Why Less Is More When Pitching Yourself
It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase. —David Foster Wallace
Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities. —Andy Benoit
Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest. —Leo Babauta
Above: Kevin Malone was ahead of his time.
If words are knives, I am their sharpener, honing them so they cut through a very noisy internet.
Luckily, this is a skill everyone—not only wordsmiths, but also numerati—can pick up.
This piece will start high up at thirty-thousand feet and introduce some rules for writing before showcasing the power of a framework I call the 4Cs. Upon article’s end, you will leave equipped with the tools and training to turn potential clients into kinetic ones.
N.B. A version of this article first appeared on Fractional Jobs.
In today's frantic digital bazaar, one commodity reigns supreme: attention. If you can't seize it in seconds, you've struck out before the game’s even begun.
For workers peddling their wares amongst the overstuffed stalls, lucidity is lifeblood.
Put more literally: can you chisel a convoluted message into clear, concise bullets?
If not, prepare to be buried beneath endless verbal landfills: mudslides of bloated emails, jargon-choked reports, and rambling DMs asphyxiating every inbox.
Here’s the sad truth: people don't read anymore.
High on dopamine, they hop, skim, and jump from one stimulating snack to the next.
So make it bite-sized or be ignored. If it takes more than a few choice words to articulate your unique value, you'll become a casualty of attention warfare.
Lingering in minds requires a new sort of Madison Avenue alchemy—compressing high-voltage ideas into phrases so charged that they sear into neural pathways.
Consider a few classic taglines from today’s juggernauts:
Uber: Everyone's private driver.
Stripe: Increasing the GDP of the Internet.
Google: Organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful.
Amazon: The Everything Store.
Anduril: Reboot the arsenal of democracy.
Put simply, short, pithy darts go right to the brain's bulls-eye. That's the mark at which workers must take aim.
Why? Because, for better or worse, you're not unique. You're one of a million operators chasing the same big fish in a school overflowing the seas. Generic pablum won't cut it—clients will swim on by, mouths sealed shut. Because, unfortunately, even if you’re not communicating well, others still are.
No, you must articulate your worth clearly and comprehensively—its every ridge, crevice, and contour mapped and committed to instinct.
Above: Fewer words = more dollars.
Consider a few basic, macroscopic rules that will take your word and phrase from drab to fab:
Show, Don’t Tell: Use concrete examples and anecdotes to illustrate your points. I worked with X to design Y and Z which led to an uplift in $AM and B%” says a lot more than "I am a great designer.”
Use Active Verbs: Active verbs make your writing flow dynamically. “I 10xed revenue” > “Revenue was 10xed by me.”
Don’t Hedge Your Bets: Make strong, confident statements. Avoid phrases like "I think" or "I believe," which can undermine credibility. This is poker and you have pocket aces—act accordingly and go all in!
Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS): Avoid jargon and complex language. Bukowski said it well: “An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
Ask "So What?" After Every Sentence: Each sentence should propel the reader forward. If a sentence doesn’t contribute to your main message or answer the reader's implicit "so what?" question, reconsider its inclusion.
Context Is King: Try to understand what your audience cares about, what the biggest problem they're facing right now is, and what makes them tick.
Zero in on your razor's edge, then atomize your value into a few, concentrated truths.
Let’s zoom in closer and go from abstract theory to applicable practice with the 4Cs.
Clear: Avoid ambiguity, be direct, and use simple words/sentences.
Concise: Be brief.
Cogent: Ensure your writing follows a logical, relevant sequence. Each point should naturally lead to the next, building a cohesive argument backed up by data, examples, and/or testimonials.
Comprehensive: Be thorough by covering your bases and anticipating questions.
Never forget—you're no mere peddler proffering rose-tinted placebos.
Sure, clients sense their anxieties and pangs every waking hour. But they've gone numb, inured to these signals. It's your job to isolate the sharpest aches first; only then can you formulate the perfect intervention. Master that dark art—serving not vitamins but vital painkillers—and you'll forge powerful client bonds.
Yet, expertise dilutes in a vacuum. Because the game's not quality alone, it's quality multiplied by distribution. Without eyeballs, impact decays into irrelevance on dusty studio shelves.
The path is arduous. It is simple, but not easy.
It demands the ruthless mental hygiene of a peak-performing stoic—an unflinching commitment to slicing away all inessential layers until only the essence is on display.
This is the great struggle of modern work: distillation. The untrained eye dismisses it as crude minimalism, but true virtuosos recognize its complexity. Crafting crystalline simplicity is grueling, mind-bending work—the rarified art of smelting ideas into dense, polished gemstones.
"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter," quipped Pascal, capturing the difficulty of concision.
The most penetrating truths feel almost harsh because of their stripped-bare economy of language. But this is the secret code of sticking in minds: ruthless minimalism.
Extraneous language just creates noise pollution that clutters valuable neurological real estate.
So strip your message down to its most concentrated, distilled, and purified form through rigorous chiseling. You are both the marble and the sculptor; don’t be afraid to chisel off some intellectual love handles. Though painful, your client (and bottom line) will thank you.
Be brief.
Seize attention.
Get it done by knowing yourself, knowing your niche, and killing your darlings.
And remember—clear, concise, cogent constructions catalyze comprehension.