EPISODE 42: Copywriting Characters: Understanding the Scholar Voice

Jessi:
Welcome to the Brand Your Voice Podcast, where we’re digging into how you can create personality-driven content that connects and converts. I’m Jessi…

Marie:
…and I’m Marie. We’re the co-founders of North Star Messaging + Strategy, where we support business owners in outsourcing content without sacrificing authenticity.

Jessi:
Every brand has a unique voice that sets it apart. We're digging into how to capture the way your brand communicates from the words you use to the stories you tell. So you can create more compelling content that strategically helps you meet your business goals.

Marie:
And if you choose to outsource that content, you'll be able to do so with confidence, knowing your brand voice is in good hands and you can reclaim your time. We're so glad you're here and hope you enjoy this episode.

So excited for this episode, because this is our copyrighting character. We're continuing. [Laughing] I say that like, we're like one person, but Jessi and I both happen to your test as the same. So kind of we are one person. And so we're continuing our series about copywriting characters. If you have no idea what we're talking about, please head to northstarmessaging.com/character. It's a free quiz. It takes like three minutes, asks I think 10 questions it's very short and it just allows you to start figuring out what is the natural strengths of the way that you communicate within your content so that you can capture your voice and outsource it. And if you're a writer who does this on behalf of your clients, listening to this, you can have them take the quiz and share the result with you because this will really help you slide into their voice much easier.
So we're excited for this resource. It's been in our back pocket for ever half a decade or more, because it's just so valuable for us, it's valuable for our team and it's valuable for our clients.
So going into the series, we're spending one episode talking about each of the five characters, which are the rebel artists, the nurture, the architect, and this episode, which is all about the scholar. We created this quiz as a way for us to really make it easy to jumpstart, that process of getting into a brand's voice. So let's dive in specifically to the scholar, which I mean, we're a little biased is our favorite.

Jessi:
It's the best one. No, there is no best one.

Marie:
They're all very valuable and completely valid.

Jessi:
It's true. It's true. It's instead of saying it's the best one, what I should be saying is it's the easiest one for me and for Marie as well, because that's what we test as. And that's really the whole purpose of the copywriting character quiz is to kind of find out where you naturally fall when it comes creating content or thinking about content.
So the scholar, the scholar is interesting because, and I alluded to this in a previous episode, but the interesting thing about the scholar is we're all taught to create content like the scholar, whether we like it or not. Whether we're natural scholars or not. This is sort of what we think of when we think of professional writing. And we're going to use this episode to do a little mythbusting on that sounding super stodgy and boring and not fun. And also if you are not a scholar, give you permission to deviate even further from that sort of overly buttoned up writing.
But first let's talk about the scholar specifically, you know, what it looks like because there's nothing wrong with being a scholar. And in fact-

Marie:
Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong.

Jessi:
There are a lot of ways that the scholar can show up in a way that doesn't feel stodgy. So diving in, you know, the, the scholar is named the scholar because those are the values that shine through content include values of wisdom and analysis and understanding and guidance. There's a lot of teaching that shows up in the content. There's a lot of sharing knowledge, sharing processes, sharing experiences with the goal of that whole sort of, you know, teaching them to fish rather than catching a fish or whatever the saying is. The other... what? I'm not great with quotes, but the goal here is that, you know, if you lean into the scholar voice, you really lean into teaching or the other thing, the other way that we think of it as the mentor, this is someone who is in a teaching role, even if you've never been a teacher, it's just sort of what you naturally gravitate towards.

Marie:
Right? Yeah. So it's not just about sort of hoarding knowledge and then sitting on it like a dragon on their hoard of gold. It's about sharing that generously. So some of the strengths of the scholar are sharing right? That they really are not content with an idea to sit with them and not be disseminated out into the world. Right. They also have a lot of confidence around the things that they're really knowledgeable about. Maybe not about everything nobody's super confident about everything. But the things that they, you know, you, you may have heard that idea of, like, if you want to show that you really have in-depth knowledge of something and you want to test that knowledge, then you teach somebody else how to do that thing. Or you teach somebody else about that thing. And this is something that the scholar does really naturally, they get really excited. This is probably the person who like sits there and Wikipedia, or like reads, you know, a biography or watches a documentary and then has to tell everyone about it because they learned so much and it's just like burning a hole in them that they, they can't just keep it to themselves. Right. And so they're able to speak-

Jessi:
I feel called out.

