This One Mistake Might Be Scaring Readers Away From Your Writing

13 Apr 2025 #writing

Imagine stepping into a restaurant, only for the waiter to say, “You don’t seem to have enough money to eat here.” Would you stay? I know I wouldn’t.

Never, ever, blame your readers.

That’s a mistake I’ve learned to avoid in my own writing, especially when writing sales copy for landing pages.

Instead of blaming your readers, make them feel heard and understood.

The other day, someone tried to sell me access to an online community and shared his landing page. The headline? “You didn’t go to Harvard. You didn’t apply to McKinsey.” He was trying to sell leadership coaching.

Another day, someone shared the landing page of a fiction writing course he was preparing. The headline? “You don’t know how to tell good stories.”

I didn’t want to continue reading past the headline of those two pages. I felt like a schoolboy getting on the bus, walking down the aisle, hoping for someone to smile back—only to be ignored or bullied.

A headline should attract the right audience.

But we should attract the right audience without making them feel dismissed or rejected.

Someone who feels dismissed or rejected stops reading, and worse, they won’t buy.

A couple of alternatives for those landing pages:

• “You don’t need to spend 4 years and pay Harvard tuition to be a leader people want to work with.”
• “It’s hard to tell good stories. I tried plenty of templates and frameworks. None of them worked. Until I learned this method.”

Boom! Just like that, no more pointing fingers at the reader. Would you keep reading if those two were the headlines? After all, nobody likes being blamed.