Yo! Welcome back to The Reeder Newsletter — your weekly dose of content strategy and growth advice. First time reading? Subscribe here.
Your deal's ready to move. Except the VP still hasn't seen a demo, and she's booked until next month.
That's why deals flatline. Not with a "no," but with a calendar invite that never finds a time that works. Consensus AI lets you send a demo that travels. One link, and the CFO who "doesn't have time" is watching at 11 PM. And you get notifications about who's engaged and who they're sharing it with — including stakeholders you didn't even know existed.
I’ve reviewed and edited every type of content on the internet.
Even more lately, because I’ve been running audits and advising for SaaS companies. One of the most common questions I get when editing someone else’s work is: Is it too long? To which I reply: there’s no such thing. Yes, content can drag on like a Netflix series that should have stopped in season two. But I don’t care about word count. I only care about avoiding boredom. Howard Stern taught me that. To my surprise, he didn’t grow his net worth to $400M just by being the most controversial man in radio. No. It’s because he could feel when his audience was tuning out (pun intended). He explained his success on a podcast earlier this year: “[I had] a connection with an audience where I was intuitive and thinking I could hear when they're turning off the radios. If [a guest] gave a long answer or it wasn't moving fast enough, the rhythm wasn't right, I could hear the radios clicking off.” His entire business model was based on attention and ratings, so he avoided this at all costs. I do the same. If I’m bored reading my work, I know you will be too. But it ain’t just radio. The best movies in the world are long as hell. The Godfather is nearly 3 hours long. Bollywood movies — the most viewed movies in the world BY FAR — are often longer than three hours. So how do they get away with it? They never let their audience get bored. They remove “dead air" — the lulls that allow our brains to wander. When I edit my newsletter, podcast, or LinkedIn posts, I edit and cut ruthlessly. Nothing is sacred because the stakes are too high. As Chris Lochhead profoundly said, "People don’t have a short attention span; they have a short consideration span." It’s not enough to win attention. We must keep it too. So don’t worry about length. Focus on pace. That keeps readers reading, watchers watching, and listeners listening. Speaking of preventing readers from getting bored…
If Howard Stern can hear when people tuned out, I can see it in your content. That’s what my Content Audit does — it shows you exactly where readers stop caring. (And spot the gaps between your content output and your marketing goals.) Let’s fix that before your next launch. You can schedule time with me right here. It could be the difference between missing or exceeding your Q4 goals.
Status Quo Kills More Deals Than All Your Competitors Combined
Jen Allen spent 18 years in sales before becoming a keynote speaker, podcast host, and founder of Demand Gen. She's known for her no-BS approach to defeating the status quo — and for building one of the most engaged audiences on LinkedIn without acting like every other "expert." She joined Reed Between The Lines in Chicago and revealed:
The exact framework Jen uses to decide which brand deals to accept and which to decline (spoiler: money isn't even on the list until you check these five boxes first).
The #1 mistake that 90% of people make when leaving their corporate job (Jen made it too, and it cost her 9 months of unnecessary doubt).
Why Jen walked away from a deal that would've paid "so much money for so little work"—and how this counterintuitive decision tripled her brand value in 6 months.
The "iceberg principle" that lets you change buyer behavior without ever attacking what they're currently doing — master this and objections dissolve before you even meet them.
The writing principle that helped Jen win million-dollar deals selling commoditized pumps and valves — by never mentioning her product until the prospect was already convinced.
