Write Like You Talk. Sell Like You Mean It.
A Coach’s Guide to Copywriting That Actually Sounds Like You
Let me tell you about the worst copy I ever read.
It was written by a brilliant woman, 22 years of executive coaching, a client roster that would make your jaw drop, and a gift for cutting through corporate nonsense that I’ve rarely seen matched.
She sent me her website copy for feedback. I opened it. I read the first paragraph. Then I looked at the URL again to make sure I was on the right page.
It sounded like a bank brochure.
Boring. A Yawn-Fest.
Phrases like ‘leveraging transformative synergies’ and ‘holistic methodological frameworks.’ Not a single laugh. Not a single human being in sight. She had somehow taken 22 years of warmth, wisdom, and hard-won real-world perspective... and sanitized every drop of it out.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most coaches over 50 write copy the same way they were taught to write in the 1980s. Formally. Distantly. Impressively. And unfortunately — invisibly.
Why Copywriting Is Just a Fancy Word for ‘Conversation’
David Ogilvy — the man who defined modern advertising, the patron saint of people who believe words actually matter — said something that I’ve carried with me for decades:
“The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.”
— David Ogilvy
What Ogilvy understood — and what most coaches miss entirely — is that copy is not a performance. It’s not a showcase. It’s a conversation with one specific human being who has a specific problem and is quietly wondering whether you understand them well enough to help.
When you write ‘I help high-achieving professionals unlock their potential,’ you haven’t written copy. You’ve written a LinkedIn headline that could apply to 400,000 coaches worldwide. Nobody reads that and thinks, ‘That’s exactly for me.’
When you write ‘If you’ve been the most capable person in every room for 20 years and still can’t figure out why you feel completely stuck — I know exactly why. And I know exactly what to do about it,’ now you’ve got somebody’s attention.
The Single Most Dangerous Word in Your Copy
That word is ‘I.’
Go look at your website right now. Count how many sentences start with ‘I.’
I’ll wait.
Done? If the number is above three, we have work to do.
Great copy is about your reader, not about you. Every time you write ‘I have 25 years of experience,’ your reader’s brain hears: ‘This is about me, the coach.’ Every time you write ‘You’ve spent 25 years becoming the expert — and nobody’s paying you like it,’ the reader’s brain hears: ‘This person gets me.’
This is not a small distinction. It is the entire game.
“The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.”
— David Ogilvy
Ogilvy was talking about testing ad campaigns. I’m talking about testing your copy on a simpler metric: read it out loud. If it sounds like something you’d never actually say to a real human being over coffee, rewrite it.
The Five Elements of Copy That Actually Converts
After 30+ years working with coaches, consultants, and sales teams, I’ve distilled great coaching copy down to five non-negotiable elements. Miss any of them, and you’ll write the kind of copy that gets ‘likes’ but no clients.
1. A Hook That Stops the Scroll: Your first sentence has one job: make them read the second sentence. That’s it. Don’t impress them. Do not explain your methodology. Just make them curious enough to continue.
‘You spent 30 years building your expertise. Isn’t it time the right people finally paid for it?’
That’s a hook. It creates tension, it asks a question, and it points directly at the person you’re writing for.