Lesson 2 of 7
Two pages beats forty
You picked a question. Now answer it properly, once, in writing. This is a one-sitting job, not a weekend project.
A long document signals work, and nobody wants work. They want the answer.
Two pages is roughly 600 to 800 words. You have written longer emails than that this week. The point is not to prove how much you know — it is to give one person one useful thing, quickly enough that they finish it.
Steps 1 to 3 are the writing. The prompt below does them from your answers, but it writes a draft, not a finished thing.
Steps 4 and 5 are yours either way. Nobody can cut your words for you, and nobody can make it look like your business but you.
1Write the title
Why: people click a title that matches the sentence already in their head.
What you do: use the customer's question as the title, word for word.
What you end up with: a title, and a much clearer idea of what belongs in the guide.
Your title is the customer's question, word for word. If they say “what does this cost”, that is the title.
Do not translate it into industry language. The whole point is that someone reads the title and thinks: that is exactly what I was wondering.
2Answer it up front
Why: someone who gets a straight answer immediately trusts everything after it.
What you do: answer the question in the first three sentences.
What you end up with: the opening of your guide, which is the part most people never get right.
Answer the question in the first three sentences. Do not make anyone read to the end for the thing they came for.
This feels wrong the first time. It is not. Someone who gets a straight answer immediately trusts the rest of the page.
3Add the steps and the warning
Why: steps make it usable, and the warning makes you sound like someone who has done this many times.
What you do: write three to five numbered steps, then one short section on what usually goes wrong.
What you end up with: the body of the guide, and a first draft you can cut.
Three to five things to do, in order, numbered, specific enough to act on today. Then one short section on what usually goes wrong.
The warning section is what makes you sound like someone who has done this many times, rather than someone who read about it.
Prompt: write the guide from your outline
Read every line before you publish it. It writes fast, it does not know your industry, and your name goes on the finished thing.
4Cut a third
Why: almost every first draft is a third longer than it needs to be.
What you do: walk away, come back, and delete the throat-clearing.
What you end up with: a guide someone will actually finish reading.
Walk away for five minutes, then come back and cut. Almost every first draft is a third longer than it needs to be, and the third you cut is nearly always the throat-clearing at the start.
If you would not say a sentence out loud to a customer sitting across the table, take it out.
5Make it look like yours
Why: a document that looks like nobody's does not get shared.
What you do: lay it out in Canva with your colours and fonts, and export a PDF.
What you end up with: a finished file, ready for lesson 3.
Open Canva, set your Brand Kit once, and lay the guide out over five to seven pages. One idea per page and plenty of empty space.
Export as PDF. Name the file so a stranger would understand it, not guide-final-v3.pdf.
Where the file goes. The same place as your page. If you are putting the page on Netlify, drop the PDF into the folder next to index.html and it will be at yourname.netlify.app/your-guide.pdf. If you have your own website, upload it there. If you are building the page inside your email tool, upload it there and keep the link it gives you.
Nothing on your page links to the file. That is the point — people give you an email address and the guide arrives by email. You will paste this link into that email in lesson 4, so keep it somewhere you can find it.
Two pages, not forty
The test is whether someone can read it in five minutes and do something differently the same day. If it takes longer than that, it is a course, not a lead magnet — and a course is lesson 7.
Your task before lesson 3
Write the first draft in one sitting. Forty minutes, no editing. It will be bad and that is correct.
All seven days are laid out in the free 7-Day Content Engine guide. If writing is the part you would rather hand over, that is what social media management and SEO services cover, and there are worked examples on the blog.
The seven lessons
Read them in order, or jump to the one you are stuck on
- 1 What to give awayPick the one thing worth handing over for free.
- 2 Write it in two pagesYou are here.
- 3 The page that collects emailsOne page, one job, and what to leave off it.
- 4 Set up your list properlyThe half hour that decides inbox or spam folder.
- 5 Tell people it existsWhere to put the link, and how to keep mentioning it.
- 6 One thing, six placesTurn a single idea into a week of content.
- 7 Sell what you knowCharge for the deeper version, with nothing monthly.