I clicked Send and watched the text appear.
“Your holistic partner in digital transformation. Web solutions that aren’t just pages, but comprehensive...”
It was smooth and professional, and I would never say anything like that. You’ve seen the same thing on a hundred company websites: you read a few lines and get the feeling no person was involved.
I started with a list of my awards
When I started my company I was a web designer, not a writer. I needed copy for my site and couldn’t afford a copywriter. I know myself best, I figured, so how hard can it be.
I wrote about awards, achievements and credentials, everything that was supposed to prove I was good at what I do. The site looked professional, maybe even impressive. When I came back to it a few weeks later, it read cold and self-centered. It said nothing to the reader, and not a single person cared.
A client sent me a bottle of port
So I read books. Dozens of them, and they all taught the same thing under different names: AIDA, RACE, TOFU-MOFU-BOFU, the flywheel, See-Think-Do-Care, AARRR, StoryBrand. Each one describes how a stranger becomes a customer.
When I tried the formula myself, an introverted web designer who thought he was terrible with words found out he loved storytelling. Persuasive copy turned out to be mostly psychology, old patterns that help a reader understand faster and feel more. Clever wordplay had very little to do with it.
Clients started responding to what I wrote, and some told me it helped them succeed. One sent me a bottle of port wine for Christmas. That felt incredible.
The pattern under most of those books is the Hero’s Journey, the same one behind the Odyssey and Star Wars. Marketing doesn’t need all seventeen steps. Four will do: something is wrong in the reader’s world, an obstacle makes it worse, a solution appears, and the story ends somewhere new. Once the brain is inside that cycle, it wants to follow it to the end.
People who land on your website are usually somewhere in the first two steps. They’ve found a problem, or at least sensed one, and they’re looking for a way out. If they recognise themselves in your story, they tend to remember you when it’s time to buy.
Within a few weeks I was exhausted
The first time I saw AI writing at scale, it felt almost magical. Text poured onto the screen, and every paragraph looked like something an experienced copywriter would hand in. I thought it was genius.
A few weeks later everything sounded the same to me. It was personality with a glossy coat of polyurethane on top.
And I made it worse. I kept pushing for more professional, more expert, more impressive. Each round looked better and sounded less like me, until the copy read like a marketing guru had written it. I wasn’t a guru. I was an introverted designer who had learned to love storytelling, and now I sounded like a narcissist. That’s not ideal when you’re trying to connect with readers.
We try to sound more professional than we are, and the first thing to go is the one thing nobody else can offer: our own voice and experience. Most of the internet has already gone that way. Readers scroll past without stopping, and they can tell when you’re trying to be someone else.
Partly I’m writing this to remind myself to stay honest. I could show off polished copy and collect cheap points, but I’d be giving up the part that’s actually worth something. And partly so you don’t waste your time in the same trap. Everyone hates this kind of copy, and far fewer people notice when they’re writing it themselves.
Why can I write in other people’s voices but not my own?
A client sits across from me and says, “I can’t write anything interesting about myself.” Then they keep talking. I listen to the small asides, the pauses and the gestures, all the things they don’t notice about themselves that give their personality away. The next day they have a story that sounds completely like them.
I’ve always been interested in psychology, so this question fascinated me: why is it easier for me to write in someone else’s voice than in my own?
Part of the answer is the Johari window. We all have blind spots, things others see about us that we don’t. For me it’s tied to introversion. I don’t go looking for situations where I’d get feedback on my personality, and I’m not the one standing on tables collecting attention. That’s why polished language is risky for someone like me. It flatters. It makes me look bolder and more confident than I am, and if I’m not careful I start believing the picture.
The other part is projective empathy. When I write for a client, I can step into their shoes like an actor into a role, and it’s surprisingly easy. I can’t do the same with my own role, because I’m too close to myself and too harsh. Seeing someone else’s story and giving it a voice is a skill only humans have, but it works much better on other people.
So I needed an outside view, sometimes a colleague, sometimes a friend. I also started asking myself one question: what’s actually interesting about this? When I answer that honestly, my voice stays mine. If you can find an honest answer to it, you’re already ahead of 99% of the people posting polished “I’m so grateful for this journey” bullshit on LinkedIn.
Which one would you keep reading?
Here are two ways to sell the same online course.
“In today’s fast-paced business world, entrepreneurs need tools that help them succeed. Our online course provides practical strategies, expert insights, and step-by-step guidance. This course is not just a study — it’s a transformative journey of growth and empowerment. Join now and take your business to the next level!”
“When I started my first business, I worked day and night, but nothing moved forward. The problem wasn’t the amount of work — it was chaos: everything felt important, but nothing actually moved me forward. When I found a simple framework that helped me focus on what mattered, growth finally started. I now teach this same structure to other entrepreneurs — those who feel stuck but want clarity and direction.”
The first one keeps telling you how good it is. The second sounds like a person talking to you, and it follows the same four steps as every story you’ve ever finished.
A stranger asked to swap articles
Then a message landed in my inbox. A complete stranger asked if I’d like to exchange articles. I went to look at my own site and felt a wave of shame. Terrible shit.
I started patching, a headline here and a sentence there, and it wasn’t enough. I had seen so much lifeless copy that I was now seeing it on my own site. These were texts I had put a lot of effort into and then polished into a fabricated version of myself.
So I started from scratch with a new article about my hobby, something personal. I didn’t want to lose the speed, but it had to sound like me. I thought about how my family sees me and how my bandmates see me. I wrote how I see them, sometimes exaggerating, sometimes through conflict. Finally I wrote how I saw myself compared to how I should have seen myself. I built it on the same four steps I’d learned years earlier, and it read like a story again.
OK isn’t OK in my book. The internet doesn’t need one more empty text. There’s always room for people, though, and even an imperfect voice is still something.
Steal this before you write
I’m not afraid of using tools in my writing. I just don’t let them lead. Before I write, I try to remember three things:
- I don’t let polish feed my confirmation bias.
- I don’t let polish stroke my ego.
- Only I am responsible for what I publish.
The tool is my critic and sparring partner, and it helps when I get stuck. I don’t ask it whether something is good. I ask what I could improve.
