To teach Claude your brand voice, write your brand down in a few short files (who you serve, what you sell, how you sound, the words you use and never use, and real samples of your writing), then add them to a Claude Project. Every chat inside that Project starts from your files, so the drafts sound like you instead of like the internet.
Why does my AI sound like everyone else?
AI tools learned to write by reading a huge slice of the internet. So when you ask for a caption with no context, you get the average of the internet. You know the one: "Ready to elevate your brand? 🚀"
It doesn't know you serve busy wedding planners, or that you'd never say "elevate," or that you always end emails with "If you have any questions, let me know." It can't guess. You have to tell it, once, in a place it remembers.
Step 1: write your brand down (before you open Claude)
This is the step everyone skips, and it's the one that matters. Your AI is only as strong as your brand. If your brand only lives in your head, Claude has nothing to work from.
Answer these in plain sentences. A page or two is plenty to start:
- Who you serve, specifically. Not "small businesses." Try "women who've run a service business for five-plus years and have a small team."
- What you sell and what it costs. Offer names, prices, and what's included.
- How you sound. Three words, each with a "but not." Mine: warm, but not gushing. Confident, but not pushy. Simple, but not basic.
- Words you use, and words you never use. I say "honestly" and "absolutely" all the time. I never say "leverage" or "synergy."
- Three real samples of your writing. An email you sent a client, a caption, a paragraph from your website. Written by you, not by AI.
- Your stories. The true ones Claude is allowed to use, and the ones it isn't.
In my own business this became eight short files, one for each part of the brand: the foundation, who I serve, my voice, how it looks, my stories, my offers and prices, my house rules, and the instructions that tie it together. You don't need eight on day one. One good page beats eight empty ones.
Step 2: put it in a Project
- Open Claude (on claude.ai or the desktop app) and click Projects in the left sidebar.
- Create a new project and name it after your business.
- In the instructions box, paste a short note: who you are, and "Always write in my voice, using the files in this project."
- Add your brand files to the project's files area (Claude calls it project knowledge). A brand guide PDF can go in too.
That's the whole setup. Once your brand is written down, it takes minutes.
Step 3: test it with a real job
Ask for something you actually need this week, like "Write the email I send a new client the day before we start." Then read it out loud. Would you send it?
If something's off, don't just rewrite the draft. Fix the file. If it used a word you'd never say, add that word to your never list. If it was too formal, add another real sample. The files are what every future draft comes from, so one fix there fixes every draft after it.
The mistakes I see most
- Skipping step 1 and asking Claude to "figure out my voice." It'll guess, and it'll guess the internet.
- Using AI-written samples as examples of your voice. It copies the robot right back to you.
- One giant document. Short, labeled files are easier for you to update and easier for Claude to use.
- Never updating it. When your prices or offers change, change the file the same day.
Does this work in ChatGPT too?
Yes. The brand work is the same in any tool, and ChatGPT has its own version of Projects where you can add files and instructions. I teach with Claude because I find its Projects the easiest way to give AI your brand, but the files you write in step 1 go anywhere.
Brand strategist, web designer and former software engineer. I run Sonder Brand House, a brand, website and AI studio in Houston, Texas, and I teach business owners to use AI in their own voice.