Experts Archive - The Art of Communicating

Caring on behalf of your customer

When you’ve got an important story to tell, it can be super-hard to focus on a clear and concise message. It really hurts to leave out the details. After all, it’s precisely because you care for the details that your product is so extraordinary.

It’s also the reason we buy from you. We buy from you because you care for the tiniest pieces and sweat the details.

But I myself don’t need to know all the details. I don’t need to become an expert in your craft myself to appreciate your craftsmanship. I don’t need to become an artist myself to admire your art.

On the contrary: I want you to be the expert so that I don’t have to become one. I want you to tell me the essence of your story so that I can decide for myself whether I want you to dig deeper. What’s easily overlooked: If I don’t want you to dig deeper, it might not mean that I don’t care. It might just mean that I trust you to care on behalf of me.

Digging deeper

Yeah, sure, inspire me!

But please don’t stop there.

At every corner of the internet, people want to inspire us to reach our true potential, our next level, you name it.

We find short talk formats that provide a glimpse into exciting topics. TED has spearheaded that movement with great videos that let us skim the surface.

We find stickers, images, and inspirational quotes on Instagram and other networks.

But you know what I actually prefer: to dig deeper. To understand things. To connect the dots. To commit.

Inspiration might be an initial flame that gets one started. But what good is it if we ever only get started. If all of us are inspired, but none of us actually travels to the finish line to understand the deeper meanings, complexities, and relationships of things? If we never reach anywhere meaningful?

The willingness to dig deeper and the ability to communicate what you’ve discovered is a skill that becomes more important as the addiction of surface skimming is multiplied by the social networks.

What’s a topic where you dig deep?

Know it all, know it quick?

It’s the default mode in Q&A: Know it all and know it quick. The common intuition is that as an expert you just have to have a good answer quick. Because if you don’t, your status may be challenged. Because – so the reasoning goes – how would you be an expert if you didn’t know that right away, right?

I think the opposite is true.

If you take your time to come up with a well thought out answer rather than give me the first answer that pops to your mind. If you admit that you need to fill in a gap and then let me observe how you come up with connecting dots while thinking out loud. And if your response then will make so much more sense than the quick answer, then that will actually raise your status.

Because it shows that you treat your audience with respect. It proves that you’re not in it for the show but for the cause. It’s evidence for that you’re looking for the right answer rather than the quick answer.

Audiences appreciate it being served well a great deal.

SEARCH

Explore

Work with me

Connect

SUBSCRIBE

Caring on behalf of your customer

Digging deeper

Know it all, know it quick?

Spread the Word

Dr. Michael Gerharz