A friend likes to call me contumacious. I prefer to be described as willfully disobedient. Both mean the same thing. But which is easier to understand? Contumacious of course! (Relax, I’m kidding).
I was cornered by a man this week who interrogated me for a while before I thought it only fair to ask him what exactly he did for a living. To my great irritation, he went on to ask a whole host of questions and make abstract statements, building up to the real answer. Several sentences later, I was still none the wiser, and my threadbare patience drove me to cry out in exasperation “but what does that mean? What do you actually do?”.
I felt a wee bit ashamed when he looked surprised and replied, ‘now wait a minute dear’ but then I wondered in amazement how he failed to notice the several minutes I had already given him. A bucket of verbal dioarrhea later, I got my answer, but to my dismay it was not worth it.
In a community where we are always busy and attention is a limited resource, I wonder if the jungle approach is the best – you know, “Me Tarzan, you Jane”. Clear and simple.
E.g:
- We analyse online opinion and feelings
- We help you maintain your social life
- We connect talent to employers
Easy to understand, and once I do, I am motivated to ask ‘how’ and ‘why’ etc. But how can you jump in with why you’re so great and why there’s a need for you, and expect me to give a damn, when I don’t understand who or what you ARE! Sigh.
Maybe he was just tongue tied by how fab you are?
Seriously though: it’s common to find it difficult to articulate exactly what you are and what you do, whether you’re a business or an individual. We worry about making it sound too simple so we dress it up in flowery language, or we worry about making it sound too complicated so we struggle and stammer trying to simplify it.
Here are 3 common mistakes in self-description – mission/vision statements.
1. Not making it unique.
“We create ground-breaking products for world-class clients”. A famous branding consultant, Wally Olins, would only create a mission statement for a client if over half the members of their board could pick their own current one from a list of five (no company ever did). If it applies equally well to your neighbour, ditch it.
2. Making it obvious.
“We strive to create the best products we can”. Gee, really? What’s the alternative, striving to make really average ones? Never say something that should go without saying.
3. Making it managementy
“We develop leading-edge business paradigms for strategic success”. Do you? Are you sure? Does every employee in your company do this or is it really just the manager who wrote the mission statement? Description statements are about the whole organisation, not just the ones around the boardroom table.
A good branding and design consultant should take you through the ways you can say all of that and more with needing a missions statement in the first place, to straighten out your thoughts and help you undersatnd your own business better. That’s what you pay them for.
Yeah, the more complicated people make it, the more boring and un-credible they seem to become!
Bill Joos made us explain our businesses in 7 words. 7 words only. And when he went around the room, there were some very powerful explanations!
My fav: “Selling homes faster for more money” (www.shoothome.com, and yes I guess that’s only 6 words!)
I’m sure people said a lot more in 7 words than they often say in 2 minutes… and the audience was still listening when they got to the point…
I hope this rambler got a good lesson out of speaking with you!
Hi guys, thanks for the comments!
Dave – Lol! Yeah, guess there are moments when I might have that affect! :p.
Anyway, I like point 2. It came to mind a couple of months ago when I was in discussion about a company mission statement, and a tagline on branded material.
Jess – the 7 words only exercise is a very good idea!
I shall also use it as an exercise to test my understanding. How? By challenging myself to describe
the startups or technologies I encounter in 7 words only.
I can’t very well have anyone turn around and tell me to
“take some of your own advice, and keep it simple, stupid” – it would be soooo embarrassing!
[…] thought Dave Black’s response to last wk’s post “Keep it simple, stupid” contained some good points so I’m posting it here for those who might find it useful. […]
[…] lovely Dave Black, Design Magician at BlackArts. A short while ago he left a comment on my post Keep It Simple, Stupid and I later asked him if I could include it as a post. He also contributed to […]