Story
What’s In A Message?
90% of the funding challenges that organizations have are a function of one or more of the following:
- Not asking
- Not finding the right prospects
- Not having the right message (which usually makes #1 much harder and #2 much more apparent).
Your message should be simple enough to fit on a napkin – clear, concise, and compelling. With that in mind, we should be clear about how we define ‘message’:
That, and only that, which a prospect needs to understand in order to say, “I totally get it!”
*And, if a qualified prospect, to follow with, “I’m IN!”
Working with that definition, 99.99% of you all reading this can resolve your message (ultimately) to one of the following:
- CHANGE LIVES
- SAVE LIVES
- IMPACT LIVES
Why simplify to this extent? Because if your potential investor understands that they can SAVE LIVES by funding your work, then it’s game over. ‘Fundraising’, ‘cultivation’, and ‘asking for money’ no longer have anything to do with it.
“It can’t be that simple!”
Yes it can.
Sure, your message ‘derivative’ could be Economic Development, or Transforming Education, or Ending Cancer. But all of these are still simple, and they’re all applications of SAVE LIVES, CHANGE LIVES, and IMPACT LIVES.
But let’s go back to a very important word in the definition – understand.
How do you make a prospect understand?
- Don’t make them work hard:
Don’t use big, complex words or bring out your inner academician. Return every concept back to its highest purpose. “Ultimately the reason we’re doing this is because it SAVES LIVES.”
The same goes for case statements. We’re not a fan of them largely for the amount of searching they require to get to the message; however, if you HAVE to make one, don’t fall for pretty prose. Bold your message, then put a lot of white space around it to make it stand out from everything else.
Note: ‘Steve Jobs keynote’ is a great example of this concept in large group presentation form.
- Repetition is your friend:
Just because the idea that you’re CHANGING THE WORLD didn’t sink in the first time you said it doesn’t mean you should change your message.
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- Listen to any decent politician. She will repeat her message over and over.
- Listen to any Zig Ziglar audio (random reference). Zig often says, “I’m going to repeat this three times to emphasize that it’s really important.”
- Have conviction:
Repetition is best served coupled with conviction.
- Show – don’t tell:
Words aren’t the only useful tool. Sometimes showing works even better– either because there are no words or because you/I/we can’t find the right ones.
This could be visual as more than 50% of us are visual. Use presentation tools or visual aids to communicate concepts.
Showing could also mean offering a unique experience. For example, we worked with a start-up school that was taking a novel approach to learning. We probably visit 15 schools each year, but when we arrived at this one, it was apparent something incredible was happening – their 7th and 8th graders would have outperformed most college students. Everyone who walked the halls of the school felt and understood the magic. We made it our strategy to get prospects to campus first and only used words AFTER the tour to have a dialogue about the impact.
- Start with them – not you:
This is about the prospective investor understanding, not you. You know everything about the project and the organization, while they might know very little. Of the 632 ways you could explain your work, they probably only need the right THREE to get there. This is why listening is so important.
At our trainings, we do an exercise where we pair up two people who have never met. They have five minutes in which person A is to communicate everything she needs to communicate to get person B to say, “I get it. I understand what you do. I could share that with others.”
In some groups, person A will talk fast and nonstop for five minutes. In those cases person B looks worn out and lost after five minutes.
In other groups, person A will introduce a talking point then ask a question, allowing person B to give feedback. Person A listens and uses that feedback to share even more targeted and relevant message points. After three minutes, person B usually says, “Got it! Really cool!”
The point? Helping someone understand is not about talking AT them.
Once the prospect understands the message, then there is room for deeper, more detailed conversation.
