Relevance Archive - Page 13 of 20 - The Art of Communicating

The magic of a great story

That brilliant keynote speech that told a story about climbing the Mount Everest and inspired you to finally start your company.

That fascinating book that told the life of a pianoman and inspired you to never give up.

Or that YouTube video that showed you how to capture beautiful pictures and inspired you to capture some yourself.

It’s the magic of a great story.

We look at the hero but we see ourselves.

It’s also the source of confusion in storytelling and why many marketers get it wrong. It’s not about you.

You might be telling a story about yourself. But you’re telling it on behalf of your audience. So that they can project themselves onto the canvas of your story. Learn from it. Change their path based on what they see.

That’s why they listen to our stories.

If you want their attention

If you want to be seen by someone, see them first.
If you want their attention, pay attention first.

What are they proud of? What do they care about? What are their struggles? What do they desire?

Refer to it. Care for it. People love to have a conversation with other people about the things they care about.

When people want to be seen, they tend to speak a lot about themselves and ignore the fact that most people are concerned much more with themselves rather than with cheering for strangers.

Directing the light onto the people whose attention you seek is way more likely to get you their attention than directing it at yourself.

Most delicious

The bakery shows us one piece of each of their three most delicious cakes, each one more delicious than the other. Each one so delicious that we can’t resist. Each one so delicious that we’re dying to try the second one, too.

And when we come back, a week later, to try the third piece, we bring our friends. And the bakery will have enough cake for everyone. And maybe a fourth cake. And the next time, the friends bring their friends.

Too often we try to sell people a whole cake instead of a single piece … just an hour after they had lunch. So it’s no wonder they decline: “Thanks, but no thanks!”

Or maybe they are overwhelmed by the selection, all the more when we start to explain in excessive detail the recipes of all 32 cakes so that by number 25 they no longer recall number 7 (although they actually love cheesecake).

When we’re bursting with pride, we tend to speak far too much and listen far too little. We try to sell as much as possible and risk selling nothing at all. We oversell and overwhelm rather than satisfy and delight.

People don’t need to change their entire diet to eat our cake exclusively, let alone immediately. Let’s rather turn them into fans who come to us permanently and keep bringing new friends.

Sweat the details: What it really means

Focusing hurts. It means letting go of details. Details that we care about. Details that we feel we can’t possibly leave out. Details that are crucial to the conclusion that our product is superior to other offerings.

Here’s the catch: If you feel that you can’t leave it out because it would hurt your message too much, your audience will happily do it for you. There’s no way they will recall all of the 53 details that you’d like to share with them because you can leave none of them out.

There’s no doubt that the reason you are extraordinary at what you do is because you care. You sweat the details. You connect the dots.

But when it comes to communicating your product, there’s a crucial difference as sweating the details means something completely different.

It means condensing the details into a clear and concise message that’s the perfect summary of your details. A message that represents the details but is not just an enumeration of all the facts. Ideally, it’s a message that’s distinct from any other message because it’s only these details that lead to this message.

And so, focusing empowers.

If it absolutely has to be a meeting

A boring meeting is a great opportunity to catch up with unread mails. Sure.

But why not address the cause instead of the symptoms? Why not work to prevent boring meetings from happening rather than look for ways to re-use boring meeting time?

The best way is to turn it into a doing.

But if it absolutely has to be a meeting, here are a couple of ideas:

Cut the meeting time to one-third. And mean it. This is easy if everyone leaves out the boring two-thirds.
Take a vote 5 minutes into each presentation asking: “Do you want to learn more?” Only move on if the majority vote is “Yes.” (You will be amazed at how much relevance you can fit into 5 minutes.)
Use the Saari principle: anyone may ask “Who gives a damn?” at any time during the meeting. If the presenter or meeting leader doesn’t have an answer to that, the presentation is over.
Like Amazon, forgo presentations in favour of a study hall. Instead of presentations, employees prepare memos. Reserve (let’s say) 30 minutes at the beginning of each meeting exclusively to reading these memos.
Publicly rate the meeting as well as the organiser. This way you can quickly see who organises and leads meetings in a way that makes a difference.

Don’t give in to boring meetings, change them.
(And it always starts with ourselves).

The innovator’s communication dilemma

Many innovators spend an enormous amount of time trying to make us appreciate their innovation. After all, it’s the innovation that they sell and so for us to buy we need to understand how it works, right?

