Open your LinkedIn. Read your last three posts out loud. Not in your head — out loud, with your actual mouth, in your actual voice.
Did it sound like you?
Or did it sound like someone cosplaying as a "thought leader" while wearing a lanyard at a conference they didn't want to attend?
Because here's what I've noticed after ghostwriting for dozens of founders, consultants, and people who are genuinely brilliant at what they do: almost none of them sound like themselves online.
They sound like LinkedIn.
(Which, for the record, is not a compliment.)
I know this because I used to do the exact same thing.
When I first started writing on this platform, I'd stare at the blank post box, and something would happen. Some invisible hand would reach into my brain, remove my entire personality, and replace it with a beige template that said things like "I'm thrilled to announce" and "Here are my 5 key takeaways."
I am not a person who says "key takeaways" in real life. I am a person who says, "Right, here's what actually matters, and the rest is noise." But LinkedIn has this gravitational pull towards corporate mediocrity. It flattens everyone into the same voice. The same cadence. The same hollow, performative enthusiasm.
It took me embarrassingly long to realise I was doing it. And it's taking your audience about three seconds to scroll past you because of it.
So here's the test. Three minutes. That's all you need.
The Voice Autopsy:
Pull up your last five posts. For each one, answer three questions:
1. The Swap Test. Could you replace your name with any other founder in your industry, and would the post still work? If yes, that's not your voice. That's a template wearing your profile photo.
2. The Pub Test. Would you say this sentence to someone at a pub? Not a networking event. Not a panel. A pub, with a drink in your hand and no audience to perform for. If the answer is "absolutely not, I'd sound like a robot", delete the sentence.
3. The Specificity Scan. Count the concrete details. Names. Numbers. Brands. Places. Exact situations. If your post contains fewer than two, it's generic. Generic content is invisible content. And invisible content is the reason your DMs are empty.
Here's what actually makes a voice distinctive: it's not about being "authentic" (I know, I know, everyone says that word and it means nothing anymore). It's about being specific.
The founder who writes "I had a tough day" is invisible. The founder who writes, "I sat in the Tesco car park for 40 minutes eating a meal deal because I couldn't face going back into my own office" is unforgettable.
Specificity is the weapon. Not vocabulary. Not "storytelling frameworks." Not whatever LinkedIn guru is selling you a course on hooks this week.
Your voice already exists. You use it every day, in emails to your team, in voice notes to your partner, in the rant you go on after a bad client call. The problem isn't that you don't have a voice. The problem is that you abandon it the second you open LinkedIn.
So here's what I want you to do.
Write your next post the way you'd explain the idea to your smartest friend. Not your audience. Not your "ideal client persona." Your friend. The one who'd call you out if you started talking in buzzwords.
Then read it out loud.
If it sounds like you, the actual, specific, slightly weird you… post it.
If it sounds like it could've been written by anyone with a blue tick and a content calendar, burn it and start again.
Your voice is the only thing on LinkedIn that can't be copied, templated, or automated. Every day you don't use it is a day someone less qualified but more distinctive is getting the clients that should be yours.
Stop sounding like LinkedIn. Start sounding like yourself.
(And if you genuinely don't know what your voice sounds like anymore, that's exactly what I do. But that's a conversation for your DMs, not this newsletter.)
Written by Sarra, the Ghost, professional ghostwriter, strategist, and marketer hiding in plain sight behind the voices you read every day.
Find me here → linkedin.com/in/meetsarra