Carrying on with our voice theme, this week, Julia Michelle is here to talk with us about another aspect of voice, one which is particularly relevant to those of us who are business owners or freelancers: our brand voice.
Julia was the speaker at a networking event that I attended recently and I wanted to introduce you to her as well.

This is how Julia introduces herself:

“I’m a registered nurse, copywriter, and brand voice specialist.

Having a background as a nurse, it was a big shift for me to run my own business, and one of the hardest parts was figuring out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it!

When it came to building a personal brand, I found that so much of the advice out there was contradictory and confusing, and it just left me feeling like I had to give up who I wanted to be in order to follow “best practices”.

That is… until I worked with Justin Blackman, one of the top brand voice experts in the world, and learned about how to measure and document brand voice.

Now I work with entrepreneurs – a lot of whom have a professional background like me – and help them identify and develop their brand voice in a way that lets them take control of how they’re showing up online and create a brand they’re proud of.

Oh, and in my spare time, I do cold water dipping and explore the great outdoors of Maine with my two pups :)”

We talked about:

• Why your voice is important and why it often gets overlooked in conversations about your brand
• Which components make up our brand’s voice
• Why it’s important for freelancers and business owners to discover and work with their brand’s voice
• Different voices that we can use – Julie has an opt-in on her website with examples to make this clearer.

These points apply whether we’re using our first language, communicating in an additional one, or working with copywriters or translators who create content on our behalf.

How would you describe your brand’s voice?

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode249

Our voices are so much more than the way we speak. This is part of it, but finding and using our unique voice is about more than that. It’s about expressing who we are, what we think, how we feel, and the messages that we want to share.

Every day, we play different roles and adopt different communication styles depending on what we’re doing and whom we’re with. That’s normal.

But sometimes, the version of ourselves that people meet when we’re using an dditional language is not 100% who we are and this can make it harder for us to communicate and for others to get to know us.

Today I’m talking about a couple of reasons for this – and they’re not all entirely language-related. I also talk about a short exercise that you can do to find out where your blockages might be.

If you’re a freelancer or business owner who uses English as an additional language and you’d like to explore this in more detail, I’m offering a new 11-week mentoring programme called "Discover your voice in English."
https://englishwithkirsty.com/discover-your-voice-in-english/

Send me a message at kirsty@englishwithkirsty.com if you have any questions about this programme or if you’d like to set up a call to discover whether it’s right for you.

I met Sion through the networking for language professionals sessions that I run with Rita Prazeres Gonçalves. I thought it would be good to talk with Sion about her work and her experiences of moving from the US to France and then later to Spain, where she now lives and works.

Sion Dayson is an American voice actor based in Valencia, Spain. She works in many genres of voiceover, and specializes in eLearning, corporate narration, audio description, and materials for English-language learners. She’s voiced projects for clients including LG, Pearson, Business Spotlight, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, Iberian Media, among many others.

She’s also narrated more than 130 titles for Blinkist, an app that summarizes the key takeaways from bestselling books. Her Blinkist credits include titles by Michelle Obama, Brene Brown, Robin Sharma, and many more.

In addition to her six years in Spain, Sion’s experience with different languages includes studying in Mexico and Ghana, and ten years living in Paris, where she acquired French nationality.

We talked about:

🗣 Sion’s work as a voice actor and her story in relation to learning other languages.

🗣 How the lockdown became a turning point in Sion’s career.

🗣 Some cultural differences when comparing life in the US, France, and Spain.

🗣 Things that have helped Sion to improve her Spanish while living in Spain.

🗣 How speaking an additional language can facilitate better communication with clients, even when the service you provide is in English.

Find out more on the show notes page:
https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode247