Voice card format and starter questions
The voice card is the single most load-bearing input to this skill. It is what stops a ghostwritten post from sounding like a brand instead of the person. Build one per exec before drafting, from their actual posting history and how they actually talk - never from a guess about how "a CEO" sounds.
What a voice card holds
Keep it to one page. Every field earns its place by changing what gets drafted.
| Field | What goes in it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Diction and register | How formal or blunt they are, sentence length, words they reach for, words they never use, whether they swear, whether they use "I" or "we" | This is what makes a draft sound like them at the sentence level |
| Arguments they own | The two or three positions they return to and are known for | Keeps posts on the beat their audience follows them for |
| Off-limits | Topics, claims, or framings they will not touch, plus anything legal or IR has flagged | A hard gate; feeds the anti-repeat off-limits map |
| Proof they can stand on | The data, wins, and first-hand experience they can speak to without hedging | Grounds posts in something only they can say |
| Format habits | Do they post long or short, use lists or prose, ask questions, share links | Matches the draft to how their feed already reads |
| Gold-standard posts | One or two of their best past posts, pasted in full | The concrete target a draft is measured against |
| Hard nos | Tone or device they hate (contrarian openers, humblebrags, emoji, hashtags) | Prevents the drafts that get rejected on sight |
Starter questions to build one
When the history is thin or the exec is new to posting, interview them (or whoever owns their voice). Ask, in their words:
- Whose posts do you read and think "I wish I'd written that"? What makes them good?
- What are the two or three things you want to be known for saying?
- What would you never post about, even if it would do numbers?
- What can you claim from first-hand experience that most people in your seat cannot?
- Show me a post of yours you were proud of. What made it yours?
- What makes you cringe when you see it on LinkedIn?
- Long and considered, or short and sharp? Question at the end, or a statement?
- "I" or "we"? How formal? Would you ever swear, use an emoji, use a hashtag?
Pull answers 1, 5, and 6 straight into the gold-standard and hard-nos fields; they carry the most signal about voice.
Keeping the card current
The card is not static. Each time the exec rewrites a draft before posting, that rewrite is a better sample of their real voice than anything already on the card - fold it in and, if it is strong, make it the new gold-standard post. Over a few cycles the card converges on how they actually write, and the drafts need less editing.
Cadence
Posting rhythm and the anti-repeat cooldown windows live in the companion anti-repeat-and-cadence.md reference. The short version: use the ledger's last-live date per exec as the authoritative cadence clock, and hold to a steady rhythm rather than posting in bursts.