You founded a business, or you lead one. It’s your passion. You devote dozens and dozens of hours to it every week to wildly succeed. You know everything about it: your products and services, your market, your growth targets.
Everything.
But how clearly and quickly can you articulate all that?
When explaining your business to anyone on the outside – prospects, current customers, partners, even your own friends and family – how sharp are you? And, most importantly, how long does it take before they get it?
How well do you convert your knowledge and passion into concise words that will get others to understand, buy into you, and buy from you?
Fueled by our always-on, multi-screened, endlessly spammed, fleeting attention span of our digital age, you need to consider how much time people give you before deciding if they are interested, or just walk away.
Clue: it’s not much. You may have known that, but the answer may still be surprising, and give you real insight into today’s society. Insight that you can use to your advantage.
According to a Microsoft study, Americans now generally lose concentration after eight seconds. The same study shows that attention span has dropped from 12 seconds since 2000. This shortening should be no surprise, given the explosion of the information era.
Eight seconds is an awfully quick time for you to get your pitch across. Those first few seconds are precious.
And true story: those eight seconds? One second less than the attention span of the average goldfish. It’s actually been studied (although I would have loved to have been in the meeting in which someone said,” you know what I’d like to study?”). Now, I wouldn’t tell your customers or prospects that they’re not as sharp as a pet fish, but this is really telling. We are all in a very tough market for attention.
(I hope I’ve kept your attention to this point. I see the goldfish are still with me.)
Now that we know what we are up against, how do we capture people’s attention in a way that leads to a fruitful business conversation? How do we get their attention in a way that can build business? What’s the first step?
Create a great narrative. Develop a powerful and succinct set of words that describes who you are and why people should care about you. A narrative is not an elevator pitch. It’s not a slogan. And it’s not a tag line, logo or USP. Yes, these are all important to have, but they are all informed by your narrative. As is your sales, marketing, advertising, PR, social and employee communications.
A narrative is your fundamental descriptor – and superpower. It’s the proprietary set of words that captures who you are, how you’re positioned, why you’re different, and why people should buy into you. The words that fuel all of your conversations.
A solid narrative also serves as the glue insuring everything an organization says to external and internal audiences is unified, consistent, and replicable.
But don’t be fooled by the brevity. Creating the concise and ownable set of words that gives you a hill to claim is not easy. It takes work. It may be counter-intuitive, but writing something relatively short is usually a harder thing to do.
My good friend Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Actually, French mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote those words two centuries prior, but we give credit to Twain. After all, Pascal didn’t write Huck Finn.
Want another example?
Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey was asked how long it would take him to prepare a 15-minute talk. He said one week. Asked how long it would take to prepare a two-hour talk? I am ready right now.
Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, it’s always important to take a step back and create, or refine as necessary, your foundational story. Your ownable narrative.
Let’s consider the four steps on how to create your compelling narrative.
Deep Dive
We are all so focused on our endgames. Where do we want to go? What’s success for us? Where do we want our business to be in a year, five years, ten years?
It’s easy to have tunnel vision and stare down the road. But in creating your narrative, the first step is to listen and understand what people say about you – now. What’s the starting point?
When construction crews are asked to build a road, they’re not just focused on Point B. Yes, that’s where they want to get, but what’s the path there? What’s Point A? Without knowing that, crews can’t know how long it will take and how much material they’ll need.
The same holds true for building your narrative. You need to know what you’re starting with. What’s the current sentiment among customers, prospects, employees and partners? How long is my road to Point B and how much work do I need to put into it?
The starting point is the deep dive.
Create a list of fundamental and probing questions for as many stakeholders as you can. Keep in mind that because of those shortened attention spans, they won’t have hours to fill out a survey. Focus on the most important issues to probe.
How do they feel about you?
How would they describe you?
Why do they buy from you? Or not?
Why do they partner or work with you? Again, or not?
What are the roadblocks to doing more business with you?
You can even ask those who decided not to do business with you (they may have already given you the answer, but ask again in this context). Always pledge to keep answers proprietary; if you honor their privacy, they’ll be more likely to participate.
Assume that, depending on your relationships, you’re not going to get a 100 percent response, so over ask.
To augment your understanding of the current state, do a brand audit.
What’s your online presence?
What are folks saying about you there, if anything? (check all of the forums)
What have the media been saying if it’s applicable to your business?
