Show the Work
A claim about what you do is not what you do.
Concept
Replace Claims with Artifacts
A soft pitch fails when the reader cannot tell what you actually did for someone.
Claims are cheap. “I help engineering teams ship faster” costs nothing to write and costs the reader nothing to dismiss. Artifacts are evidence. “Last month I cut a team’s PR review cycle from 4 days to 1” is a specific thing the reader can picture, and the picture does the convincing the claim could not.
The revision pass: find every claim about what you do and replace it with the artifact behind it. If you cannot name one, you cannot claim it.
Annotation
Why It Works
- Four claims become zero claims and one artifact. The Before holds four category statements. The After holds one specific thing the reader can picture: a 600-word Notion doc that replaced 8 standups with 1 async update. Specificity earns trust because it is too detailed to be flattering.
- Verb shift. Before: “help,” “bring,” “transform,” “have helped.” After: “rewrote,” “replaced,” “shipped.” Category verbs say what kind of work. Artifact verbs say what happened.
- The ask matches the artifact. Before ends with “let’s chat” — a generic invitation. After ends with “send me what your standup looks like and I’ll send back what it should look like” — an exchange sized to fit the artifact above it. A soft pitch converts when the offer is so specific the reader can take it without feeling sold to.
- Numbers do the lifting. “14-person team,” “8 standups,” “1 async update,” “600 words,” “two features.” Each number replaces a sentence of vague claim. The reader does not have to take your word for any of it.
Practice Assignment
The Artifact Pass
Take a soft-pitch post you have already written, or draft a fresh 100 to 250 word post about your work.
Highlight every claim about what you do. For each claim, write the most recent specific instance underneath. Then rewrite the post replacing the claims with the instances. The post should be made of things you actually did, not categories of work you do.
The app will flag vague nouns and weak claim verbs while you draft. During revision, tick off the checklist before you call it done.
Revision Checklist