Write to Win! : Erin Lebacqz On Creating Authentic Words That Work

Chris Stone:
Today, we're joined by Erin Lebacqz who spent twenty five plus years teaching people how to make their words actually do something besides take up space on a page. She's worked with some huge brands that swear her methods have transformed how they connect with their audiences. She's here to rescue us from AI generated robot speak and show us how strategic language choices can turn our content from meh to take my money without sacrificing our authentic voice. So please welcome two Dealcasters, Erin Labax. Welcome aboard, Erin. We're excited to have you.

Erin LeBacqz:
Hi. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here with you guys. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for coming to our livestream. I'm really excited and hope to hear from you in the chat if you've got something to say.

Chris Stone:
This is like the first of many livestreams, we hope, for you, Erin. And, there one of the one of the big reasons why we do this, which we didn't share with you before you showed up, is this is free consulting for us. So maybe we'll send you an invoice. We'll send you an invoice later. No. I'm I'm I'm kidding. But, I wanted to start off with with this because I I mentioned in in the introduction here, I saw a webinar, with you, and I know you I've had you, on other shows that I produce as a guest. It was just knocked out by the value that that you brought to the webinar, but also, as a guest on those shows.

Chris Stone:
And that really sparked, you know, that webinar especially resonated with me because you talked about, AI and how, how AI is really missing the empathy. It's it's like there's all kinds of zero empathy content that's being posted out there. And listen, I'm guilty myself of posting content that's, you know unfortunately, I go back and look at and feel like it was it was a robot, and I'm not being, empathetic at all. So when someone is, you know, kinda juggling content creation across multiple platforms, it's really tempting, right, to to go, okay. I wanna create something for my audience, And then you get all this stuff and you're like, okay, how do you inject a human? Like, what's the mindset? What's what's a framework that you've got when you're presented with all this stuff? Because I think a lot of times people go, okay. Here's this platform. It's Claude. It's, you know, it's this, it's that, it's the other.

Chris Stone:
And then they they see all the stuff in front of them, and they don't understand the mindset and the framework in order to deliver that with people. Where do we start there?

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. I think thank you. That's a great way of putting it, that we don't necessarily know what mindset to be in when we're writing or when we're using the writing that AI has helped us with. And a lot of that, I think, goes back to just how we all grew up writing, worrying usually about one thing when we wrote, which was, am I gonna do this correctly, or am I gonna get, you know, points off for doing it wrong? So in terms of mindset, most of us have really grown up with a mindset for writing that's all about correctness or completion or word count. And we have not always thought about, kind of like you said in the introduction, how to make our words actually do something, how to be strategic. Right? Meet a goal with our words. So it's a mindset shift. And I think the most important aspect of that that can help us here is that when we wrote for school, we worried a lot about making our information clear, complete, use a fancy vocab, all of that.

Erin LeBacqz:
But now that we're writing interactively to other humans, right, it's not an assignment, it's an interaction, we have to pay attention to other kinds of goals too, and I call those relational goals. So the mindset I suggest for all of us is when we're writing in this interactive way, like, that is a human being is gonna use what I wrote to do something, we want to always think about those informational goals. Yeah. Let's be clear and concise, but also have that relational goal in mind. What are you trying to get done in terms of the relationship as well as what are you trying to get done with your information?

Chris Stone:
Wow.

Erin LeBacqz:
And so I think when we yeah. I I think if we approach AI with that, you know, we're we're looking at two specific moments, and I'm sure we'll get more into this as we go. But the prompting that we give our AI tool and then the editing that we do with what we get back, those are the two moments where we can use our understanding of the relationship between us and whoever's gonna read it and apply that relational mindset, which I think the AI can often do a pretty good job with the information. But even when we coach it a little bit, you know, the AI doesn't know the exact relationship we have with our reader, and so that's something we still wanna bring to it.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. So there again, this is great. So informational, relational. Right? So I think I've always looked at it when I'm creating something and I've heard other people, do this as well is like, you know, feed it a bunch of information, see what you get, and then edit it, which is true. You should be doing that. But I think we're talking about, you know, how how do we prompt something relationally in in that and really trust that we're we're getting that, number one. So in other words, like, are we giving it our audience? Right? Are are are we giving them the right information about who's receiving it? And are do we trust that AI or whatever platform we're using, Claude, you know, ChatGPT or whatever, can understand that and be empathetic? Or maybe it can't and you just like, that's where that it's it's mostly post, prompt, editing that is adding the relational element. Or can we do that in a prompt?

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. I think it shifts depending on how good we get with our prompts. Right? And I'm always experimenting with my prompts. In fact, there was the whole sidebar in that webinar, and it sounds strange, but people think about it. Do we act polite in our prompts? Do we say please and thank you? Right? But more than that, you know, it it has to do with the the more specific and the more we can understand how to put empathy in our prompt, probably the less we'll have to do on the other side. And if we're using a more generic prompt, we'll probably have quite a lot to do at the end. One example, like you probably saw in that webinar, I had asked I think it was Copilot that time, not ChatGPT, but I had asked one of the tools to write something about the importance of writing or something like that. And what I got was basically, it sounded like a five paragraph essay from school.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. But I had given it no knowledge of who would use this, where would it be posted, why would a person want it. And so it was very generic, and I thought it sounded, and I think this is one of the issues with AI writing, it sounded very far away, removed, like just narrating, describing a situation, but not reader targeted. Yeah. But then just by making a couple of tweaks, I gave the same prompt, but said for an audience who's just graduated from either high school or college, and using casual language or something like that. And now I received something that was actually targeted to reader needs because AI then understood what situation is my reader in. And just giving that situation made a big difference that took me from generic five paragraph essay. I'm talking paragraphs began with firstly, secondly, thirdly, and moreover.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right? That's that's a giveaway, probably. Yeah. There are a lot of giveaways that we can talk about

Chris Stone:
too. Yeah.

