Step 2 of 7 · Personal

Your voice on paper.

The way you greet a regular is the reason they come back.

Yesterday you watched generic AI write a generic welcome email. Today we fix it — by giving the AI something it didn't have before: you.

Every small business owner I talk to knows how they sound with customers. They just never write it down. They greet a regular a certain way, they have a specific phrase for new callers, they have the thing they say when a job's done. It's all in their head. Today we get it out — and we feed it to the same prompt from yesterday.

60-second action

Pick one voice. Paste that whole block. Watch the delta.

Three honest voices below — a bakery owner, a plumber, and a wedding planner. They're real-feeling, the way owners actually talk. Pick whichever sounds closest to yours (or just pick any — the lesson works with any honest voice). Copy the entire block, paste it into Claude or ChatGPT, and read the email it writes. Then compare to yesterday's generic version.

Want to make it yours? Swap the three phrases and the business description for your own, then run it again. The phrases you use there — that's the first page of your voice.md. We'll build the real one on Day 6.

Option A — Bakery

Here are three things I actually say to customers:

- When a regular walks in: "Hey honey, come on in — I just pulled scones out of the oven."
- When a brand-new customer calls: "Hi, this is Reba — what can I help you with?"
- When I sign off: "Come back and say hi."

Now write a welcome email for Reba's bakery in Carmel, California. Keep it under 120 words. Use the voice above — keep the warmth, the specifics, and the quirks. Do not flatten it into generic bakery copy.

Option B — Plumber

Here are three things I actually say to customers:

- When a regular walks in: "Hey, how's it going? What are we looking at today?"
- When a brand-new customer calls: "Hi, this is Nathan — what's the problem?"
- When I sign off a job: "Call me if it acts up. I'll come back."

Now write a welcome email for Nathan's plumbing shop in Denver, Colorado. Keep it under 120 words. Use the voice above — keep the directness, the specifics, and the plainspoken tone. Do not flatten it into corporate plumbing copy.

Option C — Wedding planner

Here are three things I actually say to customers:

- When a couple walks in for their first meeting: "So good to finally meet you — come sit, tell me everything."
- When a brand-new customer calls: "This is Elizabeth — congratulations. Tell me about your day."
- When I sign off after the wedding: "It was an honor. Send me photos when you get them."

Now write a welcome email for Elizabeth's wedding planning studio in Monterey, California. Keep it under 120 words. Use the voice above — keep the warmth, the emotional register, and the specifics. Do not flatten it into generic event-planner copy.

What you’ll get

A welcome email that sounds like someone who actually works at your business. Same AI, same task as yesterday — radically different result, because the AI finally has a piece of your fingerprint to work from.

That tiny note you just wrote is the first page of your AI's instructions. In Bearing's world, we call it a voice guide. It lives in a folder you own. It grows over time. Every draft gets measured against it before anything ships.

You did more in the last 60 seconds than most AI vendors will ever do for you.

Tomorrow · Step 3

Where does your data go? (The question nobody wants to answer.)

Step 1 — The fingerprint test.Step 3 — Where does your data go?