Persuasive writing

Writing that gets a specific reader to decide, act or change their mind: rhetoric basics, answer-first structure (Minto), Amazon-style memos and PR/FAQs, decision docs, emails that get answered, cold outreach, pitches and one-liners, copywriting formulas, headlines, stories, evidence, calls to action and the line between persuasion and manipulation. Sentence-level craft is in clear writing; biases that persuasion exploits are in cognitive biases; YC's founder advice is in Y Combinator.

Rhetoric basics

Aristotle, Rhetoric (4th century BC, trans. W. Rhys Roberts): "Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself."

Aristotle adds that credibility "should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak". On the page, ethos is built by precision: correct numbers, fair statement of the other side, and the specific detail only someone who has done the work would know.

Know the reader's decision

Persuasive writing starts from the reader's decision, not your content. Before drafting, answer these.

Two rules follow:

• One document, one ask. Two asks halve the chance of either. Split them.
• Make the ask the easy path. Reduce the cost of saying yes: a pilot instead of a rollout, a reversible decision, a default that happens unless they object.

Answer first: the Pyramid Principle

Barbara Minto developed the Pyramid Principle at McKinsey in the 1960s–70s and published it as a book in the 1980s (her site dates the original book to 1987; the expanded The Minto Pyramid Principle appeared in 1996). Her summary: "your thinking will be easy for a reader to grasp if you present the ideas organized as a pyramid under a single point."

            Recommendation: move billing to Stripe by Q1
          /                     |                       \
 Cuts cost 30%         Removes PCI scope        Unblocks EU launch
 - fees vs current     - no card data stored    - SEPA, VAT built in
 - fewer FTE hours     - audit shrinks          - 6 weeks vs 6 months

SCQ and SCQA introductions

Minto's introduction structure (her "SCQ Framework") tells a story the reader already agrees with, then raises the question the document answers.

SCQA is the common name for the four-part version. For an impatient reader, reorder to A-SC: answer first, then the situation and complication that justify it.

The "so what?" test

For every statement, ask "so what?" until the answer is something the reader cares about. Consulting practice calls the result an insight as opposed to an observation.

Memos and narratives

The Amazon six-pager

Jeff Bezos's email to Amazon's senior team on 9 June 2004 had the subject line "No powerpoint presentations from now on at steam". Its reasoning (as published by Business Insider in 2015):

The reason writing a 4 page memo is harder than "writing" a 20 page powerpoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related.

In the 2017 shareholder letter: "We don't do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of 'study hall.'" And on quality: "The great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind."

PR/FAQ (working backwards)

Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, Working Backwards (2021), describe Amazon's PR/FAQ: write the launch press release and the FAQs before building anything, to force the author to start from the customer. Their published template's components:

The press release is short (about a page); the FAQ carries the hard thinking. Bryar and Carr describe the review as 15–20 minutes of silent reading followed by discussion aimed at truth-seeking, not selling.

Proposals and decision docs

One-page proposal

A one-pager fits when the decision is modest and the reader is senior. The constraint is the point: if it does not fit on a page, you have not decided what matters.

Decision doc

For contested or high-stakes decisions, lay out options fairly. A reader who spots a straw-man option stops trusting the whole document.

Emails that get answered

The reader decides in the preview pane whether to act now, later or never. Write for that pane.

Full example.

BEFORE
Subject: Contractors
 
Hi Sam,
 
Hope you had a great weekend! I wanted to reach out about
the Q4 plan. As you know we've been discussing the mobile
app timeline for a while, and there have been some
challenges with hiring, which I think we talked about in
the last planning meeting. Anyway, the team has been
looking at options and we think it might make sense to
consider bringing in some contractors, potentially two,
though we could discuss. Budget would be roughly $18k I
think. Let me know your thoughts when you get a chance!
 
AFTER
Subject: Approve $18k for 2 contractors by Thu?
 
Hi Sam,
 
Can you approve $18k for two contract iOS developers for
October-December?
 
- Why: our open iOS role has been unfilled for 10 weeks;
  without help the app slips from November to February.
- What: two contractors from Acme, $9k each, vetted
  by Priya.
- Deadline: Thursday, so they can start on 1 October.
 
Reply "yes" and I'll send the contracts for signature.
 
Thanks,
Alex

Cold outreach

Cold emails compete with hundreds of others. The formula is short, specific, easy yes.

Michael Seibel (YC), "How to Email Early Stage Investors": sentence one, "Clearly explain what you do"; sentence two, "Sell me on why I should be excited"; sentence three, "Ask for what you want". He adds: "Don't ask for a phone call or a meeting. Let me escalate things." His listed mistakes include "Writing too much. Walls of text result in slow/no replies."

Pitches and one-liners

Pitch structure

Sequoia's "Writing a Business Plan" outline, the standard skeleton for a pitch deck or narrative:

Michael Seibel's "How to Pitch Your Company" reduces it to seven questions: what do you do; how big is the market; what's your progress; what's your unique insight; what's your business model; who's on your team; what do you want. His editing rule: "eliminate jargon, acronyms, marketing speak, and any ambiguous terms such as 'platform'", and "you don't need to sound cool. You need to be clear."

