The tiny asset with outsized sales impact (the one-pager)
Everyone calls them one-pagers, but they're lying to you. It's two pages on one sheet of paper—front and back.
That's twice the space and half the excuses for why yours sucks.
I've been writing one-pagers that sales teams actually use. Not the ones gathering dust in your Google Drive. The ones that get forwarded to procurement, shared with CTOs, and folded in half to take home from conferences.
Most one-pagers are garbage because marketers treat them like mini brochures instead of what they really are: the espresso shot of B2B sales content. Short, strong, and designed to give someone exactly what they need to decide if they want more.
The 30-second test that matters
Picture this: Someone walks up to your booth at a conference. They'll give you 30 seconds—actually, more like 10—before they decide to escape.
You could hand them your 47-page white paper about industry transformation.
Or you could hand them something they'll actually read.
A good one-pager answers five questions before they finish their coffee:
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?
Why should I care?
How does it work?
What do I do next?
Miss any of these, and you've just created expensive recycling material.
Why constraint creates clarity
You get one double-sided sheet of paper. That's it.
No room for your "nice to have" sections. No space for marketing fluff about being a "leading provider of innovative solutions." Every word has to earn its spot or it gets cut.
This isn't where you test your new AI-generated clip art collection.
I start every one-pager by asking two questions:
What should the reader think after reading this?
What should they do next?
If the content doesn't serve those goals, it's gone. Be ruthless. Your prospects don't have time for your corporate poetry.
The five types that actually work
Stop trying to make one universal one-pager that does everything. That's like making one shoe that fits everyone—technically possible, practically useless.
Product one-pagers: What your solution does, what problems it solves, how it works. Simple.
Industry-specific one-pagers: Show how your solution applies to their exact vertical. Speak their language, not yours.
Campaign one-pagers: Support a specific initiative, launch, or trade show. Timely and targeted.
Pain-point one-pagers: Twist the knife. Remind them why their current situation hurts. Position your solution as the cure.
Comparison one-pagers: Feature charts with green checkmarks and red X's. Sometimes being obvious works.
Pick one purpose. Execute it perfectly. Move on.
Design matters (but not how you think)
A wall of text isn't a one-pager…it's a reading assignment nobody asked for.
Good one-pagers are clean, visually balanced, and actually branded (not just your logo slapped in the corner). Key stats get visual priority. Quotes break up the text. White space keeps it approachable instead of looking like the back of a Lucky Charms box.
Your one-pager should look good enough to hand to a CEO and clear enough for an intern to understand.
Bad one-pagers are easy to spot:
Walls of text that hurt to look at
Generic language that says nothing
No clear action to take
Features listed without context
Outdated information from 2019
They make people sad. Don't make people sad.
The distribution reality check
You're not building an entire campaign around a one-pager. It's a supporting actor, not the star.
But your sales team better know exactly when to use it:
Attach to that cold outreach email
Drop in a LinkedIn message
Hand out at events (with confidence, not apologies)
Follow up after first meetings
Forward when someone asks "can you send me something quick?"
The best one-pagers are the ones sales reps actually want to use. They're excited to share them because they answer real questions the market is asking. They're accurate, helpful, and aligned with how the team actually talks about the product.
I recently wrote one-pagers for a client's sales team. The reps started sharing them immediately. Even people not in sales got excited about having content that actually answers specific market questions. That's when you know you've nailed it.
Stop overthinking, start shipping
One-pagers aren't complicated. They're the quick handshake before the real conversation. The appetizer before the meal. The trailer before the movie.
Make them sharp. Make them useful. Make them something a busy person would thank you for creating.
Need a one-pager that doesn't end up as conference trash? I write the ones people actually keep. anthony@edifycontent.com
