Everyday we write emails, texts, post captions… and might even worry that our writing sounds like everyone else’s.
The usual advice is to get better at, well, writing. Learn frameworks, study hooks, download templates… maybe use AI to punch it up.
My stance: You don’t have a writing problem.
It’s probably more of a voice problem.
You don’t sound generic when you’re:
- Arguing with a friend over whether pineapple belongs on pizza
- Telling a wild story at dinner about what you did last weekend
- Firing off a text to a friend, your spouse / partner, or your friend’s group chat (those memes are dangerous)
That version of you is more persuasive than a template or AI.
The problem: you shut off your real voice the moment you think you’re supposed to sound impressive.
I’ve worked with a lot of leading authors, speakers, and thought leaders… and I’ve found that nearly every single person falls into one of five voice types.
I’ll unpack that but there’s a foundation you need to understand first. It explains why people’s messaging falls flat even when the words are technically good:
The 3 Sub-Identities of Your Brand
Every brand (personal or corporate) stands on three legs like a tripod: you lose one, the whole thing tips over.
- Visual identity: How you look. Your colors, your logo, your aesthetic. (You know that Target is red. You know that Apple is white.)
- Value identity: This is your positioning and where you sit relative to your competition. Are you Louis Vuitton? Are you Walmart? Both make a fortune, but it’s very different how they make their money.
- Verbal identity: Very few people think about this one. It’s how you sound, how you write, the words you choose, the rhythm you use to deliver them.
Most people pour all their energy into the visual and the value. They’ll spend two minutes thinking about how they actually sound in an email.
The Five Voices
Think about which one sounds most like you in real life – when you aren’t trying.
#1: The Academic
The Academic is thorough, detailed, and precise. This person thinks in paragraphs, cites sources, and has read the studies.
Example: Dr. Robert Cialdini
Dr. Cialdini authored the seminal book Influence.
It’s dense: he’s a professor, so he writes like one. But the ideas are so powerful that people buy it, then go to blog posts that summarize his principles because they can’t get through the actual text, haha.
Done poorly, it puts people to sleep. Done well, you become the friend that everyone turns to when the stakes are high. If people come to you for the well-researched, nuanced takes, this might be you.
#2: The Professional
The Professional writes in a clean, polished narrative. This is most business authors, consultants, etc.
Examples: Dorie Clark & John Maxwell
Dorie is a terrific speaker, multiple time-best-selling author. She teaches at high-level academic institutions, but she doesn’t write like an academic. She’s more approachable, clear, structured, and authoritative without being stuffy.
Same with leadership author, John Maxwell. His voice is clean, pithy, sharp. I always say John spoke in Tweets before Twitter was a thing. No jargon, no showing off, just competence on every page.
Here’s the risk with this voice: It can feel like you’re always in work mode.
If you’ve ever gotten a text from someone that reads like a corporate memo, with exact punctuation and full sentences, you know the feeling. But if you naturally communicate this way, this might be your home base.
#3: The Emoji
The Emoji is expressive, warm… or energy that jumps off the page: Exclamation points! Hearts! All the random emojis in a succession of So. Many. Emojis!!!
Before you assume this is a girl-guy thing, it isn’t. Let’s look at my friend, Travis Chappell. When he first hit the social media scene, his captions were like this:
Another example is Amy Porterfield. Her brand voice radiates warmth and enthusiasm. Smiley faces, hearts. “I cannot wait to share this with you!” You just feel her energy through her copy and through her podcast.
The risk is that this voice can feel very performative if the energy isn’t genuine. (I’m not this voice at all). But when it’s real, it works.
#4: The Snark
The Snark is sharp, sarcastic, the wiseass. They say the things everyone’s thinking but won’t say out loud. (Way more people are like this than they realize.)
Example: Ramit Sethi
Ramit Sethi is a masterclass on the Snark voice. He will write stuff like, “Bad news. I’m Indian, so getting an A is not enough. I need the A+.”
He’s not afraid to be contrarian or confrontational. But somehow he makes you trust him more because of it. He’s funny in a way that’s also making a point.
Example: Ben Settle
Ben is an email copywriting legend … and you either love him or hate him.
His subject lines are not for the faint of heart. He’ll write things like, “I swear on a stack of Bibles, I’ve never done crack.” Deliberately edgy, provocative, but that is him.
