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You're listening to the nonprofit power podcast.
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In today's episode, we reveal how to use imagery to shift a decision makers perspective in your favor.
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So stay tuned.
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If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick and I've helped dozens of progressive nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are.
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To have them seeking you out as an equal partner.
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And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the nonprofit power podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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One of the biggest challenges nonprofit leaders face is engaging decision makers around the information and data that we know make a compelling case for the policy or money decision we're asking for.
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But we know from experience that simply presenting that data and information and explaining why and how it supports our argument he rarely leads to a decision maker leaning in and saying, tell me more.
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Much less having them say you're right.
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This is a no brainer.
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One of the best techniques for translating data and information into something that's engaging and compelling.
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Is the use of vivid parallel or contrasting imagery.
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There are plenty of other tools in the messaging toolbox.
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But this one is especially effective.
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Once you learn how to use it.
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We talk a lot about different messaging techniques here on the podcast, but today I want to zero in on one of the most effective.
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Unfortunately, it's also one that folks seem to struggle with the most.
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In part, I think because it takes a lot of people outside their comfort zone.
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To use this technique effectively, you have to become much more of a performer, and less of a presenter.
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Because for the imagery to really hit home, your voice needs to be as compelling as the imagery.
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I'm going to focus specifically on how to use parallel and contrasting imagery.
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These are especially powerful.
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And I think if you're going to take the trouble to learn how to use imagery, you might as well go for the biggest impact.
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With parallel imagery, you're saying, this data or information that I want to tell you about.
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Is the same as this other more concrete and dramatic image, just looked at through a different lens.
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You use parallel imagery to reinforce your information.
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With contrasting imagery, you're calling up an image that is the opposite of the desired thing.
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Your goal with contrasting imagery is to discredit the wrong idea by showing how dramatically and obviously wrong it is through a contrasting image.
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Let me give you a great example of parallel imagery from Stephen Covey, who I'm sure most of you are familiar with at least by reputation, if not by having read his stuff.
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He is the seven habits of highly effective people guy.
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And he also has a book called the eighth habit.
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And in it, he describes some polling results that revealed information about employee engagement in organizations.
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Already not the most super exciting topic, but here we go.
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So first he reports the polls findings.
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Only 37% said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
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Only one in five was enthusiastic about their teams and their organizations goals.
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Only one in five said they had a clear line of sight between their tasks and their teams and organizations goals.
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Only 15% felt their organization fully enabled them to execute key goals.
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And only 20% fully trusted the organization they work for.
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So you listen to that.
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And it sounds like that's probably not good.
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It sounds kind of bad, right?
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But taking any sort of clarity or meaning from it is difficult.
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You get a vague sense that a lot of people are not very engaged in the organization that they work for.
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And that's probably bad.
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But it's really hard to get your brain around a lot of abstract statistics like that.
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Now I already improved the accessibility of that data by presenting it with my voice in a way that emphasizes aspects of the data that help you get your head around it.
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But that's not good enough.
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So what Covey did to make this vaguely bad sounding data more concrete, and have clear implications.
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He calls up a parallel image and says, if this was a soccer team, only four of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs.
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Only two of the 11 would care.
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Only two of the 11 would know what position they play, and know exactly what they're supposed to do.
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And all but two of the players would in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.
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First of all, how much more vivid and powerful and impactful is that imagery?
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It's light years different from the recitation of polling data.
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And the reason it works so well is first of all, it's very concrete.
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It takes abstract data and places it in a concrete setting that we can easily visualize.
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It also puts it in a setting that we're more familiar with.
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Even if you're not a sports fan.
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You can pretty much visualize a soccer team, right.
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And you have a baseline understanding that a soccer team isn't going to function very well if those things are happening.
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In fact, it'll be a disaster.
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And you don't have to know anything about soccer to grasp that.
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But what do most people do when they have that kind of polling data in their hands?
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First of all, they focus on the data.
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And they say, whoa, this data's really compelling.
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Let's put that on a slide.
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Because when people see this, they're going to have their minds blown.
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Well, Ah, not.
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Because abstract data is hard to get your brain around.
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But concrete imagery, and framing that imagery in something that's already familiar, allows a different part of your brain to say oh, wow.
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That's really significant.
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And you'll remember it.
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Now often for maximum impact.
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What you're going to want to do is combine imagery with story.
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Because it's even more effective when you can use story to create an entire set of imagery.
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And then your parallel or contrasting imagery has a spot in that story that really drives home your key point.
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And we're going to talk about how you do both.
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When we're trying to get through to decision makers, it helps to understand what's going on in their minds, that tends to make them impervious to new information and perspectives and to your great information in particular.
