Say it Better

Create a Tag Line to be Top of Mind in Your “Market”

"Because the earth needs a good lawyer" is one of my favorite tag lines. It is specific, emotional and short. 

What shorthand description do others use when describing your cause, business or other group?  If it’s not the one you cite then maybe you want to create a more compelling one.  Why not craft an apt, memorable tag line or slogan that describes your organization’s core value to us?

An extra benefit is that a clear, specific and vivid slogan provides a focal point for doing “first things first” and for making other choices when one seems overwhelmed with options. Ask “What choice now most reflects our tagline?”

Here are three tips I gleaned from last year’s winners of Nancy E. Schwartz’s Getting Attention contest for non-profits’ best tag lines:

Tag line tip #1:

Craft a (clean) double entendre.

• A clearinghouse for finding performance and rehearsal space called NYC Theatre Spaces: “Where Actors Find Their Space”

Tag line tip #2:

Evoke an emotion-tugging physical image.

 • The American Lung Association: “One Breath at a Time”

Tag line tip #3:

Piggyback on a concern with a pithy slogan as a solution.

• Oregon Center for Public Policy provides balanced coverage of state issues, many of which are hotly contested where opinions and facts are blurred in the public debate: “Because facts matter”

 As John Haydon adeptly notes, “Rather than having a tagline about the mission of the non-profit, they all speak about the client's experience and what's important to them - on an emotional level.”

Share your tag line for this year’s contest and keep a look out for fresh ideas when Nancy announces the results later this year.

If You Want Your Life to Matter…

70 years ago tomorrow contralto Marian Anderson stood before 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She sang outdoors, invited by Eleanor Roosevelt after The Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let her appear at Constitution Hall. Roosevelt resigned from the DAR.

“In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free,”  said Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, when introducing Anderson notes Alex Ross in The New Yorker.

“Genius, like justice, is blind. . . . Genius draws no color line,” said Ickes.

Years later, Martin Luther King, reinforced his call for change when he stood in the same place delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech, as did our president this year when he was sworn into office.

Tomorrow, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves leads a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in tribute to Anderson on the seventieth anniversary of that Easter Sunday concert.

From Ross’s thoughtful article, I pulled these vignettes. They remind myself of the power of returning words and acts of anger or hate, not with bitterness but with grace:

• When the Nassau Inn, in Princeton, New Jersey, refused to give Anderson a room, she spent the night at the home of Albert Einstein.

• Although she refused to sing in halls that employed “horizontal segregation”—that is, with whites in the orchestra and blacks in the galleries—for many years she did accept vertical segregation, with whites on one side of the aisle and blacks on the other.

Anderson usually took her meals in her hotel room, in order not to cause complications in restaurants. “I always bear in mind that my mission is to leave behind me the kind of impression that will make it easier for those who follow,” she explained in her memoir.

• In Birmingham, Alabama, during the Second World War, she had to stand outside a train-station waiting room while her accompanist, the German pianist Franz Rupp, went to fetch a sandwich for her. Sitting inside was a group of German prisoners of war.

How to Change Hearts and Minds: Lessons Learned from Marion’s Life Story

When you disagree with someone’s actions or words or hope to persuade others to believe and act differently:

1. Don’t just speak up but also take significant public action that reinforces your stand.  Roosevelt resigned from the DAR.  

2. If you or someone else is unfairly denied an opportunity, find a way to make a greater opportunity available. When Roosevelt invited Anderson to sing outdoors she created a very public, world stage upon which Anderson could demonstrate her talents.

3. Turn others’ personal insults or injustices into public lessons from which a larger group can learn.

4. You lift us up to better behavior when you don’t just speak against a wrong but also speak for a greater right. Describe a specific way we can act, not just what we did wrong. As Adlai Stephenson once said, “When you throw mud you get dirty.”

5. To make it easier for people to see the situation your way or to agree, invoke the Power of Previous Precedent. Refer to similar earlier situations or decisions so that you are not asking people to do something new or different. You make your suggested action the obvious choice.

How you want to be viewed or what you are asking others to do is “merely” a continuation of what they or others have already done before or what has happened in the past.  When King and then Obama chose the Lincoln Memorial, they chose that place - not just a U.S. stage but a world stage, open to all people, calling for a new era, just as Anderson did 70 years ago tomorrow.

6. Most of all, whether you are poor or rich, famous or unknown, you have the priceless power of describing a situation so vividly that others instinctively remember and repeat your description. With just words your belief can catch fire and spread, becoming the most familiar view of that situation and eventually sometimes, the assumed truth. Ickes labeling of Anderson’s talents are so vivid they continue to be cited years later.

Whoever most vividly describes a situation most influences how others see it, then feel, think and talk about it and act on it.

Quotes for Enjoying a Richer, More Meaningful Life

Actor, Tommy Lee Jones paraphrased someone whose name he could not recall, in an National Public Radio interview, saying he, “sometimes felt like a Buddhist soul in a Calvinist World,” then when asked for his definition of faith, said, “Faith is what you know to be true, whether you believe it or not.”

"Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent."

~ Antoine de Rivarol

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”

~ Victor Hugo

"Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food."

~ William Hazlitt

“A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it."

~  Marcel Proust

“My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying.”

~ Dr. Laurence J. Peter

 

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

~ William Butler Yeats

 

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

~ Chinese Proverb

 

“When asked how she coped with all the burdens she had to carry, Lena Horne, said, "It's not the load that breaks you down; it's the way you carry it."

 

“Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.”

~ French proverb

 

“Pain is a perfect compass, if I can take the time to watch where its needle aims.”

~ Jim Burklo

 

“I wanted a perfect ending... Now, I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. “

~ Gilda Radner 

 

"Grief shared is half grief. Joy shared is double joy."

~ Honduran Proverb

 

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?” 

~ Marcel Marceau

 

“The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, I was wrong.”

~ Sydney J. Harris

 

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long shot.”

~ Charlie Chaplin

 

“In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.” 

~ Charlie Brown

 

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge, that myth is more potent than history, that dreams are more powerful than facts, that hope triumphs experience, that laughter is the only cure for grief.”

~  Robert Fulghum

 

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous”

~    Ingrid

 

“Love: When the heart loses its mind.”

~ anonymous

 

 

Your Description of Your Work Doesn’t Have to be Life-Changing, Yet ….

…. To be client-attracting, it must be engaging. Make it stick in their minds using a memory hook. Yours can relate to your name, kind of work, remarkable quality or skill, appearance - or perhaps a rhyme or word play. BNI founder, Ivan Misner, author of Seven Second Marketing, offers many examples, including three that I've paraphrased here:

• "Let me take the world off your shoulders," offers Sharon Howard, massage therapist.

•  Lance Mead of Lunar Travel Agency stands out from other agents when he says "Ninety percent of all accidents happen in the home. So travel."

• Photographer, Robert Stewart writes, "My pictures say a thousand words so you don't have to."

Sayings to Provoke Your Own Way With Words

”Art is never necessary. It is merely indispensable.”

    ~ New York Times art critic, Michael Kimmelman

"Regarding SPAM, I'm comfortable with the size of my penis, I don't care that young girls want me, I've got more than enough insurance, and I can't help you escape from jail in Ghana, so please, go jam somebody else's in-box." 

   ~ Mark T. Gould, New Haven, Connecticut

"Some times you just have to live long enough for your message to catch up." 

   ~ Rev. Al Sharpton

 "Sex is about appetite. Love is about endurance." 

   ~ Jack Valenti

"Creativity isn't the conclusions you have drawn, but how you pry them back open." 

   ~ David Crismon, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Even if They Didn’t Intend to, Get 'Em to Recall What You Say

Here’s four ways:

One. Imagine that the brain is like a wall with clothes hooks on it. 

For the brain to catch and retain a detail, that detail must hang on one of the memory-inducing hooks that are already in the brain. The biggest hooks are the three universal and core life experiences: 

1. Family. 

2. Hometown or town where you have lived or are living. 

3. Past or current kind of work. 

For family, relate what you're saying to a family situation: yours, theirs, someone else's, or even a metaphorical family of services. Or relate your topic to the listener's work situation or work with which she is familiar. People also remember landmark places where they live, have lived, or have visited or well-known places. For example, our business is in Sausalito, which evokes pleasant by-the-bay memories for most who've visited here.

Two. Motion makes memories. 

Whenever people are moving or see movement, they remember more and are more emotional about what they remember. Get customers in motion with you in a positive experience and they will be more fervent, vivid, and believing fans, more likely to evoke their bragging rights and likely to share their experience with others. That's why we literally move to offer samples, getting people to reach out, so they feel the experience more deeply.

An experience is most memorable when you and the other person are both in motion, such as when you shake hands, walk together, or reach to exchange something. Pick those ripe moments to say the most vivid, specific detail you want the listener to remember and repeat to others. Times are next most memorable for the listener who is in motion even if you are not. Ask the person to reach or turn for something while you're saying your tasty tidbit to remember. The next most memorable movement is when you are in motion, even if your listener is not. A final valuable way to evoke a memory is for you both to watch motion from something or someone else.

Warning: Movement is a two-edged sword -- it is never neutral. 

The listener who experiences something negative where motion is involved will also remember the experience longer, and more intensely. As to a vibrating pole, we hold on sooner, longer, and more strongly to the negative incidents of life than to the positive, because the primitive triune part of our brain - wired to help us survive - causes us to respond to appearances of danger more strongly than to those of delight.

Three. Speak first of the other person's most current, pressing interest. 

Just as those in the market for new cars are most likely to hear car ads on the radio, all people listen sooner when you first speak about what is most on their mind at that moment. Sadly, in fewer than five percent of interactions when we want something from someone else do we first speak about what matters most to them. We are more likely to speak about our own interests first.

