Writing With AI Without Sounding Like Everyone Else

My book has a short section called “Writing for the occasion,” and the point of it was uncomfortable: everything you were taught about writing in school was designed to get you graded, not to get you a customer. Essays, term papers, correct structure and correct punctuation. Nobody taught you to write a sentence that makes a stranger pick up the phone. So most small business copy reads like it is waiting for a red pen.

AI tools have created a second problem on top of the first. Now the copy is technically fluent, warm, well organized, and it sounds exactly like every other business that used the same tool. The essay voice has been replaced by the everyone voice. This lesson is about escaping both.

Two structures worth learning

Sales writing has a handful of old, reliable shapes. Learn two and you can write almost anything a small business needs.

The first is AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Catch the eye with something specific to the reader, not a slogan; build interest by showing you understand their situation; create desire by making the outcome real, what life looks like after; and then ask for one action. A roofer’s postcard after a hailstorm: the attention is the storm date and the street name, the interest is what hail does to shingles you cannot see from the ground, the desire is a dry attic and a claim handled properly, the action is “call for a free inspection this week.” Four moves, one card.

The second is PAS: Problem, Agitation, Solution. Name the problem the reader already knows they have. Agitate it, meaning make the consequences of leaving it alone honest and vivid; not fear-mongering, just the truth about what happens next. Then offer the solution, which is you, plainly. An HVAC company writing to homeowners in October: the problem is a furnace that has sat idle since April, the agitation is the first cold night and a no-heat call when every company in town is booked, the solution is a tune-up visit this month. PAS is shorter and more direct; it suits emails and ads. AIDA suits pages and longer pieces where you have room to build.

Neither one is a formula for cleverness. Use them to make sure your writing does something. Ask of every piece: what do I expect the reader to feel, and what do I expect them to do when they finish? If you cannot answer, the structure is missing.

Asking the tool for a structure, not a miracle

Now bring the AI in, properly. Do not ask it to “write an email about our spring special.” Give it the avatar from the last lesson, the structure you want, the facts that are true, and the one action you want. Something like: “Write a PAS email to Jane, described here, about spring lawn care. The problem is that winter damage shows up in May. The agitation is honest, no scare tactics. The solution is our spring clean-up, booked by the end of the month. Facts you may use: we have served this town for twelve years, we show up the same day each week, we send a text the night before. Do not invent anything else. Ask for one action: reply to this email or call.”

Then ask for three versions, not one, and tell it to make them genuinely different in opening, not just reworded. Look for the sentence in each that is closest to what you would have said, and build from those.

The brand-voice check

Before you publish anything, run it through a check you built once and keep. Sit down for an hour and write out, in plain words, how your business talks. Do you say “folks” or “customers”? Do you use humor? Do you say “we” or “I”? Which words do you never use? Paste in three pieces of your own writing that sound like you, an email you sent, a review reply, a text to a customer, and ask the tool to describe your voice back to you. Fix the description where it is wrong. Save it.

Then every draft goes through one more pass: “Rewrite this in the voice described here, and flag anything that sounds like generic marketing.” Read the flags. They are usually right. The words to hunt for are the ones nobody says out loud: seamless, elevate, unlock, journey, transform, solutions, passionate about. Every one of those is a signal that the tool is filling space. Cut them or replace them with the specific thing you actually mean.

Edit like an owner

Here is the distinction that makes this work. The tool edits like a writer: it smooths, balances and rounds off. You must edit like an owner: is this true, is this what we do, would I say this to a customer standing in front of me? Read every draft out loud. Where you stumble or feel a small embarrassment, that is the sentence that is not yours. Replace it with what you would have said, however plain. Check every fact. Cut the first paragraph if it is warming up; most drafts start one paragraph too early. Make sure the action is one action and that it is possible this week.

Then sign it with your name. Not the company. A person wrote this, and a person will answer.

This week

Take one piece of marketing you already have, an email or a service page, and rewrite it twice with an AI tool: once as AIDA, once as PAS, using only facts that are true. Then run both through your voice check and edit them out loud. Publish the one you would be comfortable reading to your best customer.

Building the voice check the first time takes an hour or two. After that, a solid email or page takes twenty to thirty minutes from prompt to publish, most of it in the editing. The tools are free or a small subscription. The thing you cannot buy is the willingness to cut a beautiful sentence because you would never say it.