2 Writing Reflexes That Show Why Brand Voice Is Important

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Here’s the Deal:  You can’t write good copy if you’ve edited your entire personality out of it. This post breaks down what brand voice actually is, why you keep losing yours, and how to stop sounding like a stranger on your own damn website.

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It’s 3:24 pm on a Saturday, and you’re on draft eleven of your Home page intro—the part that’s supposed to grab people by the collar and make them think, “finally, someone who gets it.”

But the edges are gone. The jokes are gone. 

Even the parentheses, filled with your sassy little asides, got axed in the name of “professional.” Now it’s all “helping passionate entrepreneurs” and “creating meaningful experiences.”

You can see yourself disappearing in real time. Each edit making you smoother, more palatable, and smaller.

(And yeah, this is the part where I’m supposed to say “that’s why brand voice is important,” but you already feel it, don’t you?)

What Is Brand Voice (& Why It’s Not Just ‘How You Talk’)

Brand voice is the way your brand communicates—wherever it shows up and people are reading.

It’s the tone. The energy. The cadence. It’s the way you string words together when you feel confident af. Every brand has one.

Even the ones that think they don’t. (Silence is still a voice. So is vanilla.)

A brand voice is built from three things:

• The raw, unfiltered way you communicate
• The role you play in your clients’ brains
• What your audience needs from you

That combo? That’s where your brand finally stops blending in. 

So…Why Is Brand Voice Important Anyways?

Brand voice is how you stop being a business that does a thing and start being the one people think of when they need that thing.

When your voice stays consistent, people start to feel like they know you. It’s familiar. You show up the same way every time, and that reliability builds trust without you ever having to say the word “trust.”

That consistency builds recognition.

People start picking you out of the crowd from a single line or caption. They don’t have to check the name—they just know it’s you. You start living rent-free in their head (the good kind of squatters’ rights).

And that recognition turns into memorability.

They think of you when it counts: when someone asks for a referral, when they’re ready to book, when they finally admit they need what you sell. You’re the one who comes to mind because your words stuck around. 

That’s why brand voice matters. It’s the thread that ties everything together and the reason people remember you, not just what you sell.

And when you don’t have yours sorted? Two writing reflexes tend to run the show. 

Reflex #1: You freeze. 
Reflex #2: You lose you.

Let’s talk about them.

1. The Voice Guidelines You Haven’t Set Is Why You Stall Out

Here’s how it usually goes: you can talk about your work for hours.

In the shower. 
In the car. 
To your friend who just wanted brunch.

You’re electric, funny, articulate, full of “holy shit, this is why I do what I do” energy.

And then you open a Google doc and it’s like your brain just lit up a metaphorical cigarette and said, “nah.” Five minutes ago you had paragraphs forming in your head, but now it’s just static and the vague urge to deep-clean your shower.

Basically, your brain’s talking, your hands are buffering.

Writing lights up a whole bunch of systems at once: memory, language, self-awareness, perfectionism (everyone’s favorite). And all that overload fries your working memory.

Then, add in pressure—the “this has to sound good / sound smart / sound like someone who has their life together” kind of pressure—and your nervous system hits the big red button labeled ‘FREEZE.’

Here’s where brand voice saves you.

When you know how you sound on purpose, you stop making a thousand micro-decisions every time you write. Muscle memory kicks in, and your brain automatically remembers your sentence structures, cadence, grammar habits, and go-to phrases.

Suddenly, you just get to focus on what you say without worrying about how you say it. 

But sometimes, when you finally get the words flowing, a different panic sets in. Not the blank-page kind—the ‘oh no, am I too much?’ kind.

2. The Brand Voice You Keep Erasing Is the One People Would’ve Trusted

It starts innocently enough. You write a line that makes you smirk, but then the panic hits. Is this too casual? Too slangy? Too much?

And there it goes, another line that actually sounded like you, sacrificed to the gods of “professional.”

Here’s what’s really going on: you’re scared of being judged.

Scared that if you sound too you, someone will decide you’re not serious enough or worth the rate. So you sand down your edges—the rhythm, the quirks, the parts that sound alive—until what’s left is safe and completely forgettable.

And the kicker? Your reader’s brain glazes over when they see this.

Familiar phrasing, predictable rhythm—it all gets filed under already seen this before they’ve even finished the sentence. Personality is what trips the brain’s novelty switch and makes something stick.

The fix is knowing professionalism doesn’t mean personality-free. 

There’s no secret line you’re about to cross. You just get to decide where your edges are.

• How playful you want to be
• How much slang or swearing still feels like you
• How far your humour goes before it stops landing

‘Cause doing the whole ‘professional’ thing isn’t giving you the credibility you think it is. It’s just flattening your voice until no one can tell it’s yours.

And if someone won’t hire you because you said “hell yeah” instead of “that’s correct”?

Hell yeah, let them scroll. You’re here for the ones who actually get you.

How To Start Creating Your Brand Voice

Cool, you’ve survived the existential brand voice spiral. Now let’s actually build the damn thing.

You don’t need to ‘imagine you’re talking to a friend’ or ‘pick three adjectives from a list’. You just need to start paying attention to you, your people, and the space in between. 

Here are my 3 pillars for creating your brand voice:

1. How You Naturally Talk

Start by stalking yourself. Go through your DMs, voice notes, Instagram captions, client emails—anywhere you sound unfiltered and confident.

Look for your patterns:

• How do you start sentences when you’re fired up?
• Do you use contractions, slang, or parentheses for your inner monologue?
• Do you drop one-liners or write like you’re caught in a flow you don’t want to interrupt?

That’s your baseline. That’s your actual voice before “professionalism” talks you out of it.

2. The Role You Play

The way you show up in words tells people what kind of energy they’re stepping into: the mentor, the hype-person, the voice of reason, the calm in their chaos. 

So ask yourself:

• What do you want people to feel when they read your words?
• What do you stand for (and what do you not f*ck with)?
• How do you want to come across when you’re at your most you?

This is where tone and energy get anchored in something deeper than “quirky but professional.” 

3. What Your Audience Needs

Your clients are already telling you what to say in emails, in DMs, in the way they talk about what’s bugging them. You just have to pay attention.

Keep an eye out for:

• What words do they use when they’re venting or spiraling?
• What do they keep repeating because no one’s actually solved it yet?
• What do they need to hear to feel like you actually get it?

That’s the good stuff. Steal it, run it through your own voice, and give it back to them.

So, About That Brand Voice You Keep Ghosting…

If you’ve already realized your copy doesn’t sound like you anymore, congrats! You’re officially past denial.

And you already know what happens when you try to write without a voice—you freeze, overthink, or water yourself down until your own website barely recognizes you.

So let’s fix that. 

My Done-For-You Website Copy takes everything you’ve been trying to say (you know, between existential sighs and Google Doc meltdowns) and turns it into copy built from your actual POV—the one people connect with when you’re not editing yourself into oblivion.

And because I’m not about one-night-stand copy, you also get a Messaging Guide and a Brand Voice Snapshot. 

Translation: a playbook for how you sound when you’re at your best, so everything you write after this, sales page, emails, captions, whatever, is a hell of a lot easier.