The compact narrative order for a written pitch: problem → solution → why now → traction → market → team → ask. Lead with traction if it is your strongest card.

The one-liner

Seibel's first answer is the model: start with the company name and what it does, e.g. "Socialcam is a mobile app that makes it easy to take videos and share them with friends and family." He adds: "There's no need to set up the problem, you can just get to the point."

[Company] helps [specific who] [do what outcome]
by [how / mechanism].
 
Examples
Acme helps Shopify stores recover abandoned carts
by texting shoppers a one-tap checkout link.
 
Ledgerly helps two-person accounting firms close
the month in a day by reconciling bank feeds
automatically.

"X for Y" one-liners ("Twitch for cooking", an example from Seibel's own investor-email post) are fast when both halves are well known and the analogy transfers the right thing. They fail when X is obscure, when X's business model is the wrong one to imply, or when every competitor uses the same X. Follow the analogy with the plain version.

Copywriting formulas

Formulas are scaffolds for short persuasive copy: landing pages, ads, launch posts, cold emails.

AIDA's history is murkier than its usual attribution. It is generally credited to advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis around 1898, but an anonymous formula ("attract attention… interest and convince") appeared in Printers' Ink in 1898, the four-step version was elaborated by others in the 1900s, and the acronym itself appears in print around 1921. Reviews of hierarchy-of-effects models (e.g. Vakratsas and Ambler, 1999) find little evidence that buyers move through the steps in order. Treat it as a checklist, not a model of the mind.

The origins of PAS, BAB, FAB and the 4 Us are copywriting folklore; none has a reliable single inventor.

Headlines and titles

A title is a promise. It must be specific enough to select the right readers and honest enough that the body delivers.

Storytelling in persuasion

Stories carry pathos and make logos memorable. In business writing a story is usually one customer, one moment, one change.

The story spine, created by improv teacher Kenn Adams and widely circulated through a list of Pixar storytelling tips:

Once upon a time...            (the world / the status quo)
Every day...                   (the routine)
But, one day...                (the event that breaks it)
Because of that...             (consequence)
Because of that...             (consequence)
Until, finally...              (the climax)
And, ever since then...        (the new normal)
 
Business version
Once upon a time, support teams copied tickets into Jira.
Every day, bugs were lost or duplicated.
One day, Maya's team missed a data-loss bug for a week.
Because of that, they lost their biggest customer.
Because of that, Maya built a script to sync tickets.
Until finally, every support team in the company used it.
And ever since, bugs reach engineering in minutes.
(Now it's a product. Here's what we're asking for...)

Evidence and objections

Evidence

Rules: give the number, the baseline and the source; round sensibly; prefer one strong piece of evidence over five weak ones; never state a figure you cannot defend in the meeting.

Robert Cialdini's principles of influence (reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and later unity) describe real shortcuts readers use. See cognitive biases. Use them to present true things well, never to fabricate urgency or consensus.

Handling objections

Answer the strongest objection in the document before the reader raises it. Unanswered objections become the meeting.

Calls to action

In internal documents the call to action is the decision requested: "I recommend option B and need your approval by 30 September to hit the Q1 launch."

Writing for skimmers

Jakob Nielsen's "How Users Read on the Web" (NN/g, 1997) found that "79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word." Most business readers skim email and docs the same way.

Persuasive essays and posts

Paul Graham's essays (see Y Combinator) are a model of informal persuasion: plain words, a conversational voice, one idea pushed hard. In "How to Write Usefully" (2020) he argues an essay should aim to be useful rather than merely persuasive: "Useful writing tells people something true and important that they didn't already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible." He adds: "Useful writing makes claims that are as strong as they can be made without becoming false."

Persuasion vs manipulation

The line: persuasion helps the reader make a decision they would endorse with full information; manipulation gets a decision they would reject if they saw how it was produced.

Besides ethics, manipulation is bad strategy for anyone who writes to the same readers twice: ethos is the appeal that compounds.

Common mistakes

Templates

Six-page narrative memo

Title: [Recommendation as a sentence]
Author / date / decision needed by: [..]
 
1. Summary (1 paragraph)
   What we propose, why, what it costs, what we need.
2. Context
   Situation the reader agrees with. Key numbers.
3. Problem / opportunity
   The complication. Why it matters now (kairos).
4. Proposal
   What we will do; scope and non-goals; milestones.
5. Alternatives considered
   Each option, why it loses. Include "do nothing".
6. Risks and mitigations
   What could go wrong; what would change our mind.
7. Cost and resourcing
   People, money, time; reversibility.
8. Success metrics
   Metric, baseline, target, review date.
9. Ask
   The specific decision or resources requested.
 
