The art of selling unsexy truths

Good (more like “mid”) morning, all.

I don’t know about you, but last week online was a bit of a downer for me.

It seemed like nearly every post I saw on LinkedIn was about some new AI thing. A workshop, a prompt, a whatever. 

Right now, a lot of people are working very, very hard trying to teach robots to act like humans. And it’s a doomed venture. The very definition of wasted effort.

I get it. People can be exhausting to talk to. But also,

And the results are appalling. I mean…

• Nobody wants to engage with generic, AI content.

• Nobody wants phony likes and comments on their posts.

• Nobody wants to have a conversation with an automated script.

This shit is scaring people off and disillusioning everyone who is left.

But here’s the thing. Annoyed as I am by this, I’m not a doomer. I smell opportunity.

There is no better time than now to start:

• building a personal brand

• putting out more content

• making new connections

But you gotta do it organically. No steroids, no diet gimmicks, just hard work and time. All natty.

Here are some suggestions:

• Find your voice. Instead of teaching a robot to write, learn how to fucking write. It’s a lifelong, inherently human skill (that means any monkey can do it) and one of the best investments you can make in yourself. Not just for business but for life.

• Instead of sending an automation out to spray and pray, take the time to find the people you want/need in your audience, and start adding them one by one. God forbid you get to know your potential clients!

• Instead of “cheating” to “go viral” in the feeds of other people like you who are also having trouble finding clients (I’m looking at you, engagement pods), take the time, however much it takes, to learn what would actually be useful to your desired audience and make content about it.

Some influencers are spending their valuable hours trying to get robots to write their content. It’s only just begun, but mark my words — their trust is in attrition, and they are sleeping on that. If they don’t wake up, they will fall behind.

There are a lot of people listening to those influencers and copying them. Mark my words — they’re doomed. Done before they even started. Don’t be one of them.

Do you care about authenticity and trust?

Then your time is now.

There’s an opportunity for new voices to sneak in and contribute real value with a brand new superpower: being a real person.

This is what brand and content are all about. Or what they should be about, anyway.

The time for distinct voices, strong opinions, and authenticity is not in the past.

It’s now.

People are dying for it.

Now for new subscriber housekeeping…

I’m Dusten, and I co-run a brand and content strategy agency called Zenpost.

This is Cool Story, where I summon my decade+ of content expertise to teach you how to write like LinkedIn’s top voices.

Each week, I tear down a post from one of LinkedIn’s most powerful personal brands, show you how it’s done, and give you a content template you can stick in your swipe file.

Let’s get to it!

This week’s post

We’re looking at Jon Brosio once again (see a previous breakdown of how Jon uses something called the BAB framework to create great posts here).

Here’s the post we’re picking on today:

Brilliant, Jon. No notes.

Now let’s learn something.

Here’s why it works:

I want to give you a quick reminder about the PAS framework.

PAS is a copywriting framework that stands for “Pain - Agitation - Solution.”

You start your post (or your ad or whatever) by harping on a client pain point. Then, you spend a few sentences making that pain seem unbearable (using your creative writing chops).

Finally, you present the solution. The solution could be a blatant advertisement for your services or something more subtle, like a free framework. It could also simply be a piece of advice to earn your reader’s trust.

Overall, we see the ingredients of the familiar PAS framework in Jon’s post here.

They’re just A) out of their typical order:

• The hook promises a universally relatable pain point

• He agitates the pain point before revealing it, keeping you reading.

• He agitates again after revealing the pain point.

… and B) Brosio adds a few “bonus” elements:

• The re-agitation takes a different form, presenting false solutions

• He shows that these false solutions lead to terrible outcomes

• This makes the real solution inevitable. (“everything else failed!”)

The fact that he modified the PAS framework in this way is totally kosher. Anybody, including you, can experiment with frameworks and templates and make them your own.

In fact, I encourage it!

When is this type of modified framework useful?

In this case, I think that this kind of modified PAS framework is useful when the real solution is very practical.

It’s a no tricks, no gimmicks solution. The unsexy solution.

The unsexy solution is a hard sell. Nobody wants to be told they have to eat their veggies. Or do more pushups and restrict calories if they want to look and feel more fit and healthy.

But it’s the unsexy truth. To get buy-in to an unsexy truth, you need to take your time making the pain as unbearable as possible and showing why all the other “easy” solutions are false.

What about the CTA at the end? Too promotional?

I actually like the pause before the nakedly-promotional CTA.

Sometimes you just gotta make the hard ask. But a lot of people feel weird about it.

Don’t feel weird about it. Jon just tacked it onto his post. If you get to the end of your post and go “I don’t think I set up my solution very well, if I talk about it now, it’ll seem weird…”

Not so!

Just add a line break and f***ing go for it.

Steal the template:

Think about an unsexy truth about your industry, and then use this framework to help design a post to promote your solution:

[tease universal pain point we all experience]

[additional line to tease the reveal]

[see more line break]

[mini list of consequences the universal pain point has wrought]

[consequence 1]
[consequence 2]
[consequence 3]
[add as many as you like, maybe up to 8]

Can you guess what the [universal pain point] is by now?

Get ready for it.

It’s …

[reveal universal pain point]

We do everything we can to avoid [universal pain point]

[mini list of false solutions to universal pain point]

[false solution 1]
[false solution 2]
[false solution 3]
[include as many as you want, up to 8]

But all we’re doing is guaranteeing [explain negative outcome from false solutions/how original pain point is unresolved or worse than before]

Here’s the unsexy truth…

To [solve universal pain point] you need to [reveal unsexy truth].

[optional — Add social proof, i.e., “this is how your favorite creator does it”]

Only if you practice [unsexy truth] will you finally [resolve universal pain point].

But that’s not all.

You’ll also [reveal better, more ideal outcome]

[encourage reader that they can do this]

[line break]

[CTA]

Use something like — “my clients don’t experience universal pain point. If you don’t want to experience universal pain point, click on this LINK”, but modify for your purposes.

Cool Story is FREE, but I do have a BIG ask…

I’m trying to grow the newsletter this year, so if you think others in your networks would benefit from Cool Story, please share it with them.

TWO more QUICK things:

• Let’s make sure we’re connected on LinkedIn, where I share tips for creating better, more authentic content every day. Hit the bell to never miss a post.

• If you’re a coach, consultant, or entrepreneur and you’re interested in investing in your personal brand on LinkedIn, Zenpost can help. When you’re ready, let’s find a time to chat.