I firmly believe every business needs a Board of Advisors (BOA). A core team of people you can turn to when you need perspective or advice. Or, like when my giveaf*ck broke, validation that you’re not crazy.
But before we get into that, let me introduce you to my BOA and the recent things they’ve said that I can’t stop thinking about.
MY BOA Baddies
Theresa: A fellow copywriter who used the phrase "word calculator" to describe the problem with AI copy, in a nutshell. Roger: Used the phrase “silent assassin” during our last call. Neither of us remembers what this one’s about, but I definitely want to work it into future client copy.
Emma: “Stop being good—be kind instead.” Words to live by as a lifelong people-pleaser whose love language is Words of Affirmation and Over-Delivering, so you’ll think I’m a good egg. Carole-Ann: She’s seen the inside of a behemoth tech company that rules the world, a global candy company, and academic institutions that are actually massive corporate businesses in disguise. Turns out, we’re all fucked. Just kidding. Kind of. CA’s writing will change how you think about your work and the greater systems at play.
Jessica: Blew my mind during our first client kickoff call two years ago with the phrase, “business theater”. I.e., people think building a business is the same as marketing. But marketing is simply theater. And most businesses are acting like they’re building a business, instead of doing the real foundational work that keeps you in business in two, five, 10 years' time. She’s my tarot-loving, tough-love lifeline.
So what advisory chat led me to update my website’s intro header to this…?:
‼️Uhhh...this post got 32,000 impressions on LinkedIn.
Theresa and I got on our soapboxes the other day because clients—corporates, startups, and solopreneurs alike—keep sending us their existing brand guidelines, and sending our souls to our graves.
Out of 45-ish slides, there are usually 1-2 slides dedicated to Voice & Tone that are definitely not copywriter-approved. Or even categorically correct.
Ex: "Innovative" is not a tonal attribute; it's a positioning claim. "Curious" is a personality trait, not a voice trait.
You guys, visual identity and verbal identity are not the same thing.
But the incorporation of these slides—thrown in after a very obvious consult with Chatty G—suggests that they are.
These clients become tied to adjectives that lack nuance, use-case examples, and follow-up messaging.
When it's time to write website copy, or even an email, they have no idea what these attributes sound like for their brand. Or how the tone shifts during a customer service interaction vs. their homepage page vs. a podcast pitch vs. a YouTube intro.
It would be quite honest (and very funny) if the final deliverables email included the message: “Good luck turning hex color codes and fonts into copy!”
To the designers reading this, I am not disparaging your work or your process. I know your work is highly strategic. I also know articulating a brand’s essence into words for external use isn’t really your job (unless you bill yourself as a brand strategist, then it is, and maybe we need to talk). It's a crime that you're expected to include these slides.
But what if you…stopped…including…them? And told your clients to seek out a brand messaging strategist and/or copywriter to help them with the next phase. ;)
Put it another way: Could you imagine if I gave my clients a brand messaging guide that included photographic direction and a brand color palette????
I'd never.
My clients and I always discuss the vibe they bring to the table to make sure it fits their audience. But I’m not about to guide my client toward a visual identity when a legit brand designer can do it 1000x better than I ever could.
In an ideal world, I'd get to work with the designer on a project, but in reality, even my larger clients with larger budgets don’t usually integrate the freelance experts they bring aboard.
So if we can’t all work together IRL, let’s work together to do right by our clients. They are trusting us to be the experts—and if we aren’t the experts, to steer them toward someone who is.
P.S. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Courtney, don’t you preach ‘Copy before Design’?” Yes, astute reader, I do. But I haven’t found the money to place a PSA billboard in Times Square or hire a Labor Day skywriter in every major metropolitan area. So the horrors persist. At least it gives me something to write rant about. ;)
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