It’s easy to think that your website should be neutral, devoid of your own personality.

After all, that’s what so many other websites do.

But that’s not necessarily a good idea.

For a start, being too corporate can be off-putting for a lot of people.

They’re used to official sites being bland and devoid of personality.

It’s expected.

In much the same way as that voice calls your number in the queue or that other voice that interrupts the canned music to let you know that they’d like to pretend your call is important when it’s patently obvious that if it really was important they’d pay a few more people whatever the minimum wage is in whichever faraway country the call centre is located in and you wouldn’t be on perma-hold.

There are too many places like that.

Your site and your voice need to be you,

They need to reflect your personality and that needs to come to the forefront rather than hiding away in the shadows.

Will you alienate some people by doing that?

Yes.

In much the same way that you don’t get along perfectly with everyone you meet,

That’s life.

But it will also make the bond stronger between you and those who care to stay.

I’ve just done that for a new product that’s going live in a few days (at the time of writing, the link is live but the product doesn’t go on sale until December 3rd).

It’s the complete opposite of most internet marketing sales letters – no glossy images, no hype.

Will it work?

I won’t know until it gets lauched.

But the initial reaction from some of my JV partners is that it’s a refreshing change for a sales letter to be that style.

It shows my personality and it will connect with some people and repel others.

That’s fine by me

It’s a cliché that you can’t please all the people all the time but it’s also true.

And the world would be a boring place if it wasn’t true.

We’d all know what everyone else liked and didn’t like.

Life would be far too predictable.

And you should be thinking the same.

Let your personality come to the forefront.

If that means you’re sitting in front of the video camera in a vest, that’s OK. The people who find that approach too informal will look elsewhere. But the people who think they’re almost sitting next to you, chatting while the BBQ does it’s thing, will like it.

The same goes for any approach.

OK, some markets you need a slightly more formal approach.

The casual look wouldn’t work well for a plastic surgeon or a doctor. That’s why medicine adverts often dress actors up in white jackets to give the impression that they are an authority in their field.

So in that respect you do need to tailor your approach to your market.

But if it’s at the expense of drowning out your personality, at least do it consciously rather than thinking that you’ll fit in better with other people if you go down the corporate, bland, route.

Go back to your current site or your current videos.

Check them out as though you were a new visitor.

Does it feel like you’d know the author of the pages once you’ve gone through a few of them?

Or does it feel like you still haven’t got a clue who the person behind the page is?

Do the same for the emails you send to your list.

And any other communications you have with people.

Then adjust your style so that your personality starts to shine through.

If you’re thinking you haven’t got a personality then maybe that’s something you need to work on as well (although my guess would be that’s more to do with self esteem than an actual lack of personality).

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