The Voice Behind Keyword & Conscience
- Tiffany Grandstaff
- Oct 23
- 5 min read
Let's discuss how I channel raw truth behind the stories I help tell.
In my 13-year career, I've been the voice behind restaurants and screenprinting companies, sexual wellness brands and manufacturers, home renovation teams and fintech superstars, therapists and politicians, and more.
I've written for people with six-figure budgets and people with six months to live. I've helped founders articulate their "why" and entrepreneurs whet spaces they thought were saturated. But how do I shift my voice like that, and how do I know when to step in versus shut up?
Great question. I'd love to tell you.
My Journey to Top Writer in Waterloo and Beyond
I become the voice I'm representing, and not in some corny method-acting way. My approach is nuanced, refined, tailored, and revoluationary. It requires informed intuition, deep listening, and radical respect.
To write for someone else — be it a brand or an individual — means you've got to know the difference between parroting platitudes and personifying perspectives.
My work lives in the highlands between an origin story and a daring dream because good writing will get you there, but exceptional writing flies past imitation and slams into inspiration.
Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Failure
When I say I become the person or brand I'm writing for, I'm not describing a canned method that simply mimics surface-level quirks and contains the perfect amount of buzzwords to sound legitimate. I mean I study the mental, emotional, and physical blueprint, treating every project like it has a nervous system — learning how it responds to praise, threat, competition, and vulnerability.
Many brands hire a copywriter to make them sound good, an SEO content writer to increase visibility, or a ghostwriter to share their vision. But what they actually want is someone to mirror what they already know in a new language. Parroting sounds like a script, while personifying gives each voice its own pitch.
Imitation creates friction because it tries to force-fit a tone onto a truth that hasn’t been excavated yet.
That’s why so many “strategic” brand voices fall flat. They're Frankensteined from competitors, trend cycles, and creative briefs with too little soul and too much AI. Meanwhile, the most compelling brands sound like they’ve lived through something.
The alignment comes from knowing what the brand values, what it fears, who it’s willing to alienate, and what emotional journey it wants the reader to take. Those are not creative choices; they’re narrative boundaries. And without them, your copy won’t convert because it’s not anchored to anything real.
I'm no Harry Dry, but he agrees with me:
Meanwhile, I agree with him on this: If everyone gets it, you're probably doing something wrong. Anything that's relatable to everything says nothing.
You don't need another "brand architect" who sucks the soul out of your story to hit imaginary benchmarks; you don't need a ghostwriter who regurgitates and gatekeeps. You need (deserve) something unmistakably authentic and unapologetically resolute.
I notice that many people/businesses aren't really even looking for a copywriter, content specialist, or ghostwriter with SEO skills. They're looking for a witness.
Clients don't come to me for polished. They come for possible, personal, passionate, and provocative. That's why any project that played it too safe, muted the message, or left no room for soul was a struggle for me. If there's no heartbeat in the work, what's the point or breathing life into it?
The Brands Winning Right Now Are the Ones That Feel Human
Raise your hand if you're sick of seeing ads from brands cosplaying connection. I'll go first.
It seems the Pander Olympics are always in season, and brands shamelessly pivot with every trend cycle while chasing conversions over conversations. But what if both were possible? What if we didn't have to swap values for vanity metrics?
For now, we're stuck with a digital landfill that reads like this:
"We are excited to streamline your customer journey with innovative telecom solutions that empower your success every step of the way."
I had to write that kind of dull dribble for a startup marketing agency once, and it stole a piece of my soul each time I sent a final draft. The more I protested, the more I was reprimanded for ripping off corporate skins to reveal the blood, sweat, and tears behind the brands we served. The brands loved my ideas; the boss — not so much. Getting my creative copy up the ladder became a battle of wits and egos, I packed my powerful prose and peaced out.
Here's how I would have said it:
"We help telecom companies provide services that keep customers from hanging up."
My point is simple: the brands that are winning right now are the ones that feel a human, not HR. Copy that can't survive direct eye contact makes for a brand that can't survive the doom scroll. And I don't want my name on that.
That's why I do what I do the way I do it. There's a method to this marvelous madness.
What It's Like to Work with Me
Let's walk it out.
Content Writing
Strategic storytelling should rank, resonate, and remind the reader who they're messing with. Clients don't have the resources for filler and fluff; I don't have the patience for it.
Deliverables include:
Long-form blogs (3,000-5,000+ words)
SEO Blog pillars and clusters
News articles
Event coverage and recaps
Listicles & How-tos
Evergreen explainer posts
FAQs
Case studies
Press releases
Whitepapers
Sale sheets and one-pagers
Monthly social media calendars
Blog-to-social/social-to-blog breakdowns
Product guides
Whitepapers
Reviews and comparisons
Best-of roundups (tips, top 10, etc.)
Profiles and bios
PowerPoint presentations
Lead magnets (checklists, templates, etc.)
Summaries
Onboarding and SOPs
Scripts
I audit your key voice indicators and audience, then construct content around goals. My objective is to make something of value, not sound like a search result.
Copywriting
When it comes to copy, I write like it's the only chance you get (because sometimes, it is). I "go there," then back it up if needed. My motto is that it's easier to pull back than push further because tepid doesn't convert, and safe doesn't scale.
Deliverables include:
Website copy (home, about, services, contact, etc.)
Landing pages
Email sequences
Sales pages
Checkout flows and survey funnels
Brand voice guides and avatars
Taglines and slogans
Socia and print ads
Quizzes, downloads, and lead magnets
Promotions and pitch decks
Press kits
Business cards, flyers, and newsletters
Product descriptions
SMS
Interactive copy (AI chatbot scripts)
Service menus
My trick is to reverse-engineer your offer, note the emotional triggers, and write copy that sounds like a human speaks and sells like a secret weapon.
Ghostwriting
This is where I disappear and you fully emerge. My philosophy is that you don't have to be a writer to be an author. And you don't have to be perfect to be worth reading.
Deliverables Include:
Memoirs
Biographies
Self-published works
Book chapters, forewards, and acknowledgements
Origin stories
Personal essays
Public statements
Podcast scripts and show notes
Keynote speeches
Obituaries and eulogies
Social media engagement
Founder letters
Trauma-informed storytelling
Mission statements and manifestos
We take a deep dive, which can involving recordings, notes, sketches, and demonstrations. Then, I sift for the gold while you swear you wrote it in your sleep.
Ready When You Are
You're probably not looking for basic if you've made it this far. But I don't do bland or beige. No surface-level safety net, just stories that stick.
Care to create something that sounds good and drives momentum? Let's talk.
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