Week 3: Pricing the Ask
A vague ask moves work onto the reader. This week is about pricing the ask instead.
22 February 2027
The subject line gets an email opened. What happens after that usually comes down to the ask. This week’s failure mode is the vague ask, and the argument is that it doesn’t fail because it’s rude. It fails because it hands work to the reader that the reader never agreed to do.
Before the lecture
This is just to get a quick understanding before the lecture. The examples and the rest are in the lecture, so it’s advisable you attend.
In brief#
A vague ask forces the reader to work out what you actually want, how long it will take, and whether it’s worth their calendar, before they’ve even decided whether to help. That cost lands the same way whether the email is polite or blunt, which is why politeness and cost turn out to be different things. Readers usually give up on a vague ask before they’ve judged whether the idea behind it is any good. The fix is to price the ask, not to write around it more nicely.
Outline#
- politeness and cost aren’t the same axis
- the three jobs a vague ask quietly hands to the reader
- the three-question rubric: answerable in one sentence, cost known, specific next action
- worked example: vague ask vs. priced ask
- how this connects back to week 1’s “give the reader enough to decide with”