RICHAELA?!? How tf do you even pronounce that? 

My first thought as I’m looking at my baby book that I stumbled upon in my mothers living room this past weekend. 

“Why did you and dad almost name me Richaela?” I ask my mom as she sits down on the couch. 

“It was a girl name we came up with after your dad’s name, Ricky.” She says without blinking an eye. 

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” I say in the most animated voice I can possibly find. 

And to think that after all of these years, I was annoyed that my name was Priscilla—little did I know that it could have been worse for me. 

“Thank goodness y’all named me after Priscilla Presley and not RICHAELA!” I say with a grimace. “How do you even say Richaela?!” I ask her. 

“Ri-kay-la” she says. “But I like Priscilla more too”. 

Weirdly, finding out my almost-name made me think about just how much power we give names in general. Like wdym my name was almost something I can’t even pronounce! I digress. 

This reminds me of the whole newsletter name fiasco just a few months back where we almost named our SEO newsletter the Sunday Scaries instead of Skratch SEO (btw, if you want weekly SEO tips, you should def subscribe!). 

Like yes, I would *technically* be the same person if my name was Richaela, but I would be called something different. And this distinction feels a lot like what happens when we’re writing copy for our businesses. 

For example, copywriter tells someone what bucket I belong in but it doesn’t share: 

⭐️what I believe about good copy

🍒what pisses me off about my industry

🍕how I approach the work differently as a therapist

🫶🏼what conversations I want to start

🍓why someone would choose Kinfolk instead of the 900 other copywriters Google could introduce them to

Your copy should not just tell someone what you do, it should share WHY YOU. 

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ON THAT NOTE

Which leads me to breaking down the ‘I’ in my messaging acronym K.I.N.F.O.L.K. 

I: intentional

There’s a difference between having words and choosing your words. The funny thing is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the name Richaela.

But looking at it now, knowing myself as Cilla, it feels like I’m looking at an alternate-universe version of myself.

And THAT got my copywriter brain going because I think a lot of businesses are walking around with the messaging equivalent of their almost-name.

• Did you pick your services suite because it made sense for your brand or because that’s just how everyone else built it too?
• Do you call yourself what everyone else in the industry calls themselves?
• Did you write “intentional, authentic, timeless, strategic, human-focused” because those were the words floating around when you built your website.

Take a look at your copy and really assess what words you chose for your brand.

Richaela is a perfectly good name, it’s just not mine. Is the sentence there because you chose it—or because it sounded right when you wrote the page?

And if I had to guess, there are probably some perfectly good words sitting on your website right now that aren’t really yours either.

Want to read more from the Wednesday Kin, head here.