Erin LeBacqz:
But right, just by making those changes, I got a much better output. And I've been doing that by focusing on who is it for, what medium is it gonna go on, and then even things like length and level of formality, of course. And if I prescribe some of that, I get a better product to start with when I'm editing.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. I I I man, I I want so much to stay we should have called this episode relational writing. Right? Or or how to how to make AI more relatable. Right, Jim? Speaking of Hardest. Of relatable? Because it's it's completely forgotten. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are rubber stamping this content, and they look at it and they think it's for their audience, but they're they're they're missing the mark, on on who they're serving. And I guess there's a part of me that says, well, if you continue to train whatever AI LLM you're using, that that this would allow you allow it to to eventually understand what what at least it'll look empathetic. It you know, obviously, it's it's a robot.

Chris Stone:
It it's it it isn't, technically. But, what about training it? Do you feel like have you had experience there? And and, you know, I'm not sure what you use in terms of, you know, I I you're you're you're a you're a year years and years and years prior when AI was just a gleam, AI writing was just a gleam in somebody's eye. You were writing with a pen and a paper, I'm sure, and a and a whiteboard and a marker. But you're not you're not, like, anti AI. Right? You're you're like

Erin LeBacqz:
I'm not.

Chris Stone:
So so I guess I know you have people that follow you and you have you have this huge base of people that are not they're they're like the AI is just not there yet. It's not for me. It's not it's not for my audience. But you don't necessarily take that stance. You're not anti AI. Talk about, if if you're speaking to someone who, you know, in our crowd, whether they're podcasters, live streamers, etcetera, and they're looking at AI as a little bit of a, this is I'm not ready for this yet. What what what would you tell them in terms of how they're writing and how they could actually put dip their toe in the water?

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. Well, I would say there are many steps to the writing process from getting an idea to checking your spelling or grammar. And what what we talked about in the webinar and my general advice would be look for the step that you kind of feel nervous about and use AI for that step, but not necessarily for the other steps. So for me, for example, I'm not very good at thinking of titles or writing, like, snappy quips. So I'll think, well, I'm gonna ask GPT to generate some titles for me that I can decide from. But after that, I'm just off to the races writing the rest of it. And then I know other people, they've got lots of ideas, but they really they've noticed over time that they're not orderly or their readers feel like their writing is not orderly. And so they just bring in the tool for that moment.

Erin LeBacqz:
Oh. And then, of course, you have people who use it at the end, right, just checking. But I think the idea here is I don't think we want AI to be the boss of the writing situation because AI doesn't understand the relationship. But I do think that when we need a tool, why not use it, number one? Number two, what if it does make someone's writing more orderly? What if somebody recognized, oh, that's kind of one of my fails. I'm kind of all over the place. You know, we all have our writing issues, and they think, oh, I'm gonna help my reader by having ChatGPT help me order this. Now we've helped the readers too. And so using it as a tool can benefit people.

Erin LeBacqz:
I also know quite a few people who really get nervous about writing. All the way back from teaching college, I would have people say, well, but I'm not a good writer. And I would say, well, that's impossible because writing is actually about thinking, strategy, right, setting goals. But for people who do feel that way, you know, why not have a tool to help you get started? And so I think as long as we keep it as a tool and not the boss, that it can be helpful for both ourselves and our readers. I wouldn't ever wanna send something out, of course, without checking everything in quite a few ways. Right. But that's you know, every time I've done a survey with with my audience in various places, probably about 40% of people are kinda like, this is not for me, either because they feel like it takes more time than just doing it Yep. You know, because of checking if it was good and all that stuff.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right. Or they just feel like, yeah, I'm not into it. And the other 60% I'm finding are using it usually in one of those three stages, getting ideas, that's where I use it for, like, a title idea, is stage one. Some people even generating the idea or the description of the idea. Third or second place I see people using it is organization, and I think that's a great one because they may have been told by others by feedback, oh, this was hard to follow. I didn't know which steps to do. That could be helpful to get a tool. And then third phase, of course, a lot of people use it at the very end, just worrying about either having, something an error that might be embarrassing or a tonal mess up that they didn't notice, and they're wondering if the AI could notice that.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah, as Val hello. Thank you so much for being here. As Val is putting in the chat that AI is your assistant. You're the boss, but why not have a helpful assistant if you can, if it's helpful to you? I'm, sometimes I find this will take me longer if I use AI. I'm not gonna bother. But sometimes I'll say, yeah. I need the tool right now. I need that assistant to, not to replace my voice as Val says.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. Val, thank you for joining us. As she says, AI should be the assistant, not the boss. It's a powerful tool to help clarify, speed up, and sometimes spark new ideas, but it shouldn't replace your voice or critical thinking. And, of course, she's a super fan, like I like I am. Yay, Aaron. Yes. And, Romano's tech is in the house saying hello, and he agrees, it is a wonderful tool.

Chris Stone:
And it is you did say something, Aaron, that, you you you kinda you you breezed by, but I I wanna I wanna go back and and and pull it out because I don't think I've ever heard anybody say this. You said writing is about goals.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yes. That is something we don't think about. I did not I was probably teaching writing for about two decades before I thought of that. So if you don't think of writing as goal oriented, I think that's that's common. We don't get raised thinking about writing as a tool to do something, even though we probably do think that speaking is a tool to get something done. Yeah. Right? We might say, Well, I'm going to invite someone to something and do it in a nice way, and now I'm going to have this guest. Right? And we know that our speaking, we even know to adjust our speaking when we're speaking to different people because we know, oh, I won't meet my goal if I use that tone with this person.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right? Well, same goes for writing. It's actually meant to be something to help us get things done. Again, I think we've grown up in sort of a culture of fear around writing, the sort of red pen culture, as if writing is really just about being correct by someone else's standard. But in reality, it's a tool of a human being to interact with other people.

Jim Fuhs:
Yeah.

