If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind,
give it more thought.
—DENNIS ROCH
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That famous opening from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities illustrates three key principles for how people with presence think and plan their communication:
• Grab attention to be heard.
• Summarize succinctly to be clear.
• Be brief to be appreciated.
Beginnings should grab people’s attention whether you’re writing an epic novel, telling an anecdote, or presenting your budget for the year. But beginnings can’t go on too long, or they become the muddled middle. That’s why the conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that you’ll never sell your movie if you can’t summarize the plot in a sentence.
My twist on that in the marketplace: You’ll never sell your idea in the boardroom if you can’t summarize it in a paragraph. How best to get started on that goal?
“If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.” That line came from my earlier book Speak with Confidence: Powerful Presentations That Inform, Inspire, and Persuade, and I first tweeted it in early 2009 as one of my daily tips for presenters. As I write almost two years later, that comment is still being re-tweeted. Its long life in cyberspace, I think, can be attributed to the frustration people feel in being trapped in a conversation or meeting by colleagues who ramble on and on without making a clear point.
Corporations pay ad agencies millions of dollars each year to create ads to do just that. They also pay network and cable TV millions to run Super Bowl ads with one succinct message. In fact, competition among sponsors of the Super Bowl ads has overshadowed the football game itself in some years. Who can get the point across in the fewest words possible to get the biggest laugh has become the name of the Super Bowl ad game. Granted, after-the-game analysts suggest that some ads miss the market on that first criterion: getting the point across. The ad gets a laugh and a vote—but the next day, nobody remembers the product or message.
That reality brings me to my next point: People with presence have a knack for cutting through the clutter and expressing the core message clearly.
You’ve probably heard the old joke among salespeople about their product offerings to customers: “We can deliver it to you cheap, quick, and good. Pick any two.” Contrary to what some technical professionals argue is the impossible, strategic thinkers deliver their message both briefly and clearly.
Let’s dig deeper into these three principles—being brief, clear, and thought-provoking.
Dave Cote, CEO of Honeywell Corporation, opened a recent speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this way:
The seeds of the next recession have already been planted. The debt burden accumulated over the next ten years will sink us. And a decision will get made … one of two ways. One way is to do it now, proactively, and thoughtfully. The second way is to wait until the bond market forces us to do it. We can ask Greece what that’s like.
This presentation will start and end with the same message. That is, “Do we still have the political will to do the hard things required in life? Would we rather pull together … or pull apart?” It’s an important question for all of us Americans. Some countries don’t think America will ever be able to fix the issue because we no longer have the political will to get the tough things done, that our time is past, that we’d rather argue and blame others than take responsibility for a collectively critical decision. As an American, I disagree with that view…. But I also know it requires the American people to push and the President and the Congress to lead to make it happen. And each of you can help.
Hopefully, I have your attention … so let’s begin.21
Would you agree that CEO Cote did not mince words with a warm-up drill? He had their attention.
On the other hand, my client Pete seemed a bit irritated at himself during our session together. I had asked him to rethink his opening sentence for a presentation he was preparing to deliver for his upcoming session before his board of directors. He’d spent ten minutes doodling on his yellow tablet, trying to rework his thoughts before standing to practice his opening segment again.
Once again, he started with a warm-up drill: “I appreciate the time today to give you a brief overview of our successes with the four new product lines we introduced this past year, to explain the marketing challenges we’ve faced, and to tell you how we plan to handle those in the coming months. First, as you know, blah, blah, blah, …”
He continued for another two or three minutes describing what he was going to tell them—later—in his twenty-minute time slot.
“Pete, let me stop you here.” I turned off the camera and repeated my earlier request to him. “What we need is a great opening segment that really informs them. Something that piques their interest or demonstrates marketing successes or challenges this year. Let’s try the opening again with your bottom-line message right upfront—the one we developed earlier.” We had already gone through the thinking stage, and he clearly had in mind the key point he wanted to make. In fact, as we chatted in casual conversation, he articulated his key message well and ticked off three sub-points to support that message. He had anecdotes and illustrations for each point. So why had he “gone blank” now that he was on his feet in front of the camera?
He started again. “Thank you for attending…. What I want to do is to overview blah, blah, blah….” Same problem. He delivered a purpose statement—a promise to tell the audience something later. I stopped him a second time.
