If you’re trying to figure out the best place to start or anchor your message of change, the answer is always, “start with the question you exist to answer.”
That question immediately:
- Anchors the change you’re arguing as relevant to your audience
- Articulates the promise of what your audience will get from making that change
- Starts a story in your audience’s heads they can’t help but want to hear
But what if your change answers a lot of questions? In that case, take a gander at this diagram I drew for you:
Now, that’s a lot to take in at once, so let me break it down into a process you can follow to find the best question for your message.
(1)
On the left, are all the questions the change could answer for your ideal audience. Those are all the outcomes and benefits your change would produce, just framed as audience questions. For instance, “How can I make more money, faster?” or “What’s the best way to help the unhoused?”
Start by listing out all the audience questions your change could answer.
Test those questions with your change as the answer, e.g., “What can we do to mitigate carbon emissions? [THIS CHANGE].”
If the resulting question/answer pair is true, leave the question in the list. If not, cross it out.
(2)
Even though the change could answer all of those questions, within that list there’s a subset of questions that you’d actually want to answer for your ideal audience—the smaller circle within the large one on the left.
Why is that important? Because ultimately this question establishes the primary outcome of the change. As the person or organization representing it, that means it’s the primary outcome you’re staking your reputation and brand on. It’s your “why.”
Creating change, whether in the broader marketplace or just in a single person’s mind, takes a lot of work, so you want to make sure that question, your “why,” is something you’re willing to work that hard for.
Cross out any questions from #1 that aren’t your primary “why.” Only those questions you actively want to answer for your ideal audience should remain.
(3)
Now, I could just say, “Pick one of those!” but then you might be missing out on something pretty important: what your audience cares about. I define “buy-in” as believing in something enough to actually act on it.
But your audience may not even know they need certain questions answered. If your audience doesn’t know they need something, they certainly don’t want it—and if they don’t want it, they’ll never buy into it. It is pretty much just that simple.
To establish relevance something actually has to be relevant to your audience—and when it comes to buy-in, they decide what’s relevant, not you. You’re looking for questions that your audience is trying to answer on their own. They’re Googling these questions. They’re researching them. They’re asking friends and colleagues for suggestions on what to do or where to start. That’s what’s in the largest circle on the right.
To find these questions, look at the search strings that lead people to your website, research keywords on answerthepublic.com, talk to your frontline sales teams, etc.). You can also think through the questions people would ask at different stages of awareness, agreement, and readiness.
Warning! Your change must actually answer this question. This isn’t about manipulating people into action or grabbing eye- or earballs. It’s about establishing how the change delivers, long-term, something your audience already wants.
List all the questions your audience actively wants to have answered.
As before, test those questions with your change as the answer, e.g., “What can we do to mitigate carbon emissions? [THIS CHANGE].”
If the resulting question/answer pair is true, leave the question in the list. If not, cross it out.
(4)
Not all audience questions are created equal. The more someone wants an answer to a question, the more motivated they’ll be to listen to options they haven’t heard before. If you want to build buy-in for your change from the beginning, then you want to find the subset of questions your audience is most motivated to answer. Those are the questions in the smaller circle within the larger right-hand one.
For example, which question would you be more interested in hearing the answer to?
A – “How can we make our business more successful?”
B – “What’s the best way to increase our revenue?”
Most people would say “B,” as it’s more specific, and specificity strengthens messages.
Identify the questions from #3 that your audience is most motivated to answer.
(5)
You should now have two batches of questions:
- All the questions you want to answer with the change (from #2)
- All the questions your audience is most motivated to answer (from #4)
Ideally, there’s some degree of overlap between the two lists. Those are the red question marks in the white center of all the overlapping circles.
Cross off any questions that don’t appear on both lists. Only those questions that both you and your audience are motivated to answer should remain.
(6)
You should now have a short list of questions. It may only be one or two, or it could be more. Either way, you’re now looking for the one that’s the “most” of both #2 and #4.
Of the questions your audience is most motivated to answer, choose the one question you most want to answer.
How do you decide? Well, you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not the most woo-woo of people. But in this last step, how you feel about the question is critically important, for all the reasons I talked about in #2, above.
Even more importantly, though, any core message is a statement of opinion—your opinion. Your message is your argument for a change you want to make or the change you represent in the marketplace. Taken to its essence, it’s you saying that the best way to answer the audience’s question is with your change—and why you believe that to be true.
Your team or the market can’t decide which argument to make. Only you can. Your audience only decides whether or not they agree.
But all of it starts with a question. Figuring out which question is the first and best place to build buy-in for any change. So… what’s yours? Email me and let me know.
[bctt tweet=”Your message is your argument for a change you want to make or the change you represent in the marketplace.” username= “tamadear”]
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