Today on the podcast I am delighted to welcome Maddy Shine. 

Maddy Shine is a small biz business mentor and visibility expert who helps women-owned business legends grow their businesses by becoming more visible. She has helped thousands of clients get more visible through teaching her free and paid online programs and membership community Visible Vibes.

She has been described as actual human sunshine - you can even use her GIFs which have been used over 690 million times! Maddy believes it's up to us to find and get booked by those who want to work with us. Maddy also runs a second brand Sassy & Soft designing WordPress websites and SEO projects for women-owned and queer friendly businesses.

Maddy joined me on the podcast a few years ago to talk about SEO, and today is here to talk about marketing with personality. We discuss what marketing with personality means, how that applies to you and your brand, and you can use this to make your business more visible. 

It’s a really inspiring conversation, as Maddy is so passionate about the importance and positive impact when women running their own businesses are visible. I know you will come away energised and excited to talk more about your product business. 

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Welcome to the bring your product idea to life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert.

Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Hello.

So today on the podcast, I am delighted to welcome Maddie Shine.

Maddie is a small business mentor and visibility expert who helps women businesses grow their businesses by becoming more visible.

Maddie actually joined me on the podcast, oh, I want to say, a few years ago now to talk about SEO, and today she's here to talk about marketing with personality.

She's going to explain what marketing with personality means, how that applies to you, how that applies to your brand, and how you can help yourself and your brand be more visible.

So I would love now to introduce you to Maddie.

So, hi, Maddie.

Thank you so much for being here.

It's wonderful to be here.

Thank you for inviting me back, Vicki.

You're so welcome.

And so, as you have alluded to, you have been on the podcast once already.

So if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to reintroduce yourself.

Tell us all who you are, tell us about your business, what you do and who you support.

Absolutely.

So my name is Maddie Shine.

Sadly, not the name I was born with, but that's the name that most people know me by.

I am a blue head marketing, SEO, small business mentor for who I work mainly with women who run their own businesses.

And I've been going 12 years now.

And I offer all sorts of different services to help women.

I educate them, I also do services for them with my brand, Sassy and soft.

And so I really try and help in as many ways as possible so that women can run their own businesses in a way that works for them.

Amazing.

Thank you.

So today we're going to be talking about marketing and marketing with personality more specifically.

But let's start off with a really basic question, which is why do we need.

When I say we, I mean women.

So why do women need to be visible and make ourselves and our businesses visible beyond the obvious that obviously we all need to sell things?

Yes, absolutely.

Well, the thing is, we really need to be working on our visibility, particularly as small businesses, because you know how we all love to say, support small business, shop small, all this kind of thing.

Well, actually, with.

Without kind of reasons to back that up, then beyond a nice gesture, why are we really doing it?

So I think that when we work on our visibility and show our personality and show our brilliant uniqueness, we all have it.

Whether we're introvert, extroverted, blue head or otherwise, we all have a personality that where, where we enjoy what we're doing, we enjoy speaking to people about what we do.

And it's important to share that because there is so much awfulness going on in the world.

And I think that when we are showing up with what we're doing, what we have built from scratch, and we get paid money to do that, I mean, how lucky are we to do that, first of all?

But also because we are supporting our, we are supporting our families.

I just think that these stories need to be told.

And that's why I think it's so important for particularly women who run their own businesses to be visible.

Thank you.

And I mean, I know that this is something that I struggle with.

Naturally, I'm quite shy.

I find it quite hard to put myself out there, and that's just my reason for it.

But I'm sure you have heard lots of reasons why many of us do struggle with making ourselves visible.

What, what do you think are some of the other reasons that people hold back on doing this?

Well, let's not forget that it was only possibly two generations ago where this would be a frankly unheard of thing.

We are pioneers.

This is still a very, in the grand history of time, this, you know, women being visible sort of thing is, is quite new.

Sure, women were, you know, were sent out to earn money for the family and all that kind of stuff.

That's not new.

And let's not forget all the unpaid labor that women do.

But the whole concept of actually using our voices, speaking up, putting ourselves out there, people listening to our opinions, us like, you know, becoming leaders, this is all relatively new.

And I think that women do struggle with that because the concept of a confident woman is still so unpopular in so many different worlds and still so frowned upon, even if people are sort of, you know, oh, yeah, no, I love a confident woman.

