Why do we expect AI to nail our tone of voice without any guidance?

It’s not that AI can’t get close. It’s that most people jump straight to “write me a blog post” before they’ve given it anything to learn from. They treat it like a shortcut, rather than a system. But in doing that, they skip the step they’d never miss with a human hire: onboaring.

If I brought on a junior marketer tomorrow, I wouldn’t just throw them a headline and a to-do list. I’d share what’s worked before. I’d point them to founder updates, customer emails, client decks, maybe even a few Slack threads where we were still thinking out loud.

The reason is simple: great marketing output doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It reflects context, voice, values - things you have to show, not just tell.

AI is no different.

🧩 This week’s 1% challenge is about building that foundational layer before you start expecting polished, on-brand content from your tool of choice.

📝 Take 15 minutes to collect 3–5 pieces of writing that genuinely reflect your tone of voice.

These don’t have to be award-worthy. They just have to sound like you.

Some examples:

👉 A founder update that felt like it flowed naturally
👉 A landing page or email draft you actually liked (and didn’t rewrite ten times)
👉 A LinkedIn post that got comments from people you care about
👉 A message to your team that captured the tone you want to use externally too

Then open your preferred tool (ChatGPT, Claude, whatever you’re using), and paste in with a note like: 

‘This is what I sound like. Match this tone going forward.’

Will it be perfect straight away? No.
But it’ll be a whole lot closer than starting from a blank prompt.

And the more consistently you do this, the more signals you feed it, the more useful AI becomes. Not just for writing, but for editing, drafting, and scaling your thinking across marketing channels without losing what makes it yours.

The best AI systems I’ve seen in startups aren’t the ones chasing the flashiest tools or the most complex automations.

They’re the ones treating AI like a teammate. One that learns over time, improves with context, and becomes more valuable the more you invest in showing it how you think.

So this week, don’t chase a prompt hack. Build the foundation that will actually make the tool work better for you.