Illuminating what makes the voices of Danielle LaPorte, Havi Brooks, Marie Forleo, & 4 other online entrepreneurs so irresistible to their right people {& what the heck is voice, BTW?}

Photo by ETersigni, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

Okay, so this is what I do. I’m sharing this post to show you what I mean by ‘brand voice development,’ which is a core feature of my latest one-to-one service, PHRASEOLOGIE LUXE.

Whenever I read online entrepreneurs’ blogs, their tweets, their site copy {if they wrote it themselves — which you shouldn’t always assume}, I start mentally dissecting what the voice is doing.

Yep, your voice does stuff to and with your readers. Did you know that? Connecting online, through written, audio, or video content, is all about building relationships. Per usual around here, we’re focusing specifically on the written parts. Although in many {but certainly not all} cases, there’s a direct and very cozy link-up between how people write and how they speak. Google ‘video’ plus the name of any person I profile below and you’ll see what I mean.

Once I get a handle on what someone’s voice is doing and how it’s doing it, I can articulate what their voice really sounds like.

And then, if I’m working as your brand voice ally and digital copywriter, I can translate your voice into words for your website.

I should note that none of the people I profile in this post are or ever have been clients of mine, nor have I worked one-on-one with any of them. {Although I did take a Laura Roeder course way back when and have purchased a product of Danielle’s, too. There are NO affiliate links in this post.} Neither do I consider myself to be any of their right people, exactly. I’ve purposely chosen ‘bigger name’ online voices to comment on because, well, you’ll have a greater chance of being familiar with their work.

I have no value judgements attached to what I articulate here. There’s no right or wrong way to show up in your own business and brand and these voices are not to be held up as models of ‘the right way’ to do it. When it comes to developing your own voice within your brand, there’s only what’s good, better, best for you, in terms of what’s most natural, feels most pure and powerful, and what’s most sustainable for you when you’re writing for your biz.

The goal of my commentary in this post is solely for your edification as someone who’s looking to understand your own voice better in the online space.

First, know this: when I speak about voice, I see it as having 4 elements —

TONE — Attitude of the writer/speaker toward his or her audience. Tone establishes the relationship the writer wants to have with his or her readers, prospects, and clients/customers.

STYLE — Vibe. Also, level of formality, grammatical features, sentence structure. ‘Style’ is often what we’re referring to when we say someone’s a ‘good writer,’ or that we wish that we could write like so-and-so. Style can refer to abstract stuff as much as to technical stuff. ‘Writing style’ is a preferential and often habitual matter of organizing ideas, musicality, and varying sentences.

PERSONALITY INFUSION — Personal anecdotes, personal journey, level of ‘authenticity’ versus showing up as a crafted persona {again — no value judgements here, just different approaches}. The level of personality infusion a writer chooses also works to establish a relationship with readers. As in, you can get this close but go no further.

WORD CHOICE — Phraseologie, signature metaphors, brand language. Examples of phraseologie in action: Danielle LaPorte’s White Hot Truth and fire metaphors, Marie Forleo’s Rich, Happy, and Hot,Tara Gentile’s You Economy and the Art of Earning, Charlie Gilkey’s ‘swallowing a frog,’ Mark Silver’s ‘resonant pricing.’ When we hear someone else in the space using this language, we know where {and who} they got it from.

More on the above 4 elements in a future post.

Below, I’ve articulated what I think is going on with the voices of 7 of online entrepreneurship’s most popular brands:

Danielle LaPorte

She’s fierce {in a less approachable-than-Tyra Banks sort of way}. Devotional. Sacrosanct. Crafted by ear — you can read her pieces aloud and many of them sound poetic.

• Substance: Humanistic business and the awakened lifestyle. With regular musings on love, faith, money, and meaning.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Teacher-Oracle-Artist. For many of her right people, D’s POV is its own religion.
• Style: Goddess-y. Emphasis on evolution. Highly alliterative. Concrete metaphors {note the bit about the boat in this post}. Elevates simple ideas to the level of high concept art — for the soul.
• You’ll never catch her {in other words, what is ‘off-brand’ for her}: Nurturing. Consoling. Whining. Making anything too precious. Working out her ‘stuff’ on her blog.

Marie Forleo

She’s polished, she can work a live event stage like nobody’s business, and she delivers bottom-line online marketing basics with an injection of swag. She’s polarizing — her people love her and her detractors don’t dare to stop watching her.

• Substance: Women in business {especially online business}. Marketing. Social media smarts. With a side of philanthropy.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Mentor-Cool Big Sister. She easily addicts her right people with bounce-y, hook-y content they can’t stop watching — or sharing.
• Style: In your face. Femme-tastic. Occasionally R-rated. Ranges from rip-roarin’ jester to spiritual guru-ini. Uses humor and pop culture references to drive her points home in signature Marie style. Highly conversational and impressively casual in writing — which is harder to pull off than it looks.
• You’ll never catch her {what is ‘off-brand’ for her}: Being anything less than positive in public {snark-free}. Being boring.

