#BookSmart: Made to Stick

Time for another round of #BookSmart! This month’s feature is a super marketing wonk book: Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath.

I liked this book so much that I actually bought it after I ran out of chances to renew it with my local library. That does not happen all the time.

On making plans

You know that old adage about the best laid plans? The Heath brothers and their buddy Colonel Thomas Kolditz have something to say about that. And it’s stuck with me for a while now. 

“...plans are useful, in the sense that they are proof that the planning has taken place. The planning process forces people to think through the right issues. But for the plans themselves...they just don’t work on the battlefield.”

This is why, according to Colonel Thomas, the Army includes the “Commander’s Intent” at the top of every order. In a “crisp, plain-talk statement,” the CI specifies the plan’s goal. Because: “...when people know the desired destination, they’re free to improvise, as needed, in arriving there…”

If you lead a team, you can see how this would empower your people to keep themselves all moving in the same direction, without your constant intervention. What might not be as obvious is this: if you work for yourself, these two statements will keep you moving yourself in the right direction, doing the most important things, and not getting distracted by all the stuff that won’t get you where you’re trying to go.

So, my dear team leaders and entrepreneurs, take the military’s Commander’s Intent test with you into your next day doing battle with the world.

“If we do nothing else during tomorrow’s mission, we must ________”

“The single, most important thing that we must do tomorrow is __________”

 On finding the core...of your business or your marketing message

 Core messages are important. Because, as the Heath brothers note:

 “Core messages help people avoid bad choices by reminding them of what’s important.”

In the search for the core of your business, “the hard part is weeding out ideas that may be really important but just aren’t the most important.” Wiser words have never been spoken. This is often the hardest part of the branding process for my clients. In aiming to define one’s brand promise, brand essence, and brand pillars, separating the important from the most important is...well, the most important thing to do.

 On getting people’s attention. And keeping it.

“Surprise gets our attention. Interest keeps our attention.”

That’s it. Simple, right?

Well, if creating simple messages that are “made to stick” were simple, we wouldn’t need a book about it. Back to the element of surprise. What is it, and how do we incorporate it into our messages?

We must provide an event that is not predictable to our audience, but feels that way in the end. The Heath bros. call this “post-dictable” -- that feeling you get when you say to yourself, “oh, I knew it all along." 

There has to be a bit of risk involved. There has to be a moment of realization that perhaps goes beyond common sense. But. Surprise is more than the moment you get to yell “Surprise!” at your audience like you’ve dragged them into some weird marketing-driven surprise party. The surprise that works for messages made to stick works on mystery that’s not so much that we feel overwhelmed, but just enough that: “We know where we’re headed---we want to solve the mystery---but we’re not sure how we’ll get there.”

 “Mystery is created not from an unexpected moment but from an unexpected journey.”

By shifting our focus from “what info do I need to convey” to “what questions do I want my audience to ask,” we can start to see the journey that the right surprise can bring our people along, to help our core message stick with them.

On making people believe...and care.

 ”A credible idea makes people believe...an emotional idea makes people care”

We want people to believe. So we must build credibility into our messages. Among the tools the Heath bros. Have identified that help us build credibility are:

  • Authorities: experts, celebrities, and other aspirational figures

  • Vivid details: even urban legends somehow become credible when injected with the level of detail of, say, the old, ‘guy woke up in a bathtub without his kidney’

  • Statistics: while “rarely meaningful in and of themselves,” they can “be used to illustrate relationships” -- for instance, this event made that data point triple

  • The testable credential: ask your audience to test a claim for themselves, allowing them to try out your ideas before they choose to buy into them

  • The Sinatra test: You know how the song goes, “New York...if you can make it here…,” well the idea here is that if you have one huge example of your business working, then your audience will believe without a doubt it will work anywhere, including for them

Ok, now we’re credible. People believe our message. But believing us isn’t enough. We need emotional ideas that make people care, make them feel something. Because “Feelings inspire people to act.” And we need our audiences to do something, don’t we?

Much like surprise, it’s easy to veer into the schmaltzy or tacky when endeavoring to appeal to people’s emotions. Yes, you can appeal to their self-interest. Or, a more interesting suggestion offered in the book: “form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about.” This is a really interesting idea, and one I look forward to playing with.

But, perhaps the most compelling way to inspire people to feel something about your business is to find your why and help them find it, too. This is where we encounter the tactic of the “Three Whys.” 

When we’re too close to our business, we know too much about it, and we can easily fail to say clearly to our audience why what we’re doing matters. In the story, “The Music of Duo Piano,” the authors relay what happened when their workshop attendees were asked to answer these questions:

Why does your organization exist?

Can other organizations do what you do -- and if so, what is it you do that is unique?

I ask my own clients versions of these questions when helping them define their brand essence, pillars, and promise. And, much like the ‘duo piano’ folks, the first pass at answering doesn’t get to the core. They’re too familiar with themselves to see the core anymore.

And that’s where the “three whys” comes into play. By asking why three times, you’re moved from talking about what you do to why you do what you do. Or, as the authors put it, the ‘duo piano’ folks “moved from a set of associations that had no power to a set of deeper more concrete associations that connected emotionally with outsiders.” Bingo. An emotional idea -> people care -> people act.

Tying it all up in a nice bow: Three steps to making your messages stickier

While these three steps are shared in the context of the whole ‘element of surprise’ idea, I find them to be a perfect sum-up of the whole premise for making your ideas stickier.

  1. "Identify the central message you need to communicate -- find the core"

  2. "Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message -- i.e. what are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening naturally"

  3. "Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience’s guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension. Then, once they're guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines."

 

There you go! You’re ready to make your ideas stick. I do encourage you to pick up the book, or access the wealth of resources on the authors’’ website. And let me know how sticky your ideas have become!

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