What goes out under your name should hold up in front of the board, the reporter, your prospects, and your team.
I make sure it does. Executive ghostwriting and brand positioning for B2B founders and financial services executives, from someone who spent 20+ years inside MBNA and Bank of America and nearly 20 more as a business journalist.
Think of me as Communications Windex, with four decades of boardroom scar tissue and business journalism behind the squeegee.
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Your words get read in five rooms.
An investor reads your update on a Sunday night. Your board reads the letter before the meeting starts. A reporter reads your post looking for the quote. A buyer's C-suite reads your deck after you've left the building. Your own people read the all-hands email for what you didn't say, then compare it with the press release and what sales is telling customers.
None of them call you first. They just judge you.
Investors catch the bad news you buried in paragraph four.
Your board shakes its collective heads at optimism it can see through.
A reporter sees the disconnect. He or she quotes it.
A buyer's C-suite sets aside the deck that's all about you and picks the company whose deck is about them.
Your own people see the mixed message and talk about the disconnects with each other.
What gets in the way is Brand Garbage.
The 2022 deck still on your website. Three teams describing the company three different ways. The LinkedIn post that reads like everyone else's AI.
Every safe sentence and every good-enough line went in one reasonable decision at a time, the way boxes fill a garage, until the thing that mattered is buried and you can't park the car. You're the last one who can see the pile, because you stacked it.
You're sharper across a conference table than you are on paper (you know it, and it bugs you). And the person whose name is on the message should sound like the person their own team knows.
How Brand Garbage piles up (and how to haul it out)
Peter Osborne explains how Brand Garbage piles up, one reasonable decision at a time, and what to do about it.
I've sat on both sides of the reporter's notebook.
I first caught MBNA’s eye when I dug deeper into its IPO. Shortly after that, they hired me to anticipate other reporters’ questions, and I did that through the Bank of America merger and beyond. As a business journalist, I read what executives wrote and said and decided what to quote. I've watched sharp leaders sound like a press release. I've also fought for lines in press releases that executives cut and later wished they'd kept.
You work with me. I do the interview, write the draft, and pick up when you call. No junior team. No handoffs. Just me.
Most executives already know what they want to say. What they can’t hear is the hedge they always add, the story they never tell, and the line Legal will want to cut. That’s what the interview is for.
“In an age of AI slop, Peter’s ability to cut through and help craft a sharp executive message and voice is invaluable.”
Three steps, and the first is a conversation.
We talk. A 45-minute interview where I ask what an investor, your board, a reporter, or your best customer would ask. The interview is the work.
I write. From your answers, in your voice. You'll sound the way you've always hoped you would.
I read it in all five rooms. Before anything ships, I read it the way investors, your board, a reporter, your customers, and your own people will and run it through my Fingerprint Test, so nothing goes out sounding like a machine wrote it.
Nothing ships under your name until you sign off. If a draft doesn't sound like you, I rewrite it. I work alongside your in-house team, if you have one.
What changes when we bulldoze the Brand Garbage and apply the Windex
If the pile stays:
A competitor wins the deal because their CEO sounded like a grown-up.
A reporter prints the line you didn't mean to say.
Sales pitches the 2022 version of your company to a 2026 buyer.
When it’s gone
A peer sends a note: "That sounded just like you."
The right people start showing up in your DMs.
Board prep weekend stops being a dread ritual.
Sales, marketing, and leadership tell one story, and you stop spot-checking every proposal.
You stop sounding smaller on paper than you do across the table.
Three ways to work with me
All three start with the interview, because the interview is the work.
Corporate Brand Positioning Project (starting at $5,000)
I interview you and your team, then write a positioning document that tells people who you are, who you serve, and why you're the right choice right now. Sales, marketing, and leadership stop telling three different stories. Then I write the content that puts it to work.
Individual Brand Positioning Project (starting at $1,500)
Similar to the Corporate Brand Positioning Project, but aimed at executives who want to raise their visibility. I also work with senior leaders who’ve been laid off and want to differentiate themselves in a tough job market.
Executive Ghostwriting (monthly retainer or one-off pieces, starting at $500)
LinkedIn posts and profile updates in your voice.
Op-eds that get published.
Speeches that stop listeners from scrolling on their phones and force them to sit up and listen.
