If you want to attract better clients, there are lots of different strategies you can try. From every brand persona and ideal client avatar workbook to ads targeting and community-first social media, everyone has “the” way to bring in those dreamiest of dream clients.
You know the ones. The ones you vibe with on the call, who check every box you could ask for as a service provider, who trust you implicitly because you’re the expert.
50% of marketing talks about how to attract those people, and the other 50% talks about how to convert those people. But 100% of that advice overlooks the most important strategy of all — being uncompromisingly yourself.
In the 4+ years I’ve spent running a service-based business, I consider myself lucky to have only had a handful of less than ideal client experiences. So when I hear from other Pinterest managers or business owners who are dealing with the most nightmarish, red flag situations, it makes me wonder — how did I get so lucky?
The only thing I can conclusively point to is that my marketing was always 100% true to myself.
So in honor of these past 4 years, I want to share exactly what that looked like and how it’s benefitted me, as well as how you can start using your own unique advantage to attract better clients.
How I Found My Brand (and Myself)
I started my business in the fall of 2020, when I realized my freelance travel blogging role wasn’t going to come back anytime soon and I was desperate for a creative (and financial) outlet I had more control over.
One TikTok from The VA Coach of that era had me starting a new Instagram account and posting educational content offering my services as a “content strategist.”
What I Didn’t Have:
- Any experience in entrepreneurship
- Preset packages or prices
- A 5-year plan (I didn’t even have a 1-year plan)
- An endless well of self-confidence
- The perfectly aesthetic, digital nomad lifestyle
What I Did Have:
- An Instagram account
- Lots of accumulated knowledge
- Plenty of time to spare
- A determination to not give up
I didn’t have it all figured out — not even close — but I was determined to keep showing up. It wasn’t long before I realized clients didn’t care about a perfect aesthetic or polished marketing strategies — they cared that I was real, reliable, and determined to help them.
Notoriously, I tend to get way more excited about starting things than following through on them. The different with this business is that I refused to give up. I was going to keep posting my little graphics and sharing my coffee and to-do lists until something worked.
And it did.
Putting the Personal in Personal Brand
This felt like the beginning of the concept of personal brand-driven service-based businesses. Obviously, personal brands have been around forever, but in the early 2020s Instagram era, you could go pretty far with bland Canva graphics and “showing up in stories”.
We definitely weren’t seeing the b-roll, lifestyle-filled feeds of today, where service providers are nearly indistinguishable from content creators.
But there was still an emphasis on being yourself and finding connection points with your audience, mainly through stories.
Now… education and cute graphics? I can do that all day long. That was well within my comfort zone.
Yapping my head off on camera and POSTING it?! No way.
Except I kind of already had…
This is my official confession that I actively created TikTok content in the summer of 2020. (I think my top video got around 50k views? Which was big potatoes to me thank you very much).
“Sarah, how do you — someone who’s famously introverted and self-conscious — get over the fear of being seen and create content for a public audience?”
Desperation bb.
Well, desperation, boredom, loneliness, and a secret Leo desire to be seen and seen doing things well.
The hours I spent lip syncing and overacting to trending audios paid off. Not in money from the Creator Fund, but in confidence capital.
I’d already broken the seal of potential public humiliation.
That’s the only way I can rationalize the fact that my very first face-to-camera talking Instagram story on my business account was in a greasy, messy ponytail, no makeup, and an old souvenir t-shirt.
(Important point of reference: 2019 Sarah would have never.)
I’d gone past dipping a toe in the deep end; I was fully swimming in that Olympic-sized pool.
That choice set the tone for the rest of my business journey.
By showing up as I was, rather than who I thought I should be or how I wanted to be perceived, I started connecting with clients who didn’t just want a service — they wanted me, my experience, and my energy.
It also meant there was no going back to pretending to be anything but who I was.
Forget Engagement, Just Be a Person
Do you remember the random rules that became part of your marketing routine? For me, it was that you should engage 15 minutes before and 30 minutes after posting on Instagram.
Whether or not it’s true, I have no clue. But it did lead to me spending quite a lot of time ~engaging~ with other accounts, mostly other service providers.
But typical “engagement strategy” never felt right coming off my tongue thumbs.
- “Omg you should totally put that on Pinterest!”
- “The people of Pinterest NEED your inspo!”
- “Ugh, isn’t Instagram the worst? Have you considered Pinterest?”
Like pals… I love Pinterest but that kind of stuff is cheesy and awkward as HELL.
Forget the rules about engagement. I wasn’t out to “convert” anyone, I was out to connect. And through that, I built genuine relationships that organically led to clients who fit my brand (and my life) perfectly.
