Your perks, the strange or unusual things about you, make you memorable and human in marketing. Normal is forgettable. Strange, connected back to what helps your customer, wins clients.
Normal is boring and forgettable. Standing out requires being a little strange, not perfectly polished or perfectly professional like everyone else in your niche.
Paul Veth puts it directly: normal is boring, normal is not standing out, and normal is definitely not going to win you new clients. Most business advice pushes founders toward polish: dress well, sound confident, act like the successful men and women you see online. But that path leads to sameness. Everyone starts looking, sounding, and posting the same way, and the audience stops noticing anyone.
The accounts that actually stick in Paul Veth's mind are not the smooth ones. He mentions watching a Dutch creator known as the Dutch Carnivore, a man who eats only meat, cycles constantly, and comes across as a strange scientist type. Everything about him is unusual, and that is exactly why he built a large following and a real business around it. Being strange is not a flaw to hide. It is the thing that makes someone worth watching.
No. Follower counts and business success do not depend on charisma or appearance. A nerdy, uncharismatic creator can reach a million followers just by being distinctly himself.
Paul Veth describes watching a video from a creator he calls a very nerdy guy, talking in a not very charismatic way. He checked the follower count out of curiosity: one million. That single number breaks the assumption that you need to be the most attractive or best-dressed person in the room to build an audience.
There is a counterexample too. In the Netherlands there is an entrepreneur behind a brand called 26 Suits, a charismatic man who dresses well and sells suits. That works for him because it fits who he actually is; it suits him, literally and figuratively. The point is not that charisma is bad or that nerdiness is better. The point is that whichever one is true for you should show up in your marketing, instead of a manufactured version of either.
Write down three to five things about yourself that others might find a little crazy or unusual. These become recognizable anchors people connect back to you.
Paul Veth recommends starting with three to five personal traits, interests, or habits that feel slightly unusual, then using them as recurring threads in your content. For himself, that list runs longer: eating carnivore, doing high-intensity compound training at the gym, a long-standing passion for high performance, a history of coaching high-performance individuals, a love of fantasy books like The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, and a lifelong fascination with the jaguar.
He uses the jaguar as a clear example of how this works. He has liked the animal since he was a small child. When he talks about it, he connects his own passion to something relevant for the listener, so people start associating him with the jaguar specifically because almost nobody else talks about it. Most people default to lions, snakes, or hummingbirds. Talking about a jaguar is strange, and strange is what makes someone stick in your memory as a real person instead of another polished account.
Yes, some people will be scared away, and that is fine. Attracting the right people always means repelling the wrong ones first.
Paul Veth admits it directly: he used to feel a little ashamed of some of his own perks before he started using them in his marketing. Talking openly about loving fantasy books, for instance, will make some potential customers think he is not someone they want to work with. He accepts that trade fully. If you don't scare anyone away, you're not going to attract anyone either.
The flip side matters more. Plenty of people will read the same post and think: I like fantasy books too, maybe different titles, but I get it. That recognition builds a real connection, the kind that a generic, safe post never creates. Paul Veth even points to his own home as proof of how far he takes this: three bookshelves plus boxes of books stored upstairs because there is no more room. That is not a marketing stunt. It is just who he is, and he lets it show.
Always link the unusual trait back to something relevant and helpful for your audience. A perk without that connection is just trivia; with it, it becomes storytelling.
Paul Veth is clear that the goal is not to ramble about random hobbies for their own sake. The question to ask every time is: what can I connect this to that helps my potential customer? Talking about the jaguar only works as marketing when it circles back to something the listener can use or relate to, not when it stays a disconnected fact about an animal.
He gives a recent example from a conversation with another entrepreneur who is currently passionate about vintage watches. That passion, on its own, means nothing to a potential client. Used well, connected back to patience, craftsmanship, or long-term thinking, it becomes a story people remember. That shift, from random fact to relevant story, is what turns a perk into real storytelling.
Perks are the unusual, slightly crazy personal traits, habits, or passions that make someone recognizable and human in their marketing, rather than blending into a sea of polished, normal-looking accounts. Examples include a carnivore diet, a lifelong fascination with jaguars, or reading fantasy novels.
Paul Veth recommends starting with three to five things about yourself that other people might find a little crazy or unusual, and noting that this list can change over time. He personally rotates through five to seven, since he describes himself as more out there than the average person.
Yes, and that risk is the point. Sharing something unusual will repel some potential customers, but Paul Veth argues that if nobody is scared away, nobody is truly attracted either. The people who connect with an unusual trait become far more engaged than those reached through generic, safe content.
They should always connect back to something relevant for your potential customer, even if the link is not obvious at first. Paul Veth uses his own passion for the jaguar as an example: he shares it because he genuinely loves the animal, but he ties it back to something useful for the listener, turning a personal fact into storytelling.
No. Paul Veth points to a nerdy, uncharismatic creator with one million followers as proof that charisma is not required. What matters is being distinctly and consistently yourself, whether that happens to be charismatic, nerdy, quiet, or intense, rather than performing a version of confidence that isn't real.
The content makes a bold claim: your perks, the things that make you a little strange or unusual, are exactly what win clients. What's one perk you've been hesitant to put in your marketing, and what's held you back from owning it publicly?