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I get it that you're super excited about your data.
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It's probably really awesome data.
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The problem is that it doesn't penetrate.
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It excites you because you already understand the story.
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You understand how it fits.
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You understand it's place and it's meaning.
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But we make the mistake.
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And this is referred to in a lot of different contexts including messaging, as the curse of knowledge.
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You know too much.
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You have so much background information, you have so much context already operating in your brain.
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That a set of data about your outcomes, or your impact, or your cost-effectiveness.
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When you look at that data in isolation, you are automatically slotting that in to an entire story that already exists in your mind.
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Because you live and breathe that story every day in your work.
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But you have to understand that the decision maker does not have that incredibly complex background story running in their brain 24 7.
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They don't even know that story exists.
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The reason we so often have a disconnect is we forget that the decision-maker we're talking to, doesn't have one 10th the knowledge that we have about the meaning of our data.
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And they don't have the context.
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So we have to create it for them.
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Now what's not going to work is to try to fill the decision-makers head with everything that's in our head.
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Maybe over time, you can work toward that.
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And when you develop champions you get closer to that ideal.
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You get to the point, when you have really good champions in money and policy decision making circles actively advocating for your stuff.
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They have progressed to the point where they do have a lot of that story operating actively in their mind.
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But most decision makers don't have that.
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And so it's really helpful to understand why what seems obvious to you is not remotely obvious to them.
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And then you're contending with another issue, which is that the decision maker already has an existing set of beliefs and filters and stories about the problem at hand.
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You're in the business of solving problems with your nonprofit services.
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And the decision maker is in the business in some way, they I have some connection action to the business of solving this problem too, or you wouldn't be talking to them.
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But they've got a different set of stories in their head.
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And so they believe that they already understand not only what the problem is, but what the causes of the problem are.
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And probably they have thoughts about and beliefs about what the best solutions are.
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But here's the thing.
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In spite of that alleged knowledge, they still haven't been able to actually solve the problem.
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Right.
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The problem still exists in the world.
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That's why your services are there, to help address that problem or set of problems.
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So what's happening in part is that the decision makers are not acknowledging that disconnect.
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The disconnect between them thinking they know what the problem is and how to solve it.
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And the fact that it ain't solved.
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Now there's a reason people tend not to acknowledge those disconnects.
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Because it might say something about them and their decision-making and their approach to the problem.
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So instead where they go is they blame the victim.
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Rather than examine their analysis and solutions to find the flaws in that.
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So part of your job is to help them see that the reason the solutions they've been applying have not totally solved the problem, is that there's a piece that's missing.
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And your thing is the missing piece.
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And or proper investment in things that work is the missing piece.
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To help get past all those filters you reframe the problem in terms of an image and a story.
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Of both the person experiencing the problem and what it's like, and also the experience of the decision makers organization and how they're experiencing the problem.
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And how frustrating that is.
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And how they've tried solutions.
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And while those solutions made a little bit of difference, they're not really solving the problem.
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And they're still experiencing all the aspects of the problem that they don't want.
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And the frustration they feel around that is very real.
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So you can tap into that frustration.
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And you know, we always talk about one of the things you want to be able to do is engage emotion.
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Frustration is an emotion.
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And it's very useful.
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if you can connect with that.
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You come along and you say, I get it.
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I understand your frustration.
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I understand your experience.
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And we hear that from fill in the blank decision-maker type all the time.
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And we were frustrated by it too, until we discovered that there was something missing.
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We created a service/intervention/product that filled in the missing piece.
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And when we did that, everything changed.
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That's when the problem started to actually go away.
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That's when the positive impact went way up.
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That's when the negative impact went way down.
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And of course you're providing a detailed picture of what those look like.
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And then basically the question you're going to pose to them is, would you like to know what that one piece was?
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And that's an opening for engagement.
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In that combination of story and imagery, you're going to be using imagery to paint the picture of the experience the client is having.
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And how this is manifesting in their life.
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And then you're also painting a picture of how the different solutions that have been tried have sort of worked, but not completely.
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And what that looks like.
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Here's what the partially solved problem looks like.
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Which is basically the person experiencing the problem directly has maybe one little thing has improved.
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Or a couple of little things have improved, but they still have the fundamental problem.
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And now the decision-makers organization has the problem that they spent money to solve the problem, but it's not really solved.
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And so there's still cost happening.
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Either in the form of public assistance in some form, or cost to society.
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Cost to a business, depending on what the environment is.
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So it's like we invested in solving the problem.
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It didn't really do it.
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And now it's still costing money.
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And this is super annoying.
