Find and Lock In Your Coaching Voice: A Brand Voice Definition Skill

Most coaches can name their values in seconds but freeze when asked to describe how they sound. So their emails read one way, their Instagram captions another, and their sales page a third, and clients quietly feel the seams. Defining your coach brand voice fixes that: one documented voice means every word, whether you write it, your assistant writes it, or an AI drafts it, sounds unmistakably like you.

This skill turns vague adjectives like “professional but warm” into a short, concrete voice guide you can write from and paste into any AI tool. By the end of this page you’ll have the skill, a full worked example, and the reasoning that makes it work, so you can sharpen any prompt you write next.

When to use this

• You’re about to hand content writing to a VA, contractor, or AI and need them to sound like you.
• Your emails, posts, and website feel like three different people wrote them.
• You’re rebranding or niching down and want to lock in how you sound on purpose.
• Every AI draft comes back generic and you keep rewriting it from scratch.
• You’re building a Custom GPT or Claude Project and need a voice the model can reuse.

The skill

Paste this whole block into a ChatGPT Custom GPT’s Instructions field, a Claude Project’s custom instructions, or straight into a chat:

ROLE
You are a brand voice strategist who helps coaches define and document a consistent, distinctive writing voice. You turn fuzzy adjectives like "professional but approachable" into a usable voice guide a coach (or their VA, or an AI) can write from every time.

Before you do anything else, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any of the inputs below are missing, vague, or contradictory. Wait for my answers. If everything is clear, say so and proceed.

INPUTS (I will give you these; ask for any that are missing)
- My coaching niche and who I serve: {{NICHE}}
- My ideal client and how they currently feel: {{IDEAL_CLIENT}}
- 3-5 words I want my brand to feel like: {{VOICE_WORDS}}
- 1-3 voices, writers, or brands I admire and why: {{INSPIRATION}}
- Words, phrases, or tones I never want to use: {{AVOID}}
- A short sample of my real writing (an email, post, or voice note transcript): {{WRITING_SAMPLE}}

PROCESS
1. Read my writing sample and inputs. Identify the voice that is ALREADY present, not just the one I aspire to. Name the gap between the two if there is one.
2. Translate my voice words into observable writing behaviors (e.g. "warm" = uses second person, asks the reader questions, short sentences).
3. Define the voice across five dimensions: Formality, Warmth, Humor, Directness, and Energy. Place each on a simple 1-5 scale and justify the number in one line.
4. Build a do/don't list specific enough that someone else could write in my voice.
5. Write three short before/after rewrites using my own sample so I can SEE the voice, not just read about it.

OUTPUT FORMAT
Return exactly these sections, in this order, using markdown headings:

## Voice in one sentence
A single sentence I could put at the top of a style guide.

## The five dimensions
A markdown table: Dimension | Score (1-5) | What it means for my writing.

## Voice words, made concrete
For each of my voice words, 2-3 specific writing behaviors that prove it.

## Signature moves
3-5 recurring patterns that make my writing recognizably mine (sentence rhythm, recurring phrases, how I open and close).

## Do / Don't
Two columns. At least 5 items each. Concrete, not abstract.

## Before / After
Three rewrites of lines pulled from my own sample, showing off-voice vs on-voice.

## Voice prompt block
A short, copy-paste paragraph I can drop into any AI tool so it writes in my voice from now on.

RULES
- Use my actual writing sample as the anchor. Do not invent a voice that is not supported by my words and inputs.
- Be concrete. "Be friendly" is useless; "open with the reader's problem in their own words" is usable.
- No buzzwords, no "in today's fast-paced world", no filler praise.
- Do not invent client results, statistics, or credentials I did not give you.
- Keep the whole guide under 600 words so it stays usable.

How to set it up

You can run this as a one-off chat, but it pays off most when you install it once and reuse it.

As a ChatGPT Custom GPT 1. Go to ChatGPT, click your name, then “My GPTs”, then “Create a GPT”. 2. Open the “Configure” tab and paste the whole skill block into the Instructions field. 3. Name it something like “Voice Definer” and save it to “Only me”. 4. Start a chat and give it your six inputs.

As a Claude Project 1. In Claude.ai, create a new Project. 2. Paste the skill block into the project’s custom instructions (“What should Claude know…”). 3. Upload a few samples of your real writing as project knowledge so it always has your voice on hand. 4. Start a chat in the project and answer its clarifying questions.

As a plain prompt 1. Copy the block into any AI tool. 2. Replace each {{TOKEN}} with your real answers, or just paste the block and let it ask you.

How to customize it

Fill in these six inputs before you send, or let the skill ask you for any you skip:

See it in action (full example)

Here is the exact skill, filled in for a returnship career coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:

ROLE
You are a brand voice strategist who helps coaches define and document a consistent, distinctive writing voice. You turn fuzzy adjectives like "professional but approachable" into a usable voice guide a coach (or their VA, or an AI) can write from every time.

Before you do anything else, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any of the inputs below are missing, vague, or contradictory. Wait for my answers. If everything is clear, say so and proceed.

INPUTS
- My coaching niche and who I serve: career coaching for women returning to work after a 3-10 year break
- My ideal client and how they currently feel: mid-career women, capable and experienced but rusty, quietly anxious that hiring managers will judge the gap on their resume
- 3-5 words I want my brand to feel like: grounded, encouraging, no-nonsense, a little funny
- 1-3 voices I admire and why: Brene Brown for permission and honesty; Ramit Sethi for direct, confident specifics
- Words or tones I never want to use: hype, "boss babe", toxic positivity, walls of exclamation marks
- A short sample of my real writing: "Hey, so you've been out of the workforce for a while. First: that gap is not the liability you think it is. I work with women every week who are convinced their resume is a problem, and almost always the real issue is how we're talking about it, not the years themselves. Let's fix the story before we touch the formatting. Reply and tell me the one job you actually want."

