🚗 This is inspired by a meeting I had yesterday with Richard Newman from Toyota 🚗
Yup, that message of yours.
It’s likely not being heard (read). Probably because it’s banal; likely because it’s verbose.
We must remember:
- Your target audience, customers, employees, people, whatever – they’re not waiting to hear from you.
- You need to have the clarity in knowing – exactly – who it’s for and precisely what you want them to do.
- You must have the bravado to omit everything that isn’t part of #2 (above).
Here’s what to keep in mind:
- Interrupt patterns
- When was the last time you listened to the seat belt announcement on an airplane? People ignore it because we’ve been trained to ignore it. When you show up in a place, at a time, with a format that people have been trained to ignore, they’ll ignore you.
- Write like you talk (and tell a story).
- You seek engagement. Talk about me. About you, about yesterday, today and tomorrow. If you earn the first sentence, you’ll need to sell me on reading the second sentence.
- Frame the story.
- Help me compare it to something. Create urgency. Make it about me, my status, my needs (NOT YOUR AGENDA)
- Chunk the message.
- How many things are you trying to say? (Hint: two might be too many). Let people scan instead of study.
- Include a call to action.
- Right here, right now. This easy.
I have a fun example of what businesses do and what I think they should do. If you want to see it, shoot me an email and I’ll share. It’s a letter that was left outside my hotel in Portland. The hotel management distributed hundreds of these and I’d say a handful of people actually read it – if any.
Onwards.
