Lead with the insight your reader can use today. Prove it with one real story. Stop when the point is made.
That’s the whole method. Everything below is that sentence, dissected.
Twenty years of writing blog posts, and a fair number of drafts pulled apart and rebuilt along the way, keep circling back to the same handful of moves. Not theory. What actually works when a small business owner needs something useful before they close the tab.
This particular blog post I co-wrote with Claude after giving my assistant all my work and asking it to identify my principles; some obvious, some implied. I’m happy with this reflection on my approach, that I’ve been living and teaching and honing since 2004. I hope you find it helpful.
Insight First, Story Second
Most people write a blog post the way they lived it: beginning, middle, end, and the lesson right at the bottom, if the reader is still there.
Flip it.
Open with the actionable insight, stated plainly, in the first two sentences. Not a teaser. The actual point. Back it up with one real, specific story, names, numbers, sensory detail, not a vague composite. Then spell out what it costs the reader if they ignore the insight, and what to do about it.
A busy reader decides whether to keep reading within the first two sentences. Bury the payoff at the end, and most people never get there.
For example, years ago I noticed a church noticeboard saying: Jesus is the only answer, Sunday, 6pm. I kept driving, then realised that what I just saw was a form of blogging. There was a claim or idea and it was going to be published at a certain time and date. I wrote an article reflecting on how priests have been blogging for thousands of years, starting with that story. I later shifted that so it led with the insight that blogging is tapping into an enduring part of human storytelling, and THEN shared the story that led to that insight. Both approaches can work, but in this age of constant scrolling, I think the latter is stronger because we get the vision first and then implicitly give permission to have the story base rolled out.
Find The Deeper Idea
The first draft insight is usually the shallow layer.
Here’s the test: does this talk down to the reader, like explaining that two plus two equals four? If yes, the real insight hasn’t been found yet, only the obvious one.
Take a story about a tradesperson who kept rescheduling a job. The first-draft lesson is “be reliable.” True, but thin, and a little patronising. Push one more “why.” The real failure wasn’t time management. It was that he never once wondered what it was like to be the person waiting on him. He had no theory of mind about his customer. That’s sharper, less obvious, and it respects the reader’s intelligence instead of lecturing them.
Ask “why” one more time than feels natural. Borrow a concept from outside marketing, philosophy, literature, psychology, whatever genuinely fits, to reframe the everyday problem.
One Story, Not Ten
Resist piling up examples to prove the point. One well-chosen, richly specific story does more work than five thin ones.
The story should be real, specific, and load-bearing. If the story could be deleted and the article would say exactly the same thing, it isn’t doing its job. Extra resources or a short second example can extend the value afterward, but they support the spine story. They don’t replace it.
Titles That Work Both Angles
A purely clever title can be a great idea that never gets clicked. A purely accessible title can get the click and undersell the thinking. The fix is a double-barrelled title: an accessible hook first, the sharper idea riding shotgun as the subtitle.
A few other title habits worth keeping:
Odd numbers test better than even numbers in list titles. They read as more considered, less padded.
A specific, visceral image beats an abstract phrase, if there’s a genuinely strong one available. An oversized, famous reference cut down to size works well too: borrowing something famously long or serious and promising brevity from it creates its own small joke.
Voice: Grounded Authority, Never A Lecture
Earn authority with specifics, not adjectives. A number of conversations, years, or projects carries weight. “As an expert” does not.
Watch for manufactured profundity, any sentence built on negating one idea to assert another. It sounds clever on the first read and hollow on the second. Delete it and say the true thing plainly.
When describing a failure, whether someone else’s or your own, critique the behaviour with something closer to affectionate exasperation than judgement. Gently rolling your eyes while smiling, not delivering a verdict. That’s what keeps a reader on side rather than defensive, especially when the failure is one they might recognise in themselves.
The Close: Action, Not Just Insight
Don’t end on the observation. End on what the reader does next.
Weak: “Think about your customer’s experience.”
Strong: “Block two hours this week and clear three outstanding jobs.”
Give two or three specific, doable actions, each small enough to start today. A short line echoing the opening insight makes a good final beat, once the practical value has already landed. It’s the mic drop, but it comes after the value, not instead of it.
What This Means For AI Search, Too
The same qualities that make a blog post work for a human reader are exactly what an AI engine needs to extract and cite it correctly. A plainly stated insight in the opening sentences gives an AI tool a clean, quotable answer. A specific, factual story with real numbers and details is easier to summarise accurately than a vague, generalised anecdote. A concrete, numbered close gives an AI a clear list of actions to lift.
A post built to serve a human reader well, insight first, one true story, plain language, specific actions, is also a post built to be found, understood, and cited correctly by the AI tools more and more people now ask instead of searching.
A Checklist Worth Keeping
Before publishing, run any draft through this:
- Does the first two sentences state the actual insight?
- Is there one specific, real, load-bearing story, not three thin ones?
- Has the obvious lesson been pushed past, to the sharper one underneath?
- Is the title double-barrelled, accessible hook plus the smarter idea, rather than dumbed down or too clever to click?
- Has every sentence that sounds like it was written by no one in particular been cut?
- Does the close give two or three specific, doable actions, not just a vibe?
Twenty years in, that last question still catches the most drafts. If a smart friend would find it obvious or patronising, there’s a sharper version underneath waiting to be found.