craft-message

name

craft-message

description

Closes the gap between what you're trying to say and what your audience actually receives. Use when you know what something does but can't get it to land — landing page copy that isn't clicking, a presentation whose audience won't 'get it', a pitch that keeps getting 'but what is it?', a message to a colleague you can't phrase without friction, stakeholder buy-in, proposal pre-alignment, or lesson content that isn't connecting. Also use when drafting interpersonal messages — disagreements, negotiations, bad news, feedback, apologies, cold outreach, delegating, celebrating, or any email/Slack/text where the situation matters. Keywords: craft message, communication, message clarity, audience, positioning, stakeholder alignment, buy-in, prealignment, proposal, landing page, not resonating, make it obvious, email, slack, message, draft, compose, disagreement, negotiation, bad news, feedback, apology, decline, cold outreach, boundary, delegate.

Message Clarity

The burden of clarity is entirely on the communicator. When someone doesn't get it, the message failed — not the audience.

MANDATORY — READ references/frameworks.md before writing any copy or structured output (landing page, pitch, slide, email). It contains the PAS framework, three-level message structure, and the gap diagnosis process.

MANDATORY — READ references/stakeholder-prealignment.md when the user needs buy-in, proposal framing, objection handling, meeting prep, stakeholder alignment, or pre-alignment before a group decision.

MANDATORY — READ references/situational-composing.md when the user needs to draft an interpersonal message (email, Slack, text) for a specific situation — disagreement, negotiation, bad news, feedback, apology, cold outreach, etc.

Core Insight

Most communication fails because it describes the thing instead of the audience's problem. People don't recognize their own pain in feature lists.

The fix is always upstream: before shaping the message, find the conversation already happening in their head, and join it.

Process

Phase 1 — Identify who you're actually talking to

Ask:

• Who is the one person most likely to feel immediate relief when this lands?
• What were they frustrated by the moment before they'd reach for this?
• How do they describe that frustration — in their own words, not yours?

Personas with name/age/job title are useless for messaging. The only persona that matters: what problem do they have, and what language do they use when talking about it?

Deliverable: a one-sentence description of the person and their moment of pain.

Phase 2 — Find the gap

Lay both sides of the table:

What you're saying	What they need to hear
What it does / is	What problem it solves for them
Your framing	Their framing
Your vocabulary	Their vocabulary

The gap is the distance between the two columns. If the left side describes outputs and the right side is blank — that's why it's not landing.

Phase 3 — Shape the message

Lead with their problem, not your thing. The PAS structure works for almost every surface:

1. Problem — name the pain they already feel
2. Agitation — show you understand how it manifests (makes them feel seen)
3. Solution — your thing, now that they're ready to hear it

Then layer in the three message levels:

• Value — what's in it for them? Which problem does it solve?
• Unique value — what can only this do? What's its "onlyness"?
• Point of view — what do you believe that others don't?

You don't need all three for every surface. A landing page headline needs Value. A pitch to a skeptic needs Unique Value. A colleague message needs none — just Agitation done right.

Phase 4 — Test for recognition

Read the shaped message back through the audience's eyes. Ask:

• Does someone with that pain recognize themselves in the first sentence?
• Could they repeat back what it does after reading it once?
• Is there anything that requires inside knowledge to understand?

If any answer is no — return to Phase 2. The gap is still there.

NEVER

• NEVER start with features or outputs Why: Features only resonate after the audience has already agreed they have the problem. Leading with features forces the audience to do translation work — they won't. Instead: Start with the pain. Features are the proof, not the headline.

• NEVER use your vocabulary instead of theirs Why: Your words are precise to you and opaque to them. Precision doesn't help if they don't recognize the category. Instead: Mine the exact phrases they use when describing their frustration. Use those words verbatim. Research: social posts, reviews, support tickets, or just ask them.

• NEVER try to speak to everyone Why: A message shaped for everyone is recognized by no one. "Broad" reads as vague. Instead: Name the one person in Phase 1. Write as if they're the only reader. Others who share the pain will also recognize it.

• NEVER skip Phase 1 because you "know the audience" Why: The gap between assumed audience and actual audience is usually where messages die. Instead: If you can't write one sentence about their moment of pain in their words, you don't know the audience yet. Interview, observe, or read what they write.

• NEVER describe what a thing is when you mean to describe what it does for someone Why: "It's a communication clarity process" tells them nothing. "For when you know what you're trying to say but it keeps not landing" is a door they walk through. Instead: Reframe every noun into a before/after: not "what is it" but "what changes for the person who uses it."

• NEVER write a single draft for a high-stakes interpersonal message Why: One draft presumes you know what the sender is optimizing for. In high stakes, they often don't. Instead: Offer 2-3 strategies with different trade-offs. Let the sender choose. See references/situational-composing.md.

• NEVER pad with filler warmth Why: "Hope you're doing well" before a termination email is worse than no warmth. Incongruent warmth reads as manipulative. Instead: Warmth through specificity — reference something real, or skip it.

• NEVER write the message in the agent's voice Why: The message has to sound like the sender. Agent-voiced messages read as corporate and impersonal. Instead: Match the sender's demonstrated tone and vocabulary from the conversation.