Erin LeBacqz:
And when I'm thinking about, oh, what do I wanna get done here? I want to tell my collaborator that I don't really agree with the third idea that they gave me. But I also want to make sure they feel confident to continue giving me ideas, even though I didn't like that one. Well, now I've got an informational goal, tell them the truth that I don't like the idea, and a relational goal, maintain trust so they'll be willing to share more ideas. And I will use my writing to meet that goal, both of those goals. Right? And so that can be a really great paradigm shift, right, mindset shift to, oh, this is not actually a scary thing that's controlling me and dinging me when I'm wrong. This is me wanting to get things done, and I'm glad I have this tool to do it. I can actually make choices on purpose that will lead to outcomes that I want.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. And you end up being more confident and and you end up doing it better. Right? You end up being more passionate about it because you're getting things done. It's, yeah, it's it's it'll and this

Erin LeBacqz:
is this is what

Chris Stone:
I'm talking about. See, Jim? This is why this is why we bring Aaron LeBax on the show because, like, again, it's it's messing me up in a good way. Like, you know, because so much of it so much of it is about your audience and who you're speaking to. And now we're now we're, you know, now we're just like, you know, how many how many emails are we replying to a day? Lots. Right? And so, having AI write those emails, you know, I mean, I suppose you can, but why? Like, and so how much of it, Aaron, is about knowing who you're replying to in terms of, like, okay. You know, let me just give you I'm a lot of this depends. Right? A lot of there's a lot of variant thing. But if I'm a if I'm an influencer or a YouTuber or somebody, and somebody's approaching me to do something for them.

Chris Stone:
Like, hey, I have a product. I want to do this. I want to do that. You don't know anything about that person. Right? You're you're just kind of replying to someone, you know, and you don't know if that person, what they look like, what age they are, you're just seeing this this note come across and you wanna be able to reply professionally, but, like, do I add an exclamation point at the end of this first sentence? Do I say, thanks, exclamation point, or, oh, that's not professional enough. And, like, all of these things, like, AI is not gonna teach you how to do that. Like, everything comes in, you know, invariably, like, like, different. So and what I've found on your YouTube channel is is, you know, teachings for this kind of thing, like, understanding who your audience is.

Chris Stone:
So if you don't really know yet who that is, what's the best way forward on doing email replies or text replies or things like that in in not not knowing? Is there a way to kind of, like, find out in that in that conversation so you've you can feel safe with your first reply before you start to add exclamation points and common language and that kind of thing?

Erin LeBacqz:
That's a great question. And I had recently a live talk where we ended up on a ten minute tangent about exclamation points, actually. Because it's kind of like I'm revealing my personality here in my writing when I do that. Right? And people were saying, yeah, I wanna show enthusiasm, but at what what point am I overenthused? Right? So, yes, with replies, I think you're right. I think it would be maybe take a long time to use AI for replies because they'd have to know not only the relationship, but the other you know, the message you received and everything. So, when you don't know your reader, but you've received a text or an email from them and you need to write back, I would do two things to try to figure my way through until I get to know them more. Because once I know them more, I can write to them in an intentional way, right? First thing I do when I have absolutely no idea who this person is or what they may be like is I use the, tool of mirroring, and I look, well, how formal are they? I'm gonna be about that formal until I get to know them more. Okay.

Erin LeBacqz:
And I just try to mirror, you know, okay, they gave me a couple paragraphs and some bullets. I'm gonna keep I'm not gonna go overboard and reply with two pages, you know. They treated me like a professional that they'd never met, So I will do the same for now. Probably by the time I'm on my next reply, I'll be getting a little more informal. But you can just mirror where what you think you're seeing just to be safe at first. And then secondly, even though you don't know your reader personally, in some cases, you know things about them that can help you make an educated guess. And I think the best thing to know about a reader is the industry that they work in because industries have cultures for communication. And so, for example, for me, I my default is very informal in speech and writing, and most of my colleagues, for the first twenty years of my career were other teachers, and it's a very informal vibe.

Erin LeBacqz:
So that's how I am with people. But when I have a client, for example, I had a client in copyright law, Those are some very formal emails. I'm receiving emails with nary a contraction. You know, we're not even using don'ts and can't and

Chris Stone:
stuff like that. Right? Yes.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. So I'm kinda like, woah, Erin. You better not just let loose with your typical style here. These this is a formal culture. And we could look at that. You know, that's industry culture is what I look at the most often, but we can also think about generational culture and regional and language cultures as well and try to make educated guesses. But industry culture usually leads you, I think, to semi accurate cultures. If you work in a corporation or something, you know that even departments have cultures.

Erin LeBacqz:
And I'll I'll go into an organization, and they'll say, well, marketing rates it like this, but we're in the call center, and we don't send it to them the way they want it. What should we do? So that's another you know, if you're internal and you're writing to someone, you might be able to think, well, what is probably important in that department? What do they probably prioritize? Can I reflect that in my writing as well? And

Jim Fuhs:
and, you know, Erin, this kinda ties into a question I had because you're kind of given this comparison. So when you were talking like about high level writing, is there like a, you know, how long should we be writing? It's like so your example, like maybe the copywriters want long stuff and the marketing people want stuff to be short. I mean, is it really right? Is it about being precise versus just putting fluff because we're trying to hit a magic word count?

Erin LeBacqz:
Well, that's a great question. Thanks, Jim, because I think it's somewhere in our subconscious is that idea of a word count. But that is not important in business writing at all. In fact, there are very few situations where I would advise adding more to writing. Usually, I advise deleting things. I would say maybe up until about five years ago, even, when I would edit my own emails, I would think, Oh, I forgot to say the date. Let me add that. You know? Oh, I forgot to explain why.

Erin LeBacqz:
Let me add that. But in the last five years, when I'm editing my email, most often, I am deleting things. I'm thinking to myself, the more I say, the less they're gonna focus on each thing. It will dilute the message. In today's world of noise all the time, how can your message break through the noise if it's very long? Right? Often in my classes, we talk about the reality, which is, you know, Chris mentioned, oh, we get these hundreds of emails, But you know what we do with a bunch of them? Procrastinate. Right? What what look at the emails you receive. Look at the ones you answer right away. What did those writers do? I bet you they kept it short.

