I notice an incredible amount of wasted time and energy around brand building in the solopreneur space.
Here are the biggest offenders I see on repeat...
- Always starting over. Refreshing, redesigning, rewriting. Chasing the version that will finally feel right.
- Constantly change your offers — often before they have a chance to get any traction.
- Having a “good enough for now” website because you don’t actually know what it should say or look like.
- Struggling to find things to write or create content around. You’re also overwhelmed about what channels you should be posting on and how often.
- Continually looking at other people’s brands and websites for “inspiration” and then tweaking your own brand to emulate them.
When I see these patterns, what I’m actually noticing is someone who hasn’t yet found (or has forgotten) their brand’s true signal.
What do I mean by true signal? I mean something that is internally sourced, generative, sustainable, and aligned with your unique personality and values. It’s clear — free of static. It comes from a rooted place.
Without a strong connection to that signal, your brand becomes an untethered boat on open water. You oscillate. You waffle. You waste so much time and it keeps people a little disoriented, questioning what you're actual offering.
We do this because showing up as yourself, in your truest form, is vulnerable. Actually doing the damn thing, investing in being yourself in your brand and your business, can be pretty terrifying. There are a lot of layers to peel back, and it can feel safer not to invest your time and resources in something so scary. (I mean you’ll never find me signing up for a haunted house — even though my wife keeps lobbying for an overnight stay at the local haunted sanatorium. No thank you.)
When your true signal is the foundation of your brand, it’s solid, resonant. Not easily rocked or shaken. You stand for something. People know you for your point of view, and they don’t confuse you with anyone else.
I’ll be talking more in the next month or so about how archetypes can help you find and channel that signal — including a refreshed version of the archetype quiz, which is how a lot of you found your way here in the first place.
It might be helpful to ask what part of yourself — an opinion, a quirk, a piece of your personality — feels scariest to imagine expressing through your brand?
Cheers!
Sara
