It’s not really hard to come up with a great slogan that grabs someone’s attention.
What’s hard is to come up with a slogan that’s true to who you are and grabs the attention of those people you seek to serve.
The former problem requires some creativity. The latter requires empathy. The crucial difference? You can buy creativity. But you can’t buy empathy.
The most common reason for people to feel uncomfortable with their way of communicating is that they use words they don’t believe in.
For all sorts of reasons.
Some speak to professionally designed slides that look beautiful but are out of touch with their personality. The agency just didn’t get them and so it’s out of sync with what they really want to convey.
Others don’t really trust that their story resonates. They are unsure what really matters to their audience. Which translates to their body language so that their audience can’t find trust in their words, either.
Some tend to use an overly formal way of speaking because that’s supposed to be the professional way. It leads to stiff language that’s out of sync with how they feel.
Others lack a feeling of clarity so that they are unsure that their audience gets their point. The least sign of misunderstanding on someone’s face leads them to become even more nervous.
When you don’t really trust in the words you use to have the impact you seek, it shows. Training for better body language is one way to deal with it. But a very tedious one. (And often in vain.)
A much better approach is to take one step back and work on your story. Improve clarity. Work hard to find empathy. Find your own voice. And Brief your partners accordingly.
Finding a story that you trust in yourself so that you speak words you believe in about the things you deeply care about is the best way to feel more comfortable with the way you communicate.
So, the next time you feel uncomfortable speaking up, ask yourself whether you’re about to use words that you truly believe in. If not, work on the words first.
Meetings are corporate hell. Let’s switch to doings instead. What’s the difference?
Meetings have an agenda, doings have a goal.
Meetings are about conversations, doings about results.
In a meeting, we commit to what we want to do. In a doing we commit to what we do.
When a meeting is over, the work starts. When a doing is over, the work is done.
There is tremendous value in bringing people together in a room, on- or offline, and have them co-create solutions for our problems. Trouble starts when we stop short of creating something. When we meet just for the sake of it … because we always meet on that day … and it’s all words and no result.
When scheduling your next meeting, I suggest that rather than starting with “What will we talk about?” you start by asking “What will we do?”.
When marketers rave about one of the greatest ad slogans of all time, they tend to overlook the most important piece.
I’m speaking of the iPod ad: A thousand songs in your pocket.
A lot has been said about how brilliant it was to translate 3GB into 1000 songs. Because what’s 3GB, right? It can’t be overstated how much better 1000 songs is than the default tech slogan of “The 3GB MP3 player”.
And yet, the “pocket” is way underappreciated.
If the slogan ran like this: “The MP3 player that carries a thousand songs.” … it would still be better than “The 3GB MP3 player” … but not even close to Apple’s version.
What the “pocket” does is that it translates the slogan into a story. With this device, you can carry your whole music library (back then) in your pocket. It’s not about the device at all, neither 3GB nor MP3 (or AAC, for that matter).
It’s about you! You are going to have your entire music library with you. How cool is that?
Now, how does your product transform your customers life? Don’t stop at translating the numbers. Translate it into a story that relates to our life.
Imagine you meet a good friend of yours for a beer. You tell them about your newest idea.
As they respond with a blank stare, you try a different way of explaining the idea because it’s like Google just for screws. (Or whatever it is in your case.)
In a 1:1 conversation we’re brilliant at coming up with analogies like that. We naturally find simple words to explain complex things. We use examples from our partner’s domain so they can easily translate what we mean.
Back in the meeting room, we forget everything about that. We stick with abstract language and generic, eloquent sounding words – because, well, that’s the professional thing to do.
I don’t think that’s true. I feel like the professional thing to do is to speak with clarity. Using words our audience can relate to and easily understand.
Private conversations are a great way to practice that. Taking what we learn there back into our professional world often leads to way clearer language than the alleged professional language we’re used to in meeting rooms.
Quite early in our lives we learn that porcelain breaks when it drops onto the floor.
A fact, that one of my clients used to great effect in one of his presentations. He was speaking about their new sensors which were made of porcelain – as opposed to metal.
You might wonder how durable porcelain as a material is.
Well, quite durable.
His presentation was right after the coffee break. So, he brought his (empty) cup of coffee with him. He spoke a bit about the drawbacks of metal surfaces.
Then he took the cup. Told the audience that the new sensors were made out of porcelain. Walked a few steps towards a table.
And. Smaaaashed. The cup. Against. The. Table.
BAM!
The whole audience held their breath. Did he really just smash that cup?
Well, no, he didn’t! Because the cup endured. Porcelain is, in fact, quite a bit more durable than we intuitively think – if you know how to handle it.
You can imagine that afterwards, the audience was quite eager to listen to the facts about the new material and how to make it work for them.
What are unexpected properties of your product? How could you demonstrate them?
Amazon has a pretty ugly site. It’s overloaded and cluttered. There are hundreds of places to click with several competing calls to action. In design school, their site would utterly fail. Back to the drawing board.
And yet, the site works rather well for Amazon, I’d argue.
So, who’s wrong?
Well, the better question to ask is: What’s wrong?
The metric is.
For Amazon, it’s not about elegance but about conversion. All that counts for Amazon is the numbers and the numbers tell them all they need to know about UX and UI design. If that’s true for you, your time is likely wasted if you obsess over beautiful.
But for others that might not be true. For them, it’s not all about conversion. It might be about trust, sustainability, elegance, quality, influence, reach, or any other metric.
It pays to be clear about your metric before you obsess about what to optimise.
“This is me! This is exactly what I’m struggling with. This is exactly what I desire.”
And thus, you have my attention. I feel seen and heard. I feel like you get me. Which makes me curious to hear what you have to say.
Most marketing stops short of this … at “What’s in it for them?” It’s the obvious question to ask. People are likely to buy from you when they get more out of the deal than what they paid for.
And yet, it’s a question that remains stuck in the selfish interests of the marketer. I build something and then I want to make you buy it. So, I’m looking for reasons that could persuade you to buy. The underlying assumption is, though, that I’m doing this deal primarily in my own interest and that I’m just looking for ways to make you agree to it.
It’s a much different approach to first see and hear our customer. To get them. And then make them an offer that’s unmistakably for them. That solves a struggle that actually matters to them. One that’s primarily in their best interest.
It’s also easier. Once you adopt this perspective it becomes the obvious thing to do.
In many companies, it’s the most valuable office space. It’s the place where connections are made and ideas are born. It’s where information is passed on: The coffee lounge.
A common remark that’s made there goes something like this: “Have you heard about X? It does Y! It relates to our problem Z!”
Ans so, one of the most useful questions you can ask yourself when working on the message that you want people to pass along about your product is this:
“What would Taylor tell their colleagues in the coffee lounge about it?”
Taylor won’t share what’s important to you. She will share what feels important to her. Most importantly, she will decide what that is. And she will pass it along using her own words.
You’ve had your chance during the pitch to make your point and tell your story. But then, it’s Taylor’s turn to decide to bring it into the coffee lounge and pass it along.
The good news is this: If you’re aware of that, you can craft your story accordingly.
So, what would you like Taylor to tell her colleagues? Why would she? Your task is to bridge that gap.
If I forced you to remove one message from your website, your speech, your sales deck … what would it be?
Why that one?
Would your audience miss it? Take notice? Or even appreciate it?
So, will you actually remove it or will you make it stronger instead?
