Last week, my snarky LinkedIn post about the em dash went viral: over 170,000 impressions, 2,800 reactions, 948 comments, 49 reposts, and a handful of in-bound leads — and counting! So, naturally, it inspired the content for Write to Lead: Issue 002.
(Boring) punctuation is killing your message.
Wouldn’t it be great if your office memo had folks on your team buzzing about it ALL-DAY-LONG… or if your slack message got every single person in the channel to react with a party parrot emoji…or if your LinkedIn post got over 700 comments and brought inbound leads?
But the problem is: Writing important messages that receive a cricket’s applause is exasperating and expensive. If your people aren’t reading it, they aren’t aligned. You don’t want to spend your precious time writing messages for your team, your organization, your network, your people, when you know people aren’t processing it — let alone being impacted by it.
The micro-lesson: Transform your message into powerful words with impact by leveraging this simple strategy: Knock ‘em dead with a killer hook; bring ‘em back to life with lively punctuation.
A killer hook is a knock-your-socks-off opening line that immediately grabs the reader’s attention and pulls them in to want more.
Lively punctuation emphasizes your style, voice, pauses, cadence — basically bringing your words to life as if you were actually speaking them.
The graphic below offers a refresher on a few fun punctuation options (‘cause you gotta know ‘em to use ‘em).
And here are some killer hook examples using lively punctuation:
Last week, a client asked me to remove an em dash because it’s an AI “tell”—I immediately quit on the spot.
I used to think 'professional' meant 'acceptable'... until I realized my 'unprofessional' posts were the ones actually making me money.
Most compliance emails are where productivity goes to die (I’ve seen the stats); this one is the exception that keeps us out of court.
When used intentionally, punctuation helps you to write like you speak — to sound more like you.
Here’s why this matters:
Writing with killer hooks and punchy punctuation is WAY more fun than boring ol’ soundin’ like everybody else.
Folks’ll know it’s really, truly, genuinely you behind the keyboard strokes. (Case in point: I’ve yet to see AI spit out a sentence combining ‘folks’ and ‘will’ into an Appalachian contraction as I just did. Now ALL-ya’ll know the real me!)
Put it into practice: Spice up the next piece of writing is on your list with a funny or shocking opening line. And add in some colorful punctuation to really make it hit. And yes, you can do this even with informational messages! Actually, the more boring the topic (looking at you, Q3 Compliance Updates), the more it NEEDS a killer hook. (Don’t know how? I can help!)
How’d it go? I’d love to read what you come up with! Tag me on LinkedIn or reply to this issue to share it with me. I’d love to help you refine it (if you want), or just cheer you on. I’d doubly love to hear how it is received by your audience!
And if you’d like help bringing your message to life with a writing coach or a ghostwriter, snag a 30-minute chat on my calendar. I’d love to explore a partnership!
P.S. Random Things I’m Loving This Week
Olympic Figure Skating. The talent, the outfits, the strength and agility. Just — WOW!
The Harry Potter Lego sorting hat that my daughter got for her birthday. It talks! Gotta be…Gryffindor!
The winter wonderland that is my backyard — about 15 inches of snow in the last 2 weeks.