Your brand voice is more than your logo, colors, or tagline. It is the personality behind every word your business puts into the world. I’m sharing how we developed the voice behind Salt + Charm, why it helped the business build recognition so quickly, and how we make sure everything we create still sounds like us. From the beginning, I never wanted Salt + Charm to sound like a traditional catering company. We have always been warm, direct, a little salty, and completely serious about the food and hospitality. That personality became one of the biggest ways people connected with the brand before they ever booked an event. In this episode, I also talk about the pressure business owners feel to sound more “professional.” Too often, that means sanding away every interesting part of the business until the copy is technically correct but completely forgettable. Your business can be polished and still have personality. It can be credible, sophisticated, funny, warm, or a little irreverent. Those qualities are not in conflict. Of course, we have to talk about AI. I think it can be an incredibly helpful tool, but when everyone uses the same tools and the same generic prompts, every business starts to sound the same. AI might get you 60% of the way there, but the remaining 40% is where your actual voice lives. That is the part you cannot afford to outsource! I also talk about why your marketing should feel like a conversation instead of a constant stream of ads. If every post, email, or caption asks your audience to buy, book, or click, they will eventually tune you out. For every piece of content that asks something from my audience, I try to create two or three that give something first. That might be a story, a lesson, an honest answer, a behind-the-scenes moment, or something that simply makes people laugh. Finally, I walk through three simple ways to uncover or strengthen your own brand voice: the Anti-List, the Dinner Party Test, and the Read-Aloud Test. You already have a voice. You use it when you talk to customers, explain your business to a friend, or tell a story about something that happened at work. The real question is whether you are willing to let that voice show up in your marketing. Your homework after this episode is simple: read your website out loud. Does it actually sound like you? If the answer is no, that is where you start. Business From Scratch with Abbye McGee is for people who are building a business while rebuilding their life. Abbye, a single mom and three-time founder, shares clear and honest talk about the real work behind mindset, money, identity, and daily life when you start from zero. The show gives you steady guidance, simple steps you can use right away, and real conversations with founders, creatives, and friends who built their own way. Each week helps you focus, test ideas, and keep moving even when the process feels messy.