“Pete, you’re still giving a purpose statement. You’re promising to tell me something—later. Tell me NOW. What’s the bottom line about marketing? I’m ready to go to lunch!”
He broke out in a grin, stuck his hands in his pocket, and just started to shake his head in a hangdog, schoolboy fashion. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
I nodded.
“I hate it when my own people do that to me. In fact, I interrupt them when they come in and start to tell me some long tale. Just like you interrupted me. I don’t have time for it. I tell them to cut to the chase. And here I am, trying to do that in my own presentation to a roomful of CEO-types.”
The third time was the charm. He grasped the concept. “Do unto others …”
Sounds simple. It rarely is.
Maybe you’ve seen this commercial for The Ladders, the online job site exclusively for $100K+ candidates looking for $100K+ jobs (www.theladders.com). The commercial opens with a tennis match in progress. But soon you discover the two players on the court can’t return the ball to each other because people start running onto the court randomly and getting in their way—very unsuitable people, inappropriately dressed for the game, overweight and out of shape, without the proper tennis equipment, unfocused and inattentive to the game going on around them. Tennis balls bounce randomly to and fro across the net. Hundreds of would-be players slam into each other, swinging rackets and briefcases in all directions, trying to hit balls every which way.
The real players stand aside, frustrated at the chaos on the court.
In about the last ten seconds of the commercial, the voice-over says, “If you think about it, this is the trouble with most job search sites: When you let everyone play, nobody wins.” The website address appears on the screen, along with the text: “The most $100K+ jobs.” Fade to end.
A clear, concise summary of a problem and the solution. A classy commercial that suggests its creators understand the critical importance of cutting through the clutter to the core message.
With tweets limited to 140 characters and people texting in syllables and letters because words take too long (R U OK?), people have little patience with those who can’t “say it in a sentence” and stop.
With the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn, information continues to bombard people. Your presence cannot be felt unless you can say or write your message succinctly.
To understand the importance of summary, consider voice-mails. Have you ever felt frustration when you have a few minutes to pick up your voicemails and you have several messages likes this: “Hey, this is B.J. Just wanted to check in with you to see how things are going. I just got in last night from Chicago. The weather was terrible, and we sat out on the runway for more than an hour before we left. But anyway, I’m now in LA and have picked up Tseuko at her hotel and we’re heading for the client’s site. Two things that might be a problem there that I’d like to talk to you about before we go in to make the presentation. One involves the safety issue and the other is about pricing. We’re going to stop and get a bite of lunch before our meeting, but it’s critical that we talk because—” Bleep, the phone cuts off.
How about emails? Do you have to read them twice, sorting and organizing the details to deduce the message because there’s no clear summary that says it all?
If Twitter has no other benefit than helping people get their point across in 140 characters or fewer, it will have been a revolutionary exercise in a core competency. Notice, however, how few can do so. Summarize succinctly to cut through the clutter to the core message, problem, solution, or issue.
On our Booher survey, we asked participants the most common complaint they hear about presentations in their organizations. “Too long for the intended purpose” was the response from 25 percent of the survey participants. Another 20 percent reported that the message and purpose were unclear.
Conclusion: Roughly half of the survey respondents confirmed that people have difficulty getting to the point. Lengthy, disorganized presentations leave listeners wondering:
1. “What’s the message?” or
2. “What do you want me to do about the message?” or
3. “Why did you waste so much time giving me that message?”
Although clearly connected, brevity and summary are not synonymous. A summary is a comprehensive restatement of main points or conclusions, a shorter version of something longer. But that “shorter version” may not be brief. In fact, some proposal “summaries” fill a three-ring binder. Some presenters deliver project “summaries” lasting an hour.
While giving a comprehensive summary has great value, a summary is not necessarily brief. Brief is better.
Lawyers understand the value of succinct summaries in the courtroom. Although lawyers can be loquacious when they’re drafting a letter or contract, most practice the principles of brevity in persuasive situations—such as battling for a client’s life. They address the jury with the opening bottom-line message even before witnesses take the stand: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I intend to prove that my client, Darrin DoGood, is innocent of this crime. There is no motive. There are no witnesses. And on the night in question, my client was registered at a Hilton Hotel in Houston.”
According to Voltaire, “The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.” The best way to be appreciated is to say your piece and shut up.
People with presence think strategically, understand the critical link between focus and clarity, and appreciate the value of time. State your case and move on.