It’s Friday night and I could not be arsed writing!
That was an hour ago…
Damn this 21 day challenge. Cannot fail! So I wrote.
I took one of the chapters that I was not too comfortable with. And gave it a shot. Glad I did.
It is a bit rough, but it is good. Editing comes at the end of the 21 days. So hold your moaning.
My goal is to make this book ridiculously easy to read. For that I am writing it at a grade 6 readability level.
I am a big fan of Hemingway Editor to help with this. And this first chunk has been written directly in it.
Check out tonight’s effort. This chunk will live somewhere in Part I.
Why You Suck At Storytelling
<Insert quote about the demise of storytelling>
The Curse of Knowledge
Steven Pinker is a linguist at Harvard. He introduces the Curse of Knowledge as the inability to put ourselves in the shoes of the less informed.
It’s the over use of technical terms, abbreviations, and concepts we assume our audience knows as well as we do.
This is why many brand stories and marketing messaging fail to connect and push people away.
Don’t know how to talk about yourself
Founders are often too close to what their product or service does, and how it does it, that they cannot see the buyer’s perspective.
They know all the ins and outs and all the details and think that is what the customer wants to know.
Within this deep product knowledge they think the value for the customer lays. And it’s simply a matter of sharing all this information.
The reality is quite different. Prospective customers often have a different way of describing the problem they need solving.
The result they want can be very different to what the founder describes. It stems from their needs, from their perspective, with limited understanding of the solution.
Take the old example of a customer not wanting to buy the drill, what he wants is a hole in the wall.
Don’t want to upset or exclude anyone
9 out of 10 businesses we work with have not stopped to define their ideal buyers. We go into the buyer persona process in detail in chapter XX
They haven’t narrowed focus to provide solutions to only the most profitable and appreciative.
These businesses range from 2 to 3,000 employees. From start ups to 100 years old. It’s an all too common problem!
Without this focus, founders can flounder trying to be the solution for everyone. This means their message gets broader, diluted and unclear to all who it’s for.
Not to mention never streamlining production for profitability!
This is a dangerous space to be in. Your market wants certainty that you are right for them. That takes direct and clear messaging.
The Unvocalised Written Word
Do you speak like you write?
Storytelling predates writing. The successful retelling of a spoken story relies on its memorability. It relies on the strength of its narrative, and of course the language used.
Brand stories and marketing using language not sounded out during development miss out on valuable aural power.
Rhythm, repetition, and word play can create powerful hooks for your audience. All contributing to it’s recall.
Sense checking the spoken words so it sounds natural is critical too. To be retold in conversation, it ought to be conversational language.
That’s all for today.
LF
I LOVE The Hemingway App.
Founders who flounder = flounders? haha
Awesome software.
Haha, flounders!