What Flavor is Your Cone? Three Ways to Make Your Writing Less Vanilla
Updated July 10, 2023
Is your business writing like supermarket-brand vanilla ice cream?
We’re not knocking a popular flavor. Lots of people love vanilla. But if you’re trying to get people’s attention online, copy that sounds like the popular generic brand everyone else is selling can just melt away untasted, whether it’s a blog post, copy for your website, or the About section of your LinkedIn profile.
Flavor matters!
The Individual Touch: Add Some Sprinkles to Your Cone
Many of the solopreneurs and small B2B service-based businesses we’ve worked with have been afraid to put personality into their writing because they’ve been taught that it’s not “professional.” This is especially true of people in our age group and older (which is Gen X if you’re me and Baby Boomer if you’re Charles). A lot of us were taught to write very formally and to avoid using first-person “I” when writing about ourselves. But these formal rules can undermine your ability to create a connection with the very people you want to appeal to.
You may not be ready for Rocky Road or Green Tea, but it’s okay to spice up that vanilla cone with a few sprinkles. When we work with small business owners to find their brand voice through our Reveal Your Brand Process, we spend as much time on understanding their personality as their business. Because we know that a unique, authentic voice is key to creating a connection with your ideal clients.
Whether you’re writing website copy, a blog, or your resume, adding a little flavor can help you connect with the right people for your business or your job search.
Three Things that Give Your Writing Flavor
1. Write Like You Speak
When we’re consulting with a client, we often hear them say something that makes almost perfect copy for their website, then ask that it be refined into something sleeker and more “professional.” But often their own words have a better flavor - fresh and original. Copy doesn’t need to be fancy or slick - writing at an 8th-grade reading level worked out great for the authors of books like Jurassic Park and Harry Potter. Simple is good - you don’t want to overload the cone with so many toppings that they spill into your readers’ laps! Add flavor, but use tools like the Hemingway Editor to make sure you’re not overdoing it.
2. Talk about Challenges You've Overcome and How
People love an underdog story, and running a business has its fair share of challenges. But sometimes, small business owners we’ve worked with are reluctant to share those stories. They’re afraid of appearing vulnerable and weak, so they want to act like everything is ok.
The only time we saw more business owners detailing their challenges was during the pandemic. One entrepreneur we know shared a heartfelt post about how she lost her long-time partner to COVID-19. Another shared how working from home allowed him to connect more deeply with his children because he was spending more time with them than he ever had while working a 9-5 office job. Others shared how they innovated during the pandemic, sometimes using their own money and/or family members to help them survive hard times.
These sorts of deeply personal and relatable stories are an effective way to connect with readers even during more normal times.
Consider your personal challenge story as an artisanal flavor of ice cream like lemon mint carob chip (an actual Ben and Jerry’s flavor that I remember from childhood) or charcoal (really!) that you want to share with the rest of the world. Be unique and daring and you may be surprised by how well it goes over.
3. Share Your Personal Interests, Family, Volunteer Work, and Hobbies
We worked with a lawyer who feared that adding her incredible history of volunteering with veterans to her LinkedIn profile would be too personal, and an IT professional who had never put in writing that he had a male partner out of fear of judgment. In the end, both of these clients overcame their fears and publicly shared these personal things on LinkedIn. And by showing more of themselves, they became more human and relatable to readers.
The people you really want to reach will be those who appreciate your particular flavor
They’ll want to hear about your vintage baseball card collection, your volunteer work at the homeless shelter, or the fact that you’re involved with your church. It humanizes you to talk about these things online and makes you more relatable to your ideal audience.
So, proudly walk down the street eating your raspberry chocolate twist with rainbow sprinkles. It’s ok to have personality and to broadcast your particular flavor to the world. When someone stops you and says, “Wow, that looks amazing, I want more of that,” you’ve made a connection you might not have made through a vanilla cone.
Want to add some flavor to your writing but aren’t sure how? Contact us to go beyond vanilla.