Investor and board letters that hold up when someone reads them twice.
Not ready for any of these? Start with a $200 LinkedIn Gap Analysis. I’ll help you identify opportunities to improve your LinkedIn Profile that you can do yourself, do with me, or I can do it for you.
“Working with Peter was like giving our brand a long-overdue spring clean. We came to him with a cluttered mix of outdated marketing collateral and inconsistent messaging. Peter cut through the fog and helped us see our brand more clearly.
From the outset, Peter brought a thoughtful, strategic, and refreshingly collaborative approach. He took the time to understand our business, our values, and the nuances that mattered most to us. What truly set him apart was his ability to distill complexity into clarity—he helped us articulate who we are and what we stand for in a way that felt both authentic and forward-looking.”
What my clients say
“After completing the first draft of my book about the challenges WSFS faced in the early 1990s, I wanted feedback from someone I trusted. Peter Osborne was the perfect person. Throughout my time as CEO, he had asked great questions, researched diligently, and helped his readers understand the problems facing our industry. For this project, Peter captured the voice and tone I wanted and pointed out opportunities to improve the structure and add meaningful stories. His advice greatly improved the final product.”
Marvin "Skip" Schoenhals, Retired CEO and Chair, Wilmington Savings Fund Society, and Author, From Failing to Phenomenal
“Peter helps us clarify our message and differentiate our advanced analytics company. He asks great questions about our business. He continues to help us ensure potential partners better understand what we do through LinkedIn, our website, sales decks, and op-eds for target publications. And he’s continued to help us over the past three years.”
Stephen Hoops, CEO of Predictive Analytics Group
As a client, Peter helped fine-tune and clarify our branding statement at Flightdocs. When I left Flightdocs, I called on Peter again to create my personal brand and value statement for my professional career. Within a short time, Peter refined my LinkedIn profile and moved it from "Fluff" to "Stuff.” He painted an effective, value-oriented, and action-driven picture of me that resonated. The week following the "rebrand,” I ended up with three interview requests!
Karl Fischer, Vice President, Sales Optimization, JG Wentworth
“Peter took on the difficult task of synthesizing many MBNA sales presentation materials and customer-facing communications and developing a portal that featured the ‘best of the best.’ His leadership drove a change in behavior among a peer group that was relatively set in their ways and resulted in more consistent brand messaging.”
Jodie Brinkerhoff, Former Account Executive at MBNA America Bank and Director of Innovation for the D/FW Int’l Airport
You’ve gotten this far. Let’s do a Communications Checkup:
Let’s make sure you’re not amplifying the wrong story.
That’s where the Communications Windex Audit comes in.
Step 1: Run The Mirror Test (Free)
Use this AI prompt to scan your own website for:
Time Drift: Outdated claims or leadership bios
Mixed Signals: Contradictory descriptions of what you do
Messaging Clutter: Content that confuses instead of clarifies
COPY AND PASTE THIS PROMPT:
You are an expert communications consultant analyzing a website for messaging problems that kill deals before they start.
Visit [INSERT YOUR HOMEPAGE URL] and conduct a quick diagnostic to catch 5-7 obvious issues prospects notice immediately.
Here's the reality: My prospects are researching me before they call. Many are using AI tools that pull information from across my site. If that information is outdated, inconsistent, or confusing, I'm losing opportunities I'll never know about.
Look for three types of Brand Garbage:
Deal Killers - Content that directly blocks sales
Trust Busters - Information that makes you look unprofessional
Invisible Problems - Generic messaging that makes you forgettable
Create a simple table: - URL - Problem Type (Deal Killers / Trust Busters / Invisible Problems) - Fix Speed (Quick Fix / Strategic Fix / Call for Help) - Why This Costs You Business
Step 2: Get the Full Communications Windex Audit (Paid)
If you find more than a few examples of Brand Garbage, I’ll go through your site, decks, and bios and show you where the message breaks.
See exactly where your message is vulnerable
Get a step-by-step plan to remove, update, or realign your content
Leave with one story your decks, website, and speeches can all tell.
Or subscribe to The Five Rooms, a free five-day email course on reading your writing the way an investor, the board, a reporter, a prospect or customer, and your own team will.
