Make Your Message Stand Out

Most people speak a lot but say very little.

We all now value someone who is more efficient with their communications. When someone can say something useful, interesting or powerful in a simple, clear way, we see that as valuable.

My challenge is to speak the minimum amount but say a lot. Doing this will greatly impact every room you are in. You will become memorable.

In this article, I aim to explain why this is the case and give you a framework to help you achieve this.

Why is this important?

In a busy world full of voices, the ability to cut through the noise and be heard by your target audience is invaluable. A shorter, simpler, clearer message gives you a better chance of achieving this.

I believe the explosive rise in popularity of TED and TEDx talks is evidence of this. Prior to the TEDx phenomenon, scientific or similar talks were long, rambling and detailed. When TED said talks had to be 18 minutes or less, it forced speakers to be concise and intentional about what they said.

But this takes work.

People are surprised when I tell them that the 15 minute talk they just saw at our TEDxRuakura event resulted from 3-4 months of weekly coaching.

This is because it is counter-intuitive. We assume that something which takes longer to deliver takes longer to prepare when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. Given time, we can find a way to our message, but in a time constraint, we must find a direct way to the message that still makes sense and has an impact and cut everything we find unnecessary.

Those who can deliver a simple, clear, impactful message quickly are giving their audience a much more powerful experience.

Philosophy

The message needs to be as efficient as possible to get cut through. To be truly efficient, it needs to be tailored for the intended audience.

If you have a technical message you want to deliver to a technical audience, you will likely find it relatively easy. You have a shared language or jargon that acts as a shortcut for various concepts or procedures. The audience familiar with this will have no problem cutting to the heart of your message.

However, the challenge is much greater if you have a technical message you want to deliver to a non-technical audience (such as most TED talks). You will need to deliver that message in a very different way.

So, the philosophy you must adopt is to create the simplest, clearest and most impactful message tailored to your audience.

Strategy v Tactical

It is impossible to talk about the effectiveness of efficient communications without understanding the Strategic and tactical considerations. If these considerations are not addressed effectively before you start the writing process, you are wasting your time.

Strategic objectives - What is the overall outcome or vision you are working to achieve? Big picture, like “End World Hunger”.

Tactical objectives - How does this message fit into your Strategy, and what is the objective of this particular message?

To put that into an example:

Strategic objective: The vision is to stop hunger.

Tactical objective: This message is to a local audience, and I want to raise awareness of the local issue around hunger. The objective is to raise funds for the local charity food kitchen, and the goal is to raise $2,000.

When aligned, an overarching vision adds power to your message. And a clear path can be discerned between your immediate message and your overall vision.

The more specific you make your objective for your individual (tactical) message, the more likely you are to achieve some success. In the example above, if the talk raised only $1,800 for the local charity kitchen, that isn’t a failure. It is a success that can be improved upon.

It doesn’t have to be a monetary goal, but it should be a measurable goal. That might include getting x number of people to sign up for the newsletter or to volunteer. It might be getting people to download your free lead magnet or test-drive your service.

Without a tactical objective, creating a message that ultimately leads nowhere is easy. This doesn’t help you or your audience.

So, do not start writing your message until you are clear on your tactical objectives for the message and how it fits with your overall strategic objectives. - This is contained in the first level of the Pitching Pyramid: Clarity.

Almost 80% of my coaching clients express frustration or anxiety as we work through this clarity stage. Because it is work, it takes effort, and they feel as if nothing is accomplished because they haven’t started writing their script yet.

However, once this is done and we are deep into writing their script, they see the value, as it becomes easier to determine what to keep or cut simply by looking at their objectives.

Creating Your Efficient Message

Once you have your specific objective defined, you need to ask two questions:

1. What does your audience need to know to take this action?

2. How does your audience need to feel to take this action?

The Knowledge Gap

Your message will always be addressing a knowledge gap of some kind. Because if they already knew the information you are sharing, they would already be taking the action you want them to take.

They are either missing some information, or they are misinterpreting some information that they have. Either way, this is the knowledge gap you must address.

To clarify this knowledge gap, you must determine what the audience already knows or thinks they know. This will take a little research, some thinking and discussions with the audience or their proxy.

The most pivotal information that will cause them to act becomes your simple message's core. Everything is built around that.

Any additional information is only there to support the core message. This might be to put it in context, to explain the concept or its importance. If it doesn’t support that core message, it is cut. -You can use it another time.

Emotion Drives Motion

Action comes from emotion. If all you do is close the knowledge gap, you may get a few people to take the action you want, but to make a bigger difference, you must add some emotion to your communications.

All too often, people think of communication as information void of emotion. That is one-dimensional communication and has limited effectiveness. To be impactful and compelling, your message must be wrapped in a suitable emotion to drive people to action.

What is the right emotion to use for your message?

There are many emotional angles from which you can approach any subject. I don’t believe there is a right or wrong approach; rather, there are more or less effective approaches.

If we take our example of the local charity kitchen, then we could opt to use one or more of the following:

• Guilt

• Outrage

• Compassion

• Hope

• Benevolence

Each of these has its own pros and cons.

Guilt is an easy lever to use. Many of us have been conditioned to respond to guilt by parents, spouses and others. So it is likely to be quite effective in the short term. But using guilt can create resentment, and if you want help again in the future, you are less likely to get it because people will consciously or subconsciously remember that you made them feel guilty. And they will try to avoid feeling that again.

Outrage is a powerful emotion which can be directed towards action. I would consider using this early in the message to get attention and arouse emotion, but I would prefer to have my call to action on a positive emotion rather than a negative one.

Depending on my audience, I would likely use Hope or Benevolence as the emotion to encapsulate my call to action.

Benevolence is something I would use for an audience who may already feel a sense of responsibility or guilt to wash any negative feelings away for them.

Hope would be used to show a vision of the future and bring them along as a change maker to bring that vision to reality.

Conclusion

To get your message to stand out, to cut through the noise, it needs to be simple, clear and impactful. You must be clear on your overall objective and specific outcomes from this message to accomplish this.

Your message must address the knowledge gap between your audience and the action you want them to take.

You must encapsulate your message in an appropriate emotion that will drive your audience to take action once you have addressed their knowledge gap.

Let me know if this resonated with you or if you think there is more to cover in the comments. Please get in touch if you want help crafting an important message.

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

If Marcus is right and our lives are a reflection of our thoughts, then the power to communicate a message is truly the power to change lives.

I think that is worthy of some reflection.

You have the ability to change the lives of people you come in contact with every day. And yet, most of the time, you act in ignorance of this fact. Oblivious to your power.

In fact, as a human with a complex ability to communicate, you have two main devices at your disposal to impact others. You can share an idea, a concept, or an abstraction. You can share an emotion, a feeling or an attitude. Or you can share both.

A concept could be as simple as saying: “Do you know if you held that a different way it would be easier and more effective”.

An emotion could be as simple as saying: “You look great today!”

And both could look like: “I really loved your presentation, I totally want to go out and take action! Next time, I think you should include that other story you told me last time.”

• Are you using your power of communication to your benefit and the benefit of others?

• Are you mindlessly using your power of communication in a way that harms you or others?

• Are you aware of the communication directed at you and whether it helps or harms you?

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

I am working on some instructional design work and scripting a documentary.

Recreationally:

Tonight, I am performing in an Improv Combat show.

What I am reading:

I have just grabbed Sam Rathling’s LinkedIn Outbound. I liked her first book, LinkedIn Inbound, and am looking forward to reading this.

What I am watching:

I watched Tarantino’s Kill Bill films this week. So many great lessons on communication in his films!