Done well, this voice is magnetic. Done poorly, it can just be mean or crude. But if your friends say, “That’s hilarious but you’d get canceled,” you might have some Snark in you.
#5: The Motor Mouth
The last one gets the most attention online, but it might also be the most dangerous to imitate if it’s actually not you.
The Motor Mouth is loud. Fast. All-caps energy. Everything at 11 out of 10.
Examples: Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone.
These guys stress me out. (Someone slip ‘em some edibles, please.)
You don’t even need to read their content. Just look at their Instagram feeds: bold text everywhere, close ups of their faces that are literally “in your face.” It looks like a Circuit City circular from the nineties.
Their verbal identity and their visual identity are the same thing: VOLUME.
But… they’re very influential, very known, and very wealthy.
This approach works for some people. If it’s not you, trying to be a Motor Mouth is exhausting for everyone, including (and especially) you. If people tell you to calm down and you can’t, embrace it. If you’re forcing it, stop.
Your Voice is Not Your Niche.
One last point: many people think their industry determines their voice. It doesn’t.
Example: JJ Virgin
JJ is a well-known and respected name in health and wellness. Her voice is solidly Professional: clear, authoritative, structured. She sounds like a leader in her space because she is.
But the health and wellness industry as a whole? That same niche has:
- Academics publishing dense clinical research,
- Emoji voices with hearts and gratitude and “sending you healing energy” vibes,
- Snarks ripping apart bad nutrition science and calling out the industry,
- Motor Mouths yelling at you to wake the hell up at 4am, jump into a cold plunge, and climb a mountain before the rest of society wakes up!!!!
Same niche. Five completely different voices. All of them can work.
The voice isn’t coming from the industry. It’s coming from the person. Don’t look at what other people are doing in your space and assume that’s how you need to sound.
Your niche gives you the topic. Your voice is what you bring to it.
***
One last nuance, which you probably saw this coming:
You do not have one voice, you have several.
The way you talk with your closest friends is not how you talk in a job interview. How you text your college roommate is not how you email your kid’s principal… I hope.
None of those voices are fake. They’re all you, but calibrated to the room.
Same thing applies to platforms: Your Instagram story doesn’t need to sound like your LinkedIn. Your email to a client doesn’t need to match your group chat.
Think of it like the inside voice versus outside voice you learned as a kid.
Some platforms are inside voice. Some are outside voice. Problems happen when you bring the outside voice inside, or when you whisper in a room that actually needs you to speak up.
Everything I shared here I was part of a framework I created years ago called CopyProof (yes it’s trademarked) – as in, your brand becomes impossible to copy because the voice is distinctly yours. (It was also a play on copywriting.)
Back then, voice was a nice differentiator – but you could get away with generic copy if your tactics were good enough. Just sprinkle in maybe 10% of your own voice.
That time is over.
AI writes generic content in 30 seconds. Templates, hooks, swipe files. A machine can do all of it now, for free.
The only thing that can’t be replicated is something that sounds unmistakably you.
That 10% is now the whole game.
Your voice is THE asset. Not your tactics. Not your templates. Your voice.
Three things to walk away with:
- Notice your default voice: How do you naturally communicate when you’re not performing? That’s the signal. Build from there.
- Name your type: You don’t have to fit perfectly into one of the five voices. Usually we’re a blend, but knowing your center of gravity helps you lean in instead of fighting it.
- Match the voice to the room: Inside voice, outside voice. Every platform should get a version of you, but every platform also gets you as a result.
Coming Next Week:
Next week I’ll be in Austin for South by Southwest. (Big thanks to my friend Jerry Won for encouraging me to apply and helping me navigate the process. Jerry and I were going to do a session together, but he switched gears to a different topic, so…
In what I think will be a fun tag-team (work should be fun!) – Ryan Levesque and I are going to collaborate on this one.
Ryan will also drop in to speak to my mastermind group during our Mastermind Retreat. Since I’ll be on the road next week, I’m going to share a conversation I had with Ryan from a summit I hosted several months back.
It was one of the most popular sessions during that event, and his insights are going to be really helpful to you. Check out Ryan’s newsletter, The Digital Contrarian. It’s highly recommended.