Writing for your business: Voice

Employee voice = supplicant voice - Business voice = declarative voice 

When writing for your business, you need to use declarative voice

Ok, time to put your founders' pants on. Unless we go into business early, we spend a lot of time writing in employee voice.

We’re not employees anymore. We’re not positioning ourselves as a credit to the company; we’re positioning our businesses as the second coming of Jesus.

Supplicant voice and declarative voice

Employee voice = supplicant voice 

It’s geared toward selling your skills. It seeks to explain, persuade, and justify why it should be considered, and it's absolutely flavourless. 

It sells skills that address needs 

It is geared toward assisting. The unwritten is ‘I can.’

Business voice = declarative voice 

It has a defined voice that makes statements instead of giving explanations. It doesn’t seek to persuade by justifying. It speaks on equal terms to a defined profile.

It provides services with defined benefits

It's geared toward improving. The unwritten is 'I do'.

Get the balance of these wrong, your pitch falls flat straight out of the gate.

Imagine a cover letter written in business voice. Nobody is hiring. What reads as certain in its context reads as arrogant for that purpose.

When it comes to writing for business, writing in employee mode reeks of underconfidence.

It reads like you’re asking permission to offer help. We don't ask anymore.

Undefined offer = undefined client profile = undefined voice = forgettable

Exactly what it says.

Employee voice writes as though it's one of thousands pitching for one client. It tries to cover everything that might give them that edge.

Resulting in an unclear offer and an unclear client profile. You're offering everything to everyone.

When you offer everything to everyone, you get nothing from no one because nobody's sure what you're offering to whom.

And where you're not writing to that defined profile you know how to speak to, your language becomes safe, and safe is forgettable.

Pull all these factors together, and writing for your business in employee voice gives mixed signals.

Which does not inspire confidence. You're hurting your pitch.

When it comes to skills-based businesses that could just as easily be freelancers selling their skills by the hour, it's an identity crisis.

So, how do we make our voices declarative?

Three easy changes to shift voice

Can the word can

Can implies possibility. 

‘I can help’ carries inherent ‘I might not be able to’ and 'I'm not doing it right now'.

There's a gap there. We don’t do possibilities, and we don't leave gaps. We do certainties and absolutes.

‘I help’ is the definitive article. No possibility. No gap.

Less is more

The more words you use, the more your copy reads like explaining yourself, not making statements. Statements are declarative. I can't say it more simply than that.

Watch your words

Switch words that imply subordinate positioning for those that imply equal.

Repositions your offer.

'I help' is stronger than 'I assist'. If you can cut it though... skip straight to what you actually do.

Spot the difference:

I can assist you with your admin tasks.

I clear your admin.

I can help you spot the stories in your business that are worth sharing.

I spot the stories worth sharing.

I can help you put together a site that feels true to your business.

I help you build a site true to your business.

Voila.

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