When you’re creating content for your business, it’s easy to fall into generic uninspired writing. For a business owner, even if you’re passionate about what you do, writing about what you do is often harder than just doing it, and there’s no shortage of reasons why.
For starters, most people are insecure about their writing…even brilliant writers! Writing is just really hard. Even if you know exactly what you want to say, staring at a blank page is intimidating and often when you start to write, it comes out differently than you thought it would.
Writing is also a vulnerable act. It’s creative, meaning that, unlike spreadsheets and contracts, it feels like a direct and very personal extension of you. Its a proclamation of your beliefs and ideas, which exposes internal thoughts for external assessment, inviting judgement. Or at least that’s how it feels.
Lastly, as a business owner, even if writing is your business, producing marketing content usually comes in last on your to-do list, especially when paying clients have things they need from you. By the time you do get around to it, you don’t have the time and energy it takes to do justice to the ideas you have, making you scrounge for help wherever you can find it.
The Tyranny of the Template
This is when we look for the easy way out, only to fall into one of writing’s biggest traps: the template.
That is, following a model or adopting a voice that mimics someone else’s successful writing but has no real personality. This can come in many forms: copying your competitors’ voice, using AI to polish your writing or write your posts altogether, or adopting whatever turns of phrase or format is trending right now in your industry.
It’s tempting to want to follow a formula that promises a compelling piece of writing but the problem is that rarely gets results. Instead, it creates generic boring content that doesn’t represent the real you and makes your readers eyes glaze over.
So how do you avoid the tyranny of the template and write compelling content that is truly your own? Well lucky for you, we have a few strategies to offer.
Find Your Voice
Producing writing that is uniquely yours comes first from finding your voice. For those of you who haven’t written much, and even for many of you who have, finding your voice is the beginning of every writing journey.
To find your voice, I recommend recording yourself. Pick a topic you want to write about, turn on the audio recorder on your phone, and then record yourself speaking on the topic. Then go back and listen to it and notice what you hear. Or better yet, transcribe it into text and read it back. You’ll notice that you speak with a unique rhythm and style, you use certain turns of phrases, and you like to explore topics in similar patterns. Maybe you use a lot of imagery or maybe you’re strictly logical. Whatever you notice is your voice.
When you sit down to write, remember how you speak and write in that style. A trick you can do is to create a bank of words or phrases you often use and then draw from it. What this is really doing is tricking yourself into getting comfortable with your own voice so you don’t turn into a formal robot as soon as you sit down at your computer with a blank page in front of you.
A common mistake I see people make is they polish their writing so much that they polish their voice out of their pieces. Running your writing through AI to make it sound more professional does a similar thing. It removes the you-ness from your writing and returns to you something generic and predictable, and often generic and predictable feels safer and more comfortable than putting the real you out there.
But good writing isn’t safe and the most likeable writers have their own unique quirks and rhythm that turns their writing into a character that we grow fond of. That character is you. Embrace it.
Be Honest
Don’t try to please everyone. Back when markets were small and every sector only had a few competitors, it made sense to try to appeal to everyone. That’s no longer the case.
Every market is saturated and every practitioner, business owner, and writer is accessible by such a huge array of people that the only way to get ahead is to get specific. Find what makes you uniquely you—in both voice and offering—and double down on it.
Luckily, this fits with market demands right now. When Millennial and Gen Z consumers consider buying something, they aren’t just looking at the product itself anymore, they’re looking at what it stands for and who’s behind it. They want to be contributing to a cause they believe in, supporting views they resonate with, and feeling connected to the people and values behind the product.
There are enough consumers that whatever you’re putting out there, there’s a subsection of people who are hungry for it. So be yourself, and trust that your voice and personality will find its people.
Write in a Way That Works for You
Just because someone else is churning out full-length essays every week doesn’t mean you have to. Maybe you’re more of a storyteller than a data collector, or maybe you communicate best through bullet points and lists rather than fleshed-out narratives.
Whatever style comes out most naturally for you, run with it. If you’re doing what feels natural, your thoughts will likely come out better and writing them won’t feel like such a lift.
Tip: your writing doesn’t have to be long! Maybe you have one really juicy thought that you want to share with your community but feel like you can’t share it unless it’s fleshed out into a professional two-page essay. This is absolutely false. If you have one really good thought, write it down as clearly as you can, give it some context so your reader understands how you arrived at it, say why it’s so personally impactful to you, and then press send. Chances are, four well-thought-out sentences will be better received than two pages rambling on about one simple point.
At the end of the day, the best writing comes from people who enjoy writing. The reader can feel whether you’re engaged or just phoning it in. So as much as you can, fully engage yourself to write something that’s truly yours. It may take a little more energy upfront, but it can also become a process that you genuinely enjoy, find rewarding, and that attracts the right people to you. Once you have a few ideas in your bank, you can find ways to reapproach, and reuse them in new ways!
Fellow Rebels Who Have Embraced Their Voice
Need some inspiration? Check out these successful rebels who have embraced their voice and been well-received for it.
Gary Vaynerchuck first got famous for his YouTube blog promoting his family liquor store in New Jersey. His videos featured him tasting and reviewing wines in his characteristic high-energy and down-to-earth way at a time when the wine industry was still stiff and pretentious.
Part of why he’s been such a huge success is because his voice is so distinctive. He doesn’t shy away from being exactly himself and he writes just like he speaks, making his writing approachable, human, and consistent with the same video personality that first put him in the public eye.
Brianna Wiest is the bestselling author of 10 books including The Mountain is You and 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think. She writes openly about her idiosyncrasies as an author and says that while she used to be insecure about her differences, she has learned to embrace them and success has followed.
Be like Brianna. Actually, don’t. Be like yourself. It’s a heck of a lot easier, and your audience will thank you.
Need Help Writing?
At Alliance Ghostwriting we help rebellious leaders establish authority and build their audience with high quality ghostwriting and copywriting. Do you want to write a book or recurring blog? We’ve got you covered.
You break the mold, we’ll handle the writing. Contact us to learn more!
