Let's talk about an exhausting lie a lot of organizations tell themselves: "We need to sound professional to be taken seriously."
I'd bet real money that's backwards.
Think about the organizations and brands you actually pay attention to. Are they the polished, buttoned-up, sound-like-everyone-else ones? Or are they the ones with an actual point of view, a little weirdness, a sense of humor that tells you something is real and human is running the show?
The woman who dressed as the Lorax and became a real estate legend
This story is wild, so buckle up.
A woman went on a Hinge date dressed as the Lorax — the orange, fuzzy guy who speaks for the trees. Her date was a realtor, and he scoffed at her outfit. (Red flag. Never scoff at the Lorax.)
So she said: "I could sell one of your units dressed like this."
He laughed. Bet her $100,000 she couldn't.
She held the open house dressed as the Lorax. The internet showed up. Hundreds of people toured the unit. A few actually applied. She didn't sell that particular unit — but she walked away and started her own real estate company.
Why? Because people trusted the Lorax more than they trusted a guy in a suit.
Here's what that means for your organization
She didn't win by being more professional. She won by being unmistakably, specifically herself — in a market completely saturated with interchangeable real estate listings that all sound and look the same.
That's the part worth sitting with: in a sea of brands that all sound like they were written by the same committee, the ones with an actual personality are the ones people remember, trust, and talk about.
The fear every org has, just quieter
The fear isn't usually "what if we're too weird." It's "what if we're not taken seriously if we don't sound like everyone else in our industry."
But think about who actually gets remembered in your space. It's rarely the organization that sounds exactly like its five biggest competitors. It's the one with an actual voice.
The audiences who'd roll their eyes at a little personality? They were never going to be the ones who became genuinely loyal to you anyway. The ones who light up when an organization sounds like an actual human wrote it — those are the people who stick around, refer you to others, and defend you when someone's deciding between you and the safe, boring choice.
A question worth sitting with
Where is your organization currently sounding like everyone else in your category because it feels "safer"? What would it look like to sound a little more like yourselves instead?
You don't need a Lorax costume and a $100,000 bet. You just need to stop sanding off the parts of your voice that make you memorable.
Somewhere out there, the people who'd actually love working with you are bored out of their minds reading your competitor's mission statement. Give them a reason to remember yours.
P.S. Follow the whole Lorax story HERE.