Marie:
Me too. I mean, I'm speaking literally by myself. Yeah, don't get us on to the rabbit holes of the things that we learn about. Right. But they're able to speak with confidence about those things that they really do, especially the things that they built their business around that they want to teach on. That's because one of their strengths is expertise. These are the deep divers, right. They want to read every book on the topic they want, like, you know, take every course on it. Like they, it's not because they don't feel like they don't know enough yet it's that they're just really are kind of a sponge for knowledge. And then they want to squeeze that sponge and pass that knowledge on to other people. Right.
Another strength that they have though, is being able to structure that squeezing of the sponge in a way that is understandable for other people. If you think back to your teachers when you were a students, some of them, you know, some of their lessons may have been more memorable than other teachers. But if you think back to those really excellent teachers, some of the things that they did to make that really excellent for you is that they had a structure in place. Maybe there was, you know, a framework or maybe there was, you know, a fun little song for you to remember, or whenever it was, it was some way for you to really take in an idea in a way that would stick for you. And so this is something that a scholar does pretty naturally, is that they come up with that structure.

Jessi:
Absolutely. I think one of the other things that is really powerful that scholars can lean into, and this is, this is why I prefer the word mentor sometimes because sometimes when we think of a scholar, we think of them like standing up at the front of the room on a pedestal and like talking down at their students. You know, that's kind of the very scholarly image. We get our head, but with a mentor, you think more of like, we're on a level playing field, speaking with one another instead. And one of the things that a scholar is really good at is communication and is creating dialogue. A good teacher knows that the lecture format, the idea of standing at the front of the room and just, you know, vomiting knowledge on all of your students.

Marie:
Gross!

Jessi:
That's what it is though. That's what that is, what the traditional education system. I'm not going to go off on the soapbox for too long, but I was a high school teacher before this business. So that's-

Marie:
No, preach Jessi, preach!

Jessi:
The traditional method of lecturing, whether it is in a traditional classroom setting or in content for your business only works so far- not that far. And what really actually works is creating dialogue is creating communication is allowing your audience to understand that they're a welcome part of the conversation. And you're not just up on your pedestal telling them what to think. And so a scholarly voice, you naturally kind of lean into this. You ask questions, you inquire, you invite curiosity. And this is where it also deviates from that super buttoned up professional like, here I am, dictating my dissertation on how to do X, Y, and Z. That's not what the scholar is. The scholar is about let's sit down and I'm going to bring my wealth of knowledge and understanding to the table, but I'm not going to just like tell you what to think. I'm going to help guide you to your own way of thinking and use my areas of expertise to help structure that guiding, that guidance.

Marie:
Yeah, for sure. And, and in a method that involves usually a discussion, right. Which actually can be a little bit tricky when it comes to content, but we'll, I'll circle back to that. You know, they also really are not afraid to go in depth. Like I said, these are the people who just want to read every book on the topic, or just really go in depth and they want to share that with others. So if you notice, um, wow, like that is, you know, that Facebook post right there is something that, to the level of where I would expect to find that within a paid course, and here they are just giving it away for free. Like, that's very natural for a scholar to want to do that. They kind of, over-deliver a little bit in terms of teaching. And so that's just- but it is a strength, right is that they're able to go really in depth.
The other thing that the scholar has as a strength is analysis, right? That they're really able to understand the why behind what they're teaching. They're able to apply sort of cause and effect thinking or they may have sort of causal maps even within their own head of like, if this, then that, right? Like the, these are folks who they're not content to just memorize facts, but they want to know the context, right? Like this is not like, oh, well I know that the civil war in the United States happened in the 1860s because that number was burned in my brain. Like they want to be talking about like the politics that led up to this and like, you know, what happened within the battles and who were the players and like, why did they, I mean, maybe they're not interested in history, but like, for instance, if that was like that particular scholars jam. You know, they, they want to know the context. So if it's, you know, nutritional coaching or whatever their thing is, they want to know the depth. They want to know the analysis. They want to know the why. And then they understand that passing that along, passing that context along actually will make the lessons that they teach to their clients and their audience stick better. Because route memorization, we all know from school is one of those things that like falls out of your head as soon as the test is over. Right. But like, if we have a story to go with it, if we have flavor to go with it, all of a sudden now, like it has meaning and it's going to stick for us and it's going to make an impact. So the scholar really leans into that.