Erin LeBacqz:
I bet they put your call to action at the top. I bet they used bullets. Look at the emails you procrastinate on. What did those writers do? Probably had a whole lot of paragraphs. Yeah. If you find yourself scrolling, you're probably procrastinating. And this is just the reality of today's world. So, it's a fantastic question because people, we have this natural desire to be thorough.

Erin LeBacqz:
I'm trying to send you a message and give you everything you need. And yet, that desire to be thorough is competing with a need to be brief for someone to be able to, like, find their way through the message, not procrastinate on it and act on it. And that's why I always, you know, advocate writing concisely and having things like your main point and call to action at the top, because people won't necessarily see it. Here's, here's a good example that fits with that that's a writing fail that I did. This one I did after I wrote the workbook, so it's not in there. But if you read the workbook, you'll see that every paragraph, every, sorry, chapter starts with kind of a writing fail where I had a realization or someone else did. And in this particular one I did, honestly, it wasn't that long ago, I sent someone an email with two asks, and this has to do with both length and arrangement when we write to people. I had two things that I was hoping this person would do.

Erin LeBacqz:
So at the top of my email, I put the first ask, but that ask required screenshots to really clarify what I meant. So I put my ask, and then I put my screenshot. Well, where do you think I put my second ask?

Chris Stone:
Below the screenshot.

Erin LeBacqz:
Oops. Yeah. I put my second ask underneath the scrolling and scrolling of all the screenshots. Oh, yeah. You've done it? Yeah. And I'm telling you, it crossed my mind. I was like, this might not be a good idea, Aaron. But then I thought, well, I always like doing an experiment, so I'm gonna leave it.

Erin LeBacqz:
And, you know, I got back a very helpful answer to my first ask and absolutely nothing on my second ask at all. Of course, they had not even seen it because who would think she asked me something and then gave me six pictures. Is there something else beneath the pictures? You know, that's probably not what people are thinking. They're just trying to do the thing they

Chris Stone:
have to do. Initially hurt. Right? So initially, like, hey, they didn't answer my second question. What did I do? Like, maybe they don't like it. Right? Maybe maybe what, you know, but instead of going, how how could I have crafted this better? Right?

Erin LeBacqz:
Well, that's exactly what's happening now is we are all feeling like, hey, how come no one ever answers my my messages? You know, and part of that is just because everyone has a million of them. But really, when somebody doesn't answer us, it's not always them, let's just say, right? In that case, that was my, I created that situation by putting my second ask down there. You know, I worked with someone who made a similar change where she'd written about a two pager in an email advocating for a new leadership program, really thorough, really awesome. She sent it to all the leaders. She brought in research, the whole works. Nobody answered her. I mean, period. They just didn't.

Erin LeBacqz:
We talked about it a couple months later about how to manage which details are good to leave in, but which details you can let go in order to not overwhelm your reader. And she reduced it to where it was probably about the equivalent of a half page, resent that email. Two of those people answered her that afternoon. And so we're just seeing, you know, reader behavior has a lot to do with writer's choices.

Chris Stone:
Okay. That that was a stampable moment right there. That and then so, thank you for that, thank you for that intentional interrupt because that's gonna end up, you know, on Instagram, tomorrow, because that it's just it it's a mindset that that is is lacking, quite frankly, in a lot of people, and and I'm guilty of as well. And, a lot of people. Speaking of a lot of people, we've got some friends that are in the house. It's Florence, Equip Institute with Florence. Hello. Hello.

Chris Stone:
Hello. I made it. Thank God that you're here, Florence, because Glad you made it. You're you're in for a treat, and then make sure you go back and watch the first part of, of this on replay. And Val, is is can I call you Val? Val, can I call you Val, or should I refer to you as Valerie Banks, here? But, Val says, write for engineers who appreciate precision and clear specs. Okay. Okay. Val, I can call her Val.

Chris Stone:
And then, we've got, yes. So just underlining what, who is the audience and what's, their behavior, from, from Florence. And for those who who have, been here, all our lives, make sure you go to highvaluewriting.com. This is an outstanding website. It you can browse the ecourses here. There's all kinds of stuff. And like I said, the the YouTube channel, you're gonna have to go to, which is High Value Writing on YouTube, if this can, get up on the screen. There we go.

Chris Stone:
And this is if you have questions about writing anything, this is what I do. This is my little my little hack here, Aaron, is I go here and I'm like, let me tell me about commas. And I and I just go here and here is the simple rule to master the Oxford comma. Here is quick punctuation tip. Good grammar. Like, there everything that involves commas on this channel, I can pull up and usually find something that helps me. This is High Value Writing on YouTube. Ladies and gentlemen, please, after you subscribe to Dealcasters, which you should already, you know, make sure you, you hit the subscribe button like we have on high value, high value writing.

Jim Fuhs:
So yeah. Yeah. Chris, Ashley Schmidt is over on Substack. She's an author who's watching, and she said that, Erin, you are thorough. So, you have you've got a got a favorite quote.

Chris Stone:
Thorough, Erin. I've never ever been called thorough.

Erin LeBacqz:
That's nice to hear because I'm always worrying about not being too long. And so, I'm glad, you know, it's the same thing we're talking about, right? Balancing being thorough with still being kind of concise is our goal. In the workbook and in one of those videos, I advocate a process that I call Now Later Never. It's actually, it sounds very simple, and it is, and yet it kind of is a game changer. And it's what the woman I was just talking about used when she resent that email about the leadership program. She looked at her original email, and she said, Okay, I have about a dozen things that I've said. And if you jot down those dozen things, you can just label them in your mind. Does my reader, not me, does my reader need this information right now in order to understand what I'm trying to do in this message? Or does my reader need this information later? Like, if they say, Yeah, I kind of like this.