Remember that adage that says, “don’t ask tough questions if you don’t want to hear tough answers.” A deep dive is not always for the faint of heart. You want people to be radically transparent and honest. You’re not asking them to tell you want you want to hear, it’s what you need to hear. What you need to know. If you really want to know what people think about you, be open to hearing what people really think about you!
The Narrative
Now that you have collected and processed the thoughts and sentiments from a wide range of people, it’s time to put pen to paper. Studies show that actually writing things down as opposed to typing them helps with information processing and creativity. There will be plenty of time for your computer soon.
You may be surprised to hear this, but don’t think so hard here. As many writers will say, let the words come to you. Don’t be concerned that everything you write down needs to be perfect. Just write, read what you wrote, and write some more. Rinse and repeat. This is not a one-and-done exercise.
When you think you have something there, ask yourself these questions about your draft narrative:
Do I get a good gut feeling that we have captured our essence?
Is the narrative proprietary? Can others claim the hill we’re on?
Does the narrative lend itself to everything we do and say?
How would I feel about this narrative if I never heard about my company?
By asking these probing questions of yourself, you’ll get closer to the truth. Closer to the powerful set of words that will power your discussions.
But just because you have a good feeling about the narrative, it’s time to test it against your network and those you connected with during the deep dive – those to whom you went out in the first place. Some call this your kitchen cabinet – those folks you can always count on for the tough love.
Let them review, poke holes, suggest. Edit from those conversations and test again. At some point, you’ll get the sense that you’ve nailed it. You’ll also give your network the sincere feeling that they were on the journey and part of something important with you.
It’s important (maybe most important) to let your own employees in on the game. They are your closest allies, your most important brand ambassadors. If they don’t buy into what you stand for and what you’re doing, how will they convince others? Make sure that employees are part of the process along the way to give them a sense of ownership in the company’s direction and success.
Print out your narrative and display it in your office as a north star, a reminder that you need to protect that special hill you’ve claimed.
Core and Tailored Messages
While your narrative is the foundational set of words that describes you, and formulates why people should buy into you, they may not be the exact words you use when communicating to clients and prospects.
Your key messages are a way to articulate your narrative to meet the needs and desires of your audiences. Remember that a key rule of sales and marketing is that it’s not what you want to say, but what they need to hear. It’s not what you are selling, but what they need to buy to enhance their lives.
Think of a prism as representing your key audiences. Shine your core narrative through and the result is several distinct beams that depict how to “translate” your narrative to best connect with distinct audiences. Same light, different hues.
Another point about key messages: keep the list short.
If you have ever done a speech or a media interview, you may have heard about “the
three:” the three main points you want to get across and the three main points you always want to get back to.
Going into a speech or an interview – or even your own staff meeting — with a list of seven things you want to stress will be an exercise in futility. You’ll dilute the takeaway.
Henry Kissinger would walk into a press conference and immediately ask: “does anyone have any questions for my answers?” It’s not avoiding answering the question, it’s done in way that gets back to your key messages. A clear strategy to always get back to the three (something covered in professional media and presentation training).
Unleashing the Creative Tactics
Creating a narrative is like buying real estate: you now have a plot of land, but if you don’t do anything with it, don’t build anything on it, nobody sees you or knows you own it. Nobody will understand why your business is special.
Now it’s time to make the narrative and those messages work for you. Now we get to things that you’ve been itching to do, like selling, advertising, speaking, writing, etc. Of course, you may have been doing this all along, so this could be a case of “riding the bike as you build it.”
Just remember that every piece of external communications or marketing, all of your sales material, all of your employee communications and even your annual report needs to be put through the filter of your narrative – before and after. Ask yourself if everything you are writing and saying supports and ties back to your core narrative.
This may seem like a lot of work, but will provide the discipline to know you are doing just that without even trying.
About the Author:
Eric Blinderman
Eric is the founder and chief narrator of Narrative, a Maryland-based consultancy that works with organizations of all sizes and business sectors to create powerful communications campaigns to build awareness, appreciation and preference. Throughout his career in Maryland and New York City, Eric has worked with world-class organizations, developing creative campaigns that have moved the needle for Fortune 100 companies, all by shaping and delivering the right words in compelling ways. When he’s not in his office, he’s usually on some mountain wondering if the Minnesota Vikings will win the Super Bowl in his lifetime.
www.yournarrative.biz
email: ericbct@gmail.com
phone: 203-727-5005
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