Jessi:
Yep, absolutely. Yeah. And so, yeah, this shows up in the content that you create, if you're a scholar or if your secondary character is the scholar and it shows up in how you operate in the world. I have a hard time taking off my scholar hat, whether I am sitting down and writing content or at a networking event, or just talking about something that I found that excited me and that's because it really is my primary content personality. It's what I really lean into. So Marie mentioned, you know, going really deep into topics. And there's a saying that we would use back when I was a teacher that was, you know, go deep, not wide. And any topic that you have, there's sort of the, the wide version of understanding.
So Marie used the example of the civil war. So if you're teaching someone about the civil war, the wide level of understanding would be, here are all the dates that are relevant and some names of battles and maybe some people to remember the deep version would be, let's take one specific battle and let's dig into the context around it, why it happened, what the effects of it were, what led up to it, who the players were and why each of those players is individually important. What is the nuance around it? That's going deep instead of wide. And that allows a person who is learning, maybe they don't learn every single date of that particular historical period, but what they do is they gain a lot more context of why that historical period was important and what it ended up doing through the lens of this one battle.
That can apply to your business as well. And that can apply to how you move throughout the world, talking about the things that you do. It's not necessarily about taking everything, you know, and giving it to someone else. It's about representative examples with context that allow you to showcase your expertise while also helping other people understand it. And that's something that the scholar does very naturally. They are going down those rabbit holes and getting a lot of information so that when it comes time to convey that information and help teach it to other people, you have a lot that you can pull from a lot of examples and ideas that you can pull off your, you know, kind of mental bookshelf. You also have the restraint to know, not to pull every book off the bookshelf at once.

Marie:
Right? Yeah. I mean, that just sounds like it'd be heavy.

Jessi:
I mean, usually sometimes you get really excited and you're like, here's a book and here's a book and here's a, here's a book, but we'll talk about that later on.

Marie:
Yeah. So, you know, if you're kind of like in a room and you're trying to figure out like, who's the scholar and, another thing you can look for is, you know, they're, they're not somebody who's just about acquiring knowledge, but they do want to share it with others. So they're the person having those in-depth discussions, getting a little nerdy about it, right. Creating an inviting conversation with the idea and the goal of not just making someone feel like included or heard, like that might be what the nurture wants to do, but the scholar is like, oh, I want to have a conversation so that I can learn more so that you can learn more so that we can learn more together. Right. We can kind of connect those neurons.
They're also really excited about teaching their audience something new to the point where they may not even realize that there are other types of content out there. Like they may think that like all content is meant to share knowledge and teach. And like, that's not true, but the scholars are really good at that type of content.
The other thing is I would say this taps into like a core fear of a scholar type, which is that they are going to be just red faced with embarrassment if they have forgotten some kind of key piece of information, if they have caused confusion, if they themselves are ignorant of something that they're trying to teach on, I mean, they're going to like want to crawl under the floor. And so as a result, they do kind of come maybe over-prepared sometimes with the background knowledge. And then when they do realize that they may have been wrong about something now they're going to want to like double down on like learning even more. So that, that never happens again because horror is hard.

