzes: Just do you, dude.
And behind the bar? That’s me.
5’10”.
Tattoos creeping up both arms.
Green eyes locked on the guy ranting about “thought leadership.”
Smirk on my face. Eye roll not even slightly hidden when he says “engagement funnel.”
When I notice you walk in?
I’m relieved as fuck.
“Duddddee,” I say. “Been waiting for you. Joe the Copy Bro here was about to give me an aneurysm. No idea how he slipped past the ‘No Bros, No Gurus’ sign on the door.”
I prop my elbows on the bar.
I study you in that way that makes you feel seen — and slightly (but lovingly) called out.
I swear a little.
I roast you gently, but never in a mean way.
I’m not gonna hug you (there’s a bar between you for a reason). But I’ll listen.
And I’ll remember what you said and ordered last time.
And if you need a laugh before you go, I’ve got a story that’ll make you feel better about whatever mess you’re in.
That’s where I write from.
Every time.
And because I’ve built that world?
It’s easy to drop back in.
I get to ask myself, would that bartender say this? Would Laffy say this?
Now, I think its important to say, but I havent always been a fan of a theme with brand.
That just because you have a brand world doesn’t mean you have to slap it on everything.
Yes, my brand is bar-themed.
But I’m not out here naming every blog post after cocktails or writing in all drink puns.
I could. You could.
But I don’t — because that’s not what feels right for my voice.
I name my offers things like Voice on the Rocks, Well Said, The Right Pour, and House Rules — because those names feel fun without overdoing it.
You get to pick the volume.
But having that internal world? That creative anchor?
Is soooooooo helpful.
So what’s your world?
What’s your brand setting?
Who’s the character living in it?
Could be just one. Could be a whole cast.
(I’m currently dreaming up a robot dog sidekick, so… anything goes.)
Doesn’t need to be a whole fantasy setting to do its job.
Your brand world might be an office.
Cool.
But let’s get specific.
Is it your literal home office?
Is it a sleek, modern office with a wall of glass and fresh eucalyptus in the air?
Or is it cozy, with velvet chairs, soft indie music, and a dog bed under the desk?
If there’s music playing — what kind?
Is it Maggie Rogers? Lo-fi beats? Classical?
What kind of art is on the walls?
I knooowww this sounds fluffy.
But I’m not just sending you on a fun little imagination field trip, for shits and giggles.
This is strategic.
Because when you can see it — like, really visualize it —you stop trying to write for your brand…and start writing from your brand.
And thats when your personality and voice become unreplicable.
You BECOME the niche as they say.
Your voice and personality are mega differentiation factors, dude.
And when you take the time to build a voice and personality on what YOU connect with. The nuances of what that’ll look like wont be able to help but be different.
Not to mention, it just makes everything easier. And a hell of a lot more fun. And more creative.
I just want you to start having fun with this whole thing.
So here’s what I want you to do.
Open up that note you started in Episode 1.
(If you didn’t, no stress. Open one now. Title it whatever you want — “brand voice builder,” “voice playground,” “vibe file.” Doesn’t matter.)
Where does your brand live? Or exist?
Is it an office? A yoga studio? A garden? A boxing gym? A warm kitchen? A 90s teen movie bedroom?
What’s the vibe?
Minimalist? Cluttered in a charming way? Candle-lit? Sun-drenched?
Then: who’s the person in that space?
Are they greeting people at the door?
Are they making sarcastic jokes?
Sitting quietly in the corner?
Talking with their hands?
What’s their energy like?
Are they early? Are they the last to leave? Do they clean up the mess or make it?
Do they have an arch nemesis?
Or maybe for you the personality behind your brand is better tapped into through a moment.
A past client? Their brand personality was the exhale.
We visualized the moment their client let their shoulders drop and exhaled for the first time after meeting. We pictured them sitting on the back of a pickup truck in Texas, watching that moment happen in real time. That became the emotional center of their brand. And also, their brand voice.
Whatever your flavor is, write all of it down.
Because once you know who they are in that world, it gets way easier to figure out what they’d say — and how they’d say it.
And if you’re a personal brand?
You are that voice.
But what parts of you?
So notice which parts of you are showing up in your writing.
What do you edit out? What do you always lean into?
What kinds of moments make you feel most like yourself?
Start documenting all of this in your note.
Let it be messy. Let it evolve.
You’re not trying to define everything right now — you’re just starting to see it.
Add some Alter Egos while you’re at it
And I get it — it can feel really hard to build this stuff from scratch.
Unless you’re working with someone like me who’s literally going to pull it out of your brain for you (hi, hello, welcome to Voice on the Rocks), you might be sitting there going,
“Cool… so I’m supposed to just imagine a whole brand personality from thin air?”
Nope. You’re not.
You do not need to force this to come straight out of your imagination.
Let’s build it piece by piece my beautiful friend. Like we do with everything else.
You’ve probably heard copywriters talk about keeping a swipe file — screenshots, headlines, sales pages you liked, that kind of thing.
But what I want you to do is create a swipe file for your brand voice, personality, world.
My voice swipe file has:
- Screenshots from books with banter I love
- One-liners from movies
- memes
- Overheard convos in coffee shops
- A Pinterest board for my speakeasy
When I see a line in a movie that makes me go, “Oof. That’s me”?
I write it down.
That’s a data point.
That’s creative direction.
That’s my voice saying: more of this, please.
And when I need reminding or inspiration, I go to the file.
Or maybe it would be more fun for you to start with your brand’s fictional or celebrity alter ego?
Mine?
I’m pulling from Deadpool.
Ted Lasso.
Sloane Sutherland from Butcher & Blackbird.
Each one brings something different. They inspire me and my voice.
Maybe for you you’re channeling Olivia Pope, or Phoebe Buffet, someone from the cast of New Girl, Princess Undercut from Raya and The Last Dragon, orrrr that dude from The Bear.
Same goes for the setting. If you’re not sure where to even start building that setting, stat paying attention to the fictional places too.
Is your brand bar more How I Met Your Mother? Or more Deadpool assasin dive bar?
Is your office more Anne Hathaway in The Intern or boardroom from Suits?
You can absolutely pull from TV, movies, books, real-life places.
My brand world? It started with a real speakeasy/coffee shop/bookstore I’ve been going to for years. I even did a photoshoot there.
You can pull inspiration from anywhere.
Just add it to the note.
And hey — this stuff takes time.
I figured out my brand personality — the bartender in the speakeasy — after a session with a mentor… almost a year ago.
And it’s taken me the full year since to let that simmer.
To notice where it felt true.
To let myself play with the details and get curious about what that actually looks like in my writing, in my offers, in the way I show up.
I’m not saying it’ll take you a year. But I am saying: it’s okay to let this stuff breathe.
You don’t have to get off this episode and sprint into a Pinterest spiral to build your brand personality by midnight.
Just… stay open.
Let it be a slow burn.
When something hits — a scene in a show, a quote in a book, a joke that feels weirdly like your sense of humor — drop it into that note.
Keep collecting.
And let it build.
Okay — that’s all for this one.
Next episode, we’re talking messaging.
Because once you know who your character is, and where they live?
Now we get to start thinking about: what do they say? Aka how to build messaging pillars that actually support the voice you’ve started to build. Stay tuned for next episode for that.
Till then.
Love your face.
Talk soon.