Erin LeBacqz:
Let's move forward, then I'll bring it up. Or if you're like me, a classic overexplainer, you'll have things in your best that your reader needs. Never. You'll be labeling, and so you can label your points. Yeah, now, later, never. Some people don't have nevers because they're sort of under explainers, right? Most of us fall somewhere on a spectrum to not giving enough information that the reader wants to giving way too much, right? We want to try to be in the middle. And that's one of the ways to do that is to really analyze through the eyes of the reader's actual need. Do, is this information needed in this current message, or could this either wait, or was this actually just something that I thought was cool? So I put it in there, but in reality, in their world, it's not necessary today, which kind of, you know, relates back to one of Val's recent points on the chat was precision for engineers and clear specs, Right? So in that mindset, I was saying, I think this is cool.

Erin LeBacqz:
I think this background point is really important, but does this engineer need this background point right now? Right?

Jim Fuhs:
Yeah. Wow.

Erin LeBacqz:
So it's Through the eyes of the what the reader needs.

Chris Stone:
And we have Gur Keyan. Is it Jer is is Gur is it Jer short for Jerry? I don't know. I don't wanna slaughter anybody's name, so and no offense, but, with super practical advice, Aaron. And, Florence says over explain your support group.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right. Yeah. And stop calling where people are finding, like, yeah, I overwhelmed my reader, you know, and then you gotta just shorten it up. That's me. You see me?

Jim Fuhs:
Wow. Overexplainer support group. Yeah.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. That's a good one.

Jim Fuhs:
I think we I

Chris Stone:
think we have at least two that are joining that thing, today. Jim, yeah, go ahead, Erin.

Erin LeBacqz:
Well, I'll just throw in one more thing on that. If you're an overexplainer or an underexplainer and you're trying to get to the middle, you know, I mentioned you could use now, later, never. Another thing you can do as your goal can be to share the five w's. Who, what, when, where, why. That is meeting in the middle. If you're an under explainer, you can say to yourself, did I put all five W's? Oh, shoot, I forgot one. Let me add it. Now I'm probably good.

Erin LeBacqz:
If you're an overexplainer like me, you can try to limit yourself to the five Ws and say, You know what? They're already there. I think I'm done with this email. I don't need another paragraph reiterating. So that's another tool you can use. Whether you tend to give too little or too much, try to meet in the middle after five w's.

Chris Stone:
I recently sent an email that was a, I guess, for lack of a better word, a pitch. And, and and so for a for a program. And I think a lot of people, like, if you're there's a lot of people who are influencers that watch and listen to the show or, you know, they they have some sort of influence. Right? And they're doing something product or service. And so I had put together an entire program. It was fairly an elaborate program. And I had and I had discussed it in advance with the, this this other person. And this other person said, okay, I need you to send that to me in an email.

Chris Stone:
I just need I just need, you know, like something that I can absorb and take to my team. K? So, I probably should have talked to you, Aaron, before I sent this, but hopefully, you know, hopefully it's a it's a happy ending. I did get a positive response, just so you know. I'm sorry to keep this so vague, but it's it really it really is needs to be vague at this point. So when I sent the email, I had, I would say probably seven page PDF of this, which went through in detail everything. And I was like, there's no way this person's gonna read this. Mhmm. No way.

Chris Stone:
Like, there's just too many it's just too much. Right? But I thought if it if they needed it, right, if if they if they needed it to reference it because they're taking it to a broader, group of people, it needed to be included. So I I included an executive summary at the top. And then below the executive summary, I it was more of like a table of contents. Like, if you need this, this will hyperlink down to this spot in the PDF. And then you can go back up. If it so you it's more of a reference guide. And I attached that and then in the email, I basically said, hey, we talked about it.

Chris Stone:
Here it is. You know, if you have any questions, I realize it's a lot of information for you, but I put a table of contents in there that you can just jump to the information that you need. Boom. Let me know what you think. Was that the right way to do that or would that have been I mean, that's not exactly the wording that I used. But I wanted to be as succinct as possible in the body of the email and then attach all of the, like and I'm sure when when this person opened up the the PDF and saw like that it was seven pages, they were like, oh my gosh. I'm glad he, you know, maybe I'm glad he enter he put a table of contents in here because I'm never reading all this stuff.

Erin LeBacqz:
Probably bringing.

Chris Stone:
Any thoughts on that?

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. I like what you said. I do have yes. I what I think you did is offer what I call optional information. And this is another tool that we can use to try to make a message brief and targeted and yet also complete. We can, in the email body, keep it keep the Mhmm. Must read brief and then provide optional information. Usually, I do that in two ways, and one is hyperlinks.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right? Like, we know there's more behind this if I wanna go learn what what that word means or what that program is or what's been attached or whatever it is. And the other way we can do optional information is simply by arrangement, where this comes up most often, I think, when we're writing to multiple people at once. And you're emailing five people, and two of them are on your very project, so they already know things, and three of them are not. So, you have to give background, but then you're kind of like, what if I spend so long on the background that the people who already know bail on the message thinking there wasn't something for them? Well, what about making that background optional information by just moving it down and opening up the email with, here's my point. Right. Here's my call to action for you. If you would like more background and context, it's below. Then you've got a paragraph with a heading.

Erin LeBacqz:
I'm always advocating headings and bullets and emails. Right? Background, and then you provide that. Nobody has to read it in order to get to the action that you're asking for, which means it's much more likely they're gonna do the thing you wanted because you didn't put something like screenshots in the way of your ass. Right? You didn't put your background there, so they were kinda like, oh my god. Two paragraphs? I'm gonna have to do this later. You still put what you wanted at the top. And so I think that your example, Chris, where you did a table of contents and an attachment, that's optional information. It's choose your own adventure.

Erin LeBacqz:
And that's great for a reader because, believe it or not, there are readers out there who want the details. I had a meeting recently with another learning type, and she said, you know what? I love geeking out on this. You can make your proposals and emails as long as you want. I love the details about the classes. It doesn't happen often, but I had someone say that, and so I did. I was freewheeling it on that email, and it was longer than my usual. But I do typically try to arrange things in such a way where you get what you need right away and the rest is potentially optional depending on what career you already know, etcetera.

