Writing · 3 min read

Write like you talk. On a real call.

The reason your posts feel like a press release is you've been trained to write like one. Four cuts, one rewrite pass, and your voice comes back.

Chapter 01

Why corporate voice tanks reach

inkedIn is a peer network pretending to be a business network. Buyers reward posts that sound like a specific human wrote them. The algorithm rewards dwell time, and nobody dwells on a paragraph that could've been generated by any of 40 other companies in your category.

Corporate voice is the sound of nobody taking responsibility for the sentence.

Chapter 02

The 4 cuts

Before you publish, run this pass. It takes 60 seconds and doubles the readability of almost every post.

The hype adjective

Kill on sight: powerful, game-changing, revolutionary, cutting-edge, world-class

Swap for: Delete. Then say what it actually does. 'Our platform is powerful' → 'It cuts the average onboarding from 3 weeks to 4 days.'

The buzzword verb

Kill on sight: leverage, unlock, empower, drive, streamline, enable

Swap for: Use the verb you'd use on a call. 'We help you leverage your data' → 'We help you turn your calls into forecast notes without writing them yourself.'

The nobody-pronoun

Kill on sight: we, our team, our solution, organizations, businesses

Swap for: Talk to one person. 'Organizations struggle with X' → 'Your VP of Sales cannot forecast because two AEs never updated Salesforce this week.'

The safety hedge

Kill on sight: in many cases, often, tends to, generally, might

Swap for: Take a stand or don't publish. 'This tends to work' → 'This works in 4 out of 5 discovery calls. Here's what to do when it doesn't.'

“If you wouldn't say it to a customer on a call, don't publish it in a post. Your voice is your only real moat.”

The read-aloud rule

Chapter 03

Frequently asked questions

My company has a brand voice guide. Do I ignore it?

You follow it in company-branded posts. On your personal profile, you use your voice — the one your customers already recognize from calls. Your profile is not corporate marketing; it's the reason they answered the phone.

Won't legal freak out if I say specific things?

Legal freaks out about specific claims about the product. They rarely care how you write about the customer's problem, your own opinion, or a story from a call. Stay away from performance claims and you're fine.

How do I know if I sound corporate?

Read the post out loud. If you cannot imagine saying it to a customer on a Zoom call without them laughing, you sound corporate. Rewrite until you can.

Can I be too casual?

Yes — if 'casual' becomes vague or self-referential. The bar is 'how a smart peer would talk to another smart peer over coffee.' Not 'how you'd text a friend.'

Sound like you. At the speed of AI.

SelloWise learns your voice from your calls and your past posts — so it drafts in the way you actually talk, not in generic-marketing default.

Keep readingWrite a good hook How to educate without pitching

More short lessons in the SelloWise learning library.