I love a strong woman or whatever that's still considered to be, to look like a certain way, you know, so, you know, certainly not shy and certainly not, you know, introvert or anything like that, you know, and, and I think that when we actually do kind of move forward with confidence, then we can sort of start to see, oh, look at all the things that are possible.

But at the same time, we haven't been told that many things are possible.

What we've been told is that we'll face trolling we'll face going viral for wrong reasons, we'll face ridicule and we worry about the risks involved.

So it's really important to me to show that there are so many different ways to look, being and you know, to be visible rather than get focused on those reasons why we're not.

That makes a lot of sense.

And yeah, I think another thing that I certainly have in mind, and I'm sure others do as well, is that fear of the feedback that you might get from putting yourself out there.

It feels very vulnerable, actually.

Absolutely.

I mean, I speak to people all the time who are worried about asking for reviews from, you know, from customers.

So, you know, it can, it can really kind of go down to those kind of details as well where people are so worried just to, just to send that automated follow up email, you know, would you like to leave a review on Google?

Would you like to release a review on Amazon, Etsy, wherever they're selling?

And I think that's so, you know, it kind of breaks my heart in a way because actually you have put your heart and soul into making these products, into selling these products whenever it is you're selling.

And actually when you're, when, when you, you know, what do you think of it?

Have you, did you enjoy it then?

Actually the customer is, you know, very likely to say, yes, I, I love your products.

I'm very, it's completely, not only is it fit for purpose, but it's great and everybody loves it or whatever it is you' and so I think actually giving them, giving people the opportunity to show their love and appreciation is actually a sort of a bigger way, a sort of slightly more expansive way than oh God, I'm scared to ask for feedback.

Because you know, what if they hate it?

To be honest, customers who hate things will tell you anyway, won't they?

Let's face it, we've all had unhappy customers, unfortunately.

But if you ask for feedback and they haven't given it already that, you know, then either they're going to say here's how much I love and appreciate your product or they're going to say maybe some kind of suggestion which actually would be really useful and will only ever improve what you're doing or they're.

Not going to bother, that's the other one is, or they don't do anything.

At all, they're just going to put.

It in the junk and move on with their day.

Because that's true as well, isn't it?

Because sometimes we can feel the fear about doing some of These things but actually to the person on the other end, it's such a small thing because I get loads of these emails, you know, but will you review this and that and if it's a small business I always do.

But equally it's not a, it's not a big event for me to get an email from someone saying please leave me feedback.

I either will or I won't.

And most nine times out of ten I will and but it's not a, it's not an event.

But I think for the, those of us on the end of having to ask for this feedback, it feels, I think we play up a little bit to be bigger than it is maybe.

For sure.

I mean this is a good example.

I get constant automated emails from delivery companies, not the company selling, sending out the product, the delivery company saying, how was your delivery experience?

Well obviously I'm not going to respond to that until last Sunday at half past seven in the morning I got a delivery of my toilet paper from this lovely eco company I've been buying them from from years on subscription but they've never delivered at half past seven on a Sunday morning before so obviously it woke me up.

And when I got the how was your delivery?

I wrote a very strappy email saying, well I don't expect to be woken up at half seven on a Sunday morning, thank you very much.

And to be fair they sent an email almost immediately back, I'd say within the hour saying really sorry, these are our hours operation and this is how we can deliver an efficient service.

I'm sorry, blah, blah.

So it was just like, okay fine, I know you're not going to like change your policy thanks to me but you know, I did want to just have a space just to say I'm not happy about being woken up at half seven on a Sunday morning and.

I think that's very sad as well.

Thank you.

So one of the reasons, obviously we need to be visible is because we need to let people know what it is that we're selling.

But I think yet another thing that could hold lots of us back and I'm, and I'm speaking again from experience here, is when you have something to sell, it can feel a bit cringy and a bit awkward to talk about the thing you have to sell.

And I know that's silly, but I also know I'm not the first person to say this.

So how can we sell our products without feeling a bit yucky about it?

Well again it comes back to reframing.

So when you Know, just like I was saying with the review feedback, email and kind of panicking about what they might say and actually giving them the space to either ignore it or love and appreciate it, then actually it comes down to, that's the same thing when you're coming down to what you say on your website about the product or what you say on your social media emails or anywhere else that you might be marketing.

So really what you can start to think about is think about those really happy customers.

That's the thing that when I'm getting like, oh, God, no one's going to want me, hear me going on and on about this again, you know, because we all get it.

