How to avoid template voice
A four-step revision pass for turning a clean AI draft into a post that sounds like you and your clients.
Template voice is not a prompting failure.
It is what happens when a decent AI draft survives without a coach making any hard choices. The sentences are clean. The advice is sound. Yet the post could belong to any coach with a LinkedIn account.
AI did its job. It gave you a rough draft faster.
Now the draft needs your judgment.
That means revision, not another elaborate prompt. Run these four checks before you publish.
1. Circle the category claims
Look for sentences that address āleaders,ā āfounders,ā or ācoachesā as one large group.
āMany leaders struggle to build confidenceā is plausible. It is also too broad to give a reader a reason to stop.
Ask which person you can picture. What were they avoiding? What made the problem harder that week? Which part did they say in words you would recognize from the call?
You do not need to expose private details. You need one real constraint.
2. Put the client's words back
Suppose a leadership coach starts with this AI draft:
Leaders can build confidence by embracing difficult conversations and communicating with clarity.
It sounds polished because nothing in it can catch.
Now imagine the coach remembers a pattern from recent calls: a client kept rewriting a message because they did not want their manager to think they were difficult.
The revision could be:
āI don't want my manager to think I'm difficultā is often the sentence before another week spent avoiding the conversation. Confidence may not come first. Sometimes you say the clear thing while your voice still shakes.
That version is not better because it is warmer. It is better because it contains a person, a consequence, and a point of view.
Client language carries the friction that positioning language edits out. Keep it anonymous. Keep the part that sounds true.
3. Name the tradeoff
Template drafts make advice sound free.
But useful advice usually costs something. The leader who speaks clearly may give up being liked in that moment. The coach who writes one specific post gives up appealing to every possible reader. The consultant who takes a stand gives someone a reason to disagree.
Name that cost.
It is often the sentence that proves you have thought beyond the tip. It also gives the reader something they could defend in a real conversation, not just something they could nod at in the feed.
4. Keep a phrase no-list
Do not build a 40-point voice framework. Keep a short list of phrases you would never say to a client.
Start with the residue you find in your own drafts. It might include:
- navigate the complexities
- unlock your potential
- embrace the journey
- in today's changing world
- communicate with clarity and confidence
One phrase does not prove a draft came from AI. Word lists turn into superstition fast. The problem is the pattern: no client, no constraint, no tradeoff, and no sentence you would defend on a call.
Use AI again at this stage if it helps. Ask it to flag generic claims, offer three plainer alternatives, or find phrases that repeat across your recent drafts. Ask for options and audit notes. Do not hand it the final decision.
CoachPoint's first note promised posts that sound like you on a busy Tuesday. That voice does not arrive because you found the perfect prompt. It appears when you cut the category language and put your own judgment back.
Tomorrow, take one AI-assisted draft and run four marks through it: circle the generic claim, underline the client's words, add the cost, and cross out the phrase you would never say aloud.