🚦 Stop Hiding! Your Brand Needs More of You.

So pumped to share with you this episode!

Something that comes up all the time is how do you actually inject more of you into your brand without oversharing, cringing, or turning into a full-time content creator?

In this episode, I’m talking about the real reason people connect with your brand, and guess what, it’s you! Not the perfectly polished graphics. Not the stock photos. You. But I also know how uncomfortable that can feel, especially if you're introverted, private, or just not sure what’s “too much” to share.

So let’s clear a few things up and make this feel a whole lot easier. No pressure, no forced vulnerability, just some really simple ways to bring warmth, energy, and your personality into your content (without sharing what you ate for lunch).

I'll cover:

• Why “being personal” doesn’t mean oversharing
• The difference between private and performative (and how to stay grounded in what feels good)
• 5 simple ways to show more of you in your brand, even if you’re introverted
• Why your values, voice, and behind-the-scenes thinking are way more powerful than you realise
• How to share stories that stick, without turning your content into a confessional

This one’s your gentle nudge (or not so gentle) to stop hiding behind your brand and start showing up in it. Because people want to buy from people and your people are waiting to connect with you.

x Morgan

Connect with me:

• Follow The Fearless Designer on Instagram
  @the.fearless.designer
  
  
• Head to The Fearless Designer Website for more info
  www.thefearlessdesigner.com.au

Transcript

Hello, how are you? Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope things are going so well in your world at the moment. I don't know. Let's flashback to the start of the year, guys. I don't know if you did this whole process, but I went through and picked a word for the year which I actually can't remember what mine was off the top of my head. No, I'm not sure. But I feel like there was a quite a lot of words that were being chosen that were around the word authentic or authenticity.

And I know that there was a lot of murmurings in the marketing field around how authentic branding and authentic marketing was gonna have the real cut through, particularly for small business or for content creator kind of content creators. So I wanted to bring it to the POD today. And the reason because I know that this makes a lot of you squirm, especially when you're a little bit more private or a little bit more introverted like me. Or maybe you're just even really unsure about what the hell you're supposed to share online. And I want to give you some help and some ideas about how you can inject more of yourself into your without having to share your life story or post selfies every day or do things that make you feel really uncomfortable even. I don't want you to have to share what you've had for breakfast because P.S. nobody actually wants to know unless it connects to a deeper story. But they do want to know you and who the human is behind the business.

Let's unpack how to show up with personality, humanity and warmth. And yeah, let's do it. Hello and welcome to the Fearless Designer Podcast. I'm your host Morgan MacDonald, aka the fearless designer, and I'm here to help you embrace your fears, level up your visual brand, and take your business to fearless new heights. For two decades, I've worked with business owners just like you, designing brands that are bold, consistent and authentic. I've lived a profesh corporate life as a graphic designer and I've also spent the last 13 years running my own brand and graphic design business. So whether you're running a six or seven figure business, craving a brand refresh, or just ready to add a little more wow to your visuals, I got you. Each week we'll dive into fearless brand strategies, design tips that you actually can use, live brand audits and interviews with fellow business owners who have dared to do things differently.

So if you're ready to stop playing small, take control of your brand and lead with confidence, you're in the right place. Let's go. Okay, so who's the truth and we all know it. People buy from people, particularly on social media. That's why we're there. We're there to have social connections with people. But I want to sit with this for the moment. People don't just buy your offer.

They buy into your energy, your vibe, your values, and your way of doing things. And that can't be communicated purely by really polished graphics or corporate copy. Even if your brand is premium and strategic and refined, your audience still wants to feel something. They want to know that there's a person behind it. Even if that person is polished, they want to know about that person. I think particularly if you are a service provider or a personal brand or a creator, you are part of that offer. Your face, your thoughts, your opinions, all of your fun metaphors, your ideas that you end up changing. You know, all of that, that's what people remember.

That's what builds trust. So, yes, people want to buy from people, but not from people who feel like, I don't know, a blank slate or a collection of stock photos or vague captions. They want to buy from someone who feels like real, human. And I think this is the part where most people get stuck. They seem to think, if I'm supposed to show up online and inject more of myself, does that mean I have to talk about my personal life and show my kids and talk about my relationship and my morning routine and my gut health journey and what I'm doing over Easter and all of that? No, let's clear that up right now. Being personal is not the same as being private. You can be personal in your brand without being performative. You can be real and open without oversharing.

You can inject you into your content without turning into, I don't know, a fashion influencer. Unless you want to. It's about relevance. It's about sharing stories, quirks, and beliefs and perspectives that connect, really connect to what you do and help your audience understand you even better. You don't owe the Internet your life, but you do owe your people, your audience, people that are following you, some sense of who you are so that they can decide if you're the right fit and build that beautiful community that you are needing to be able to sell your product or service to. All right, so here are some ways that you can inject more of you into your brand. Now, these are tangible. These are practical.

And you might want your brand to feel more you. But let's make it happen in a way that feels more aligned and not exposed. So point number one, share your point of view. Let's be real. That's so lame to say let's be real, but there are thousands of people doing what you do. But your perspective, that is your. That's your fingerprint. That's your point of difference.

