When a speaker signs up for BRUX, the first 72 hours are not us writing. They are us reading, listening, and testing three specific things. If those three pass, we can write in your voice. If they do not, we send you a refund before the first draft.
Most ghostwriters will tell you they can adapt to any voice. That is a sales line. Some voices are adaptable. Some are not. The difference is not talent. It is material. Here is what we look for, and what we have learned to stop pretending we can work around.
1. Do you have a real body of work on the record
The first thing we ask for is transcripts, talks, or written posts. Not a one-off. A pattern.
The pattern is what we write from. A single great talk is not enough. A LinkedIn post you wrote three years ago that did 4,000 likes is not enough. We need at least three to five things you have actually said or written, in your own words, that we can map.
If you have one keynote transcript and a half-finished Medium post, we cannot do the work. Not because the work is hard, but because we will guess at the rest. You will read the draft and say, this is not me. You will be right.
What works: three or more talks you have given. Five or more LinkedIn posts you wrote yourself (not your marketing manager). A newsletter you send. A book. A podcast. Anything that gives us repetition.
2. Are you willing to be edited, or do you need the draft to be perfect on round one
This is the one nobody talks about.
We send the first content week in 72 hours. The first draft will not be perfect. It will be 70 to 80 percent right. That is the best any ghostwriter can do on a first pass, no matter what they say in the sales call.
If you can read the draft, mark up the parts that do not sound like you, send it back, and trust that round two will land. We will work well together. You will get posts that sound like you in month one. You will get them in month two with zero edits. By month three, you might just hit approve.
If you read the first draft and decide it is not perfect, and we cannot convince you round two will be better, we will not work well together. We will refund you after the first content week, per our policy. We are not mad about it. We would rather refund than send drafts you do not trust.
3. Do you actually have something to say
This is the one that surprised us when we started.
A lot of speakers we work with have great credentials. They are on the circuit. They have been on TEDx. They have a TED talk, a book, a podcast. The résumé is real.
But they do not have a point of view.
They have not picked a fight. They have not said the thing that makes other people in their field uncomfortable. They have not put a stake in the ground.
If you do not have a point of view, we will give you eight posts a month that sound smart and read well. They will not get you booked. The market is full of smart, well-read, credential-heavy speakers. What books speakers is the one who says the thing nobody else is saying, in a way only they could say it.
The job of a ghostwriter is not to give you a voice. It is to find the voice you already have and put it on the page more often than you have time to.
What we have learned
The first 30 days are the test. We send the first content week in 72 hours. The speaker reads it. If it sounds like them, we are off to the races. If it does not, we revise. If after three rounds it still does not sound like them, we refund.
The three checks above are what we use internally to predict whether round one will land. They are not on the apply form. We do not ask, "do you have a point of view?" That is a bad question. We figure it out from the material you send.
If you are thinking about working with a ghostwriter, ask yourself these three things first. If the answer is yes, the work will go well. If the answer is no, the work will be a refund and a wasted month. Better to know before you start.
If you want us to look at your existing content and tell you which of the three you already have, the free profile audit covers that. PDF, 48 hours, no calls. Get it here.