It's only natural because again, it's relatively new for us to show off like this, essentially.

And so actually, when we think about the happy customers, the ones who can't get enough of what we.

But, you know, what will we sell?

And, you know, they have left good reviews and they have used lovely language.

We use that language.

But also we can keep them in mind when we are putting ourselves out there and when we're talking about why other people.

Because there'll be other people like that happy customer out there who are desperate to know about our products.

They just don't know about us yet.

And so when we are talking about it and trying to find that confidence to do that, then that will make it slightly easier.

I'm not going to say it's radically changed overnight, but it'll make it slightly easier every time you do it, every time you show up to talk about your beautiful products.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

So we said right at the beginning we were going to talk about marketing with personality.

Yes.

So, Maddie, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

Well, the thing is, you know, when, you know, when you're at, you know, out for drinks with friends or you're at a dinner with friends or whatever, and they ask you about your business, of course, because that's what good friends do.

And then they'll sort of say, you know, they'll get you started on something.

And we've all been there when we're completely, you know, we might have had a glass of wine and we kind of go off on one about this particular product that we're making or something, a new idea that we've got kind of on the go or something like that.

What I'm talking about is getting that kind of stuff out there in your marketing platforms so you don't have to radically develop this kind of confident, you know, strong Personality.

If that is not your natural vibe, if it is, great.

But if it isn't, and particularly if it isn't, then I think that that's when people kind of go, oh, marketing with personality.

That's what that means.

And actually what we're doing is we're just finding a way that feels comfortable for us.

But at the same time, you're still working on a marketing plan and whatever, again, whatever that plan looks like to you.

So you might be thinking about, well, why do people love what we do?

Why do, you know, and then.

And then sort of coming at it from.

From that kind of enthusiasm rather than the worried about what people think.

And I think that's the really solid kind of base for what I mean by marketing with personality.

And the next thing I was thinking about was, you know, when you're at markets and, you know, I keep seeing those jokey reels about the different kinds of customers that show up at market stalls.

You know, the ones who show interest and ask questions but buy.

But actually, when you're thinking about all those questions that people ask you, whether they buy or not, that's all juicy fodder, if you like, for marketing with personality, because that's all personal to you.

That's all.

That's all personal to you and your products.

And I think that sometimes when we get kind of caught up in, well, you know, what do you want from me?

It's a.

It's a mug.

You know, if you want the mug gray, if you like drinking tea, buy a mug.

But actually it's like, how is it made?

How were the colors chosen?

What kind of branding is it?

Is it for, you know, is it clearly for quirky people or is it for color lovers?

Is it for.

Is it dark?

You know, whatever it might be, you're looking at the unique aspects.

And I think that particularly with small businesses, we get caught up in this idea of the saturated market.

Oh, well, there's loads of people doing what I do now.

So, you know, you can get a bit demotivated.

But this is where marketing with personality comes into play.

Because if we're not using our personality, if we haven't got that, basically, if we have, if we're not creating that unique brand for ourselves, because that's what I'm really talking about, then we're only ever going to compete on price, and then it's just a drive to the bottom because we can't compete with mass producers.

You know, we're small businesses.

So I think that would be where.

To start with that, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And as you were talking, I was reflecting on the fact that obviously I interview loads of product businesses on this podcast, and I interview people who sell all kinds of things, but I can have a few people on who sell the same products.

I've had quite a few guests on who sold jewelry.

And every one of them, the impression I have of them and their company and their products will be different because of what they've told me and what's important to them and the story and how they got started and why they got started and hearing all of that, I think that I, I was reflecting when you were speaking.

That's the kind of, the.

That's the kind of thing that we're all interested in.

I can't tell you how many times I've bought something of someone because I've interviewed them for the podcast and I've just been like, oh, I love the fact that you did this.

Because of that, I love you inspired by this, or you retrain whatever it is, you hear someone's story and instantly you.

There's a bit of a hook there.

And it's, it's really interesting.

And I think, I think maybe that part of what you're talking about is just.

Yes.

Finding a way to talk about your products or an aspect of your product or your business or you.

That people are interested in.

Yes, absolutely.

Your story is such a big part of it because.

Well, that, that's partly why you know them well enough to interview them on your podcast, because they have developed a clear brand.

They've got the story out there.

They are telling those stories.

They're telling their why, they're showing their why.