Instead, I just… interacted. I commented on people’s intro posts, actually responded to their CTAs, and replied to their stories. I wasn’t “engaging with leads,” I was making friends.
Maybe it wasn’t the most marketing expert-approved way to grow a business, but it felt a hell of a lot easier and hey, I’m still here 4 years later, so something has to be working, right?
What “Authenticity” Looked Like For Me
I want to be sooooo clear here — I’m not talking about the sterilized, overused buzzword of “authenticity.” I’m talking about being so completely yourself and trusting in who that is that the idea of being anything but yourself is incomprehensible.
This looks like sharing the hard stuff along with the wins, feeling free to post with or without makeup on, taking a week off if you need to, and listening to your own intuition when it comes to working with clients.
I can practically promise you that any of the “bad” client experiences I’ve had were preceded by an inkling of doubt.
Why Being Yourself is So Powerful (and underrated)
Isn’t it weird to think that we’re already born with all the things to help us succeed? Obviously that’s glossing over any skills to be learned or systematic challenges to grapple with. But you are who you are, and you can’t help but be anything but that.
In other words, you can’t teach someone how to be themselves. You can’t sell a program or create a course when the “answer” is something individual and innate to each person.
There’s no money to made off the strategy of authenticity.
So instead, when things aren’t working, we ask questions. We google client acquisition tips, invest in different coaching programs, and try every marketing platform under the sun.
I’m not saying those things don’t work. They absolutely can! But if what you’re doing isn’t working, we’re more likely to keep looking to others to tell us what’s wrong instead of trusting ourselves.
To be completely transparent — I’m freaking myself out right now with how “life coach-y” I sound… but I mean it.
Why It Works
“Being yourself” isn’t just some cliche life advice. You can copy the most “successful” businesses in the world — imitate their business model, learn their marketing strategies, and follow their path.
It might get you part of the way there, and it might even get you pretty dang far! But when that potential client is deciding between you and the successful person you copied, how are they going to choose? What’s the thing that differentiates you?
Spoiler alert: it’s you.
That’s why we can’t sanitize the personality out of our businesses. Because I don’t care how unique you think your approach or method is, there’s at least one other person out there doing the exact same thing. But there’s no one else who’s you.
This quote from Seth Godin lives rent-free in my head: “People don’t buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”
You may have also heard the common phrase: “people buy from people.”
As cliche as it might be, it’s true.
At the end of the day, your clients are choosing you for you, so you better make sure that “you” they’re buying into is real.
How to Embrace More Authenticity in Your Brand
Alright, I promised that I’d actually share some advice on how to embrace this hidden power. Before I do, I want to acknowledge that it’s also really freaking hard to get comfortable with yourself. It’s not easy to commit to showing up authentically, and anyone who says otherwise has forgotten what it was like at the beginning.
If you’re feeling stuck in a routine of formulaic marketing or caught up in strategies that don’t really resonate, here are a few ways you can start to shift toward embracing more of your own personality and story in your brand.
I’m not going to promise that the following tips will work 100%, but my hope is that they can gently encourage you down this very worthwhile path. This isn’t a step-by-step formula on how to find yourself. Instead, these are strategies and tools you can lean on when you need that extra support.
1. Get Clear on Your Values and Boundaries
Before you can show up authentically, you need to know what that means to you. What do you value most — in your business and life? What’s non-negotiable? What feels like a “hard no” when it comes to client work or marketing? Understanding your core values and the boundaries you need to protect them is step one in aligning your brand with who you really are.
If you’re a journaling type, you might want to take a few moments to write out your thoughts on the following questions:
- What’s most important to you in your work and relationships?
- What are your biggest pet peeves with clients?
- What would you love to be known for?
- What do you not want people to associate with you?
!!! Careful with those last two — we can’t change who we are, so those answers shouldn’t be for some idealistic version of you.
This will help you create the foundation for how you present yourself in your marketing and offer a helpful guidebook if you notice yourself veering off course.
Speaking of…
2. Identify Your Yellow Flags
And no, I don’t mean write out every single thing you don’t like about yourself. As you embark on this journey of you, I would encourage you to pay attention to when you’re not being authentic.
Often, it’s hard to pick up on this in the moment, but you may find you have some signature “tells”.
For me, I know that anytime I start overthinking or pre-scripting a future interaction, I’m probably trying to act out of alignment with myself and/or my values.
3. Consider therapy
Listen, I can’t start throwing words like “values” and “boundaries” around without mentioning how incredibly valuable and helpful therapy can be.
