How Not To Start Personal Brand Storytelling
Unless you got lucky, one of the first pieces of marketing advice you ever got was to create an “ideal client avatar.”
This term, which is given so much weight from marketing experts, has buried untold numbers of business owners under mountains of self-doubt.
Would they drink chia or cold brew?
Do they prefer podcasts or audiobooks?
As if nailing these imaginary customer details would pop the lock on visibility and sales.
It doesn’t.
If you’ve ever made yourself dizzy perfecting a persona to talk to in your content only for it to flop, you already know this on some level.
But instead of blaming the tool, most of my clients blame themselves, wondering why they “suck” at marketing. The truth is the “define-your-audience-first” approach was never intended for you.
Personas were designed as a tool for corporations to figure out where to put their ad dollars before social media was invented.
Like most marketing advice you see on Instagram, this is a hand-me-down strategy that’s been copy-pasted so many times it feels like capital-T truth that in reality does more harm than good for people who want to grow authentically in 2025.
This feels like one of those things that’s going to sound so obvious when I say, but it must be said:
Authenticity can’t start with fake personas.
This is the second part of a two-part StoryCraft series on Authentic Brand Storytelling.
The first, was a primer on authentic storytelling content with prompts for articulating the nuances of your perspective and experiences without costing you professional credibility or giving you a vulnerability hangover.
Today is about telling authentic stories that attract the right people to your brand. You’ll walk away with a three-part exercise to do exactly that in your real-life marketing this week.
I’m excited to have this conversation with you!
Authenticity vs. The World(view)
Authentic stories that grow a loyal following:
Clarify your message
Validate your audience’s beliefs and struggles
Give hope for a better future (without a sugarcoating)
So how do you find them?
Not by looking at your client avatar.
Molding your message to fit an imaginary audience puts you on defense.
This manifests as:
Constantly questioning what will resonate.
Feeling disconnected or wanting to pivot often (Oh, hi 🙋♀️)
Diluting (or being fuzzy on) your perspective and what makes you different.
This audience-first mindset makes us overlook the stories that would act like a magnet for the right people.
As Seth Godin explains in All Marketers Are Liars (3/5 ⭐), your ideal audience is already telling themselves stories about:
Who they are (values, beliefs, opinions, labels)
The challenges they face (and why they can’t overcome them).
What they believe is possible for them (“I’m the type of person who ____.”).
The big difference between the ideal client avatar approach and the authentic storytelling approach is this:
Your ideal client is someone telling themselves stories that echo a past, current, or future version of you.
When you get clear on those, like we did last week, you get a razor sharp idea of who you are really speaking to in content.
Walking The Talk?
Authentic storytelling shares your values, perspective, and approach so the people who are most open to your way of doing things think:
“Yes, someone who gets it!”
When done right, it hits the right combination of authority and authenticity we talked about last week.
Because people listen to people like them who have what they want. When you can articulate your audience's problems better than they can themselves, they’ll view your approach as more credible and valuable.
It’s human nature to gravitate toward people like us.
People struggling with burnout are more likely to trust someone who’s lived it than a therapist who’s studied its causes and “cures” but has never endured that fresh hell themselves.
There’s no better way to voice your expertise than to live it, reflect on it, and sort the helpful stuff from the BS.
If you’re a speech coach, talk about the specific problems you had to overcome to speak confidently.
If you own a wellness spa, talk about the specific treatments that have helped you or support your vitality.
If you're a business coach who educates on burnout prevention, talk about the specific impacts it had on you.
Specificity is key. Details like chai or cold brew don’t matter that much.
Details like “burnout started with a need to prove myself” matter because those are insights that can't be Googled and will save the people you help months, if not years, trying to figure it out themselves.
What’s more valuable than that?
Relatable content comes from understanding their very specific problems, not their Starbucks order.
Authentic stories serve as real-world examples of that understanding from your one-of-a-kind expert perspective.
They illustrate your message is credible and relevant for someone trying to figure out what you already did.
StoryCraft Prompts for Authentic Storytelling
At StoryCraft, we use a two-part approach to authentic brand storytelling. 1. Mine Your Life for Stories 2. Use Them to Show How You Help Others. These prompts are designed to support you in sharing stories that voice your expertise engagingly. To become a better storyteller, take five minutes this week to reflect on your answers in a notebook, in the shower, or doing dishes.
Here's a three-step process for finding authentic stories:
Message: What is a message you want more people to know? For example, “Direction is more important than speed.”
Mine Your Memory: Look for moments that demonstrate that point. Such as, realizing you spent three years building the wrong business because you were so focused on doing a good job that you didn’t think about if it was the right job.
Connect The Dots: What did you learn from this experience that most people in your industry miss?
When you share your experience with the topic you form the emotional connection that becomes the foundation for a community and repeat buyers.
Where To Start With Personal Brand Storytelling
Authentic stories don’t come from imagined personas.
They come from real moments in your life that reflect the realities of the people you’re trying to help. That’s why we start with reflection—on your journey, your values, and your perspective—before clarifying how those match with the audience you want to reach.
It reminds me of the saying: “Be yourself so the people looking for you can find you.” That is authentic storytelling marketing.
Thank you for reading.
Cyndi
