hannahstone15 Sales Voice Kit
Most AI-written sales messages read the same, because they're written in nobody's voice, about nobody in particular, aimed at nobody specific. The fix isn't a better prompt. It's three things most people skip: real research before writing a word, knowing which kind of message the moment actually calls for, and writing it in a voice that's genuinely the sender's own. This skill covers all three, then saves what it learns about the sender so it only has to ask once.
The payoff is trust, not polish. A prospect can tell in about one sentence whether a message came from a template, from someone who half-skimmed their LinkedIn, or from someone who actually did the work and meant it. Specific beats slick, every time.
Step 0: Set Up Your Voice and Your Story (one-time)
Before writing anything, check the working directory for voice-profile.md and about-me.md.
If both exist, load them and skip to Step 1. If the user says "update my voice" or wants to add something new to their story, walk back through this step and add to the relevant file rather than starting over.
If they don't exist, this is a first run. Ask the following in one message, and let the user answer in whatever order feels natural. This isn't a form, it's a quick conversation.
First, paste one real message you've actually sent that sounds unmistakably like you: an email, a text, a Slack message, anything. This matters more than describing your own style, because tone is much easier to copy than to explain. Second, any words or phrases you can't stand seeing in sales writing, the kind of corporate filler that makes your eyes glaze over. These get banned from everything written for you from here on. Third, how do you naturally close a message when you're asking for someone's time? Some people have a phrase they gravitate to, some people wing it every time, either answer is fine. Fourth, where's home, and does it matter to your story, or is there a different place that shaped you more? Fifth, name three or four things that are genuinely, specifically you, not hobbies in the abstract. Not "I like music," but the artist you'd actually notice if a prospect mentioned them. Not "I'm outdoorsy," but the sport, the injury, the trip that mattered. A pet, a food thing, a place you travel back to. Sixth, and only if it's true, is your path into sales a straight line, or did you come from somewhere unexpected: healthcare, teaching, the military, something else entirely? A real pivot is one of the best personal hooks there is, because almost nobody has one.
Save answers to questions one through three in voice-profile.md, and answers to questions four through six in about-me.md. Structure about-me.md loosely by category, such as roots, interests, and career story, so it's easy to scan later and easy to add to over time.
Step 1: Research Before Writing a Word
This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that separates a message that gets a reply from one that gets deleted. Top sellers don't write faster than everyone else, they research first and write light. Before drafting anything, spend a few minutes actually finding out about the person and the company.
Check what's public: the company's own site, and what it actually says once you get past the tagline. Recent news from the last six months: funding, a launch, a leadership change, an expansion, anything that signals momentum or a shift. Job postings, which usually reveal more honest signals about what a company is building or struggling with than its marketing page ever will. And the recipient's own public activity: a LinkedIn post, an interview, a podcast, anything they said recently in their own words.
Then ask one honest question before writing anything: is there a real, specific reason this person would care right now, or would this exact message work just as well sent to a hundred other people at a hundred other companies? If it's the second one, don't force it. Either find a sharper angle or say plainly that the fit looks weak right now instead of sending something generic anyway. Strong sellers pass on weak fits more often than average ones do. That discipline is part of why their messages convert better.
If research turns up that the recipient has real past experience with what's being sold, worked somewhere that already used it, came from a similar product, was a customer somewhere before, treat that as a different kind of message. That gets covered specifically in Executive Mode below, since it comes up most often there, but the same logic applies at any level: someone who already knows the value doesn't need it re-explained to them.
Step 2: Decide What Kind of Message This Is
Not every message should be built the same way. Before drafting, figure out which of these applies, since the rules differ for each.
A first message to someone new, where nothing has gone out yet, follows Step 3 and Step 4 below, with Step 5 layered on top if the recipient is senior. A follow-up where a first message already went out and got no response follows Step 6 instead, which has its own self-contained rules. If it's genuinely unclear which applies, default to a first touch.
Step 3: Choose the Right Opening
The opening line decides whether the rest gets read. There is no single best opener, only the right one for what's actually known about the recipient. Pick based on what Step 1 turned up, and don't force a style that doesn't fit.
If there's a real news hook, a funding round, a launch, a new role, an acquisition, lead with it, and react to the moment rather than restating facts the recipient already knows. Something like "congrats, saw the round, imagine the team's been building toward this for a while" beats reciting the dollar amount and the lead investor.
If there's something personal and public, a podcast appearance, a LinkedIn post, an interview, lead with that instead, and be specific about what was said or shown, not just that it existed.
If about-me.md has a real, genuine overlap with something known about the recipient, a shared hometown, the same college, an overlapping hobby or interest, that can be the opener, but only when it's a true overlap, never a stretch.
If none of the above apply, don't invent a hook. Open with something specific and real about the recipient's company or situation instead, something that couldn't be copy-pasted onto a different company. Generic enthusiasm reads as generic no matter how it's phrased.
Step 4: Use a Personal Hook, or Don't
about-me.md exists so a genuine personal connection is ready when one applies, not so every message gets one whether it fits or not. Scan it for real overlap with what's known about the recipient before pulling anything from it.
When there's a fit, one hook is enough, usually as a PS line at the end rather than woven through the body. It should read like something a person actually noticed, not a personalization variable. When there's no fit, skip it entirely. A missing personal touch is invisible. A forced one is not, and it costs more trust than it earns.