Chris Stone:
Information from that person. I'm sorry, Jim. Then you've got information from that person. So when you email them again, they you know. They want all the details. That's their love language. Right? You can do that. Jim, go ahead.

Chris Stone:
I'm sorry. Right.

Jim Fuhs:
Yeah. No. I was gonna say it reminds me of when I was in the military. We call it, bluff, bottom line up front. Oh. And so you're really

Chris Stone:
I like that.

Jim Fuhs:
Doing that, right away because that way, it's like if they want the details, they can keep going. But I think it goes back to Aaron's earlier example, if she had put her to, ask upfront, right, even if it was two, they would have gotten to it. But it's like, people, right, short attention span theater. If you if you bury it, like, you know, that's what would happen, right? You go to your boss, and be like, what you expect me to read this? Right? It's like, tell me what it is you want. And we used to joke in the in the military as well as people would come up with these presentations, and they'd have three courses of action, what they wanted, an alternative, and what we would call the throwaway course of action. Because it's like, well, you got to give them three choices, and you just hope they never pick the one you really didn't want. So I think just by getting to the point and and eliminating those other two options, right, I think that's more effective and probably, you know, in writing, that's what we need to think about is like, what is it I really want these people to do? And I love the idea of, right, I guess, is the term if you're not an over an explainer or an under an explainer, are you an explainer?

Erin LeBacqz:
Maybe so. You're a neutral level, just explaining. But, yeah, I think, people call it bluff, bottom line up front. Some people call it blot, bottom line on top. It's the way to write today. People we cannot assume that a reader is gonna think, I wonder what the point is. You know, let me look through these five paragraphs and deduce it for myself. You know, probably we're too busy, and so we have to give that information to them right away.

Erin LeBacqz:
I think another way to think about that is who's doing the work with this message? And if I rewrote my message with a bluff, I did the work, and now you can receive it and read it, and it's kind of easy. But if I didn't do all of that, I'm leaving the work for you. And do we really want to trust our readers to do the work of figuring out what we meant when we know they're getting pulled away

Chris Stone:
by a million different emails? You never replied. They just get stuff piled on top of them because you've asked somebody. Consideration is a huge, thing that we have to think about when we're when we're sending over something. Like, I don't think as long as you are nice, polite, and you need something from somebody, put it up front. Like, please, you know, pretty pleased with sugar on top. Whatever whatever, you know, thing. Because I think a lot of times, Aaron, do you think like people are too, too not not selfish, but like they're also thinking like, I want to get this person's attention so they can get this thing done. Right? And one of the things one of the things that may I don't know if this bothers you or not, Aaron, but this this is a huge pebble in my shoe.

Chris Stone:
And that is when somebody sends an email to me and the first thing they say is quick question. Because I will tell you whether or not it is a quick answer because in when someone says quick question, what they want in is a quick answer from me, and it may not be a quick answer. Right? So, like, to me, that that feels inconsiderate. Is that I mean, like, what am I am I the only one here that feels like quick question just like is just a thorn in my shoe?

Erin LeBacqz:
Well, I have said it before, and now I recognize your point. I think that that's a good point where Mhmm. I would maybe consider it to be an accidental assumption. That because one thing readers hate is when we make assumptions about them, and that would be, oh, I'm accidentally assuming that this will be quick, but I didn't really check if that's true in your world. And the other thing made me think about with that opener is just over the last year, and it kind of surprised me, honestly, because I know people are really looking for brevity now and not a bunch of fluff. Lots of people in the last year have said to me, don't I need to say hi in an email, though? And I go, yeah, probably, you know. And a lot of people have told me that they receive emails where someone does not say hi and that they, feel impacted by it. They don't like it.

Erin LeBacqz:
So even in today's world of sort of quick back and forth, I've probably at least 10 people have said that in the last year. It bothers them when we don't take a moment to say hi before we get into, like, quick question or the ask. That's not true if you're partway down an email chain and you're going back and forth. No biggie. Right? But if you're coming out of the blue, first time you're interacting that day, it's it's raining on people a little bit.

Chris Stone:
It's true. To me. It's so true because it's like,

Jim Fuhs:
hey, hey,

Chris Stone:
hey, hey, I need this from you right now. Right? And I think the the assumption can be that, hey, you've already shown me that this is easy for you to do. Right? Like, it's the blessing and the curse of doing what we do, Aaron, is, like, you know, we we put on shows, we do productions, we do podcasts, we do all this other stuff. And I like to make it, you know, for my clients, I like to, like, it it it probably looks like it's like, I make it look easy. Right? But that is actually a curse when somebody goes, hey, I quickly I need you to make sure that that this is that you you're adding these four things to the live stream with five minutes before we go live. Why do they ask that? Like, they don't understand that this is something that will probably take me seventeen minutes to do and I can't do it before we go live. Right? I'll certainly try to to do it. And so it's like, it's that, hey, I've got a quick question for you, Aaron, because I know that you provide this information already.

Chris Stone:
Right? But maybe you put it behind a paywall. Maybe it's like, you know, all of those kinds of things. Mhmm. There are accidental assumptions like you like you talk about. And so it's it's it all goes into that, hey, let's think about my audience, before I before I kinda toss this over, you know, the, the email interwebs on on that.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. And I often say to people, there's that phrase, imagine the real. Imagine the real for your your reader. And so when we think about our reader, we might think, who are they? What do they need right now? But what we might not think about is what are their daily hour to hour realities that they're dealing with, imagining the real, imagining for you, what would it take to add those five things at the last minute? Or if I'm asking recently, I was I had written a whole email to somebody, and then I remembered, oh, right. Their team has a massive deadline tomorrow. This is a really, you know, unproductive moment for me to send this email. I'm gonna wait till after project is done because it's not gonna help me or them have email now. So imagining the real, you know, what might that person be dealing with can also help us with those decisions.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right? And so we're right that that's the other cool thing about focusing on your reader is when we don't focus on our reader, then most of the decisions we have to make in our writing feel very arbitrary. You know, what order should I say my thoughts in? I don't know, ABC, BC, A, who knows? When you think about your reader, I'm going to start with what's most relevant to them. So, I no longer have sort of a random approach to my writing. And so thinking of your reader can actually give you answers about what decisions to make in your writing. Okay.