Laura Roeder

She’s the girl who gets up at the front of the class and gives the report that gets an A+ — then helps you improve your work, too. She’s often the first person you discover when you bring your business online and then realize you need to get a handle on social media to be viable — and she seems to cheerfully embrace her role as orientation leader.

• Substance: Social media marketing for businesses.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Trainer-Friend-Girl Next Door. She has an effective way of crossing generational lines in her marketing appeal by inviting curiosity, then practically de-mystifying everything.
• Style: Just the facts, ma’am. Keeps it simple {and preaches that it should be} and gets to the point. Unadorned language with clear, straightforward structure. Approachable with zero gush factor. {Gush factor = how much a voice coos over her right people. I loooooove you! You are so amaaaaaazing!}
• You’ll never catch her {what is ‘off-brand’ for her}: Spilling too much of her personal life. Over-complicating anything. Waxing philosophical.

Chris Guillebeau

He’s the lord of a motley but talented and dedicated kingdom of readers. He travels on foot {not really} and eats around the campfire at night with his people. Possibly while wearing Birkenstocks. Or Vibrams.

• Substance: Living, working, and traveling on your own terms.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Leader. Encouraging co-traveler. Wayfarer.
• Style: Writerly. Earnest. Rational. Contemplative. Storytelling, personal anecdotes, full-hearted calls to action. Measured sentences that don’t put readers on-guard. At times, slightly novelesque in feel.
• You’ll never catch him {what is ‘off-brand’ for him}: Sweating the small stuff. Being rant-y or petty or hung up on tactics.

Havi Brooks

She’s a friend to and advocate for the weird, the differently-wired, the offbeat, and the intensely creative. She is quite possibly one of the most beloved and highly referenced {and unintentionally mimicked} online voices in the entrepreneurial space.

• Substance: Entrepreneurship, creativity, personal development.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Cheerleader-Friend-Interpreter-Coach. She’s a genius at rallying her people and creating the kind of community she wants to have.
• Style: Constructed {metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor}. Affable. Lovably neurotic. Self-conscious and self-referential. Winning {not in the Charlie Sheen sense}. Loopy, playful sentences. A fun read if you dig her style.
• You’ll never catch her {what is ‘off-brand’ for her}: Chiding. Dictating. Positioning herself as the all-knowing expert.

Justine Musk

She’s a darling of the incipient American internet literati. A mother of five, a novelist, and a prolific blogger. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a deep read.

• Substance: What it means to be a writer/author in the 21st Century. Online branding and conversation-making. Art, literature, culture, scholarship, current events.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Classmate. Thought provoker. Conversation starter.
• Style: Wantonly, willfully cerebral. Complex. Sophisticated posts that feel thoughtfully architected, yet seem to just intuitively happen, at the same time. Identifies sources and inspirations {with attribution!}.
• You’ll never catch her {what is ‘off-brand’ for her}: Writing badly. Glossing over nuances. Ignoring subtleties.

Charlie Gilkey

He’s a friend and advisor to business owners who want to thrive in life and business — without burning themselves out or reinventing the wheel. He’s got a high ‘know, life, and trust factor’ and appeals to readers who want a little cerebral-ness served up with their heart-and-soul.

• Substance: Sustainable business growth for people who want to do great work and maintain a sane lifestyle at the same time.
• Tone/Relationship to Audience: Business compatriot. Strategist. Compassionate but hard-nosed-when-he-needs-to-be advisor.
• Style: His mind seems {to me, from the outside} like a well-organized matrix. Thorough, measured, balanced. Mindful and detailed. Deeply considerate of his readers, their bandwidth, and their attention. His style can feel almost scholarly at times, and at other times, intensely personal narrative-driven.
• You’ll never catch him {what is ‘off-brand’ for him}: Being hasty. Promoting something or someone he doesn’t deeply believe in. Spouting off tricks and tactics.

So that’s what I do when I work with my clients as a brand voice development ally. Except, of course, we work together on cultivating their voices — and in an even more detailed and fleshed-out way than I’ve demonstrated here.

Interested in learning more? Check out PHRASEOLOGIE LUXE.

In my next post, I’m going to illuminate the 4 elements of voice, and show you why they each matter in the convo you’re having {or want to have} with your right people.

In the comments, would you be willing to . . .

Share with me what landed with you about the voice profiles in this post. What resonated with you? And did anything not feel spot-on to you, in terms of how you experience one of these online entrepreneurs’ voices? Let’s discuss it in the comments.