What Kind of Cryptid Is Your Brand? (And What To Do About It)
I've been doing brand strategy long enough to develop a theory.
Most business owners don't have a marketing problem.
They have a cryptid problem.👹🧌🧟
Their brand exists somewhere in the space between "definitely real" and "impossible to pin down." People have heard of them. A few have even worked with them. But ask anyone to describe what they do — clearly, specifically, in one sentence — and you get a lot of blinking and a very polite subject change.
After years of doing this work, I've identified six distinct archetypes. Six flavors of "something is off and I cannot name it." Each one is a real thing I see in the wild. Each one has a diagnosis. And each one has a way out.
Read through all six. You'll know which one you are.
A field guide for business owners whose marketing exists somewhere between "definitely real" and "we have grainy footage."
Let’s Dive In!
🦶 The Bigfoot Brand
"We exist… we swear."
Everyone's heard of you. A few people swear by you. But if you asked five of your own clients to describe what you do right now, you'd get five different answers — and none of them would be quite right.
You give a different answer every time someone asks what you do. Not because you're lying. Because you genuinely haven't found the version that lands yet. The audience shifts, the pitch shifts, the hope shifts — and somehow it still doesn't click.
You don't have a visibility problem. You have a clarity problem.
Your positioning is fuzzy. Your messaging shifts depending on who you're talking to. Your content — when it goes out — doesn't build toward anything. So the market keeps catching glimpses of you without ever being able to say exactly what you are.
People aren't doubting that you exist. They just can't describe the sighting.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
Clear positioning. Consistent language your audience can repeat back to you without being prompted. A message that makes the right people feel immediately seen — and immediately certain you're the one who gets it. The grainy footage goes away. You become findable.
This is a [Brand Strategy + Messaging] problem. The fix starts with getting ruthlessly clear on who you are, who you're for, and what you want people to walk away saying.
🌊 The Loch Ness Monster Brand
"We're deep… but hidden."
You know things. Deep, earned, substantial things. The kind of expertise that took years to build and would take years to fully explain.
Which is sort of the problem.
You're not hiding. You're not faking it. The depth is completely real — it's just underwater, and most people aren't bringing scuba gear to your website. So they read your bio, nod thoughtfully, say "that's so interesting," and then go hire the person who said it in one sentence.
And you watch it happen and think: but I'm so much better than that.
You probably are. But better doesn't win if it's buried under jargon, qualifications, and a methodology section nobody reads past the second paragraph.
The depth isn't the problem. The translation is.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
Your expertise becomes accessible without becoming dumbed down — and that distinction matters. You don't lose the depth. You bring it up to the surface where the right people can actually see it. They don't just understand what you do. They feel it. And they want in.
This is a [Messaging + Copywriting] problem. The fix is finding the story inside the framework — the version that lands before you've lost them.
👯 The Doppelgänger Brand
"We look like everyone else."
You land on a competitor's website. Your stomach drops. Not because they're better. Not because they're cheaper. Because it looks almost exactly like yours. Same words. Same tone. Same "we help [people] achieve [result] through [our proven process]." Different logo. That's it.
You're a Doppelgänger brand. Polished. Professional. Completely, aggressively inoffensive.
At some point — gradually, quietly, probably while trying to appeal to everyone — you sanded off everything that made you you. The weird opinions. The strong takes. The personality that makes certain people go "she's not for me" and makes the right people go "she is exactly for me." Gone. In the name of looking credible.
So now you're credible and invisible. You compete on price because you can't compete on difference. The clients you actually want keep choosing someone else, and you're not entirely sure why — because your work is objectively just as good.
Here's why: there's only one you. And you're not using it.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
A sharp point of view. A personality that's actually present in your marketing. A brand that makes the right people feel like you're the obvious choice — and lets the wrong ones self-select out fast. You stop trying to appeal to everyone. You start attracting exactly who you want.
This is a [Brand Differentiation + Messaging] problem. The fix is finding your edge and committing to it — fully, publicly, without apology.