Jessi:
Not overcompensating at all. No, I'm really glad you actually mentioned nerdy now, though. And like getting excited to teach your audience something new, because I think this is probably the biggest thing that counteracts that idea of the scholar being a very buttoned up voice and content is that actually scholars are really excited about the things that they know. And they're really excited to share the things that they know, and they want other people to be as excited as they are. I mean, you can just listen how excited Marie and I are in this episode to talk about the copywriting character that people who are another scholar might be like, that's the most boring one. No, it's not. It's the coolest, except not really because they're all cool, but still. I think that there is this sense of needing to make sure that people are understanding and people are growing and people are participating in discussion and that lends to a tone of excitement. So we're gonna kind of shift into talking a little bit about how this actually shows up in writing. How does this show up in the content that you create on a day to day basis.
And diving right in: storytelling. I think stories are, you know, they're not the first thing that you would think of a scholar going straight to stories and the best scholars understand that stories are the best way to illustrate concepts. And so they lean into case studies, they lean into their own personal experiences. They lean into, you know, anything that can provide a living, breathing example of whatever they're trying to teach in action. And that's another area where that excitement can show because it's like, look, look, it's happening. The thing is happening.

Marie:
I know I'm sitting here on my phone trying to find there was a post I saw it was, I can't find it, but it was like that idea of like, have you ever heard somebody go, okay. So, and then like, you just know that you're in for like a 10 minute, like nerd out ramp where they're going to be so excited and the okay. So can also lead into a story like, okay, so recently I was blah, blah, blah. Right? Like, so it can be that, and that could be a way to teach. It can also be like, Okay., so I was reading this on Wikipedia because that's what I do in my spare time. I'm a nerd and I read Wikipedia and this is what I learned. Like, it can be anything right. But, yes, stories are absolutely a way that scholars leverage their strengths, to showcase those concepts.
These are also people who, um, really naturally lean in their content into like how to guides the deeper, the better is what they feel very step-by-step content. You know, they're the person who's going to meticulously show you every step of the way. Unless, you know, unless they feel that, well, there, there can be a couple of pitfalls here. One being that they don't realize how advanced they are. Right. I know I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here with pitfalls, but, sometimes, you know, we forget what it's like to not be an expert in something. And so we're teaching it as we would teach it to somebody who's maybe like one step behind us, whereas actually we need to look and say, okay, how do we teach this to somebody who's like three steps behind us or five steps us on this learning path. But, they're very eager to, to make it clear for someone.
Like, okay, recently, for example, here's the story. See, I can't help it. So Jessi was here for this, there's a board game, but I really like called Gloom Haven. And it's one of the more complicated board games that there is out there. And so I wanted to teach some people how to play it, not only how to play it, but how to play it on this online platform because, you know, COVID and all my friends live all over the world. And so it took three hours to teach how to play this game. And also I spent like three hours the night before, like re-familiarizing myself with it watching YouTube videos and literally making handwritten notes of like, step-by-step, this is what we're going to do. And that way I had a little agenda that I didn't share with anyone, but I followed it so that I could teach.

Jessi:
What this makes me think of?

Marie:
What? Oh gosh.

Jessi:
This is a story hour now. It makes me think of a few years ago when you and I went to Paris and we were meeting your parents there and your dad sent us those detailed instructions for navigating the airport with like pictures. He had pulled off of Google maps and it was the most detailed travel guide I'd ever received in my life. And it was literally just like how you get from the airport gate to like the Metro. It was amazing.

Marie:
Can I tell another story?

Jessi:
Go for it.

Marie:
Yeah. So my father who, by the way, I don't know, he has not taken the copyrighting character quiz, so I don't know what his copywriting character is. However, in his career he's been an architect. So he is a very step-by-step thinker. This is next, the next episode, by the way. So stay tuned and there can be a little bit of overlap between them, but I just have to share the story. So, he, we took a trip to Europe when I was, it was 1997, so I was 12. And, it was, he made a book like a printed color bound book with like every day what we did with tabs, colored tabs for like, you know, and they were all in French of course, cause we were going to France. So it was like, and you would like flip to the day with the tab to see like what there was to do. Now I say this I, yes, he is an architect, but I do think this is really more of a scholar thing because like what was in there was like interesting anecdotes that he'd like pulled from guidebooks, like things that he just wanted you, when you went to, you know, that cathedral or that castle or that particular sunflower farm or like whatever it was, he wanted you to appreciate it. Right. He wanted you to be able to appreciate what you were seeing and he knew that the way to do that was to share stories about it, to share interesting facts about it. Right. To talk about why it was important. So yeah, the scholar in action.

