How Much of Your Personality Should You Show in Your Marketing?

0:00Hello, this is Mark Satterfield and welcome to the Velvet Rope Playbook. Tonight's chapter. How much of your personality should you show in your marketing? I want to start today with a woman named Claire Donovan. Claire is 49 and runs a very successful interior design firm in Connecticut. She has eight employees, does beautiful work, and most of her projects are substantial, typically homes where the design budget alone can easily run into the seven figures. Claire herself is interesting. She's traveled extensively. She's opinionated about design. She's funny. She collects contemporary photography, loves old houses, and has a very definite idea about what makes a room feel comfortable rather than merely impressive.

0:48Spend 20 minutes with Claire and you remember her. Spend 20 minutes on Claire's website and you wouldn't know any of that. Her website is beautiful. The photography is extraordinary. The language is polished. There are phrases about timeless design, attention to detail, and creating spaces that reflect the client's individual lifestyle. It's all perfectly appropriate. There's just one problem. It could belong to 50 other excellent interior designers. And when Claire and I talk about it, she tells me why. She says, my clients are very sophisticated people. I don't think they want to hear what I had for breakfast.

1:27And she's absolutely right. They don't. But there's an enormous amount of territory between showing no personality whatsoever and photographing your oatmeal. And that's what I want to talk about today. How much of yourself should you put into your marketing, particularly when you're trying to attract affluent clients? Because I think the answer is more nuanced than simply saying, be authentic. So let me introduce you to somebody at the opposite end of the spectrum. David Ross is 42 and owns a boutique real estate firm in Southern California. David believes strongly in personal branding, and David is everywhere.

2:08His Instagram shows you David at the gym, David at dinner, David skiing, David on vacation, David in his car, David drinking coffee, and occasionally David sells a house. If you follow him long enough, you begin to feel that you're in a relationship with David, although David has never actually met you. And to be fair, it works. People know him. They like him. He gets business from it. But David starts encountering a different problem as he moves into more affluent segments of the market. He wants to represent$8 million and$10 million properties, and some of the people he's trying to attract aren't necessarily looking for an entertaining real estate personality.

2:49They're looking for someone they could trust with an$8 million asset. Suddenly, some of what helped David become visible isn't necessarily helping him become credible. Claire has too little personality in her marketing. David may have too much. So, where's the line? I think there are actually three questions. Instead of asking, how much of my personality should I show, I'd ask three different questions. First, does this person or does this post help people understand what it would be like to work with me? That's the most useful kind of personality. Claire doesn't need to tell us what she ate for breakfast, but I'd absolutely like to hear Claire explains why she thinks some expensive rooms are incredibly uncomfortable.

3:39I'd like to hear what she notices when she first walks into someone's home. I'd like to know why she loves old houses. I'd like to hear her explain a design decision she disagreed with and why. Now I'm getting to know Claire, but I'm also becoming more confident in her expertise. That's the sweet spot. Your personality isn't replacing your expertise. It's caring your expertise. The second question. Ask yourself, does this give the right prospect another reason to choose me? Years ago, professional marketing was largely about eliminating personality. Your website sounded professional. Your brochure sounded professional.

4:22Your photography looked and sounded professional. and if everything went according to plan, there was almost no evidence that an actual human being worked at the company. And that made sense when prospects had little, well, relatively speaking, little access to you before contacting you. Today, they can watch your videos, listen to your podcast, read your posts, and spend half an hour with you without you knowing they exist. And that's particularly important with expensive services. Because when the stakes are high, people aren't simply choosing capabilities. They're choosing people. Suppose I'm deciding between two equally qualified wealth advisors.

5:04One seems thoughtful, calm, and very good at explaining complicated things simply. The other seems equally knowledgeable, but I find myself enjoying listening to her. I like the way she thinks. I like her perspective on life. There's something about her that feels comfortable to me. That matters. It may not appear anywhere on the spreadsheet I'm supposed to be using to make my rational decision, but it does matter. And this is especially true when you're selling a service that involves an ongoing relationship. If I'm going to spend the next five years dealing with you, whether I actually like you or not is not an insignificant consideration.

5:45But there's a third question, and this is the one I think gets overlooked. Is the personality you're showing relevant to the positioning you want? David's problem isn't that he's showing personality. It's that he hasn't been sufficiently selective about what parts of his personality he's showing. You don't have to show people everything about yourself to be authentic. I don't show everybody everything about myself in real life, and neither should you. When you meet someone at a business function, you're not being inauthentic because you don't immediately tell them about the argument you had with your cable company that morning.

6:22You're selecting what's appropriate to the relationship. Marketing works the same way. Think of it as curated personality, not manufactured personality, not fake personality, curated personality. So here's a simple example. If you're wondering how much of yourself to put into your marketing, make three columns. In the first column, write what I know. These are the things that establish your expertise, your opinions, your experience, your insights, the things you learn from working with clients. In the second column, write how I think. This is where your personality starts becoming more interesting.

7:01What do you believe that others in your industry don't? What irritates you about the way your industry normally operates? What are you unusually particular about? What do you notice that other people overlook? and then create a third column, who I am. These are the personal things that give people a sense of the human being behind your expertise. These would include your interest, your sense of humor, the books you read, the places you love, the experiences that shaped how you see the world. Now, here's the important part. Your marketing shouldn't necessarily contain equal amounts from all three columns.

7:39For someone selling a$200 product, perhaps it doesn't matter very much. But if you're asking someone to entrust you with their money, their health, their home, their company, or another important part of their life, I want the first two columns doing most of the work. And then I want to add just enough of the third to make you a person rather than a resume. Personality doesn't just attract people. It repels some people. And that's not necessarily bad. Claire worries that if she's more opinionated in her marketing, some prospective clients won't agree with her. She's right. Some won't. But the objective of good marketing isn't to make everyone like you.

8:23It's to make the right people like you enough to want to know more. If Claire says, I don't believe a beautiful home should ever feel like you're afraid to put your feet on the furniture, some people may disagree. Fine. But somewhere there's a prospective client thinking exactly. That's the person Claire wants. The more expensive and personal your service becomes, the more valuable that recognition can be. So what happens to Claire and David? Claire starts making short videos, nothing elaborate. She walks through a completed project and explains the decisions. She talks about things she believes.

9:01She occasionally tells stories about clients without identifying them. and gradually people start arriving at consultations feeling as though they already know her. That's significant. Because Claire is no longer beginning every sales conversation as a stranger. David goes the opposite direction. He doesn't stop being David. He simply becomes more selective. There are fewer posts about David's life and more posts where David's life provides context for his expertise. He still shows personality, but now there's a reason for it. And I think that's ultimately the answer to our original question. How much personality should you show in your marketing?

9:43Enough that people can answer three questions before they ever contact you. Do I respect how this person thinks? Do I trust this person to help me? And would I actually enjoy working with them? If your marketing answers the first two, but not the third, you may appear very capable but completely interchangeable. If it answers the third without the first two, you may become extremely popular without becoming particularly valuable. You need both. Expertise gives people a reason to respect you. Personality gives them a reason to remember you. And when you're marketing an expensive service, that combination can be extraordinarily powerful.

10:26So if you'd like more ideas on how to position yourself, differentiate yourself, and attract more affluent clients, go to getwealthyclients.com. You'll find information about my books, my programs, and how you can work with me personally. That's getwealthyclients.com. This is Mark Satterfield. Thanks so much for listening to this chapter of the Velvet Rope Playbook. I'll be back at you soon with something new, but until then, bye for now. Thank you.