Assumptive Questions: Answer What Your Reader Never Asks

Your reader has a question you will never see

In the early 1960s, Avis was number two in car rental. Hertz was number one. Every customer at the Avis counter had the same question.

Why rent from number two? Avis answered before anyone asked. "We Try Harder" became the motto in 1962.

It ran for 50 years. The biggest weakness became the best line.

Most guides on assumptive questions teach a sales close. Fine on a call. A salesperson can hear a doubt; a page cannot.

Your reader has her own Avis question. Why you? She will never email it to you.

Most people scan web pages instead of reading every word. So she fills the gap herself. Usually against you.

An unanswered question is not neutral. It turns into a no later.

The whole method: type each silent question in red, answer it on the next line, delete the question. We call it the Red-Question Edit.

What are assumptive questions?

Assumptive questions are questions you treat as already asked, so you give the answer and skip the question. In sales the term means a closing question that assumes the buyer said yes. You will also see it called presumptive questions or assumptive language.

The worst offender is filler copy that asks instead of answers. "You might be wondering why the scale won't move."

Wondering? She steps on that scale every morning. Of course she's wondering.

The line sounds like a script. Worse, it lets her pick the answer.

Our take: "You might be wondering" is a copywriter stalling. It is polite bullshit.

That is the trap of a rhetorical question on a page. She can answer it the wrong way. And you are not there to correct her.

How to make a reader leave in four easy steps:

1) Open with "You might be wondering."

2) Raise doubts you never answer.

3) Hide the price.

4) Ask for a phone number with no reason.

That is not copy. That is a list of reasons to leave.

The Red-Question Edit: six steps for any draft

The Red-Question Edit is a six-step pass that answers every question a reader would ask, without printing it. It works on a page, an email or an ad.

Step 1: write down the one belief your offer rests on. What do you assume about your buyer? Example: "women over 30 have a harder time losing weight."

Under it, write one line on how your offer differs from what failed before. Most red questions are doubts about those two lines. So your answers keep pointing back to them.

Step 2: type each question in red. Read like a stranger. Wherever she would think "says who," type her question in red.

Step 3: answer it on the next line. Open with "The reason..." or "That's why..." so it reads as a reply. Not a speech.

Step 4: tie the answer to something she already knows. A bare claim gets checked against her memory. If her memory disagrees, the claim is dead.

Step 5: delete the red question. Read the line above and your answer together.

If they read as one thought, you are done.

Step 6: sweep your body copy. Use Find and replace in Google Docs to search it for question marks and "you might be wondering."

Every hit is a question you asked instead of answered. A question mark in body copy is homework you handed the reader.

What are some examples of assumptive language?

Assumptive language reads like a reply to a question nobody had to ask. The first two rewrites come from a live edit of a sales page. The third, like every made-up example on this page, is ours.

Rewrite 1, the scale. Before: "You might be wondering why the scale won't move."

After: "And still, after all of it, the scale won't move. The reason it won't move is..." Same doubt, no script.

Rewrite 2, the promise. Red question: "What are you going to show me?" The answer, in one line: "Here is how to lose the weight that would not move, so you can finally trust the scale again, without another crash diet."

Then a second red question: "Do I have to count calories?" The fix was four words on the end: "and no calorie counting."

Rewrite 3, an email. A roofer emails past customers: "We offer free inspections this month." Red question: what's the catch?

After: "The inspection is free for a simple reason. Most roofs we climb only need a repair, and the ones that need more are the jobs we want to quote."

Free with no reason reads as a trap. Free with a reason reads as a deal.

Start each answer with an opener, then add a truth she has lived

An opener like "The reason..." tells her a reply is coming. So her mind waits for it. The table has eight.

The opener is half the job. The other half? A truth she already knows.

Her mind goes looking for evidence anyway. Make sure it finds proof from her own life.

For example, a good pitch to freelance writers does not ask if clients were easier to find two years ago. It tells them: back then any event got you paid work, and now you are one of 50 people applying for every job.