You know, I love to talk to businesses where, you know, it's really, really clear what their, what their story is, why they exist.

I was talking to this company the other day, and they.

And their business, their entire business is secondhand kids clothing, which is amazing.

And now they've just started a rental brand as a rental branch of it as well.

I mean, that's, That's.

There's going to be a real story there.

You know, there's.

And that people can emotionally invest in.

And I think that's, again, why the marketing with personality is how you can win over brands who are not doing this no matter what kind of size of business you are or, you know, how long you've been going.

And I think that this is one of the reason that podcast is great for this, is that you're hearing people tell their story in their.

I Don't know.

I would say that because we are recording this for a podcast, I do think it's true.

There's something about hearing people tell their story or talk about their products or their business in their own voice and their own words.

You really get a sense of them.

And it's probably why it's my favorite way of finding out about new people, new businesses.

But for those of us who maybe, you know, because going on a podcast and being interviewed absolutely isn't for everyone.

So what other ways do you think there are for businesses to sort of inject some personality into their marketing?

If perhaps you're.

You're introverted or, you know, you don't want to maybe be on a podcast, maybe you don't even want to be on video, maybe you don't even want to show your face.

How else can we do this?

You can tell your story in your social media captions.

If you don't want to show your face, if you don't want to do video yet, or if you want to mix it up, tell your story in the video in the social media captions.

I cannot tell you how many social media posts I read.

And I'm just like, they clearly spent so long on the graphic that they just couldn't be bothered with the.

The caption or whatever it might be.

Or they just thought we're assuming too much of what the reader knows and remembers.

And so, you know, we all, we all scroll, don't we, we all scroll.

We don't press like on everything.

We probably look on quite a few different accounts, all that kind of stuff.

Or we look on our Explore page and we're just browsing.

And I love the ones where people tell stories.

And that can be as simple as using the adjectives that happy customers have used to describe your products within that story.

It could be just simply how you made it.

You could keep it super simple.

Heck, you could even use AI to help you tell that story.

I wouldn't say make, Let AI make up the story.

Put a giraffe version in and let them maybe jazz it up a bit.

But with, if you're wondering where to start with that, that's where I would start telling the stories more in your social media captions.

Another way to start with that video emails, set up that email list.

I started my email list with 16 people 10 years ago.

And you know, I really, you know those people because I emailed them regularly.

They would then tell other people and so on and so on.

So that word of mouth became really strong.

Because I was chatting away in my emails.

I wasn't kind of, you know, getting head up on the structure and the conversion rates and the open rates, everything.

I was just sending it out until it started growing and that it did.

So there's different ways to do it.

But then, of course, with video, you don't have to show your face.

You could just do voiceover on the video.

And that could be for stories, reels, tick tocks, whatever videos you're doing.

But I do think it's important for, you know, to, to.

To acknowledge your progression as you create different types of content.

And what I really like to do is encourage people to play around and find out, and if you really hate it, delete it.

Like, no one's gonna know.

It's absolutely fine.

But really playing around with different types of content and having a look at going, oh, maybe I could do a con piece of content like that.

I saw Joe blogs do over there and, and really sort of seeing particularly the voiceover, I think that's a really great way to again, inject some personality and really kind of say, all right, okay, so they're like a nice, calm brand.

Great.

That's, you know, that's exactly what I want from my scented candle or whatever it might be, or, oh, look, they.

I saw, I saw a business yesterday.

They repurpose broken paddling pools and inflatables and they make handbags out of it.

I mean, that's amazing.

But as you'd expect, the maker was doing a video and she had colorful hair and she was talking very enthusiastically and all this kind of thing.

So it was all very on brand.

So I thought, great, because there's a story there, isn't there?

And there's personality.

So really there's all sorts of different ways to do it.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

I liked your point as well about looking at content and getting inspired by other people's content as well.

Absolutely, yes.

Who is it that said there's no such thing as an original idea?

I mean, I don't know how true that is, but I do think that we are allowed to be inspired by other people with direct without directly copying them.

And in fact, I love that feature on reels where you can remix a reel.

So I've actually just recently had a reel go viral, which, funnily enough, I'm not in.

It's Elmo from Sesame street.

But I put my own caption and I put my own text on it because I remixed someone else's reel and I've had.

I think over 8,000 saves of that reel now.

So, you know, that kind of visibility is obviously going to be really important to me.

Yeah, I can see that.