🐾 The Chupacabra Brand
"Something is draining the life out of this business."
Let me describe your week.
You posted something. You sent an email. You tried the thing someone in a Facebook group said was totally working for them. You updated your bio again. You made a video, hated it, posted it anyway. You started a newsletter. You paused the newsletter.
And you are exhausted. And nothing is moving.
You're a Chupacabra brand.
Something is draining the life out of this business — and it's not the competition, it's not the economy, and it's probably not Mercury retrograde.
It's that you're running marketing without a strategy underneath it. Tactics without a through-line. Content that lives alone instead of building toward anything. Energy going out in every direction with no connective tissue holding it together.
This is not a hustle problem. You have hustle for days. It's a system problem.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
The bleeding stops. The effort starts to compound. Things you made three months ago are still working for you. You stop feeling like you're hemorrhaging and start feeling like you're actually building something. The chaos becomes a campaign. The random becomes a road map.
This is a [Brand Strategy + Content Ecosystem] problem. The fix is building a system that works together — intentional campaigns, connected content, effort that goes somewhere.
👻 The Ghost Brand
"We used to show up… now we don't."
You used to be consistent. Like, actually consistent. Showing up, creating things, building momentum. People were noticing. It felt like something was starting to work.
And then the business got busy. Or life happened. Or you just ran completely out of steam. And the marketing stopped. Not forever. Just temporarily.
Except temporarily turned into a while.
You're a Ghost brand.
The pulse is still there. The ideas are still there. The guilt is very, very much still there. Every week you don't show up, re-entry feels a little more impossible — like you've been gone so long you'd have to explain yourself, and you don't want to explain yourself, so you just don't go back yet.
Here's what I want you to know: the problem was never discipline. The system you built required more than any human could sustainably give it. When capacity ran out, the whole thing went dark. That is not a character flaw. That is a design flaw.
You don't need to do more. You need a smaller, smarter engine built for your actual life — not your aspirational one.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
A content ecosystem that fits. Batched, realistic, consistent enough to keep you visible without running you into the ground. You come back. People are glad you did. Nobody was keeping score except you.
This is a [Content Strategy + Ecosystem] problem. The fix is building a system designed for sustainability — one that keeps you present without requiring everything you've got.
🔥 The Phoenix Brand
"We're reinventing everything."
Something changed.
A pivot. A rebrand. A moment where you finally got clear on what you actually want to be doing and who you want to do it for. The direction feels right. Better than right — it feels true.
And then you look at your website and feel a very specific kind of dread.
You're a Phoenix brand.
The business evolved. The story didn't. So you're operating out of a narrative that belongs to a previous version of you — the old positioning, the old language, the old "here's what I do" that made sense two years ago and now feels like showing up to your own reinvention in a costume from 2021.
And here's the sneaky damage: that old story isn't just outdated. It's actively working against you. It attracts the wrong clients. It creates confusion. It keeps you explaining yourself constantly when you should just be doing the work.
The reinvention is real. It just needs a story that can keep up with it.
💡 What changes when you fix it 💡
A brand narrative built for who you are now — not who you were. One that makes the evolution feel like the whole point, not a disruption. The old story becomes the origin. The new one becomes the direction. And you stop feeling like you're chasing your own business.
This is a [Brand Strategy + Full Narrative Rebuild] problem. The fix is writing the new story before the old one does any more damage.
So. Which one are you?
If you made it this far, one of those probably described you well enough to be mildly annoying. Good. That was the point.
Here's what matters: none of these are a verdict.
Bigfoots become findable. Loch Ness monsters surface. Chupacabras stop hemorrhaging. Phoenixes get a story that fits. Doppelgängers find their edge. Ghosts come back.
The hardest part is almost always just naming the thing — saying out loud, this is what's actually going on. Not the symptom. The real problem underneath it. Once you can name it, you can fix it.
Ready to fix it? If you've named your cryptid and you're done sitting with it, let's talk. A brand clarity call is 45 minutes, no pressure, and you'll leave knowing exactly what's going on and where to start.