Morgan Macdonald:
What do you believe about your industry that nobody else says out loud? What's your hot take? What gets you fired up? What do you wish more people knew? Whether it's your philosophy on branding or your pet peeves about DIY design or your stance on the myth of you just need a logo, which are all my things, these beliefs form the spine of your brand. Sharing your point of view does two really powerful things for you. It helps people know what you stand for, which builds trust. And it helps people decide if they align with you, which builds loyalty. So try this. Write a sentence that starts with I believe and see what, what comes after that. See what you can lean into and if you can actually put some of that into your branding. So number two, use your real voice and I'm going to underline that and put capital letters and make it bold.

Morgan Macdonald:
You know how we meet people in real life and you may have said it to someone or had someone say it to you. Oh, you're exactly how I imag you be. Well, that is the goal. That is the bloody goal. When your written voice sounds like your actual voice, you build instant connection. You stop sounding like the brochure or chatgpt and you start sounding like someone who's worth listening to. Please drop the over polished corporate tone. Say things how you actually say them and in a side note or in a bracketed thought or a weird metaphor, add them all.

Add the pause, add the sass, add the wit, add the everything. If you are going to use ChatGPT, that is completely fine. But make sure you're editing a copy that it's turning out so it does sound like you. So again, I've got another little task that you might like to try. Take a recent caption or an email you wrote and read it out loud. Read it out loud. If it makes you cringe, rewrite it like you're texting it to your best business friend. Okay, number three, show some behind the scenes thinking.

You don't have to show your desk or your to do list or your messy Inbox or the 55,000 unread messages on your phone. But if you start to show people how you think, that's next level connection. People love to peek into your process. Not just what you do, but why you do it that way. So let them in on, for example, why you chose that. What made you scrap this to start with? This. The question you ask your clients. The questions that you ask your customers.

That aha moment that changed the way that you do something in your business. This builds trust and it does position you as someone that's thoughtful and not just skilled. So maybe next time you finish a project or even a post, share what went into it. Not just the result, but the reasoning. It has so much value to share. The reasoning number four is please let your values be visible. And we're not just buying a brand, we're buying into a way of thinking, a way of treating people, a set of priorities. And your values should be quietly loud.

You don't need to make every post like some standing on a mountain and screaming it. But your values can be felt in number of different ways. They can be used in how you speak to your audience. How, for example, I would. How I design, how I say yes or no to things. Who you champion, how you respond when things go wrong. Are you all about clarity? Are you all about empowerment? What about simplicity? What are those values? Make sure that those values don't just sit in a branding document and let them show up in the way that you feel your brand. So try this.

Choose one of those core values and create a post or a story or a reel or a podcast moment that brings it to life through a little story or a little insight or a little behind the scenes moment. And number five, tell small relevant stories. Now you don't need to go on to Instagram live and air everything about your entire business journey and go through all of the things that were really bad and get really neg and dump on your audience constantly. But stories are what stick. Always. The posts or podcasts you remember. Chances are they had a moment or a story or a human twist or something that instantly connected you to them. And these stories don't have to be epic.

They can be micro moments that prove a point. It could be the time you saw someone brand shame someone on an Instagram story, or that feeling that you had when you launched something for the first time. Or the little thing that your client said that made you rethink the whole process. Stories don't just add personality, they add meaning and they give context to your values and proof of your perspective. So try scrolling through your camera roll or opening your notes app and pick one photo or thought from the past. Could be this week. It could be last week and ask what did this moment teach me? And can it, or maybe it could help my audience. So they are just a few examples of ways that you can instantly integrate more of you into your brand today.

And I just want to be really clear. You don't need to become a full time content creator. You don't need to show what you eat for lunch, you don't need to show posts with your kids. You don't need to do your skincare routine. You don't need to do any of that. But you are allowed boundaries and you are allowed mystery. But if your audience has no idea who you are, no voice, no story, no energy, it's going to be really hard for them to connect with you. So when 2025 is all about connection and trust and originality and all of that, all of that's the new currency.

I would really encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and try something from one of those five examples that I gave you that you can integrate yourself into your branding easily without having to, you know, share all of that really personal information that you're not so comfortable about. So to wrap up, let's bring this home again. People want to buy from people. That's why they're on social media. They're there to have a chill out on the couch at, have a moment in the car while picking up their kids. They're looking for a problem solve. They're wanting to connect with people. Not robots, not Pinterest boards, not these beautifully curated brands that feel disconnected.

You don't need to share everything, just the right things, the things that make your brand unmistakably you. So if I could get you to do one thing this week, try bringing a little bit more of you into your content. Whether it's just your voice and your tone, whether it's a story or an idea or it's your process. Let the people in your audience audience feel your energy because trust me, your people will feel the difference and they will be drawn to it. And if not, they are not your people. If this episode just gave you that tiny little nudge and you feel like you need to share it with a friend, please do. I would be so much in love with you for doing that. Or please feel free to drop me a little review.

I see you and I appreciate you and I really hope that you keep showing up as yourself because as a introvert myself, I know it's hard, but your voice matters and the way you do business matters and this stuff really helps with your brand. Development. So until next time. And that's it for today's episode of the Fearless Designer podcast. I hope you're feeling really inspired, fired up, and ready to go make some bold moves with your brand. If you love today's episode, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that you never miss a dose of fearless branding goodness. And if you're feeling extra generous, drop us a review. It just helps more fearless legends like you find this podcast.

If you've got any ideas or questions for future Epps, please slide into my DMs or send me an email. I would love to hear from you. And until next time, keep being bold. Keep being fearless. And remember, your brand is your superpower. So go out there and dare to be different. Bye