And I forgot about the remixing.

I've never remixed a me.

It was a reel, as you can probably tell.

I forgot that was even a feature.

But that sounds like a nice way perhaps apps to start using reels as well, to use something else as a starting point.

Absolutely.

Because I love making people laugh.

This funny clip of Elmo really shows off my brand personality as well as giving some useful information in the caption.

And I've got a few others saved as well, like I love snl, so I've got a few reels of those saved that I'm going to remix at some point.

I found another Elmo one, you know, so they really kind of helps give an indication.

I think memes and clips like that can also really help show off your brand personality as well.

That's a really good point.

Think now.

You've said that as the clips that someone chooses to share, especially on a business account, does give you a good indication of who that person is, what they like, what their personality is, what their sense of humor is, perhaps.

Exactly.

You know, you know from that, from that kind of content that I am a joyful, optimistic sort of person.

You know that I am not going to be this serious corporate minimalist kind of brand.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

You just know that I'm not going to be that.

And coming off track a little bit, I'd also like to say that we get that from your website as well, Maddie, which will be linked in the show notes for anyone has to have who wants to look.

Your website is very, very different to.

I want to.

I want to say any website that I've looked at for someone who does similar to what you do, if you see what I mean, your website is really distinct.

It's got a lot of personality.

Before I even spoke to you, I had a strong sense of what kind of person you would be through your website.

So is that something else we should be thinking about when we're thinking about marketing with personality?

Should our websites be an indication of that personality or.

Not necessarily.

I'm.

I'm curious.

I'm a massive fan of having a strong brand.

But I should say this.

I did not start off with that kind of brand that is so much Pinterest planning on secret boards of what kind of branding I.

You know, and when I say branding, I mean it was the style of photography because There is like, kind of big extrovert, you know, it's me in a pub with blue hair, space buns.

Quite casual these days, but really kind of, you know, with a powerful stance, but relaxed.

I like to call it sassy and soft.

That's why it's named my second brand.

And with my strong branding, I really wanted it to feel like a, A, A welcoming bar, you know, where you could pull up a chair next to me and have a good conversation.

And that's really what I wanted for my branding.

So when you're thinking about your branding.

Absolutely.

Go for us.

You know, go and speak to brand designers.

Because I'm no brand designer, but I did work with a brand designer to develop that website so that I was really clear on what kind of fonts I wanted, what kind of fonts I didn't.

The color scheme and all that kind of stuff.

Stuff.

And the brand photography as well.

I worked with a great brand photographer for those photos.

So I did a lot of planning and a lot of evolution over the years.

And I think that's also something that I wanted to bring up in this chat as well, is that we don't allow ourselves to evolve.

We kind of say, oh, we're unhappy with our website, or we don't like how our Instagram aesthetic looks or whatever, but actually we don't think about what we want instead.

And so we use that as a reason not to be visible.

And so what I would definitely encourage everyone to do is hop onto Pinterest, look up.

Because there's all sorts, obviously, on Pinterest, look up color schemes that you love.

And it could be from anything.

Take inspiration from anything.

I think I got mine from old photos of Madonna from the 80s, from a couple of neon bars I found from America, you know, that.

And from small photos of Susan Sarandon and, like, Drew Barrymore, things like that.

So, you know, icons from.

Yeah.

80s and 90s and how I really wanted that to look.

And, you know, it could be different for everybody.

But hop onto Pinterest and it's really fun.

Do some vision boarding.

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah.

So when we're thinking about selling products, how do we add personality to our marketing?

Because I think this might be something where people are coming a bit unstuck.

Because I think if you're a service business or you have a personal brand, it can.

Not always, but it can feel easier to put some personality into what you do.

I do think it can possibly be harder if you're selling products, particularly if you're not visible as the face of the business, let's say.

So you have a brand and you know it's your brand, it's your business, but you're trying to put the products front and foremost rather than yourself.

I don't know if I'm wording this.

Yeah.

Correctly, but I think.

I think you get the gist of what I mean.

How do we add personality when it's all about the products?

Okay, so let's take the scented candle example, shall we?

So if I was selling scented candles, I would consider how do people want to feel about their scented candles?

And my guess is that they want to have long hot bubble baths.

They want to have a relaxing time of it in their home, in their home office.

They want to have a break from everything, all the noise.

So we're thinking quite calm and quiet.

