Finding Your Authentic Brand Voice as a Small Business Owner | Still and Wild
If you have ever sat down to post something for your business and felt completely stuck, you are not alone.
For many small business owners, marketing feels like one more thing added to an already full plate. You are running the business, serving clients, answering emails, managing schedules, handling finances, and somewhere in the middle of all that, you are supposed to confidently show up online and sound like you know exactly what you’re doing.
That pressure adds up.
Most business owners are not struggling because they lack talent, skill, or passion. They are struggling because they are trying to do too much at once without enough clarity to support it.
When you are responsible for every role in your business, marketing often becomes reactive. You post when you have time. You post when you remember. You post when guilt creeps in and you think, “I really should show up today.”
That usually looks like scrolling through your camera roll, hoping one image will suddenly feel right. Writing and deleting captions. Overthinking whether this sounds professional enough or personal enough or relevant enough.
This is where authenticity starts to feel elusive.
People often think their problem is consistency, confidence, or creativity. In reality, the issue is usually direction. When you don’t have a clear foundation for your brand, everything feels harder than it needs to be.
Your authentic voice is not something you have to invent. It already exists. It shows up when you talk to your clients, when you explain what you do, when you tell stories about your work. Years ago I wrote an article for a magazine titled “Your Desert Island Voice”. Essentially it was an article about asking what would you do if you didn’t have any influence over what you “should do.” We are bombarded in our personal and business lives about what our vacations should look like, how to how to have the most festive holidays, what to wear, how to eat…. it is no wonder we feel pressure to market a certain way… we see so much of it. We are the target of so much marketing, social media dances, influencers who already successful…. that we think…that must be the way to do it. The only problem is that if they were there and we were on our deserted island…we would do things so differently.
What gets in the way is pressure.
Pressure to show up perfectly.
Pressure to keep up.
Pressure to do it the “right” way.
Authenticity doesn’t come from trying harder. It comes from simplifying. When you understand what matters most to your brand and why you do what you do, your voice naturally becomes more consistent.
You stop guessing.
You stop copying.
You stop forcing content that doesn’t feel aligned.
Strong branding starts with giving yourself permission to slow down and get clear. Once that clarity is in place, showing up no longer feels like another obligation. It starts to feel like an extension of who you already are.
Keep reading -Blog Two in this series -HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL CLIENT AND THE REAL PROBLEM YOU SOLVE