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You're tapping into all of that.
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So that's the way you introduce them to your thing.
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Or your investment strategy or whatever it is that you want them to say yes to, that's going to make a much bigger dent in the problem.
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That's going to really solve it in a way that results in not having to have bandaids continually slapped on it.
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So the conversation about investment and it not being productive, gets at another problem which is very common.
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And that's the decision-makers want to go bargain hunting.
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And the story that decision makers tell themselves when they're bargain hunting, is that the solutions that look and sound like yours that are cheaper.
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They tell themselves that they're the same.
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And therefore it's perfectly okay to go with the cheaper option.
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So you absolutely have to explain to them why the cheap, lower quality or less tailored alternative is not as good.
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And will not produce the outcomes they're wanting and that you are promising with your better solution.
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So this is a place where you can use parallel imagery to incredibly powerful effect.
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You take a comparative frame that they already understand really well.
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If they're in the healthcare space, for example, they understand the difference between a specialized prescription medicine, and an OTC aspirin.
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It is intuitively glaringly obvious to them that those two are not equivalent.
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And will not in any universe produce similar outcomes.
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But they are both drugs..
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So there is a distinction that is like, already burned in their brain.
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That is a frame, an image, a concept that they know without thinking.
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So the parallel image is, well, yeah, but they're both drugs.
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If drugs are the answer, can't we go with the cheap OTC option?
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patient will have gotten drugs and therefore it should solve the problem.
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Well, that's patently absurd.
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And a healthcare audience will regard it as such.
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So if you're talking to a healthcare decision maker, you frame that up first.
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And then you introduce your thing as the equivalent of the highly effective prescription drug.
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And you introduce the low cost knock-off alternative as the OTC aspirin.
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You're using imagery that's already familiar to them.
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It makes sense to them.
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They have a complete framework of thought around it.
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And if you come along and say, you know what?
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You're basically saying that that would be fine.
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When you choose the generic low cost bargain alternative to what we do.
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You're basically handing them an aspirin when what they really need is chemotherapy.
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In the workforce development space, it's the difference between a high wage career path and a low wage dead-end job.
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Now everybody knows that in the abstract, obviously high wage is better than low wage.
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But there's all these dynamics in the workforce development decision-making world that skew the decision-making toward the cheap alternatives.
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The low cost quick fix things.
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Even though we know they don't really work.
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And so.
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There's lots of services and approaches out there in workforce development land that promise a quick fix for a low cost.
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And if you're a workforce development service provider that has tailored highly effective, comprehensive services that take longer and cost more, but that produce much higher wage outcomes and that lead to advancement on a high wage career path.
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The problem you're up against is, yeah, but that costs a lot and it takes a long time and we need to show results.
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There's a couple ways you can come at this to get the decision maker, to think a little bit differently.
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Now one is a little bit risky.
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Because it might poke a sore spot.
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But one of the things you could do is ask the decision maker, would you advise your kid that they should go into this quick fix training program?
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Or would you rather see them go into the comprehensive, career path oriented, long-term positive outcome?
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If your kid were looking for these services, where would you send them?
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Because one of the things you're pointing out, there's some hidden beliefs in here.
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That what's good for workforce development participants who are generally low income, is not the same at all as what's good for me the decision-maker or my college bound, going to be a high wage career kid.
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There's a tendency to see those as two separate universes.
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And personalizing it a little bit and saying, your niece or nephew were looking into this, what would you encourage them to do?
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Where would you want to see them wind up?
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All right.
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So that's putting a crack in the idea that it's the same.
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And it's forcing them to acknowledge.
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Yeah, no, actually they already know that it's not the same.
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They're just pretending it is because they don't want to acknowledge that the thing that works costs more.
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So you can tackle this with some parallel imagery.
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And your objectives here are several things.
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One, you're going to show the concrete difference between the two alternatives.
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The low wage outcome, but quick and cheap fix, versus the higher wage outcome, but a longer term investment that costs more in both time and money.
00:19:54.232 --> 00:19:59.123
So, first of all, you help them get in their head, the correct image of who the client is.
00:19:59.796 --> 00:20:02.042
And very often it is a working parent.
00:20:02.893 --> 00:20:10.395
So you're going to take them through a concrete, visual exercise in which you tally up what it costs to be a working parent.
00:20:10.955 --> 00:20:13.806
Now the least effective way to do this would be to talk them through it.
00:20:14.286 --> 00:20:16.746
So you described the single parent.
00:20:17.148 --> 00:20:19.298
Statistically speaking, it's predominantly women.
00:20:19.778 --> 00:20:20.259
So.