If they're kind of quite minimal designs, I might be thinking, okay, so we'll do quite minimal videos.

We'll.

We'll use nice classical music.

We won't use upbeat.

We'll use kind of lo fi sounds.

We'll search for that on reels.

We'll create video content with kind of maybe beautiful textures.

Will.

Will try and invoke that sense of what people want from buying that candle.

And that's how you can start carving out that personality for your brand.

Because when I say marketing personality, it doesn't have to be yours.

No, obviously it's, you know, it could be.

Could look easier for me because I've got a personal brand.

But if it's not you, then it's actually somewhat easier to develop a personality for a brand that is not actually yours.

So like I was just describing, with that calm, quiet, beautiful music, calm surroundings, you could create that personality.

And that's what people are buying into.

That makes sense.

And do you think there's an element there or thinking about the personality personalities of your customers?

So for coming back to Cinti Candle example, if you have a sense of, of who your customer is and why they're purchasing from you, is there some of that goes into it as well?

I don't know whether there does because actually if you think about it, all sorts of different people buy scented candles.

All sorts of people might buy any products.

And so I actually quite tempted to move away from the traditional client avid or customer avatar.

If you like the customer profile.

I'm thinking about their value and their wishes.

What.

What do they want from life?

So people buying a scented candle could be a woman like me who's living at home alone and they Have a stinky cat.

But they also like long, hot baths.

So they're like a scented candle.

Right.

But I also equally could be a busy mum with five kids clamoring all over the shop and her yelling at her husband or, you know, whatever, going, I just need five minutes.

Peace and choir.

Okay, can you all.

Can you just take the kids out or whatever it is, you know, on a Saturday morning, and the mum can, like, put down a candle on and like, have some five minutes of quiet.

So we're not going to look the same, be the same, or live in the same area necessarily.

We might well do.

But actually what we want is that calm and quiet.

And so that's the personality that you have to tap into, in my opinion.

Thank you.

And the reason I wanted to ask that does come back to what you've said before about.

There's a lot of advice out there, and I don't hear it as much now, but certainly 10 years ago, you'd be hurt.

You'd be told, make an avatar for your customer.

Think about what they're called and where they shop and what they read.

And I'll be honest, I never did any of that because it seemed like an awful lot of work.

But that always was the advice.

But then when you try and do that and then you think about the personality of your brand, I was thinking that's actually a lot.

So I think that'd be really comforting for people to hear you say.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with people who want.

If people want to create an avatar for their customer, that's all good, too.

But to hear you say, you don't have to do that, that when you're thinking about how you add personality to.

Your own brand, definitely not.

I think that I've always.

Because I.

I always used to wonder, like, why is that the advice?

And I think I might have even given that advice.

And I thought if I give that, you know, back, way back when.

But actually, when I start to think about what are their values rather than, you know, what newspaper do they read, then I tend to, you know, I tend to get a better match anyway.

So I might then sell to people who don't have the same values as me for it.

Well, sorry, the same, you know, news, they might not read the same newspaper as me or they might not live in the same town as what I'm thinking.

So then I used to think, well, where does that fit in with my ideal customer profile?

But actually they have the same values as me, which is they also want to learn how to take up space.

They also want.

They also want to thrive as a woman running their own business.

They, you know, they might have feminist leanings, they might not.

They might be curious about feminist leanings, you know, all this kind of thing.

So that's.

That would be why I'm.

That's why I lean more into that stuff rather than, you know, she's 36, she lives in Peterborough.

All that jazz.

I think it makes sense.

I think it's just looking at the other way around, which is if you build a strong personality for your brand, you will attract people who have the same values and possibly the same interests, depending on what your brand personality is, rather than doing it the other way around and trying to create a brand personality for a customer avatar who may or may not exist.

Exist, yeah, for sure.

I mean, so I haven't even mentioned my gifts yet, but I.

In lockdown, I learned to create gifts of myself and I learned how to get them visible on the Internet, and they continue to go viral.

So they have been seen, I think, over 700 million times now, which is kind of wild.

I can't really, like, envisage that number, but.

Yeah, that's what.

That's what I'm told by the stats.

It's a big number.

Right.

But I know that when clients or friends or friends of clients or, you know, clients of friends, whatever, they.

I'm being used in all sorts of different meetings, discussions, conversations, and I often get tagged.

And then I.

Then there's another sort of aspect of.

Oh, well, that's Maddie.

