Executive voice development

What executive voice development is

Executive voice development is the capture of how one named person speaks and writes, set down in enough detail that somebody else can produce work under that name and have it sound right. It is done from recorded conversation, from the transcripts, and from whatever the person has already written or said on record.

It is about a person, not a company. Brand voice guidelines describe how the business sounds, and the two can differ sharply: a plain-spoken owner often sounds nothing like the careful register on their own website, and under their own byline the owner should win.

It is also not ghostwriting. It is the document ghostwriting runs on. An ongoing ghostwriting programme includes a short voice note of its own, and for one writer producing a piece or two a month that note is enough. This fuller job exists for when it is not.

When you need one

You need it when more than one writer produces material under the same name. An assistant writes the posts, an agency writes the conference biography, a specialist writes the technical pieces, and anyone who follows the person notices the change of character.

You need it before a sustained run of published work: a monthly column, a book, a year of founder pieces, a speaking circuit. Getting the voice wrong costs more with every piece, and the first three set what readers expect.

You need it when someone who has always written their own material is stepping back from it. The voice exists only in their habits, and habits leave with the person.

You do not need it if one writer is producing a modest run of pieces and both parties are already in a rhythm. The voice note inside the ghostwriting programme covers that, and buying this as well is paying twice. And if the person wants to write the pieces themselves and is simply slow or unsure, one-to-one writing coaching is the right service.

What gets captured

The raw material is two or three recorded conversations, ninety minutes each, on subjects the person knows well enough to stop performing. People revert to their real voice well into the second hour, which is why one short call is not enough. The transcripts are then read for what repeats.

• Sentence shape. How long the sentences run, whether the point arrives first or last, how often a sentence is a fragment, and what the rhythm does under a strong claim.
• Favourite constructions. The openings they reach for, the way they introduce a caveat, the phrase they use to change subject, the joke shape they fall back on when a subject gets uncomfortable.
• Vocabulary, high and low. The technical words they use without explaining, and the plain words they prefer where a colleague would reach for jargon.
• What they never say. The words and claims that are simply not in their mouth. This is the most useful section of the profile and the hardest to compile, because absence is invisible until you go looking for it.
• The anecdotes they reach for. The six or eight stories and examples a person returns to. These carry their authority, and a writer who does not have them writes generalities.
• Positions held. What they believe about their trade, including the unpopular parts, so a writer knows where the edges are and does not soften an opinion into a brochure.

What you get

The voice profile. Six to nine pages, written for a writer rather than for the executive. Each observation is paired with a quoted line from the transcripts, because an example teaches faster than a rule.

The anecdote bank. The stories and examples, each summarised in a few lines with the detail that makes it land, and marked off as each gets used.

Two calibration pieces. Short articles written to the profile and corrected by the person line by line. Those corrections are folded back in, and that is where most of the accuracy comes from.

The transcripts and recordings. Yours to keep, and the raw material for a good deal of other content later.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. The managing partner of a five-partner structural engineering firm in Ontario has agreed to write a monthly column for a trade publication, and has committed to a year of it. Two people will draft for him: a marketing coordinator inside the firm, and me.

Three recorded conversations run to four and a half hours and produce a long transcript. Alongside them sit fourteen pages he has already written, mostly report introductions and a conference paper. The profile that comes out is specific. He speaks in short sentences and puts the conclusion first, then defends it. He says "the honest answer is" before any point he expects to be unpopular. He never says "innovative" and never uses the word "passion" about his work. He has seven stories he returns to, four of them about failures on site and one about a decision he changed his mind on, which turns out to be the best thing in the bank. Two calibration pieces are marked up by him; the second comes back with four corrections where the first had thirty. The coordinator then writes columns four and seven, and the editor does not notice a change of hand.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. Who the person is, what will be published under the name, and who else will be writing it. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Agreed before anything starts, based on the number of recorded sessions.
3. Collection. Anything already written, recorded talks, panel appearances, long emails they are proud of. Two or three days.
4. The recorded conversations. Two or three sessions of ninety minutes, spread over a fortnight rather than done in one day.
5. Transcription and analysis. Five to eight working days, ending in the draft profile and the anecdote bank.
6. Calibration. The two short pieces, marked up, and the profile corrected against those marks. Four to six weeks from first call to final profile.

What it costs

Quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, agreed in writing, and not changed without your agreement. The price depends on the number of recorded sessions, how much existing material there is to read, and whether the calibration pieces are throwaway drafts or articles you intend to publish. The pricing page explains how fixed pricing works.

What happens next

The profile exists to be used, and the usual next step is a run of pieces: articles written under the name on a steady schedule, or pieces placed in the trade press, where an editor judges the voice for you. The short form is where a captured voice shows fastest, so posts from the personal account are often drafted from it first. After a year of steady writing the profile is worth a short refresh, because voices do move. This work is complete on its own: you have the profile, the anecdotes and the recordings, and nothing further is assumed.