Most business writing is dull not because the business is dull, but because somewhere between thinking something and publishing it, the personality got edited out. The instinct is understandable. You want to sound professional. You want to be taken seriously. So you smooth off the edges, swap your natural phrasing for something that sounds a bit more official, and end up with copy that could have been written by anyone about anything.
There are two versions of this mistake. The first is the corporate brochure voice: comprehensive solutions, tailored approaches, dedicated to exceeding expectations. Nobody talks like this, nobody reads it, and it tells the reader nothing useful about what you actually do or why you are good at it. The second is the overcorrection: relentless exclamation marks, forced casualness, a tone so desperately friendly that it becomes its own kind of off-putting. Both mistakes come from the same misunderstanding, which is that professionalism and personality are somehow in opposition.
They are not. The most effective business writing sounds like a confident person who knows what they are talking about. It is specific rather than vague. It uses plain language not because it has no character but because plain language is easier to trust. A plumber who writes the way they explain a problem on a doorstep, a café that sounds like the person who actually runs it, a builder whose website reads like someone with thirty years of experience rather than a brochure template from 2009. These are the businesses that feel credible before you have even picked up the phone.
Specificity is where personality actually lives. “We offer a wide range of electrical services to clients across the region” is boring because it is vague, not because it is clear. “I handle domestic rewires, consumer unit upgrades, and EV charger installations across Worcestershire” is clear and specific, and it tells you immediately whether this is the right person for your job. The second version has more character than the first, and it took less effort to write.
The editing process is usually where things go wrong. The first draft, written quickly and naturally, is often the best version. Then it gets reviewed, tightened, made to sound a bit more like what a business is supposed to sound like, and most of what made it readable disappears. If your copy sounds like it was written by a committee, it probably was, even if that committee was just you second-guessing yourself.
If your website copy has had the life edited out of it, or never had it to begin with, that is something I can help with. My content and copywriting service is about finding the version of your business that is both clear and worth reading. Get in touch if you want a second opinion on what you have got.