Jessi:
It goes back to context, right? Scholars in their content are really good at adding context. It's not just about the facts and the bare facts. It's about why are those facts important or how can I make it more enjoyable? And that's something that shows up a lot in scholarly content. I remember when I was working a museum and one of the roles that I took on was writing the text panels for certain exhibits. And one of the jobs, one of the aspects of that job was to make sure that the text panels were written in a way that would appeal to a variety of people. So you needed to add a lot of the context for the people who were like, I need to know every detail about this sea turtle. And then you had to have like the sort of high level overview for the people who are like, I'm just kind of vaguely interested in like why this turtle is sitting here. And then you had sort of the like big just header. Like if we're talking about this in copy terms, like just the header that was like, this is a sea turtle moving on.
And so this is something else that scholars do really naturally in their content is they break it down for the different type of audience for the different ways that that content is consumed. They understand that some people are just going to glance at it and be like, all right. And I'm done. And other people who are going to be like, I don't need to read every single word and make sure that I understand the context. And so in content, scholars, they are able to cater their content to that wide range of audience and a reader.

Marie:
Yeah. And one of the ways that they do that is their actual sentence structure tends to be very clear, have a simple takeaway, right. They're going to have at the very beginning, listen up, this is a sea turtle. And then they're going to have like the whole thing about like why sea turtles are amazing and like what you need to know about them. And then a clear CTA at the end. Right? Go Google this, this is amazing.

Jessi:
I don't know why I'm using sea turtle as the example, because I did not write texts, pedals on sea turtles, but it's what came to my mind.

Marie:
I like it. I'm pro-sea turtle. So, they also, like I said, a CTA at the end, right? Like that's going to be very, they're very logical and pragmatic in terms of the content plan though, they're focused on the end goal. I want you to do this thing and here's my little scholarly path for getting you to, you know, to get there. I'm going to lead you but like, if there's a very clear goal at the end, right.
They also ask rhetorical questions sometimes. So I was talking about earlier how like dialogue is really a strength of a scholar, but you look at something like website copy and there's no, you know, way for someone to like comments on your home page. If there is, you should probably not have that. That's weird. Maybe it works for you. I don't know. I shouldn't judge. But typically, typically there won't be like a forum for back and forth on something like web copy. Right. And so one of those sort of hacks that scholars can use is asking a question within the content even if that content isn't in a place where they can actually create a dialogue, because they know that when is reading it, they're going to answer the question in their own mind as they go forward. And so it feels like it has a bit more of a conversational discussion role. Is that a word? Tone.

Jessi:
It gets a word now. That's the other thing scholars can do. Scholars can make up words because they're the scholar.

Marie:
Everyone can make up words by the way.

Jessi:
I just want the scholar to be able to do everything.
So we've been doing a, a little experiment and a little a show and tell in each of these episodes where we give you a neutral sentence and then we adjust the sentence so that it's written in the voice of the character. And so the neutral sentence has been the same throughout all of the episodes. So far. That sentence is, "We show our clients how to brand their voice within their content."
And so far we have rewritten this sentence in the voice of the rebel, the artist and the nurturer, and now we are rewriting it in the voice of the scholar. So again, the sort of neutral beginning sentence is, "We show our clients how to brand their voice within their content."
And the scholar, one potential scholar version of the sentence is, "We help our clients understand their distinct voice so they can develop content that conveys their personality and sells their products."
There are a couple of things happening there. The, specifically the verbs are changing and there's a little bit of added descriptors in there as well to add clarity and a little extra context. So initially we're just showing clients how to brand their voice within their content. That's just a thing we do. The scholar is adding the context of, and in doing that, it allows you to convey your personality and sell their product. This is something else the scholar is really good at is that, so what language was so that they're very naturally attuned to not just like what is happening, but what the benefit is. And so the scholars going to key in on that really quickly. They're also going to use words like understand and help and develop things that speak to, for lack of a better word and understanding of what you're conveying, but also, what you can do with that understanding, not just like great. I understand it now. Now what they, they give you that next step.