It does not ask them to remember. It tells them what they remember. Their memory agrees.

It works like letting a prospect reach the claim on her own.

Forms are the only place you ask the reader a question, and each needs a reason

On a form, you have to ask. You need the answers. But when a stranger asks, it feels like he wants something from her.

Her first thought? What do you want from me.

The fix is one short line under each field that says why you ask. For example, one business saw booked calls rise about 30 percent after adding them. That is one example, not a measured result.

Big asks need real reasons. In a 1978 study by Langer, Blank and Chanowitz, a filler reason got people to let a stranger cut in line at a copy machine for a small favor.

For a big favor, it did nothing (the paper's own table). Small asks forgive filler. Big asks don't.

A phone number is a big ask. Baymard Institute found that a short reason next to a required phone field settles most shoppers' privacy worries. The UK government tells form writers to know why you are asking every question and only ask what you need.

Our take: a lot of forms ask for a phone number because sales wants it, not because she needs a call.

Our rule: small field, short reason. Big field, specific reason. Or no field.

The reason lines from our example form sit below. Adapt them.

One more question earns its spot, right after they book, when they care most: what outcome do you want from this call? Her answer tells you what to cover on the call and in each reminder. See setting expectations before the call and the reminders that get people to show up.

Two ways the edit goes wrong, and the fix

People like the page but do not buy. The cause is a page that hides every objection.

Our take: most pages hide objections because the writer is scared of them. The reader is not fooled.

So remove the questions, never the objections. Name one real objection in her words. Answer it on the spot.

Sales stay flat, so you keep adding. One sales page converting around 1 percent had tried everything. Recordings of real visitors showed people scrolling straight past the offer.

Watch your own visitors with a free tool such as Microsoft Clarity. Note where they speed up. The stuck question usually sits right above that spot.

Remove or replace one line there. Do not add five more. More copy is not more answers.

Delete quiet doubts, and voice loud ones once

Answer quiet doubts without printing the question. A loud doubt your page itself creates gets named once in a skeptic's words, then answered in the next line.

And forms are the only place you ask the reader a question.

Quiet or loud? Ask one thing: did my own page cause this doubt, so every reader will notice it?

Yes means loud. No means quiet.

One video script said people with a winning formula never share it. Then it offered to build one for others. Loud doubt.

So the fix named it. A skeptic asks how this is different, and the writer explains.

A page that dodges its loudest doubt is not confident. It is hiding, and the reader damn well knows it.

If you cannot answer a loud doubt honestly, delete the line that caused it. More on that in what not to say in copy.

Pre-answer only what is true

A pre-answer is an answer to a question the reader has not asked yet. A true one shows respect. A false one is manipulation.

We do not publish filler reasons. We do not invent scarcity. We do not write answers built to stop a reader from thinking.

Fake scarcity is not urgency. It is a lie with a timer.

Never pre-answer with something that is not true for most of your customers. The FTC expects ad claims to be truthful and backed by evidence.

And never write a loaded question, one that assumes something the reader never accepted. "Why are you still losing customers?" Says who?

Meta's personal attributes policy rejects ad copy that asserts or implies things about the viewer, such as a health condition. So "Struggling with your weight?" can get an ad rejected before anyone reads it.

Run it with AI

The prompt below runs the whole Red-Question Edit in your preferred AI. It asks for the belief your offer rests on, then your draft. You get back the edited copy and a list of facts only you can confirm.

It never makes up a reason or a number. Where it needs a fact, it writes [CONFIRM]. The truth stays your job.

This week, do three things. Run it on your main page and fill every [CONFIRM] with a true fact. Then run it on your booking form and use the reason lines it writes.

Then one email you send often. Check the result against the six questions every landing page has to answer, or have us run the pass as part of our conversion work.

Avis never asked customers why they should rent from number two. It just answered. Do the same, one red question at a time.