Week 3: Pricing the Ask#
A vague ask doesn’t fail because it’s rude. It fails because it moves work onto the one person who didn’t agree to do any.
What this lecture covers#
- what a vague ask actually costs the reader
- why politeness and cost aren’t the same axis
- a three-question rubric for pricing any ask
- a vague ask and its priced rewrite
What a vague ask actually costs#
“Would love to pick your brain sometime” hands the reader three jobs the writer skipped:
- figure out what the meeting is actually for
- estimate how long it’ll take
- decide whether that’s worth their calendar
Three small taxes, paid before they’ve even decided whether they’re interested.
Politeness and cost aren’t the same axis.
Politeness and cost aren’t the same axis#
“No pressure, whenever works” reads as considerate to the writer.
To a reader working through fifty emails, it reads as an open-ended commitment with no shape, harder to say yes to than a small, bounded one.
The rubric#
- Could the reader say yes in one sentence, no clarifying question needed?
- Do they know roughly how much time or effort saying yes costs them?
- Is there a specific next action, or does yes just open a negotiation?
An ask that fails any of these has moved cost onto the reader.
Talk to your neighbour#
Take the rubric’s three questions. Apply them to a meeting request you’ve actually received. Which one does it fail first?
From: [Sender]
To: [Recipient]
Subject: Quick chat?
Would love to get your thoughts on what we’re building whenever you have a moment. No rush at all!
Fails all three rubric questions.
Priced instead#
From: [Sender]
To: [Recipient]
Subject: 15 minutes on whether our pricing model fits a team your size
Fifteen minutes this week on whether the pricing model in [specific link] would work for a team your size. Happy to send three times that suit you.
Not shorter out of virtue. Shorter because vagueness was doing the padding in the first draft.
Predict, then watch#
Before you compare them: predict which of the three rubric questions the priced version answers that the vague one doesn’t. Then check: it answers all three.
Recap#
- a vague ask moves three unpriced decisions onto the reader
- politeness doesn’t offset cost; it can disguise it
- the fix is pricing the ask, not just shortening or softening it