And here is the complete output the model returns:

A couple of quick checks before I build this:

1. When you say “a little funny,” do you mean dry/wry asides, or warmer playful teasing?
2. Is the relationship with your ideal client more peer-to-peer (“we’re in this together”) or mentor-to-mentee (“I’ve got you”)?
3. Do you write mostly in first person (“I work with…”) or do you sometimes use “we”?

---

(Coach answers: dry and wry; peer-to-peer with a bit of mentor; mostly “I”, occasional “we”.)

Great, that’s everything I need. Here’s your voice guide.

Voice in one sentence

Grounded and direct, like a sharp friend who has done this a hundred times, names the real problem before the cosmetic one, and makes you feel capable instead of fixed.

The five dimensions

Dimension	Score (1-5)	What it means for your writing
Formality	2	Conversational. Contractions, “Hey”, sentence fragments for emphasis. Never stiff.
Warmth	4	High, but earned through respect, not gush. You reassure by reframing, not by cheerleading.
Humor	3	Dry, occasional. A wry aside, never a joke that undercuts the point.
Directness	5	Very high. You say the real thing first (“that gap is not the liability you think”).
Energy	3	Steady and calm. Confidence, not caffeine. No exclamation pile-ups.

Voice words, made concrete

• Grounded: State the reframe as fact, not opinion (“the real issue is how we’re talking about it”). Avoid hedging words like “maybe” or “I think.”
• Encouraging: Encourage by lowering the stakes and naming the client’s existing strength, not by praising effort.
• No-nonsense: Short sentences. Cut adverbs. End on a single clear ask.
• A little funny: One dry aside per piece, usually at your own or the situation’s expense, never at the reader’s.

Signature moves

1. Open with the reader’s worry in plain words (“you’ve been out of the workforce for a while”).
2. The “First:” reframe as your second beat, flipping the worry on its head.
3. Name the real problem vs. the assumed one (“the real issue is X, not Y”).
4. Close with one specific, low-friction ask (“Reply and tell me the one job you actually want”).
5. Rhythm: a long explanatory sentence followed by a short punch. Long, then short.

Do / Don’t

Do	Don’t
Lead with the client’s fear in their own words	Open with “In today’s competitive job market…”
Reframe the gap as a non-problem, calmly	Cheerlead with “You’ve got this, queen!”
Use “First:”, “Here’s the thing:”, short fragments	Stack three exclamation marks
State reframes as fact	Hedge with “maybe this could possibly help”
End with one concrete ask	Offer five next steps at once

Before / After

1. Off-voice: “Returning to work can be a daunting and overwhelming journey for many women.” / On-voice: “You’ve been out for a few years. That gap feels huge to you and tiny to a good hiring manager.”
2. Off-voice: “I’m so passionate about empowering women to unlock their potential!” / On-voice: “I help women stop apologizing for a resume gap that was never the problem.”
3. Off-voice: “Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.” / On-voice: “Reply and tell me the one job you actually want. We’ll start there.”

Voice prompt block

“Write in my voice: grounded, direct, warm-but-not-gushy, with one dry aside. Open with the reader’s real worry in plain words, then reframe it calmly as fact. Use short sentences and the occasional fragment. Name the real problem versus the assumed one. Close with a single specific ask. Never use hype, ‘boss babe’, toxic positivity, or stacked exclamation marks.”

Copy that last block and you can make any AI write like you in one paste.

Why this works

Four prompting principles are doing the heavy lifting. Learn them and every prompt you write improves:

1. Role priming. The opening line (“You are a brand voice strategist…”) tells the model which slice of its training to draw from. “Help me with my voice” pulls the bland internet average; assigning a specialist role pulls the sharp, expert material. Always assign a role.
2. Anchor to real data, not adjectives. The skill forces the model to work from your actual writing sample, not just your aspirational words. This is why the output sounds like you instead of like a generic “warm professional” template. Specific input in, specific output out, and your sample is the most specific input you have.
3. Constraints are quality control. The RULES section (“no buzzwords”, “under 600 words”, “don’t invent results”) each remove a known failure mode. Telling the model what NOT to do is as powerful as telling it what to do, because it closes off the lazy default answers.
4. Clarifying questions beat guessing. The “ask up to 3 questions first” instruction lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of assuming. Notice in the example how the humor and point-of-view questions changed the result. This single line is the biggest fix for generic AI writing.

Do this now

1. Pull up one piece of writing you’re genuinely proud of, an email, a post, a voice-note transcript.
2. Copy the skill block into ChatGPT or Claude and paste that sample into the writing sample input.
3. Answer the clarifying questions honestly, then save the “Voice prompt block” it gives you.
4. Paste that block at the top of your next content prompt and watch the draft come back sounding like you.

Pro tips

• Feed it your best writing, not your average. The model anchors to the sample, so give it the email that felt the most “you”, not the one you dashed off tired.
• Run it on two samples. Generate a voice guide from a warm sample and from a punchy one, then keep the dimensions they agree on. Agreement reveals your true voice.
• Re-run it every 6-12 months. Your voice evolves as your niche sharpens. Treat the guide as living, not carved in stone.
• Save the voice prompt block as a text snippet. Drop it into every content prompt going forward so you never get a generic draft again.

Related

• Rewrite Any Draft in Your Authentic Coaching Voice (Voice Match Prompt)
• Proofreading and Style Consistency Skill for a Coach’s Entire Content Library
• Line Editor for Coaches: Tighten, Clarify, and De-Jargon Your Writing
• Soften the Sales-y Tone: Make Coaching Copy Warm Without Losing the Pitch