Appendix: data, detailed financials, FAQ.
Rules: full sentences; no slides; <= 6 pages + appendix.

PR/FAQ

HEADING: [Product name] [does what] for [whom]
SUBHEADING: [Customer] can now [benefit] - [one sentence]
 
[CITY] - [Launch date] - [Company] today announced
[product], which [summary of benefit].
 
PROBLEM: Today, [customer] [struggles with X]. [Why it
hurts, in the customer's words.]
 
SOLUTION: [Product] [how it solves X]. Unlike [current
alternatives], it [key difference].
 
"[Why we built it]," said [spokesperson, title].
 
"[Specific benefit in plain words]," said [customer].
 
GETTING STARTED: [How to start in one or two sentences.]
 
EXTERNAL FAQ
Q: How much does it cost?
Q: How does it work?
Q: What if [common concern]?
 
INTERNAL FAQ
Q: How big is the market and how do we know?
Q: What does it cost to build and run?
Q: What are the biggest risks?
Q: What has to be true for this to succeed?
Q: Why us, why now?

Decision doc

DECISION: [Question] - Decider: [name] - By: [date]
 
CONTEXT (facts only)
[..]
 
OPTIONS
A. [..]   B. [..]   C. Do nothing
 
| Criterion | A | B | C |
| ...       |   |   |   |
 
RECOMMENDATION
[Option], because [top 2-3 reasons].
 
RISKS / WHAT WOULD CHANGE MY MIND
[..]
 
REVERSIBILITY
[One-way or two-way door; cost to undo]

Request email

Subject: [Action] by [date]?
 
Hi [Name],
 
Can you [specific ask] by [date]?
 
- Why: [one line, with a number]
- What: [one line: scope, cost]
- If not: [consequence or alternative]
 
Reply "[yes]" and I'll [next step].
 
[Name]

Cold email

Subject: [Specific, relevant, short]
 
Hi [Name],
 
[One line showing why you're writing to *them*.]
 
[What you do, one sentence, no jargon.]
[Why it's interesting: best traction or insight.]
 
[Small, specific ask with an easy yes.]
 
[Name], [role], [company domain]
 
Follow-up (5-7 days later, same thread):
"Hi [Name], quick bump - [one new fact]. Worth a look?"

Pitch narrative

ONE-LINER  [Company] helps [who] [outcome] by [how].
PROBLEM    [Who] [pain], costing [number]. Today they
           [workaround], which fails because [..].
SOLUTION   [What it does]. [The insight others miss].
WHY NOW    [Shift: tech, regulation, behavior, cost].
TRACTION   [Users/revenue/growth rate, time period].
MARKET     [Bottom-up: # customers x price].
COMPETITION [Alternatives and why we win].
MODEL      [Who pays, how much, how often].
TEAM       [Founders; the one relevant credential].
ASK        [Amount, what it buys, milestones].

Landing page (AIDA)

HEADLINE (Attention)   [Outcome] for [who] [in time/cost]
SUBHEAD (Interest)     [How it works, one sentence]
PROOF (Desire)         [Number] [customer logos] [quote]
BENEFITS (Desire)      3 x [feature -> benefit]
OBJECTION              [Top worry] - [answer]
CTA (Action)           [Verb + outcome] [risk reducer]

References

• Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts (MIT Internet Classics Archive) (opens in a new tab): ethos, pathos and logos in the original
• Barbara Minto, The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving (1996 expanded edition): answer first, grouping, SCQ introductions
• Barbara Minto's site (opens in a new tab): the Pyramid Principle and SCQ Framework in her words, and book history
• Business Insider via Yahoo Finance, "A 2004 email from Jeff Bezos explains why PowerPoint presentations aren't allowed at Amazon" (2015) (opens in a new tab): the text of the "no powerpoint" email
• Jeff Bezos, 2017 letter to shareholders (opens in a new tab): six-page memos, "study hall" and how great memos are written
• Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, Working Backwards (St. Martin's Press, 2021): narratives and the PR/FAQ process from inside Amazon
• Working Backwards: PR/FAQ instructions and template (opens in a new tab): the authors' own description of PR/FAQ components and reviews
• Sequoia Capital, "Writing a Business Plan" (opens in a new tab): the ten-section pitch outline
• Michael Seibel, "How to Pitch Your Company" (opens in a new tab): seven questions and the email test
• Michael Seibel, "How to Email Early Stage Investors" (opens in a new tab): the three-sentence cold email
• AIDA (marketing) (Wikipedia) (opens in a new tab): history and attribution of AIDA, and criticisms
• Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984; new and expanded edition 2021): the principles of influence
• Jakob Nielsen, "How Users Read on the Web" (NN/g, 1997) (opens in a new tab): the 79% scanning finding
• Paul Graham, "How to Write Usefully" (2020) (opens in a new tab): essays that are true, important, new and strong
• Improv Encyclopedia: Story Spine (opens in a new tab): Kenn Adams's story spine and its structure
• Clear writing and technical writing: the companion sheets