If you’re like most bloggers, you’re making two huge mistakes with your content. You’re suffering from both qualification and respect when you write.

You’ll need to leave both of those behind if you want to be a successful writer with high conversion rates. The only way to write powerfully is to be bold, and to write boldly you must stop qualifying yourself and being overly respectful.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what you’d be reading right now if I had written the opening of this post in a qualified and respectful manner instead of boldly.

Writers often struggle to make their points effectively. It can be difficult to be precise and respectful while still being bold enough to persuade. Being precise and respectful has the advantage of not lowering any of your readers’ opinions of you. Being bold has the advantage of persuading more people and increasing your conversion rate. Either choice is valid; it’s up to you which one you choose.

Which opening is more likely to engage you and persuade you?

Don’t qualify. Be bold.

Here are some concrete examples of rephrasing things from qualification (”There are several things”) to bold (”There is only one thing and this is it”).

Example 1

Qualified version

I’m going to talk about two very important words and explain why those words are so crucial. I hope that this will help you be a more effective blogger.

Bold version

By the end of this post, you will be a more effective blogger, all because you learned two very important words, and the specific reasons why those words are so crucial.

“Can I really know that the reader will be a more effective blogger? Maybe they won’t put it into practice. I’d better qualify that statement, because it’s not 100% true when I think about it.”

No, you can’t know for certain. But if you strive for 100% qualified accuracy, your writing will end up reading like a dry academic paper or a technical instruction manual. Few will read it and zero will be moved by it.

Example 2

Qualified version

There are many factors that can affect buying decisions. But in my experience, I’ve found that prospect fear is the most important factor that can cause potential customers to choose not to buy.

Bold version

There’s a hideous troll hiding under the bridge. Every time you get close to making a sale, the troll springs out and scares your prospect away. Get rid of the troll and your copy will start converting better than it ever has before.

The ugly, smelly, dirty, bad-mannered troll is prospect fear. And it’s sitting there right now, stinking up your landing page and scaring good customers away.

This example uses both imagery and boldness, but again sacrifices academic precision. Which opening makes you want to read more?

Don’t be respectful. Be bold.

It’s difficult enough to stop qualifying everything we say, now we’re about to make an even dearer sacrifice: respect.

Example 3

Respectful version

Five Grammatical Errors that May Detract From Your Credibility

Bold version

Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb

Will they really make you look dumb to everyone? No. But if you add a “may”, a “sometimes”, or a “to some people” every time you want to avoid offending someone, you’ll end up with a very respectful wet dishrag that is so wishy-washy it will flop to the floor the instant you wave it in anyone’s direction.

Wet dishrag version

Five Grammatical Errors that May Sometimes Make You Look Dumb to Some People

Example 4

Respectful version

There are lots of ways to make money, and many of them might work for you. One way that I’m going to talk about today is solving real problems.

Bold version

If you want to make money in the real world, solve real problems.

In these examples, the author risks pissing off the readers.

“I make those errors. Are you saying I’m dumb?”

“I want to make money from advertising instead of solving real problems, are you saying I’m wrong? Are you disrespecting my choice?”

Write for the fence-sitters.

When writing to persuade or advise, there will always be three groups of people:

• those who agree with you
• those who disagree with you
• those on the fence

Write for those on the fence. Ignore the other two groups.

If your goal is to get people to stop making grammatical errors, the people who already agree will say “Yup, good post,” and move on. The radical descriptivists who call you a fascist for attempting to dictate how others use language are going to disagree with you no matter how well-written your copy is.

But those on the fence can be convinced. Those on the fence can be sold. (And as a bonus, you’ll automatically appeal to those who agree with you.)

Study these examples. Practice rephrasing things boldly. Find or write an example of something wishy-washy and rewrite it boldly. Find an example of something bold and rewrite it wishy-washily more precisely or more respectfully. Let’s practice together — you can improve your writing skills right now in the comments section.

Be bold. It’s the only way to make a difference.

About the Author: Pace Smith, generally a qualified and respectful person, is the co-author of The Usual Error, a book about communication and relationships, and the co-leader of the Freak Revolution, where she and her wife Kyeli are boldly changing the world.

I used to think being “right” was a big deal.

I had to say the right thing, dress the right way, know the right people, read the right books, live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school. It wasn’t because I wanted to, exactly, but because I thought it was a prerequisite for success.

If you want other people to respect you, then you have to look and sound a certain way, right? Makes sense, if conformity is all you’ve ever been taught.

What no one tells you is the cost. Yes, conformity gains you a certain type of approval from others, but it comes at the cost of losing your sense of self.

You have to systematically search out everything that’s a little bit “off” about you and bury it as deep as you can. You know that you can’t get rid of it — it’s a part of you, after all — but maybe you can hide it so deep that no one will ever see it, so that a world that only respects the “right” will never realize how “wrong” you really are.

Maybe, just maybe, you can fool everyone until you’re in a position of power and no one’s opinion matters anymore. Then you can be free. Right?

Umm… no.

The Power of Misfits

The people we pay attention to aren’t the masters of doing what’s “right;” they’re the misfits who have the courage to be wrong. They take whatever everyone else is doing in their industry and turn it inside out.

It’s not just about differentiation; it’s about perverting the norm, destroying sacred traditions, and screwing with the way people think. It’s about doing, saying, or living something that’s so completely unexpected that people can’t help but pay attention.

It’s about realizing that most people spend their lives breathing stale, recycled air, and then spending the remainder of your life finding and opening windows to make that air new again.

• Who would’ve thought a movie that told a story backwards would become a cult classic that people would talk about for decades? But that’s what Christopher Nolan did with Memento.
• Who would’ve thought paintings consisting of nothing more than splattered paint would sell for millions of dollars? But that’s what Jackson Pollock did with his art.
• Who would’ve thought a Jewish guy from the UK would become famous by playing an anti-Semitic, socially-retarded Kazakh? But that’s what Sacha Baron Cohen did with Borat.

The one trait they all have in common: the courage to be wrong.

The Fallacy of Right and Wrong

By saying “wrong,” I’m not saying you should pander for attention, make lewd jokes, or otherwise do something bad. What I’m saying is you need to realize “right” and “wrong” exist only between quotation marks. Every day, the world decides their definition, and every day, we have the opportunity to influence what that definition becomes.

Revolutionaries don’t just burn the rules. They write new ones. In destroying the standard, they create the standard. It’s creative destruction at its finest.

Will some people dislike you? Sure, that’s the way it works. Real leaders are willing, even eager, to be disliked and even hated, not because it makes them feel important, but because they know it’s the price of change, and no one can pay that price but them.

Do you have that kind of courage?

If not, it pays to find it. No one pays attention to a coward for very long.

And if all you do is what’s “right,” then a coward is exactly what you become.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on Twitter.