The Content Mistake That Makes You Sound Like Everyone Else

Scroll through small business content and most of it blurs into the same thing. Not because these businesses are copying each other, but because they are all making the same underlying mistake: trying to speak to everyone. In an effort to appeal to as many people as possible, they write broad, general content that could apply to anyone, and in doing so they end up sounding exactly like everyone else.

This one mistake, writing for everyone rather than for a specific person, is what flattens most content into forgettable sameness. The irony is that trying to appeal to everyone appeals to no one, because content aimed at everybody feels personal to nobody. The fix is simple and transformative: write for one specific person instead. Here is why writing for everyone makes you sound like everyone else, and how writing for someone specific sets you apart.

Why Writing for Everyone Makes You Generic

The instinct to write for everyone comes from a reasonable place: you do not want to exclude potential customers. But in practice, trying to speak to everybody is exactly what makes your content generic and forgettable.

When you write for everyone, you keep things broad and general so they apply to as many people as possible. But broad, general content is vague, impersonal, and indistinguishable from what every other business is saying. It speaks to no one in particular, so it resonates with no one. The attempt to appeal to all actually strips your content of the specificity and personality that make it connect. This is why so much small business content sounds the same: it is all trying to speak to everyone, and ending up speaking to no one.

Writing for everyone makes your content vague and forgettable.

Why Writing for One Person Works

The fix for generic content is to write for one specific person rather than a broad audience. Counterintuitively, speaking to one person is what makes your content connect with many.

When you write for a specific person, with their particular situation, problem, and language in mind, your content becomes specific, personal, and distinct. That one person feels like you are speaking directly to them, which is exactly what makes content resonate. And because the people you want to reach share that situation, writing for one of them connects with all of them far better than vague content aimed at everyone. Writing for one person gives your content the specificity and personality that writing for everyone strips away, which is what makes you sound like you rather than everyone else.

Writing for one person makes your content specific and personal.

Picture a Real, Specific Person

To write for one person, it helps to have a real, specific person in mind, so your content is genuinely aimed rather than vaguely broad. The clearer the person, the more distinct your content.

Picture your ideal customer in detail: their situation, their problem, what they want, how they talk about it. You can even picture a specific real person who represents your ideal customer. Then write as if you are speaking directly to them. This keeps your content specific and personal rather than drifting back into vague generality. Having a real, specific person in mind as you write is the practical key to escaping the write-for-everyone trap, because it naturally pulls your content towards the specificity that makes it stand out.

Picture a specific person and write directly to them.

Use Their Specific Language and Situation

Writing for one person means using their specific language and speaking to their specific situation, which is what makes content feel personal and distinct. Specifics are the opposite of the generic sameness that writing for everyone produces.

Use the actual words your ideal person uses for their problem, reference their specific situation, and address their particular concerns. This specificity makes your content feel like it was written for them, which is exactly what generic, write-for-everyone content lacks. It also naturally makes your content different from competitors who are all writing broadly. The more specific you are about the person, their language, and their situation, the more your content stands out and connects, and the less it sounds like everyone else.

Specific language and situations make content connect.

Do Not Worry About Excluding People

The fear that holds people back from writing for one person is worrying about excluding everyone else, but this fear is misplaced. Writing for a specific person does not lose you the others; it wins you more of the right ones.

Being specific does not mean only one person can relate to your content; it means the many people who share that situation feel genuinely spoken to, while vague content would have reached none of them. You are not excluding people by being specific; you are finally connecting with the right ones. Letting go of the fear of excluding people is what frees you to write with the specificity that makes your content distinct. Trying to include everyone is the very thing that was making you forgettable.

Being specific wins the right people, it does not exclude them.

Advanced AI Prompt You Can Use

Copy and paste this prompt into ChatGPT or Claude to stop writing for everyone and start writing for one person.

"I want to stop making my content generic by writing for everyone, and instead write for one specific person. Here is my context:

Business type: (e.g. coach, photographer, consultant, product seller).
What I offer: (describe your services or products).
My ideal customer: (describe them in as much detail as you can, including their situation, problem, and goals).
The words my ideal customer uses for their problem: (list any, or note if unsure).
A topic I want to write about: (describe).

Please help me by:

1. Helping me picture my ideal customer as a specific person to write for
2. Writing content on my topic aimed directly at that one person, specific and personal
3. Using their likely language and speaking to their specific situation
4. Showing me the difference between a generic, write-for-everyone version and a specific, write-for-one-person version
5. Reassuring me that being specific connects with the right people rather than excluding others

Keep it specific and personal, aimed at one person rather than everyone. The goal is content that sounds like me and connects with the right people, not generic content that sounds like everyone else."

The mistake that makes most small business content sound the same is trying to speak to everyone. Broad, general content aimed at everybody feels personal to nobody, which is exactly what makes it forgettable. The fix is to write for one specific person: picture them clearly, use their language and situation, and do not worry about excluding others.

Do that, and your content becomes specific, personal, and distinct, connecting with the right people far better than vague content ever could. Trying to appeal to everyone is what was making you sound like everyone else; writing for one person is what makes you sound like you.

Want help making your content more specific and distinct?