Marie:
Yeah, for sure. So, you know, the scholar, obviously we're partial to it and also like any other copywriting character, there are a few potential pitfalls areas that can be a little bit weaker or just like less intuitive or natural for this, for this archetype. So if you yourself are a scholar or you're a writer who's writing on behalf of a client who tests as a scholar, just be aware of some things as you're creating content for them, because you can support them in filling in gaps. So Jessi has been talking about how, you know, there's sort of this overly dry academic reputation that the scholar or the mentor might have, especially because this is the content personality we learned in school. And that can be a bit of a rigid environment. Right. So know that you can still teach, you can still mentor and be fun and be yourself. Right. And feel like you're just hanging out over dinner with friends, right. So maybe if this is happening for you and you feel like you're kind of getting into that overly dry academic voice, but that doesn't feel like you, maybe think about it less as a scholar, more as the mentor.
Also sometimes I kind of mentioned this earlier, but scholars can totally forget what it's like to be the beginner. And so scholars, sometimes will over-complicate things like if you've ever attended like a masterclass that was like put together by a scholar or like read one of these step-by-step articles by a scholar, you may have found that it was a little too high level for you. Or it really didn't do a great job of breaking down things to the level that you needed at broken down. So set up and pay attention scholars or writers writing on behalf of scholars or writers who by the way themselves are scholars and so they're going to naturally create content for their clients in a way that kind of their own stuff kind of is part of it. Right. Remember what it's like to be the beginner, and if you don't know, if you're not sure, you know, the safest to break it down a little bit further and also include less stuff. Like you don't need the 17 steps, right. Can you get it down into three, right? Or can you just say the three most important ones? And instead of saying, this is the 17 steps to build your house, instead, maybe it's like the three steps to laying the foundation. Right. Can you just simplify it a little bit?

Jessi:
This, this is another conversation. I feel like we were having earlier today where there's this dual it's, it's two sides of the same point, right? So the scholar really wants to break things down and sometimes breaking things down, does simplify things and make them easier to understand. And sometimes you break them down so much that you've actually made them more complicated and you're like, wait, now this thing that really should be three steps is 20 steps and I've lost everyone.
So I think it's important to not just remember what it's like to be a beginner, but also to pay attention to that dialogue that you're naturally creating. Where are people getting lost? Look at the data that you have coming in, whether it's an actual conversation, whether it's an analytics like where people are falling off on an email sequence, or whether it's just a conversation that point where people are like, oh, I lost you, can you back up a little bit? Those are important markers for the scholar to be like, okay, I went a little too deep down the rabbit hole. I needed to come back out and maybe try a different angle.

Marie:
When you feel yourself getting the shiny eyes, two things are happening here. One is you're having a blast. Number two is somebody who is not as familiar with this is like, okay, they're going off the deep end. And they're slowly backing away.

Jessi:
Yeah. We don't want to make your audience back away. We want them to feel your excitement and have it become their excitement over the topic. And so just making sure that you are breaking things down and checking in with the audience to make sure that they're broken down in a way that actually facilitates their needs.
And the sort of consequence of this can be that sometimes you get so hung up in trying to make it right. And also that fear we talked about earlier of accidentally forgetting something or making it confusing or getting it wrong, that you don't actually move forward with your ideas. I have personally fallen into this trap so many times where I'm like, I want to create a new course about this concept. And I spend so much time creating the course layout and figuring out the modules and then bigger, like actually my five modules need to be 10 modules and my 10 modules need to be a hundred lessons. And it balloons out of control very quickly and a week or a month, or even a year will go by. I'll be like, oh, cool. I haven't actually done anything yet, except for just like plan and think about it and research it and analyze it. But I'm not actually helping anyone. I'm not actually getting my great idea out to the world. I'm just thinking about it. And then being kind of afraid that when I put it out in the world, it's not going to be good enough and it's not going to be right. So I just gotta keep working on it forever for the rest of my life.