00:20:20.259 --> 00:20:21.068
Single mom.
00:20:21.068 --> 00:20:21.969
Couple of kids.
00:20:22.476 --> 00:20:23.256
One's in school.
00:20:23.286 --> 00:20:24.276
One is daycare age.
00:20:24.712 --> 00:20:26.123
Or maybe two kids are in daycare.
00:20:26.153 --> 00:20:27.232
You can make up whatever you want.
00:20:27.992 --> 00:20:29.313
Okay, so here she is.
00:20:29.843 --> 00:20:31.222
First of all, she probably already working.
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:36.025
And she's looking to get a job that pays better so that she can support her family.
00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:38.342
So you think about what her costs are.
00:20:38.759 --> 00:20:39.628
She's got to get to work.
00:20:39.659 --> 00:20:40.979
That's transportation costs.
00:20:41.398 --> 00:20:42.598
She's got to get the kids to childcare.
00:20:42.628 --> 00:20:44.098
That's more transportation costs.
00:20:44.368 --> 00:20:45.719
Got to pay for childcare.
00:20:46.019 --> 00:20:47.249
That's a huge chunk of money.
00:20:47.769 --> 00:20:53.739
And then you might have to buy an appropriate work wardrobe, or perhaps your employer makes you pay for your own uniforms.
00:20:53.979 --> 00:20:55.209
There are some more expenses.
00:20:55.568 --> 00:20:58.328
Maybe you have to buy your own tools or supplies.
00:20:59.259 --> 00:21:00.398
So that was just work-related.
00:21:00.818 --> 00:21:04.148
And then, you know, there's rent and groceries.
00:21:04.148 --> 00:21:05.318
And utilities.
00:21:05.892 --> 00:21:14.662
And you can talk the decision maker through how quickly those basic expenses of even very frugal living quickly overwhelm a low wage paycheck.
00:21:16.192 --> 00:21:19.612
So at least you're basing that in story and you're conjuring some images.
00:21:20.541 --> 00:21:24.981
A little more effective way would be to do a very quick tally that they can see.
00:21:25.372 --> 00:21:27.291
On like a whiteboard or on a piece of paper.
00:21:27.662 --> 00:21:29.942
You're adding it up so they can see numbers.
00:21:31.112 --> 00:21:31.711
Or.
00:21:31.898 --> 00:21:36.969
You can show it in a way that is highly concrete and impactful and memorable.
00:21:38.078 --> 00:21:39.519
You bring in a bag of pennies.
00:21:40.068 --> 00:21:44.179
And you say every penny represents$50 or a hundred dollars.
00:21:44.832 --> 00:21:51.521
And you count out a stack of pennies that represents a month of full-time low wage income.
00:21:52.301 --> 00:21:55.692
And obviously you'll use locally relevant wage figures for this.
00:21:55.692 --> 00:21:58.781
I'm not going to provide numbers because cost of living varies widely.
00:21:58.882 --> 00:22:01.491
But you know what those numbers are for your area.
00:22:02.041 --> 00:22:09.578
And if you want to refine it further you could use wage outcomes for adult women in the local workforce development system.
00:22:10.519 --> 00:22:15.278
And say, this is what single moms are earning when they come out of these quick fix programs.
00:22:16.288 --> 00:22:18.088
However you arrive at your income figure.
00:22:18.375 --> 00:22:19.454
You say, this is what it is.
00:22:19.484 --> 00:22:19.755
All right.
00:22:19.755 --> 00:22:22.694
So you stack up the pennies on the income side.
00:22:22.694 --> 00:22:24.494
So this is your income for the month.
00:22:25.269 --> 00:22:26.618
Let's see how this works out.
00:22:26.949 --> 00:22:29.138
And then you walk through all the expenses.
00:22:29.679 --> 00:22:33.628
And with each expense, you're moving some of the pennies over to the expense side of the table.
00:22:34.184 --> 00:22:37.818
And pretty often you run out of pennies before you've met all the expenses.
00:22:38.362 --> 00:22:38.902
And now what.
00:22:39.741 --> 00:22:41.345
And then you could ask the decision maker.
00:22:41.404 --> 00:22:47.694
If you're this person, does it make any sense to spend time in training to get to this outcome.
00:22:48.055 --> 00:22:49.704
When you're still going to be in the hole.
00:22:50.444 --> 00:22:52.095
You're actually losing money every month.
00:22:52.125 --> 00:22:53.115
That doesn't make any sense.
00:22:53.875 --> 00:22:57.085
And then you show what it looks like with another pile of pennies.
00:22:57.654 --> 00:23:00.474
Where the person is on track to make a living wage.