Step 5: Executive Mode
Trigger this automatically whenever the recipient's title is Director, Head of, VP, SVP, EVP, Founder, Co-Founder, or C-suite (CEO, COO, CTO, CIO, CFO, CDO, or similar). Senior people give a message less time and less patience, so the format changes, not just the tone.
Length drops hard: 50 to 75 words for C-suite or founder-level, up to 100 words for VP or Director-level. If the point can't be made in that space, the value proposition isn't sharp enough yet, cut it down rather than explaining more. Three to five sentences total, never one dense block. The subject line gets shorter too, five words or fewer, specific to them, never "quick question" or "touching base." Never open with "I," the sender's name, or the sender's company, open with something about the recipient instead. One pain point only, never a list. The close is an interest-based question they can answer with a yes or a no, never a specific meeting-time ask on a first message: something like "worth a conversation?" or "is this on your radar this year?" consistently outperforms asking for calendar time on a cold executive send.
If Step 1's research turned up that this person has real past experience with what's being sold, used it at a past company, came from a company that was a customer, this becomes a fundamentally different message. Do not explain what the product does or build credibility from scratch, they already have it. Open by acknowledging that directly, something like "given your time at [past company], you already know the story" signals immediately that this is picking up a conversation, not starting a pitch. Bridge from what they already know to what's likely different about their new context, then to one specific, current reason to reconnect now. If they're brand new in the role, a direct ask for time is reasonable, since new-in-role usually means actively evaluating options. If the account is more of a long game, a softer close works better, closer to introducing yourself as a resource than asking for a meeting.
Step 6: Follow-Up or Bump
A bump has exactly one job: spark enough curiosity that the person replies with a yes or a no. It is never a reminder that the sender exists, never a recap of the first message, never an apology for following up, and never a second pitch squeezed into a shorter box.
The shape is three small pieces that read as one connected thought, not three stitched together. First, a short hook, five to ten words, pulled from whatever's freshest: recent news if there's something genuinely new in the last six months, otherwise the core idea the first message was testing, otherwise just what the company does. Second, a short phrase, five or six words, connecting that hook to the value, framed as a category or an outcome, never a product pitch. Third, one soft, curious question: "any thoughts on whether...", "curious if...", "has this come up internally?" Never a call or meeting ask.
Keep the whole thing under 25 words if possible, 40 as an absolute ceiling. One or two sentences. No greeting required, no recap of the first email, no sign-off needed. Write exactly one version, not a set of options to pick from. If there's a longer sequence going out over time, each one should read a little more direct than the last and never repeat the same hook twice. The sequence is telling one continuous story, not restarting the pitch every time it fires.
Step 7: Write It
Applies to first touch and executive messages. A bump is already fully specified in Step 6.
Short sentences. Contractions. No word or phrase from the user's own banned list in voice-profile.md, and none of these by default unless the user has said otherwise: leverage, synergy, cutting-edge, best-in-class, seamlessly, game-changing, robust, utilize, circle back, touch base, streamline, ecosystem, delve, harness, tapestry, or landscape used as a metaphor for an industry.
If this is an email, the subject line carries as much weight as the opener. Reference something specific and real, a product name, a shared detail, a piece of actual news, never a generic phrase like "quick question" or "following up" that could go out to a thousand people unchanged.
State the reason for writing and the value in two or three sentences, not a paragraph. Trust the reader to connect the rest. Close by inviting a conversation, not demanding one: something like "had an idea or two on where this could help, worth a quick chat?" works better than anything that pressures a specific time or asks the reader to do work just to respond.
Unless Step 5 set a tighter ceiling, a cold email usually lands best under 200 words, and a LinkedIn note or InMail should be shorter still, under 80 words is a good target. Length is a tell on its own: a message padded to sound thorough usually sounds AI-written instead.
Step 8: Check for the Tells
Before handing anything back, check it against these. Each one, on its own, is a small thing. A message with three or four of them stacked together reads as generated rather than written, and readers notice even when they can't say exactly why.
Watch for "it's not X, it's Y" framing, or any close variant of it. Watch for a question the writer asks and then answers immediately, like "the result? Total silence." Watch for short, punchy one-line paragraphs used purely for fake emphasis. Watch for filler transitions: "it's worth noting," "here's the thing," "importantly." Watch for stacked rule-of-three phrasing showing up more than once in the same message. Watch for a dash doing the work a period or comma should be doing. Watch for a signposted conclusion, "in summary" or "to wrap up," in something short enough that it doesn't need one. Watch for a self-introduction that explains who the sender is and why they're writing before saying anything specific. The message should be specific enough that it never needs one.
If a message trips more than one of these, rewrite the flagged section rather than patching around it. Read the final version out loud. If it doesn't sound like something a person would actually say to another person, it isn't done yet.
Quality Check Before Delivering
Confirm the opener matches what's actually known about the recipient, not a generic template. Confirm nothing from the banned words list made it through. Confirm any personal hook used is a real, specific overlap, not a stretch, and that there's at most one. Confirm the close invites rather than pressures. If this was executive mode, confirm the word count and single-pain-point rule held. If this was a bump, confirm it's under the word ceiling and doesn't repeat the first message. Confirm the message passes the read-aloud test.
After Delivering
Share the message. If it was a rewrite, name the two or three biggest changes and why, in a couple of lines, not an exhaustive list. If there's a strong personal detail in about-me.md that wasn't used here but could work for a future message to this same person or company, mention it briefly.