Marie:
You know, where see this paralysis happened a lot. And I suspect that if there are writers, listening to this many people who write for business also write fiction for pleasure. If you are a planner, as opposed to a pantser, as in writing bread seat of your pants, this could happen, right? Like, you are building the whole world and then a year goes by, and now all of a sudden you have this beautiful world and it's terrifying to actually start writing the story because you know, it can't quite measure up to what you have in your head. Right. But what happens then is you just have weird documents floating around in your Google drive forever that don't actually like turn into anything. So remember, you know, what's worse is like not getting that thing out at all or having it be slightly imperfect, right. Probably the latter is going to be what you want to tackle.

Jessi:
Cause you can always iterate. You can always improve. And if you make a mistake, you can always apologize and correct it and move on. And it's usually not as dramatic and world ending as you're making it out to be in your head, speaking from experience.

Marie:
Correct? Correct. Not all scholars will do this. I feel like this is an interesting one. Cause I feel this being what I'm about to tell you, sorry, let me, let me back up.

Jessi:
I'm sorry, listeners. We're really excited about this. And apparently that means that we are all over the place.

Marie:
Okay. So one thing that some scholars do is they lean into quantitative data, right? I think, I feel like Jessi, because you tested as the scholar and the architect, secondarily, this is a natural thing that you do is you look at the data. Now I tested as the scholar and the nurturer. So for me it's less, I like data. I use data, but it's not always, my first instinct is to go for it. So, I would say, take a look at what type of data you are gravitating towards as a scholar. It could be qualitative. It could be quantitative and know that you need both of them to have a fuller picture of what's actually going on. So, you know, make sure that you are taking into account both.

Jessi:
The next one is I, again, I feel like it depends a little bit on your secondary and I feel like there, well, let me just tell you what the next one is first and then I'll add the context.

Marie:
So you did the same thing I did. Dancing around.

Jessi:
I'm dancing and yes, I'm very much dancing. Okay.
So the next one is don't forget to tap into emotion and the reason I'm qualifying this with, you know, making sure you, you kind of know what your secondary is. Someone like Marie, who is a scholar nurturer. It may be more intuitive to tap into emotion. Someone leaves into storytelling automatically, which is a scholarly trait may also naturally lean into emotion a little bit more. And the type of content that scholars produce the most tends to be more of that How to let's get you results, let's teach you things that you can practically use and that sort of content doesn't lend itself to a lot of emotion, unless you'd take the time to think about it.
Also, I feel like a lot of scholars forget to include their own personality, like their own personhood and personal experiences in their content. So like I have a scholar personality with my content, but that's not all I am. I have a lot of other stuff in my personality too, that I can showcase and that curiosity and that fun and that, you know, not always being so buttoned up is something I really want to show in my emotion. And it's also something I kind of dig into on the second pass. Because I know the first time I'm going to write it, I'm just going to write what needs to be said. And then I'm going to go back and be like, okay, but do people get to know me a little better in this? Do they feel like they're actually connecting to me the person, not just me the mentor.

Marie:
Or could anyone have written this? Right. So if you ask yourself like, could anyone have written this or could only, I have written this this way, right? If it's the latter, then you're on the right path because you're combining both of those things.
Another thing to watch out for, for scholars is their content is going to be very heavily focused on teaching, on showing new ideas. Don't forget. There are other types of content out there, right? You can inspire, you can illustrate, you can share stories if that's something that isn't as natural for you and whole man, you can sell, you can sell. It's amazing. That is a thing you can do.

Jessi:
You have permission.

Marie:
Yes. Yes. And then the other one... so earlier Jessi, the last, the last sort of potential pitfall to look out for you alluded to earlier, Jessi, when you were talking about the fact that scholars can very naturally be aware of the fact that, you know, there's somebody who's interested in learning everything about the sea turtle. There's somebody interested in knowing, Hey, that's a sea turtle and kind of everything in between and sort of tailoring the knowledge for them.
But I think one thing that scholars may not realize unless they actually have an education background, which you do Jessi, but not everybody does. Like I didn't write is to know that there are different learning styles. So if you think back to school, you know, and if that whole like standing up lecture thing actually worked for you, great. Maybe you were one of the few people who are auditory learners, right.
And there are other ways to learn that are completely valuable, valid, right? Like kinesthetic learners for instance, are visual learners. And so remember that you're going to gravitate towards teaching in a way that you like to learn, but there are members of your audience who are going to be a great fit for working with you, who do not learn in that way. So I encourage you to learn about different learning styles and figure out how you can build them into your content so that you can create more accessibility for the people who really are a great fit for you.

