Bonbonica Swampscott, MA

Lesson 2 of 7

Write it in two pages

You picked a question. Now answer it properly, once, in writing. This is a one-sitting job, not a weekend project.

A bronze card reading Write it in TWO pages in white serif type

Start here

Two pages beats forty. Every time.

A long document signals work, and nobody wants work. They want the answer.

The point of your guide is not to prove how much you know. It is to give one person one useful thing, quickly enough that they finish it. A short guide that gets read beats a thorough one that gets saved for later and never opened.

Two pages is roughly 600 to 800 words. You have written longer emails than that this week.

The shape

Five parts, in this order

Every good short guide has the same skeleton. Fill it in and you are done.

1. The title

Your customer's question, in their words. Not your industry's words. If they say “what does it cost”, do not write “investment considerations”.

2. The short answer

Answer it in the first three sentences. Do not make them read to the end for the thing they came for.

3. The steps

Three to five things to do, in order. Numbered. Specific enough to act on today.

4. What goes wrong

The mistake you watch people make. This is the part that makes you sound like someone who has done this before.

5. One next step

A single instruction. Not a menu of options, and not a hard sell.

Write it fast

Draft badly on purpose

The draft is not the product. Getting it out of your head is the product.

Set a timer for forty minutes and write the whole thing without stopping to fix anything. Spelling, order, repetition — leave all of it. You are producing raw material, not a finished document.

Then walk away, come back, and cut. Almost every first draft is thirty percent longer than it needs to be, and the thirty percent you cut is always the throat-clearing at the start.

Use plain words. If you would not say it out loud to a customer sitting across the table, do not write it.

Ten minutes

Turn your answer into a draft

Answer the questions it asks, in your own messy words, and it gives you back something you can edit rather than something you have to write.

Prompt: draft my two-page guide

I am writing a short free guide to give away in exchange for email addresses. It should be two pages, roughly 700 words. Before you write anything, ask me these questions one at a time and wait for my answer each time: 1. What is the customer question this guide answers, in their words? 2. What is the short answer, in two or three sentences? 3. What are the three to five steps someone should take? 4. What is the mistake you most often watch people make? 5. What is the one thing you want them to do after reading it? Then write the guide using exactly this shape: the question as the title, the short answer up front, the numbered steps, what goes wrong, and one next step. Rules: - Write the way I answered you, not the way a marketer writes. Short sentences, no jargon, no hype. - Do not pad it to sound thorough. If it comes in under 700 words, leave it short. - Do not invent numbers, prices, timeframes or claims I did not give you. Where a fact is missing, leave a clearly marked gap for me to fill. - At the end, list anything I must verify before publishing, especially prices, regulations, insurance or health claims.
Open Claude Open ChatGPT

Read every line before you publish it. It writes fast, it does not know your industry, and your name goes on the finished thing.

Where this goes

Now it needs somewhere to live

A finished guide sitting in your downloads folder earns nothing. The next lesson is the page that turns it into email addresses.

The full 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 more worked examples on the blog.

Your task before lesson 3

Write the first draft in one sitting. Forty minutes, no editing. It will be bad and that is correct.

The seven lessons

Read them in order, or jump to the one you are stuck on

  1. 1 What to give awayPick the one thing worth handing over for free.
  2. 2 Write it in two pagesYou are here.
  3. 3 The page that collects emailsOne page, one job, and what to leave off it.
  4. 4 Set up your list properlyThe half hour that decides inbox or spam folder.
  5. 5 Tell people it existsWhere to put the link, and how to keep mentioning it.
  6. 6 One thing, six placesTurn a single idea into a week of content.
  7. 7 Sell what you knowCharge for the deeper version, with nothing monthly.