Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 3-5 minutes
Hello rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
Faye writes a weekly newsletter about building cheese and charcuterie boards.
She started it for a simple reason.
A good board turns any plain night into an occasion.
To her, a great board is arrangement and confidence — not a fancy budget.
And her readers? They want exactly that — a showstopper, minus the stress.
⛳️ Problem:
Faye writes clever, wordy issues — puns, flourishes, the works.
She's trying to sound impressive, like a "real" food writer.
But readers skim past the cleverness and never make a board.
A year in, her open rates are fine and almost nobody acts. Ouch.
Her problem: how to write so readers actually use what she shares.
🔥 The recipe
➡️ Useful, not clever
Picture a friend showing off a fancy word at dinner, right?
You smile, you nod — and two minutes later you forget it.
But a friend who hands you a tip you can use tonight? That one sticks.
Turns out content works the same way.
That's what Ann Handley built a career on.
She co-built two multimillion-dollar media companies, ClickZ and MarketingProfs.
MarketingProfs alone teaches over 600,000 marketers.
She also wrote Everybody Writes — a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
Her take: most content tries to sound smart instead of being useful.
Clever impresses for a second.
Useful gets remembered and acted on.
And get this — she runs every line through one question.
Can the reader actually DO something with this?
Take a cheese article. "An ode to the humble brie" sounds pretty.
But the reader just nods and forgets it — nothing to act on.
Swap it for "the exact brie-to-cracker ratio for a party platter."
Now they can build the snack tonight. That line gets remembered.
🚗 The steps
✂️ Step 1 — Cut the clever for the clear.
Think of a closet stuffed with clothes you never wear.
You can't find the one shirt you actually need, right?
Wordy issues are the same — the good stuff is buried.
Delete the puns and flourishes that don't help the reader do anything.
Faye reads her last issue with a red pen.
Out go the wordplay and the long windup.
What's left is shorter and far more useful.
🔧 Step 2 — Make every line do a job.
Picture a backpack for a long hike.
Every item you pack has to earn its weight, or it stays home.
Each sentence should teach, show, or move the reader forward.
If a line doesn't earn its place, rewrite it or cut it.
Faye checks each line: does this help them build a board?
The clever metaphor doesn't.
The exact cheese-to-cracker ratio does.
🍽️ Step 3 — End with one thing they can do tonight.
Think of a good coach at the end of practice.
They don't give you a speech.
They give you one drill to go run.
Hand the reader a single clear next step they can take today.
Cleverness ends in a nod.
Usefulness ends in a board.
Faye closes with one move.
"Tonight: one soft cheese, one hard, one jam, one cracker. Done."
Readers actually build it and send photos.
The prompt below rewrites a clever issue into a ridiculously useful one.
You just tell it the topic and what you want the reader to do.
🧸 Useful over clever = content readers 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:
A recent issue I wrote that felt clever but didn't get acted on (paste it, or describe what it covered):
{e.g. my "ode to brie" issue — lots of cheese puns and a long personal story, almost no one made a board}
What I actually want the reader to DO after reading (the concrete action):
{e.g. build a simple cheese board tonight with stuff from a normal grocery store}
The clever habits I lean on (the flourishes I add to sound impressive):
{e.g. puns, long windups, fancy food-writer vocabulary}
For Outcome: {e.g. the same issue rewritten to be ridiculously useful, ending in one clear action}
Outputs:
1. The clever-to-cut list — the specific lines and habits in my draft that only show off, with a note on why each can go.
2. The usefulness pass — my key points rewritten so each line teaches, shows, or moves the reader forward.
3. The one tonight-action — a single clear step to end with, so the reader does something instead of just nodding.
4. The before/after opener — my opening line rewritten from clever to useful, so I can feel the difference.
Then name the ONE clever habit I should drop for good because it's costing me action.
One clever flourish cut for clarity.
One issue where every line does a job.
One clear action readers take tonight.
That's it, my fellow contrarians!
Yours 'making sure your AI sidekick handles the grind and you don't do boring stuff anymore' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️