Jessi:
Yeah, a really good example is this podcast. Marie and I both, this is our dirty little podcast secret. Um, we don't really listen to podcasts very often. I'm starting to more now in the last like year or so, but for a really long time, I was actually very anti podcasts, not anti going on other podcasts for an interview or even having our own podcasts. But I don't listen very well, like to just, you know, like I'm dating myself- audio books, that's what you call it. I was going to call them books on tape audio books, which isn't much better.

Marie:
I was going to say on CD which isn't much better.

Jessi:
Like I don't, I tune out very quickly when it's auditory content. So it took me a long time to kind of even feel like podcasts were a thing I wanted to participate in. I love hosting this podcast and one of the reasons why Marie and I decided that it was time to finally have a podcast is because we recognize that just because we prefer to read articles and blog posts or watch YouTube videos, that's not necessarily how all the people we want to talk to like to consume content. There's a lot of great stuff that we have to tell the world that you all would rather listen to, which is evidenced by the fact that you're listening to us right now. You might not take, you might not take all this content that we just talked about and want to read it in a blog post to also then you wouldn't get to listen to us be all over the place. So you get a bonus.

Marie:
And though, to this point, we also find it important that we also provide a transcript of all of our podcast episodes in the show notes for two reasons. One is for learning styles like we're talking about. And one of the second is just for general accessibility, right? Where some people are not able to listen, whether they just cannot or they're at a place where they can't or they just don't prefer to or whatever it is. So we are trying to build in accessibility because we're aware that the way that we communicate, isn't always the way that other people want to learn, or receive content in general. So the scholar voice is powerful. It can have some pitfalls, but it's, it's really generous in the way that it teaches. But please know that like at the end of the day, every scholar is different.
So your voice is unique. If you're a scholar, your client's voice is unique. If they're a scholar, if you're a writer. So, you know, I encourage you to take some time to get out there and figure out how you can create the scholar within your own work.
So this leads us into our homework. So first thing is if you have not yet taken the copyrighting character quiz, please do so it's free. It's at northstarmessaging.com/character. It'll only take you a few minutes. It's just a handful of questions. It'll really help you get to the heart of how you communicate. And it'll go ahead and give you a PDF guide for how you can lean into your strengths and watch out for your potential weaknesses, whatever you test as, and then we have a fun assignment.

Jessi:
Yes, absolutely. So if you've been following the, this will sound familiar, we're going to keep the homework, uh, the same as it has been. So you're going to take a piece of content, any piece of content, although we recommend picking a shorter piece of content, we don't want to give you this long, drawn out homework assignment that feels like homework. We want this to be fun. So a shorter piece of content. If you have done this for the other previous episodes, use the same piece of content and try to rewrite it in the scholar voice.
Whether you are a scholar or not, this is a great opportunity to sort of practice stretching your skills and just trying to, you know, massage something in a different way, make it sound a little different. See if you can play with it, especially if you're a content creator yourself. This is a really great practice for not just honing in on your own content, personality, whatever it may be, but also practicing ones that are not your own. And so grab a piece of content, write it in the scholar voice. If you test as the scholar on the copywriting character quiz, you'll get a PDF that has a little word bank and some tips on how to get started with that. But regardless of what you test, as you can use this episode and the content in this episode, to give you a headstart on how to write in the scholar voice. And you can always go to that transcript on the show notes. If you want to see some of the words we mentioned earlier, when we were talking about specific word choice and sentence structure or the scholar.

Marie:
Yes. And remember above all the scholar, doesn't have to be stuffy play with it, have fun, be creative. And I think you're going to have a great time with this assignment. So thanks so much for listening.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Brand Your Voice Podcast. Make sure to visit our website, northstarmessaging.com, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, and more.

Jessi:
If you found value in this episode, we'd love for you to leave us a review on iTunes and share it with your friends. Thank you, and happy content creating.