We talk to a lot of small business owners. One of the most common things we hear is this: “I know I need to be putting out more content. I just do not have the time to write it.”
This is a real problem. Written content (emails, social media posts, blog articles) are often the biggest bottleneck for small businesses. The owner knows their business better than anyone. They know what makes it special. They know how to talk to their customers. But they are also running the business, which does not leave much time for writing.
The Usual Solutions are not always solutions.
Most business owners try one of two paths.
The first is AI. Tools like ChatGPT can generate first drafts quickly, and that is genuinely helpful. But the output tends to sound like ChatGPT. It is polished in a generic way. It does not sound like you.
The second is hiring a writer. This can work, but it is tricky. Professional American writers are expensive, and many small businesses cannot afford them. Writers on platforms like Upwork can fit the budget, but the results are often disappointing. You send them a ChatGPT draft and some direction. You get back something that is not much better than what you started with.
The writer is polishing AI-generated content rather than actually writing in your voice.
The core problem is that most writers do not know how you think, how you talk, or what makes your perspective different from everyone else in your industry. And teaching them is hard, especially when you are already short on time.
There is another option that has worked well for us, and for the clients we have recommended it to. It is called a voice clone writer.
Here is how it works. You spend about an hour on the phone with the writer. They interview you. They ask about your business, your customers, your goals, your opinions. They are not just gathering information. They are listening to how you say things. The rhythm of your sentences. The words you reach for. The way you explain complicated ideas.
Then you provide a few examples of your existing work. Emails you are proud of. Social posts that performed well. Anything that sounds like you at your best.
The writer takes all of this and creates a style template based on you. Not a generic brand voice guide, but an actual model of how you communicate. And then they use that template to write content that sounds like you wrote it yourself, on a day when you had plenty of time and a clear head.
It is a little wild, honestly. The first time you read something back and think “that sounds exactly like me,” it catches you off guard.
What does a voice clone cost?
We charge around $55 an hour for this kind of work. That is not nothing, but it is also not the $150 to $300 an hour that top-tier American copywriters charge. And the return on investment is significant, because you are not just getting content. You are getting content that actually represents you.
The interview takes about an hour. After that, you have a style template that can be used again and again. The ongoing writing becomes much faster because the writer already knows your voice.
Your voice is one of the few things that cannot be commoditized. Anyone can use the same website template. Anyone can run the same kind of ads. But nobody else sounds like you, thinks like you, or has your specific perspective on your industry.
The problem is that capturing voice is hard.
It requires someone who knows how to listen, how to ask the right questions, and how to translate what they hear into written words. That is a real skill, and it is worth paying for.
If written content is your bottleneck (and for most small businesses, it is) this might be worth exploring.
Design Web Louisville is an employee-owned web development company. We build websites, and we believe your voice is worth preserving.