Four. Speak in vivid, specific details that have a high emotional value for the listener.

The good news? If you practice speaking first about the other person's interests, then about what you share in common, and only then about how that commonality relates to your interests, four amazingly powerful changes occur in how that other person relates to you. The person listens sooner, listens longer, remembers more, and assumes you have a higher IQ than if you first speak about your own interests. 

Recent Quotes That Stick in Your Mind, Perhaps Unfortunately

“What I do really isn’t fishing. More like waterboarding for worms.” - Man to man, overheard fishing off a public pier in San Francisco.

Every year the New Yorker magazine invites artists to remix their original cover image. Guess who got inserted.

"For the last 10 years people bought cars and refrigerators and TVs like they were going grocery shopping. Now people are grocery shopping like they're buying a car." - Mike Moriarty, A.T. Kearney business consultant

Nominations for Diagram Prize for the oddest book title include Baboon Metaphysics, Curbside Consultation of the Colon and The Large Sieve and its Application. 

“One cure for a country beset by government bureaucracy and incompetence may be some old-fashioned corruption. In countries with robust institutions, corruption decreases efficiency. But in weak states, graft and bribes can ‘grease the wheels’ by enabling intelligent investors to circumvent a crooked, incapable government and invest money directly in the private sector.” - The Atlantic

"Will Americans embrace a heroine who skulks like a spy among the intelligentsia, an apparently unlettered concierge..." - Caryn James on The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Get the f#%k out of here or I'll throw you out the window.” - Pete Stark, in discussing the national debt with interviewer, Jan Helfeld

"A belief that our prices are too high, that we run misleading advertising, and that we care more about playing golf with doctors than about helping them understand our medicines—all of this has earned our industry a reputation near the bottom of all American institutions." - Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler, in a speech acknowledging that drug companies like Pfizer don't have much credibility when discussing healthcare reform

"Don't you know?" one girl asked another in the Alameda, California Library last week, "Ben Franklin is Aretha Franklin's father. But he's, like, dead now. Way dead."

. ..” how can humans intervene to breed and teach the birds what they’ll need to survive without also wearing away those birds’ natural apprehension of people; without inadvertently building a race of whooping cranes that feels comfortable hanging out on golf courses and in schoolyards and the fetid little ponds around retirement communities?” - Joe Duff on using ultralights to lead whooping cranes on a safer migration

If They Didn't Listen the First Time Why Would They Hear Next Time?

“People don't ‘get’ the important messages leaders try to send the first time around”, believes The Change Master Rosabeth Moss Kanter. “This isn't intentional, but there's too much noise and too many distractions... so use the principle of redundancy.” 

Yet you don’t have to be a “leader” to be heard, nor rely on repetition. Just be relevant. It’s more likely that we don’t remember a message because it didn’t matter to us.

To say it so it’s meaningful to others – enough that they’ll remember and act, here’s some simple steps:

1. Determine the single, specific behavioral change you seek.

2. Step into their shoes.  See the situation their way.

3. Find the emotional trigger within that situation or their lives (fear or desire).

4.  Among the many details in your head, find the key comparison between “what is” and “what could be” that would matter to them if they did #1.

5. Craft your three-part messsage:

a. What "is"  (the bad situation)

b. What could be – when (not if) “we” act to change it.

c. Why act now.

6. Ask them to signify that they will join you in this act by doing something now. (raise right hand, stand….)

6. Hone #5 and #6 steps so that every word counts.

7. Repeatedly practice saying it out loud and writing it so that your body moves with the message.

If you are crafting a message you will write rather than speak, you might as well practice saying it too because:

•  It will help you make your written message more brief and conversational.

• You’ll be so sought-after when they read you message they are going to want to talk with you about “our” idea.  

How to Hook Them In

When asked the secret to writing suspenseful books, Stephen King cited Elmore Leonard, “he just left out the boring parts.” Whether you are writing or talking - pull people in with a hook.

Example: Experience orchestrator, Steve Neiderhauser, recounts this advice from James Bonnet, “’Look at story through the eyes of the problem.’” In Jaws, the movie doesn’t spend ten minutes showing the shark swimming alone the Maine coastline chasing sea lions or splashing about. No, the movie gets to the problem - a shark chomping on humans.”

For your hook, think of a…
• Startling detail
• Problem that affects them
• Opportunity that they could capture
• Contrasting options such as an impending worst case/best case scenario
• Question that enables them to feel good (helpful, smart, appreciated, understood…)

Also create your captivating opening “hook” or scene if you manage a store, event or other consumer-serving experience. In fact, storyboard their time, from the first sight to the last smell as they leave. That way you can reduce the boring or irritating moments and multiply the positive – especially those where they gain bragging rights and leap at the chance to tell others.

“Experience is helpful....

Colin Powell says, “but it is judgment that matters.”