Chris Stone:
So So that you don't

Erin LeBacqz:
feel like you're just taking a shot

Chris Stone:
in the dark. Informational and relational thing and and saying and making sure that, what are what are my goals in this conversation? Right? And and I I have to deliver information, but I wanna make sure this person doesn't think I'm a jerk. And I wanna build that relationship and then be able to frame that around by using the ABC approach. You You know, Aaron, I I we didn't spend a ton of time on, on AI. And, I feel I feel like we should have, but I just I love to nerd out on this, on this on the writing because I feel like this kind of stuff is so important to utilizing, AI. You know? So if you're starting with a blank page and you're going and you're generating content, I don't it could be any content. It could be a blog. It could be, you know, show notes for a a podcast.

Chris Stone:
It could be any of that kind of stuff. The kind of stuff we're talking about, also relates to, to this. And and Val here says AI can imitate, but it doesn't feel readers often sense when something is too polished or generic. Humans pick up on the subtleties of empathy, humor, vulnerability, and lived experience. So if we could kinda go back to a, to to AI here a bit and really kind of, like, you know, maybe for the remainder of our time together, kinda talk about, this kind of stuff and, you know, what Val is talking about. Because I think it's I think it's important, for us to, you know, when we're getting all this content and it's you know, it's full of rocket emojis and delving and, all of these fun little words we've never said before, but it really looks great. Like, hey. This is some great content I I I can use all of a sudden.

Chris Stone:
Okay. What what that can do, for us, for our brands, and what we wanna accomplish in the long term? Any any thoughts on that?

Erin LeBacqz:
Okay. Yeah. Well, and I like the way Val put this where it might we might not know we're picking up on it. But subconsciously, as humans, you know, we're all about cooperation. So we might subconsciously notice, yeah, this doesn't have any human vulnerability or something like that, and I think it can be a turn off. I did have a few people say in that webinar that they forgive p they forgive us all for using AI. They know that it's a helpful tool. People don't feel like, well, I'm mad at you because you used AI.

Erin LeBacqz:
But when we leave the message sort of totally inept or not appropriate to the specific relationship, we're not showing that empathy, or vulnerability, people do notice. Yeah. And they're starting to feel, farther away. Right? Like, oh, this doesn't pertain to me. This is just a generic saying describing this topic, but it's not really for me. And by the way, it's kind of hilarious what you said because in that webinar, I think we had about a 70 people. So whenever we did a poll, it was, you know, some decent data. Right? And I had a poll up about what are the biggest giveaways.

Erin LeBacqz:
And people said that one of the biggest giveaways was sort of the overenthusiasm, over formality, over repetitive, you know, repeating a lot. And then somebody put in the chat because I did not have it in my poll. Yep. They said that their biggest tell is that dang rocket ship emoji that you just mentioned.

Chris Stone:
Thanks AI for killing the rocket emoji.

Erin LeBacqz:
From AI because I was a rocket shipper.

Chris Stone:
Yeah. Every apparently, everyone now is deep diving and delving, and everything's a game changer, and everything you know, thanks for killing the rocket emoji. We we appreciate, we appreciate that. Yeah. I just I think we just I don't think there's anything wrong with being tactical. I think too many people are just throwing everything into the into this pile. And you talked about it earlier, Aaron, rising above the noise. And it's so it's it's even more imperative now to to do that.

Chris Stone:
And it's hard when you see all of this other stuff and you and you and you you get that fear of missing out and you go, you know, look at all this stuff that I'm not doing that I should be doing. And if I hit this easy button, then I'm then I have more stuff. And I have in all of a sudden, there's a blog on my website and, I'm able to do this and I can automate this and automate that. But I think I think there's a there's a long term risk. Right? Because the Internet writes in pen last time I checked.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. It's true. It sticks around. People can go back and notice, and it then it's that it's another balancing act, which writing is all about. But, yeah, it's tempting, excuse me, to think, oh, if I could only put up, you know, a 10 paragraph article every week, things would be so much better. But what if every article was alienating a couple readers and you didn't even realize? Right? So there's a balance, and so I don't think that we have to approach it as all yes or all no. If I were writing something where I needed a little help and I'm gonna get a couple ideas from AI, maybe I'll use that paragraph for part of my email where I'm just explaining a little timeline. But if I also have a part of that email where I'm being empathetic about a personal relationship, I'll just write that part myself.

Erin LeBacqz:
You know? So pick and choose. We don't want our whole message or our whole article to sound like bot speak as people might say. Right? Because then it can send a message, they didn't care to personalize this for me. And it can then, you know, separate from you from your reader more. But I think by being choosy, I'll use AI to help me be clear and concise. But when it's an important moment, like, I'm supporting this person with something they told me was a really difficult project, let me write that paragraph myself. And just they'll feel, oh, that's a personal relationship. Right? So it doesn't have to be all or nothing, and it doesn't have to stop on our personal relationships even if we do use it up

Chris Stone:
to We're not thinking about potentially what what people are being alienated by this content. Right? So we're all we're thinking, like, look how much more, attention I might be getting. But we're not thinking about if we're taking that content, who might look at it and go, I don't trust this person anymore because this this doesn't feel, look, and sound like the person that I had been following all along.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yes. Exactly. And that was the number one thing. I didn't even mention it when we were talking about the rocket ship emoji, and I said about the giveaways of AI people, you know, very enthusiastic words and things like that. Then the winner of that poll was actually what you said. It was it doesn't sound like the person I know. And so, you know, that's not relevant when we don't know each other, but you're making a great point that even if we don't know each other through email, but you've been following someone, you very well know their tone and personality. And so it counts y'all very much like I didn't care to take the time with you

Chris Stone:
Got it.

Erin LeBacqz:
If all of a sudden that tone and personality is gone.

Chris Stone:
It's one of the worst things

Erin LeBacqz:
So that's the stereotype.

