Brand voice architecture for founders with something to say

Your copy sounds like five different people wrote it. Let's make it sound like one.

Get a fixed-fee audit in as soon as one week that shows you exactly where your brand voice breaks — channel by channel — and hands you the system to fix it for good. Built for founder-led brands scaling past themselves.

See what's included Packages from $2,800 · scoped to your team
Sample diagnostic — current state
ClinicalPersonal
CalmHigh-energy
DeadpanPlayful
PeerExpert
Flagged: email scores clinical / low-energy while social scores personal / high-energy — same brand, two different people.
The problem

You know something's off when—

01

Your email team writes nothing like your social team, and everyone's quietly pretending not to notice.

02

Every new brief starts from a blank page, because nothing about "how we sound" is written down anywhere.

03

Your AI tools produce copy that's technically correct and unmistakably no one's voice at all.

What you get

Five deliverables. Nothing that sits in a folder.

PHASE 01

Voice Diagnostic Report

An evidence-based read on where your voice is inconsistent today, scored across five dimensions, plus the specific white space your competitors haven't claimed.

PHASE 02

Voice Pillars & Tone Spectrum

3–5 pillars with a real contrast attached to each one — not "friendly" and "bold," but the specific line your brand won't cross.

PHASE 03

Sample Copy Bank

Before/after rewrites across your actual formats — including one "hard mode" case, like an apology or a sold-out notice, where a voice actually gets tested.

DELIVERED

Quick Reference Card

The one-page version your team will actually pin above their desk — because a 40-page guide nobody opens twice isn't a deliverable, it's a paperweight.

BONUS

AI Voice Kit

A context file built straight from your diagnostic — ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever your team's already using, so the voice holds even when I'm not the one writing it.

Want the full system? The audit covers Diagnose, Define, and Draft. Teams that need ongoing governance — onboarding new writers, QA-ing copy against the guide, keeping AI tools on-voice — move into the Voice Architecture Retainer after the audit.
Why a founder trusts Smart Mouth Co. over a freelancer off a job board

This method comes from running brand voice at four very different scales.

Birdies

Gave the brand voice a full makeover and built its guidelines from scratch.

POPSUGAR

Founded and scaled the commerce content org through six consecutive years of its highest revenue performance.

Yahoo

Set editorial standards and content strategy across a major media organization.

Walmart

Shaped how AI touches creative work and makes it sound human.

Four scales, one person, no account managers in between.

Read Macy's full story →
How the Scaling Stage package runs
DAY 1–2

Diagnose

Samples in, tone-mapped and scored against competitors.

DAY 3

Define

Pillars, tone spectrum, and lexicon drafted.

DAY 4–5

Draft

Real copy rewritten, including the hard-mode case.

DAY 6

Review call

Walkthrough together, revisions noted live.

DAY 7

Deliver

Final report, guide, and quick reference card, sent.

Investment

Priced to the stage of your journey, not just the size of your logo.

Founder, Scaling, or Retail-Ready — each stage carries a different risk of losing your voice, so scope (and price) grows with that, not with an arbitrary size tax.

Founder Stage
Solo & Small Teams
You're still writing everything yourself. Let's get your voice out of your head and onto paper before someone else has to guess at it.
$2,800
Flat fee · delivered in 5 business days
  • Diagnose + Define phases
  • Up to 6 samples, 1 channel focus
  • Self-serve intake (no scheduling back-and-forth)
  • Voice Pillars, Tone Spectrum & Lexicon
  • Quick Reference Card
  • AI-ready brand voice context file
  • 1 round of revisions
Start here
Retail-Ready
Multi-Brand & Enterprise
Heading into big-box retail, multiple regions, or a dedicated content org — where voice drift carries real business risk, and where I've personally sat on the other side of the table.
Starting at $28K
Scoped after a discovery call · 4–6 weeks
  • All 5 phases, incl. Deploy & Defend
  • Multi-stakeholder interviews
  • Team onboarding sequence + live workshop
  • Editorial standards & governance cadence
  • Custom AI context files, tuned per team & channel
  • Optional: ongoing governance retainer
Request scoping call

Priced by stage and scope — not headcount alone. Retail-Ready engagements are quoted after a discovery call so the fee reflects the actual business risk, not a guess.

have something more specific in mind?

Not every brand fits in three boxes.

Multi-brand portfolios, franchise systems, ongoing governance retainers, or scope that just doesn't match what's listed above — if that's you, let's skip the guesswork and talk about what you actually need.

Email me for a quote
Questions

What if our brand doesn't have a voice yet?

That's fine — we start at Define instead of Diagnose, and build the competitive scan from scratch rather than an existing-copy audit.

Do you actually write copy, or just tell us what's wrong?

Both. The Sample Copy Bank includes real, applied rewrites across your formats — not just a critique of what exists today.

What happens after the audit?

You keep everything, no strings attached. If you want ongoing governance — team onboarding, QA, AI-tool alignment — that's the Voice Architecture Retainer, scoped separately.

How fast can we start?

Turnaround is one week from our kickoff call. A few spots open per month to keep it that fast.

Does this work with the AI tools we're already using?

Yes — every package includes a context file built from your actual voice pillars, ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever your team's already using. The difference between generic AI output and AI that sounds like you usually comes down to what you feed it.

Find out what your copy actually sounds like — before your competitors do.

20 minutes. No pitch deck. Just the audit.

Book the intro call