The problem, of course, with explaining an innovation is that it’s, well, new. Which is why it’s probably hard to understand. On top of the fact that a lot of people are not particularly eager to embrace the new.

And so, many innovators struggle with getting the love they feel they deserve.

A shift in perspective might help.

Because, after all, the innovation is likely a new solution to an old problem. Which is familiar to the audience. And easy to understand. They get it immediately because they feel the pain when you reference it.

And so, instead of making us get them, the innovator’s communication efforts might be better spent in getting us. Rather than making us appreciate their solution, it might help for them to appreciate our struggles.

Because when we trust that they do the latter, we might be willing to learn about the former.

Caution: Dangerous communication

Quite early in our lives we learn that when we fall from a tree, it hurts. We accustom to it and learn to be careful with which tree to climb.

Later we learn that fire burns our skin when we get close and so we accustom to it and learn to be careful with fire.

Even later we learn that an agenda slide is followed by a boring presentation and burns our time and so we learn to be careful with granting our attention to some communicator.

We rather tune out to think of more important stuff (or, to be more precise, what we consider to be more important).

Seems about time to remove some of the dangerous parts from our communication. And while we’re at it, turn it from a waste of time into a bargain. More concretely: How can you turn the 60 mins that someone is granting you into their best spent time of the day? And how can you turn your intro into something that makes this obvious right from your first word?

Start with WHAAAAAT?

When developing your story, it’s a good idea to start with why. But when delivering the story, it’s even better to start with “WHAAAAAT?” – with a question mark at the end.

What would irresistibly lead your audience into a WHAAAAAT?-moment? Something that makes them think “How is that even possible?”. Or “I can’t believe we never saw this, how did you discover it?” Or – if they are more of the cooler kind – just plainly: “That’s rather surprising. Tell me more!”

The WHAAAAAT?-moment is the reason that your audience is dying to know more. Because you’ve sparked their curiosity. You’ve hit the mark. Your intro is a promise that you’ve got something that’s really worth their time.

While others struggle with keeping their audience’s attention for even 2 minutes, your audience would riot if you stopped talking after your intro.

Status boosters

When you pass a new information along and when that information is in line with your reputation then the mere act of passing along can boost your status, e.g. …

You can be the first to know something, boosting your status as the person who always has the lastest info.

You can be the one who knows the research behind some finding, boosting your status as the person who others can trust.

You can be the one who knows the latest innovation, boosting your status as the one who knows all the cool stuff.

You can be the one who knows the latest gossip, boosting your status as the person who is well connected.

You can be the one who knows where to find the best deal, boosting your status as the clever trader.

You can be the one who knows a life hack, a path forward, a new idea, or many other different things … boosting your status in all sorts of different ways.

Aligning with this status boost is one of the most reliable ways to get others to pass our message along. What would it be for your message?

The two kinds of suspense

There are two types of suspense: artificial and intrinsic.

Artificial suspense is what TV casting shows do to you right before an ad brake. They could tell you but don’t – because they know that as soon as they’ve told you, tension falls apart and you walk away (possibly disappointed because the reveal fell short of the promise).

Intrinsic suspense is the opposite. It’s what great stories do. They do tell you! Because that’s precisely why you want to know more.

Revealing the information opens up your curiosity as opposed to shutting it down. It’s much more the start of a new thread rather than the end of the previous one. Rather than walk away because you got what you wanted, it makes you stay because you want to know what happens next.

The same can be achieved with a great marketing story – when your story is so relevant that your audience absolutely needs to hear more about it.

It could e.g. be an eye opener … exactly what they wanted to hear … just what they’ve been looking for all along without even realising it themselves.

And so they beg you to tell them more: How does that work? What would it cost? What would we need to change? What are the requirements? Is there more to it? Can this be applied to other problems? When can we start?

If your product is that good, if it’s exactly the product your customers have been waiting for, then you can skip artificial suspense. You don’t need to hold the best part back. You can reveal it because it’s precisely the thing that makes them want to know more.

In essence, the relevant question to ask is not “How do you make your topic exciting?” but “Why is that crucially relevant for your audience?”

And if it isn’t … then, sure, you can reach for artificial suspense. But the better approach would be to work on relevance.

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