| Dear Chase, I wrote an email months ago now about how writing styles exist on a spectrum of Relatability ←→ Authority When writing, everyone is always somewhere on the spectrum. I think everyone knows how to be relatable. It's easy. Most people ARE relatable. Easy-going, low-pressure, personable content. I've found that very few people are actually authoritative in their writing. The type of writing where reading it makes the audience feel like you're better than them and smarter than them in every way. If you can pull this off properly, you gain respect, status, and credibility. Which brings in dollars. I'm not THE most authoritative writer ever, because I'd much rather be relatable. I try and walk a line where I'm at 50/50, and when I go too far into authority writing, it doesn't sound like me. Instead, I want to showcase what someone by the name of Brute De Force has done, and we can study him instead. Authoritative writing is not really a thing you can just copy and paste. It comes from an authoritative state of mind. It's the type of writing where you have to actually be that guy (or gal) before you can write like that guy (or gal). Brute does a handful of things really well, even if you disagree with them. Take these 3 principles and incorporate them into your writing if you're trying to be more authoritative, Chase: 1. If you have a stance on something, make it stronger than anyone else's. In the industry, this is what we like to call "frame". Two people can think two opposite things, but the person who believes in it the MOST will always be right. Nothing else matters. If you have a stronger frame than someone else for your argument, and you have more conviction, you win the argument. You do this by avoiding words that make you sound unsure. "I think" "Perhaps" "Maybe" "You might want to" "You should" When you write like this, you sound like you don't really believe what you say. See what I just did? I caught myself saying "you don't really believe" when I could have just said "you don't believe". Add that to the list. "Really" I could've backspaced that out, but I want to give examples of how average words can make a difference in the way you come across when you write. 2. Instill your strongest stances into your audience. If you're a leader, you have authority. People always think of leaders as the individual that leads an army to battle. But it's 2023, and you're reading this on a $3000 MacBook. Ain't no battles going on anywhere near you. Nowadays, to be a leader, you lead with your thoughts. You need to reiterate what you believe to be true, and say it as many times as it takes for it to penetrate the minds of your audience. Sometimes, one good tweet can accomplish this. Other times, you need to repeat yourself for 3 months before the message gets across. If you have values that you believe are good for society, state them loud and clear. Persuade people to follow you. People in your audience will then refer to their own thoughts about a certain subject matter as "your thoughts". They'll recall a thing that they believe, and then they'll remember that it was a Chase Dimond tweet. And now you have prime real estate in their head. They will not forget that. 3. Teach them things that they genuinely did not know before. Right now, you can stand out by being original. We see so many of the same platitudes over and over on Twitter, and it's kind of exhausting. If you can deliver a message in a new way that hasn't been recycled by everyone else, you have an advantage. Sometimes, this requires you to go out on your own and live life so that you can bring messages back. Get yourself into trouble and then learn something, so you can teach a unique lesson to your audience. At the end of the day, authority is earned. It cannot be faked, and it cannot be bought. So if you're going to be this type of writer, you're going to have to battle test your ideas before you write them, no matter how good of a writer you are. You've spent 5 years of your life building an email agency that has done half a billion in revenue for your clients. I can only imagine that's why you're the #1 authority in the email space. Battle tested. Yours truly, Alex. I think this was perhaps sent from my iPhone
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