Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 3-5 minutes
Howdy rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
Sam writes a weekly newsletter about making real pizza at home.
He started it after a backyard oven turned his weekends into a ritual.
He's convinced a great pizza is a Friday-night skill, not a chef's secret.
His readers know the feeling — bad delivery, and a craving they can't fix.
⛳️ Problem:
Sam opens every issue talking about himself.
His oven, his dough journey, his ten years of trial and error.
By paragraph two, readers have drifted — it's a story about Sam.
A year in, opens are sliding and almost nobody makes the recipe.
His problem: how to make readers care from the very first line.
🔥 The recipe
➡️ Make the reader the hero
Donald Miller is the author of Building a StoryBrand.
He argues most messaging fails because the solo entrepreneur casts themselves as the hero.
But readers don't care about your story.
They care about their story — and whether you can help them win it.
Miller's argument: the reader is the hero. You're the guide.
Open with their problem, not your bio.
Miller used the framework on his own company first.
He cut the message until the customer was the hero.
Once it was clear, revenue doubled four years running.
🚗 The steps
🦸 Step 1 — Name what the reader wants.
Start with their desire, in their words.
Not what you offer — what they're trying to get.
Sam writes down what his reader wants.
A crispy, blistered pizza on a Friday, better than delivery.
That's the hero's goal. The issue starts there.
🧭 Step 2 — Position yourself as the guide.
You're not the star. You're the one who's been there and can help.
Show empathy first, then authority — briefly.
Sam cuts his ten-year origin story.
He keeps one line: "I burned a hundred pizzas so you won't."
Empathy and proof, in eight words.
🗺️ Step 3 — Hand them the simple plan.
Give the hero a clear next step toward what they want.
Three moves, not thirty.
Sam ends with the plan, not a memoir.
"Tonight: hot oven, thin dough, less sauce."
The reader knows exactly what to do next.
The prompt below rewrites your message with the reader as the hero.
You just tell it what your reader wants and what you help them do.
🧸 Reader as hero + you as guide = a message people actually act on.
🏄♀️ The prompt
Save this prompt as a Skill or add to Project in your favorite AI tool — build once, use often.
Update your input values in the prompt or just run as is, your AI sidekick will use the example values and will give output.
CONTEXT:
- (use what's available, fall back to the inline values)
- If my Voice Profile exists, write in that voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If my ICP / Audience doc exists, target that reader. Otherwise, use the audience below.
Inputs:
What my reader actually wants (their desire, in their words — the win they're chasing):
{e.g. a crispy, blistered homemade pizza on a Friday that beats delivery}
The bio/story I keep leading with (the about-me stuff I open with that's really about me):
{e.g. my pizza oven, my ten-year dough journey, all my trial and error}
The simple plan I can hand them (the 3 moves that get them their win):
{e.g. hot oven, thin dough, less sauce}
For Audience: {e.g. home cooks who are tired of bad delivery and crave a real pizza they made themselves}
For Outcome: {e.g. a rewritten opening + a clear plan that makes the reader, not me, the hero}
Outputs:
1. The hero's goal — one line naming what my reader wants, in their words, that I can open with.
2. My guide line — a single empathy-plus-proof sentence (max ~12 words) that replaces my long origin story.
3. The simple plan — the 3 clear steps I hand the reader toward their win. Plain verbs.
4. The rewritten opening — the first 3-4 lines of my next issue, reframed so the reader is the hero and I'm the guide.
Then point out the ONE place I'm still making it about me, and how to flip it.
One reader's goal named up front.
One bio shrunk to a single guide line.
One clear plan the reader can act on tonight.
That's it, my fellow outliers!
Yours 'finding high-potent AI lazy automations so you work less and enjoy life' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️