Chris Stone:
Can happen for someone who has some sort of, you know, influence where you got a you're a YouTuber or you're, you know, I don't know. You could be a musician or whatever. And I think there's, you know, if you're putting yourself out there, on video and you're a certain way and you have a certain way and then you actually meet that person in real life, and they're complete they're not that person. Right? They're just not that person. And you're and I get it. Like, if you're introverted, you know, you know, and maybe you're you're turning it up a notch when you do that. I I totally get that. But, like, you're just not the person at all that, that I thought you were.

Chris Stone:
It's it kinda goes back to as a as a editor, which is what I do a lot. I do it every day. I take videos and I I edit them. And I've had some clients, Erin, that, will say, hey. Take out all the umms, you know, or take out all the you knows. Take out take out this, that, and the other. And by the time I took out all of that stuff, it doesn't sound like that person at all. And I finally just had to I just had to go, listen.

Chris Stone:
Here it is like you are. It's

Erin LeBacqz:
not natural.

Chris Stone:
Right? But I'm gonna tell you what I think. This doesn't sound like you. And that's going to hurt you in the long run. So I think what we could do is if that person is not is not happy with their ums, not happy with their filler words, we'll work on your delivery. Right? Work on work on that. And then if I mean, obvious obvious ends like coughs or, you know, whatever, we can take those out. But, you know, when it comes to and I'm an machine. Nobody can like me, Aaron.

Chris Stone:
I promise you. Put me in a put me on, you know, in some in an contest, I'll win every time. But that's how I talk. And if someone has a problem with all my umms, okay. I I guess I I I guess someone does. Someone's gonna have a problem with something. So I'm I'm not gonna worry about it. And I think that I think building trust with your writing is is, like, the whole reason why we're doing it really.

Chris Stone:
Right? Or one of the biggest reasons.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right. Yes. I agree. And, you know, we can think of playing the long game. You know? Yeah. It takes a little more time to check whether the AI draft sounded like you or to write it yourself with just a tool here and there. But we're playing the long game. You know? We want people to trust us Right.

Erin LeBacqz:
Long term and build a real relationship, not just get through my task list today. And you know what you made me think of, Chris, when you were talking about how you might listen to someone and read them, and then all of a sudden you get this thing that that's not them at all? It makes me think that AI ed writing and that mismatch is almost like what we used to call sort of like someone have a had a professional headshot or even a dating site headshot, and you're like, was that forty years ago? You know? Is that and then you meet them in person. Right? So if we match that, don't we want to avoid that feeling where somebody goes, oh, this is you? Yeah. I thought it was this other thing that you had created as another persona almost.

Jim Fuhs:
That's a great point. Wow.

Erin LeBacqz:
Don't make people surprised when they finally meet you. Right?

Jim Fuhs:
I you know, Chris, that happened with, with Jeff Sheehan. The first time I met him in person, it was like I had been connected with him, and I told him this this guy, he's got, you know, hundreds of thousands of, followers on x, but his headshot was probably, you know, he he didn't have gray hair. Right? And and he's got a full head of gray hair and and it it actually made him change his picture because I was like, oh, I didn't know it was you. Right? And Right. And realtors, I think, are really guilty of that, but that's a whole another story.

Erin LeBacqz:
Well, and the flip side of of Jim's example there is that we can also use our authentic writing to get to know each other without ever even meeting. You know, so even today is an example, right? I had only met Chris, but Jim and I have exchanged LinkedIn messages and kind of written to each other a little bit since we scheduled this. So when I walked in here, I already felt comfortable with both of you. I already felt like, hey, we know what's up. We know what we're doing. We've already been connected. And so you can use your writing intentionally to create a new relationship. And that's another moment when you might think, yeah, I'm not gonna let AI do this part for me because I'm trying to make a relationship with this person.

Erin LeBacqz:
Right. So that when we do get to work on a project together, we worry about our way or whatever it is.

Chris Stone:
To, to close the time that we have together, Erin. This has been we can go for three more hours, for sure on the I know we covered, the gamut of the of of everything, but we didn't get into texts. We we touched on emojis. I'm glad we got the exclamation point thing, but I knew we were I knew we were gonna spend a lot of time time on AI. And, Aaron, I I can't I, you know, I appreciate everything. Again, I'm not I'm not blowing smoke and and saying that, you know, I haven't gotten a ton of value out of your content. I have, and I hope that, our audience did. In fact, I know they did.

Chris Stone:
And I just wanna tell you, I appreciate you, making our show better today.

Erin LeBacqz:
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to it. It's always fun to work together, and it's been great to talk with both of you today and get to share these ideas about really just the reality that we face when we write in today's world and we're writing to someone who's another living human being. So thank you so much for having me. Thanks for the comments and questions we got in the chat. That was wonderful.

Chris Stone:
Meeting everyone and you're watching. Go to highvaluewriting.com. Browse the ecourses. There's a I'm telling you, there is a ton and ton of stuff to, to get that's that's free. But, of course, there's some stuff if you want the real high value, the high high premium value. There's some there's some stuff there as well. And then, of course, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel, High Value Writing, as well, which is at at High Value Writing. Florence, we appreciate you, stopping by.

Chris Stone:
Florence, says, there's lots to go back and study. Yes. Yes. There is. And, we've got we've, how did you do this, Aaron? Aaron, you like, not only are you delivering all this value, but somehow, high value writing support is is chiming in and thank you for all the great, I know. I know.

Erin LeBacqz:
How am I?

Chris Stone:
Somebody else. I'm teaming the best team. Thanks for, chiming in and joining us today. And as always, everyone, don't fear the

Jim Fuhs:
gear. Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode. We love hearing from

Chris Stone:
our listeners and viewers. And if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at dealcasters.live. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel where we also included added content that you cannot find anywhere else.

Jim Fuhs:
If you have questions about this episode or have something you want us to review, you can also email us at dealcasters@dealcasters.live. Thanks again for listening, and you know the deal. Don't fear the