If you can’t say it out loud, don’t write it down
In a marketing class in Paris, our professor banned the use of artificial intelligence. Every slogan we wrote had to come out of our own mouths first, before we wrote it down.
The exercises were somewhat absurd: we had to create slogans for objects that did not exist, like a pen you could drink from, a notebook that sprayed a pleasant smell the moment you opened it.
We'd write, get called on, and read our lines to the room. If it sounded like something a real person would actually say, it survived. If it sounded like polished copy, the professor would stop us before we finished the sentence.
When we voted for the best slogans, the winners were never the sophisticated ones.
They were the simplest: a line everyone in the room could repeat five minutes later, and tie straight back to the object it was written for.
To this day, the most memorable and repeated slogans in history are the easiest to say: "I'm loving it." "Just do it." "Because you're worth it." None of them sound engineered. Each of them is something a person would actually say out loud, which is exactly why they're the ones still standing decades later.
Then the laptop opens
That class comes back to me every time I edit a LinkedIn post for someone or write any type of copy. Now that I’m on the other side of that classroom, I watch the same instinct show up in adults with much bigger titles.
In a meeting, they'll say exactly what they think, in their own words, with the odd unfinished sentence and even a joke dropped in halfway through. But when they open a blank post, in front of their laptop, a different person shows up. Their sentences get longer. Their vocabulary gets dressier. And they wonder: what did I even want to say?
Somewhere between the meeting and the post, they disappear and a slightly more impressive stranger writes the caption instead.
The instinct makes sense. LinkedIn feels like a stage, and a stage makes people reach for their best clothes.
But polish and precision are not the same thing.
Say it before you write it
Our professor's rule is still relevant outside a Paris classroom: if you can't say it out loud, don't write it down.
When you write something, remember that it’s being read by someone deciding, in about a couple of seconds, whether this sounds like a real point of view or a press release.
So try this instead. Say the sentence out loud before you write it down, and follow these 4 rules:
Give each sentence one idea. Say it, stop, then start the next thought fresh.
Let your sentences breathe. Write in full, controlled sentences that make sense.
Reach for the simple word before the impressive one. If a five-year-old would understand it, keep it. It does not have to be sophisticated.
State the opinion directly, in the words you'd use across a table. Skip the hedge of "I think this might potentially suggest" and just say the thing.
So just trust that the simple version is enough, especially when your instinct in front of a blank post is to sound a little more impressive than usual, because in between all this polish, your point of view eventually gets lost.
The slogan that wins
Back in that classroom, nobody voted for the slogan that sounded the most sophisticated.
We used to all choose the one we could easily say back, and the one that pointed straight at the object it belonged to.
A LinkedIn post works the same way. The version worth publishing is the one you could say out loud in the room and the one the reader can associate with you.
Everything else is just polished content.
Written by Romy Abdallah