If you work in mortgages and post about your work, you have probably had this experience: you write something, it is accurate, it is tidy, and it still feels like it could have come from anyone. That feeling is useful. It is telling you the post is not built around your voice yet.
Here is the check we built into Field Authority Media's review step. It is four questions, it takes two minutes, and it does not require a single client story, rate or promise.
Why “could anyone have posted this?” is the right question
Authority is not built by publishing more generic explanations than the next brokerage. It is built when the people reading can tell the explanation came from you: the order you check things in, the trade-off you weigh first, the phrase you reach for every time.
The platforms are moving the same direction. Google's guidance on helpful content asks publishers for original information and first-hand expertise, with a clear sense of who wrote the page, how it was produced and why it exists — and it says there is no preferred word count. Meta has said Facebook treats material as original when the creator produced it directly and reduces the reach of reposted or lightly edited content. Neither source promises that a particular voice will rank or reach more people. Our inference is that showing your own reasoning can make a draft more specific and recognizable to the people you want to serve.
Our view is that the missing ingredient in an interchangeable draft is rarely information. It is the judgment that sits around the information: the order you check things in, what you refuse to promise, the one caution you always add. Information can be copied. Judgment reads as yours.
Question 1: Does it show how you think it through?
A post that gives only the answer is interchangeable. A post that shows the reasoning is not. Instead of “here is what a pre-approval does,” try the version you would actually say on a call: what you look at first, what you ask before you look at anything else, and why that order matters to you. You are not promising an outcome. You are showing your process, which is the thing a prospect cannot get from a search result.
Question 2: Would your clients recognize you in it?
Read the draft and ask whether a past client would say “that sounds like her” or “that sounds like him.” The signals are small: the example you always reach for, the way you simplify a term, the one caution you repeat. If the draft was tidied until all of those disappeared, put one back.
Question 3: Does it stay on the public side of the line?
Your content can explain how something generally works. It should not tell any one borrower what to do, quote a rate without a dated source, or describe anyone's file. Keep those for a private conversation.
In Ontario this is not only a matter of taste. The Financial Services Regulatory Authority's public relations and advertising requirements apply to licensed mortgage administrators, brokerages, brokers and agents: mortgage-related public material must clearly show the brokerage's authorized name and licence number; if a broker or agent is named, it must use that person's licensed name and approved title; it must not be false, misleading or deceptive; and brokers or agents who prepare their own material are expected to submit it to their brokerage for review and approval before it goes out. FSRA does not pre-approve material. Those obligations sit with the licensee and the brokerage. A content agency is not a licensee: it cannot replace your review or your brokerage's approval process, which is exactly why the review step belongs to you.
Our working rule is plain: if a sentence would need a disclaimer to be safe in public, it probably belongs in a conversation rather than a post.
Question 4: Would you say it the same way out loud?
Read the draft once at speaking pace. Anywhere you would rephrase it on a call, rephrase it on the page. This is the fastest fix for content that is accurate but stiff, and it is the one step most people skip.
What to do with a draft that fails
Do not delete it. A draft that fails all four questions is usually a topic worth keeping with the voice stripped out. Add back the reasoning (question 1), one recognizable detail (question 2), check the line (question 3) and read it aloud (question 4). If it still does not sound like you, it may be an idea that belongs in a conversation rather than a post — and that is a fine outcome.
How this fits the way we work
Field Authority Media's monthly system is built from a mortgage professional's own questions, experiences and views, then turned into scripts and carousels that the professional reviews before anything is published. The four questions above are a compact version of what that review is for. If you want help turning your own explanations into content that passes the test, see how the monthly service is structured or compare the current packages.
Field Authority Media is a content and personal-branding agency. Nothing here is mortgage, legal, regulatory or financial advice; the licensee remains responsible for the accuracy, disclosures and approval of anything published under their name.