I’ve been in therapy on and off for almost 5 years now, and it has been an incredible experience. If you have the ability and access to therapeutic services, I couldn’t recommend them more.
In particular, you might be interested in looking into providers who work in modalities like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), and somatic therapy.
Not interested or not ready yet? I’m going to share a few of the books I’ve read for my personal therapy homework that I think you can still get lots of value out of:
- The Happiness Trap
- Sometimes he can be a bit annoying, but it’s ultimately a good primer to ACT
- Codependent No More
- If the description on the back of the book resonates, read it.
- Intuitive Eating
- This has nothing to do with the strategies I mentioned here, but I still think it’s a must read!
Okay, I’ve done my due diligence as a therapist’s wife, now back to the less clinical tips <3
4. Show Up Imperfectly — and Often
I know that sounds like the absolute worst advice, but hear me out. The more you wait until things are perfect, the more you reinforce the idea that perfection is what people expect from you, and it’s so not.
Post the messy stories. Share the awkward moments. Get vulnerable (in a way that feels comfortable to you). It might feel weird at first, but the more you lean into this, the easier it becomes, and the more you’ll attract people who resonate with the real you.
Hint: this also means you don’t have to wait until you feel perfectly comfortable in your authenticity to practice being authentic, k? I know you!
Stories are the best, low stakes way to start practicing imperfection because even though technically everything lasts forever on the internet, functionally that story is up for a maximum of 24 hours, and you can always delete it.
I’ve absolutely posted a story or three in the moment, then regretted it 3 hours later, deleted it, and tried to remember that I probably shouldn’t share allllll my feelings on Instagram.
If sharing your thoughts is what’s scary, use Threads as your playground! I find there’s much less pressure on that platform and it’s a great way to test out ideas, phrasing, and in-the-moment sharing.
If showing your face on camera is getting in the way, this is your no-guilt permission slip to use filters all you like. You can still be you while using a filter that smooths out those undereye bags.
As with all things, the more you do it, the less intimidating it will feel. But it’s also not a linear journey. You’ll have good days, better days, and worse days. If you’re someone who menstruates, you might especially have lots of fluctuations in your self-image. It’s normal! You’re good, I promise.
5. Lead with Stories, Not Sales Pitches.
People connect with people, not pitches. This may feel obvious in the age of story-driven marketing, but it bears repeating.
One of the best ways to inject more of you into your brand is through storytelling. Share the experiences that shaped you. Share the book that just made you ugly cry in the airport. Share the meme, the pet pictures, anything you want.
And while yes, you can use those stories to pivot into a sales pitch or a marketing tip, you don’t have to. Sometimes a story can just be a story.
6. Ditch the Script
Stop trying to sound like someone else. Whether it’s in your emails, captions, or DMs, the best way to be authentic is to just be yourself. The way you speak (even in text) is uniquely yours, and trying to fit into some “expert” mold only makes your message feel inauthentic and harder to create.
I’m super guilty of this, and I think we need to acknowledge the fact that language is super fluid and malleable. We naturally pick up phrases from the people we’re around, the shows we watch, and whatever’s trending on TikTok at the moment.
But if writing is feeling awkward, try actually speaking what you want to say out loud. Use voice memos or text-to-speech or even talk it out with a friend. You might be surprised at how much more natural your content sounds and how much easier it makes content creation.
7. Trust Your Gut
Remember that inkling of doubt I mentioned earlier? Trust that. If something feels off, it probably is.
If a client or project doesn’t align with your values or how you want to show up in your business, it’s okay to say no. Being authentic isn’t just about how you show up online — it’s about who you choose to work with, the types of projects you say yes to, and how you structure your business.
The more you trust your instincts, the more aligned your business will feel. And that alignment? That’s what draws the right clients in.
You Are Your Own Best Marketing Strategy
It’s scary to think that being 100% yourself is enough. But trust me, the right clients will see that as your biggest strength.
Anyone who doesn’t isn’t a condemnation of you or anything wrong with you, it’s just not the right fit. And don’t let anyone (yourself included) convince you otherwise.
When I look back at my business journey, I can say with absolute certainty that I am the most me I’ve ever been, and the clients I have today are here because of that. Four years in, I’m still figuring things out — I’m still learning, growing, and evolving. But the clients who stick around? They’re here because they connect with me, not just the service I provide.
It will always be an intentional, sometimes effortful, choice to be wholly myself, but it’s a choice that’s always worth making.
So if you’re ever doubting whether being yourself is “enough” for your business to succeed, remind yourself of this: it’s not just enough, it’s essential.
And when you lead with that authenticity, you won’t have to chase the right clients — they’ll come to you.