She likes to, you know, know, be optimistic and joyful, and that's why her gifts are.

And that's why they've gone so popular.

Not always, of course, you know, like, celebrities have used my gifts, obviously, not knowing that it is.

I.

But.

And of course, there's no way I can message them because they're never going to read their DMs from people they don't follow.

Right.

So.

But no, it's all sorts of different ways to help that idea of who you are and what you do out there, particularly if you.

Particularly if you don't want to get your face out there.

Conveying that concept of what you're selling is just as important as the product.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

And I also think it's really helpful to know that you and your brands can have entirely different personalities.

Yes, I think that's also really useful and hopefully reassuring as well.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Although I would say this, like, when you're Selling.

So I know one of my clients is.

Sells Country Living products.

So horses, dogs, gardening, all those kinds of things.

She makes them and personalizes them, and it's amazing.

And she is very much a fan of all those things.

That's why she wanted to create that business.

That's why she's very passionate about it.

So I would just be wary if you're looking at selling products and, you know, know, maybe.

Maybe I'm wrong.

So forgive.

Forgive me if I am, but it usually there is a strong overlap.

I call it like a Venn diagram, you know.

So your personality probably shouldn't be.

Your own personality probably shouldn't be radically different from what it is you're trying to sell, because otherwise it's not going to work.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think I was thinking more along the lines of you could be quite an introverted, quiet person, but maybe the products that you're selling, that your brand could be quite bright and loud and colorful, perhaps.

I think I was meaning more like that because you're absolutely right.

I mean, if you are, I don't know, very big on sustainability and you're selling, I don't know.

So I can't think of a good example.

Plastic straws, but you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Then that doesn't fit.

So I think.

Absolutely.

I think your business values and your brand values need to align.

But I think there is a bit of space with a personality that maybe if you are quite shy, for example, you could have a bit more fun with.

Of Persona with your brand.

Yes.

I think it's also interesting just to.

If you do sell at markets as well and sell in real life, to also keep that in mind because then people might have an expectation, I suppose, of.

Oh, okay, so you've got a bright and quirky brand, but then I've met a lot of bright, quirky introverts, actually, so forgive me, I'll stop talking.

No, the story is really interesting, though, because you do get an idea.

You do have.

Have sometimes, whether we want to admit to this or not, we do sometimes have preconceptions of what X person will be based on their brand, their products, what we've seen online.

Yes, I think we do.

We do, yes.

And it's not.

And it's not always what you'd expect.

No, definitely not.

Definitely not.

Sometimes it's fun to blow up people's expectations.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

So, Maddie, thank you so much for all of everything that you shared.

I think this is really useful.

I think it's a lot to think about.

As well.

One, actually, one final question before my final question.

So the penultimate question is, so do you think that for a product business, it's okay to not put yourself front and center of your business if that doesn't, if, if that doesn't work for you?

So when we talk about your brand personality, is it okay to be the founder of a brand and actually let the brand lead and keep yourself a bit quieter?

Absolutely.

I give you full permission to do that as long as you do push the brand personality.

So there's like a caveat to my answer, because what I've noticed is I have, you know, I, I mean, I meet business owners because of course, you know, down the pub, even I got into conversation with people and think, oh, I run my own business.

I, I make beauty, beauty products or something like that.

And I'm saying, okay, what kind of marketing do you do?

And they do the most stunning photography.

They really do this, this one particular business I have in mind.

And they'll never show their face.

And that's their, that's their style, absolutely fine.

But they're not pushing what they are doing enough.

So I'm not saying, you know, it's not good enough.

It's beautiful.

But they need to be looking at other ways to push that, you know, and develop that brand personality now that they have the beautiful photograph.

So I, I think, you know, I would just say if you don't, if you, if you want to detach yourself from that, you know, and, and not be your brand, absolutely fine.

But make sure you're really pushing the stuff that you are doing.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

And so finally, Maddie, my real final question.

What would your number one piece of advice be for marketing with personality?

To play around with different styles, different platforms, and find out what works for you before you start finding out, you know, before.

Before you burn yourself out.

Find, trying to find what works for other people because without you, there is no business.

And that's what the main thing is.

That's really good advice.

Thank you.

Because it can be too easy to think, oh, I should be on this platform, because so and so is doing that, or I should create gifts because Maddie's done it or whatever the thing is.

So, yeah, I think that's really good advice.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

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