The Radical Yet Simple Solution To Finding Great Messages

How do you know what messages will actually work on your audience.

Well here’s a radical idea for you.

Ask people yeah I love Google and the Internet and all that but sometimes just going up to people and asking them what issues are of greatest interest to them can be the most helpful I remember many years ago I was working with a political candidate who was running for supervisor of elections in a county in Florida.

And this was after a whole situation where voting machines didn’t work.

The current supervisor of elections was gonna be voted out of office.

There was no doubt and people were upset their vote didn’t count.

So all of a sudden there were about 10 candidates running for this supervisor of elections position.

My candidate had about the least money of any of the candidates all of the candidates were running around town saying democracy is paramount.

Your vote is essential and I have a nice law degree and they had nice suits ties on.

They looked professional.

They all sounded like statesmen and they were all sounding as if they were running for basically president of the United States.

My candidate had to figure out a way of cutting through this so I asked Diane So what have you done that’s different from other people so well.

I actually went to the factory where they make the voting machines and I got certified to fix it.

I said OK that sounds and it was a one day certification process so I just went around and asked voters what are you really looking for in the supervisor of elections and everyone said the same thing.

They generally care about that.

All I want is someone who’ll make the machines work.

So my vote counts again and again I heard that now this didn’t cost any money we didn’t have money for extensive polling but what we did is we got rid of all the messages about 15 years in the koalas and the Boy Scout membership cub masters representation leadership is it.

Get rid of all that in the candidates messaging and instead I am focused on a clear simple message.

The only candidate who’s been certified to repair these voting machines.

You vote for me.

I’ll make sure the machines work and your vote will count.

Three simple messages he less money than anyone he won the primary.

He won the general election.

And now actually many decades later he’s still in office because of just asking people what do they care about and narrowing it down.

In this case it wasn’t even five messages.

It was three messages.

So whatever you do it’s not enough to just tell people all your credentials whether you’re trying to get a new piece of business new consulting investment or being hired for a job.

You’ve got to focus on what the person or people you’re presenting to actually care about.