Ever argued with someone online and you brought the receipts? Your argument of facts & figures were watertight; yet, the keyboard warrior across the other side of screen doubled down on their position and then slipped into fallacious arguments that had them foaming at the mouth.

It’s ok, it’s not your fault they remained ignorant (well, sorta). What happened is that you didn’t really trigger parts of their brain that spoke to more than just facts & figures of your position, but their internal dialogue was burning with emotion that stimulated a passionate response of a storyline they have playing on repeat in their mind.

How to make human connections

When you connect with somebody else, you do it with your personality. I know some of you may already be crying and getting traumatic memories from that high school prom rejection all those decades ago (ouch!).

But once you’re better able to understand how we’ll create a personality for your brand, you’ll get a wee bit more confident to step up to the plate again.

See, personality is shaped by your characteristics and behaviors.

You connect with others because they displayed certain characteristics you were aligned with and vice versa.

It doesn’t mean they ALL have to be aligned, that’s also how opposite attracts. You connect with them because they may have a quality that you don’t yet have, but admire.

Brands work the same way. People are attracted by their characteristics that they may also have or aspire to have.
Develop your personality with science

An effective way to breathe life into your brand is to develop it with an archetype.

I won’t get into the nitty gritty psychological history of Carl Jung, who for once, didn’t want to bang his mother, you can Google that rabbit hole yourself. It’s stale, trust me.

I’m only summarizing the crispy bits.

Moving on…

“Archetypes are the heartbeat of a brand because they convey a meaning that makes customers relate to a product as if it were actually alive in some way, they have a relationship with it and care about it.”
– The Hero and the Outlaw

You want your audience to feel something for your brand as if it were alive.

You’ve seen archetypes in your favorite films:

• Mr Miyagi as the SAGE in the Karate Kid
• Darth Vader as the RULER in Star Wars
• Beetle Juice as the JESTER in, well, Beetle Juice.

I know you’re updating your Netflix queue with some of these throwbacks.

Desire…scandalous!

These archetypes, twelve (12) to be exact, were drawn out of human desire. I won’t list the other nine because that’s not the point, you don’t really care about that now, and this bad boy needs to be no more than five pages.

Different people have different desires, which are made up of different characteristics. And specific characteristics, make up specific personalities. Which then boomerang those personalities back, that attract certain types of people. All of this action takes place in the subconscious.

You’ll realize that people’s subconscious are tied to their emotions. When people experience a brand, they subconsciously store those brand experiences which eventually lead to buying decisions.

Think of your brand touch points with its audience as a Quizno’s punch card. Each positive experience gets stored in your audience’s mind.

Get enough positive punches and that emotional brand outlook is in their mind as they get ready to make a buying decision.

With this in mind (ha!), think of the positive punch card as credit experiences you can create at every touch-point and exposure your brand has with your audience:

• Social media ad
• Blog post (like this one!)
• Website
• Services page
• Lead magnet

And to create these positive touch-points, you need to create a brand personality that aligns with the characteristics that your audience desires.

Maintaining your personality

A huge challenge many brands face is, keeping their personality defined. They go out and cherry-pick different things they think their audience may like, but end up with a Frankenmonster that isn’t familiar to their audience.

With the right archetypal mix, you’ll see that it isn’t simply matching a desire to an archetype and calling it a day.

Ask yourself: is this personality believable?

Because your audience will probably never ask themselves this out loud, since it hangs out in their subconscious; but if you go off and start sending weird shit and signals, you best believe your audience will immediately dismiss you.

Conclusion

So, the biggest takeaway from this is that your brand isn’t a reflection of the service offer as a solopreneur. They may not be groundbreaking startup ideas, but they have the potential of tremendous positive impact on your clients; and that is what can make your brand exciting.

To get past their initial objections and understandable mistrust when you come skipping in over the hill is that by properly positioning your brand’s personality through an archetypal mix that evokes positive emotional responses is how you will win their hearts (and their wallets) with the belief that you’re there to make them the heroes of their own story.

Don’t you want your brand to be more than just a service provider? One that connects with your audience at an emotional level? If that’s the case…I can help you with that.