I almost shut down this newsletter

3 weeks ago, I sat down to write the section of the last newsletter that almost killed it.

I called it "the honest part." 

It was a heading, then a few paragraphs about how the attention recession won't be solved by another framework. 

It was fine. 

It was the kind of thing you skim.

I read it back and it was obviously bad. 

Not bad-writing bad.

Bad in performative marketing sort of way.

A section literally labeled "the honest part," which is the least honest thing you can do.

So I threw it out and wrote the real version - the one where I admitted the Spam Box keeps us up at night, that I didn't know which of the three plays would land, that this newsletter might feel too inside-baseball for some of you.

That rewrite might be the reason you're reading this.

Because the last issue was, by a wide margin, the most-read newsletter Sendoso has ever sent. 

More replies. More "saw your newsletter" landing in actual sales calls than anything we've sent.

And the issue that did that was the most uncertain, least polished, most we-might-be-wrong-about-this thing we've ever put in your inbox.

So this is retro #1. It's about this newsletter, which is a strange thing to write a newsletter about - so let's make it useful instead of self-congratulatory.

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“Human” isn’t a tone of voice

I've spent 2 issues telling you the attention recession is real. 

But you don’t need me to tell you. You feel it yourself. So do your buyers.

Heck, over HALF of people disengage the second they suspect a machine wrote something.

What I got wrong is where I thought "human" lived.

"Human" is a decision you make before you write a word, and it's a decision about what you're willing to admit.

Watch the difference. 

"The honest part" version said: the attention recession won't be solved by another framework. 

True, fine, skimmable. 

The rewrite said: the Spam Box scares us and I don't know if it'll work. 

The gap there is me/us willing to take a risk.

Transparency cuts through because almost nobody will pay the cost for it.

One question before I hit send

Think about your own inbox. 

Every vendor sounds confident. 

Every case study is a win. 

Every product launch is "thrilled to announce." 

Every recap declares victory. 

YAWWWWWWWWN.

It's all sanded smooth.

The issue where I said "this might not work" stood out for one reason: you almost never see a company say that. And you NEVER see them saying what they’re doing behind the scenes.

Which is all we want, right?

Marketing is pattern recognition so we want to see what patterns are working and apply it to our own work. We want to feel safe and secure in our work.

And for other people to feel secure, we have to be okay with being nervous.

“Did we risk something here?” ← now that’s how you write your buyer’s favorite newsletter - it’s the entire premise for what we’re doing here.

I’m building the system in front of you

Here's the part I still haven't solved, and I’m telling you because pretending otherwise would make this issue a lie.

So here's the actual ask, and it's not "book a demo."

If a future issue of this newsletter slips into recap-deck corporate content voice - hit reply and tell me.

That reply loop is the only quality control that works for this kind of writing, and it only works if you're in it.

Retro #2, the Spam Box, lands next month. I honestly don't know yet what it'll say.

That's the point. 🧡

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