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Welcome to your 35th issue of the Quiet Empire Newsletter. Your newsletters will be arriving in your in box every Tuesday and Saturday (Specifically chosen because for most of us, Mondays are chaos and Saturday is a good catch up day)
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Here's an uncomfortable truth: your readers give you about 26 seconds.
Smart Brevity is the methodology born in the Axios newsroom — rooted in deep respect for people's time and attention. It works just as well for internal comms, executive updates, and change management as it does for news.
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The goal isn't shorter. It's clearer. And clearer gets results.
In today’s issue:
A question someone asked me recently has stayed with me:
“Is it possible to sell without feeling like someone else?”
He wasn’t failing.
He wasn’t new.
He was just tired.
He had done what many thoughtful people eventually do—
followed the standard advice long enough to realize it didn’t fit.
Launching.
Counting down.
Creating urgency that didn’t feel earned.
None of it was dishonest.
It just wasn’t him.
What wore him down wasn’t the work.
It was the performance.
When we talked, I didn’t suggest optimizing anything.
We didn’t add energy.
We removed pressure.
And something unexpected happened.
When he stopped trying to persuade, people began to respond.
Not with excitement—
with relief.
That’s when I started thinking about something we don’t say out loud often:
Most people don’t avoid buying because they’re skeptical.
They avoid buying because they don’t want to be pushed.
Especially people who have experience.
Especially people who’ve said “yes” before—and regretted it.
What works better, I’ve found, is quieter:
Explain what you believe.
Show how you think.
Let people decide when they’re ready.
No urgency.
No performance.
No sense that something is about to disappear.
Just clarity, offered calmly.
This isn’t about selling less.
It’s about selling without tension.
If something you’re offering feels heavy to talk about, that’s usually information—not a flaw.
You may not need more persuasion.
You may just need a way of speaking that matches who you are now.
If you’re curious how I personally approach this—without launches or pressure—I’ve written more about it here.
It’s there if useful.
Thank you for spending time with Quiet Empire this week.
—Patrick