00:23:01.164 --> 00:23:06.169
And again, you're using living wage figures that are appropriate to your cost of living area.
00:23:06.815 --> 00:23:10.464
So now you had a new pile of pennies that represent the living wage.
00:23:11.184 --> 00:23:14.305
And then you move the pennies over for the expenses.
00:23:14.588 --> 00:23:21.221
And you're either breaking even, or coming up with just a little bit extra every month that the person has for an emergency fund.
00:23:22.088 --> 00:23:25.118
Another thing you could do, if that all feels too involved.
00:23:25.638 --> 00:23:35.509
You could use stacks of pennies just to show the gap between the typical wage outcome for the quick fix low costs workforce development options in your area.
00:23:35.778 --> 00:23:39.558
Versus the self-sufficiency standard or living wage for your area.
00:23:40.088 --> 00:23:42.159
And just show the difference in the size of the pennies.
00:23:42.739 --> 00:23:43.939
You can come at this a lot of different ways.
00:23:43.969 --> 00:23:45.858
And I'm not wedded to the pennies idea.
00:23:46.551 --> 00:23:50.365
What I want you to take from this is that it is concrete.
00:23:50.711 --> 00:23:58.602
It involves the decision-maker actually physically watching a pile of pennies move and come up short.
00:23:59.422 --> 00:24:05.974
That's going to drive home the concept that that short term, quick fix doesn't solve the problem.
00:24:06.634 --> 00:24:08.315
That's the first thing you gotta get.
00:24:08.835 --> 00:24:11.085
Because they've been telling themselves that it's good enough.
00:24:11.785 --> 00:24:14.184
So the first thing you had to do is say, no, it's not good enough.
00:24:14.875 --> 00:24:21.744
And then you can do a similar exercise with the wage outcomes that you produce through your more intensive services.
00:24:22.382 --> 00:24:22.832
You say.
00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:23.528
Aha.
00:24:23.528 --> 00:24:24.548
Look at the difference.
00:24:25.298 --> 00:24:29.199
allows them to see two different things with the same imagery.
00:24:29.852 --> 00:24:35.328
Number one, the low cost quick fix service is not equal.
00:24:35.815 --> 00:24:38.082
Is not as good as your service.
00:24:38.769 --> 00:24:43.214
And the low cost quick fix alternative does not solve the problem.
00:24:43.714 --> 00:24:49.352
And your higher cost, in both time and money, does solve the problem.
00:24:50.164 --> 00:24:52.692
So the pennies are just one way to do this.
00:24:53.338 --> 00:24:56.249
The operative point is you have to be willing to think creatively.
00:24:56.892 --> 00:24:59.801
Think outside the PowerPoint box.
00:25:00.592 --> 00:25:03.172
Leave your slides at home and bring props instead.
00:25:03.568 --> 00:25:08.338
Until you learn to use props and metaphor as instinctively as you use your slides.
00:25:09.219 --> 00:25:14.838
Once you get to that level with props and metaphor and image, then you can mix and match.
00:25:15.221 --> 00:25:19.652
Cause decision-makers are a little bit addicted to the crutch of the PowerPoint slide too.
00:25:20.261 --> 00:25:23.682
And they sometimes want, you know, can you leave the slides with me or whatever.
00:25:23.682 --> 00:25:33.652
But if you want to graphically capture some key data, you can create a PDF one pager that it is much better to leave with them than a slide deck, which honestly they won't look at it again.
00:25:33.951 --> 00:25:35.451
But they might look at the one pager.
00:25:35.979 --> 00:25:41.692
Especially if your one pager recalls the image that you used in your discussion.
00:25:42.412 --> 00:25:47.490
So, if you used, for example, the pennies demonstration in your conversation with them.
00:25:47.903 --> 00:25:54.413
Then that penny imagery should reappear on the PDF that you leave with them, or that you email them on follow-up.
00:25:55.019 --> 00:25:57.119
You've gone to the trouble to create that image in their head.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:25:58.380
You want to reinforce it.
00:25:58.769 --> 00:26:03.299
Because I promise you that kind of concrete imagery is much stickier.
00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:09.059
There's brain science reasons for this that we don't need to get into, but it absolutely is.
00:26:09.539 --> 00:26:12.380
And so you want to reinforce that.
00:26:13.420 --> 00:26:13.839
Now.
00:26:14.096 --> 00:26:22.230
All of this presumes that you have already dialed in your four key messaging elements that we've talked about repeatedly on the podcast.
00:26:22.859 --> 00:26:30.457
Your essential core messaging should always contain four key elements that the decision makers need to be really clear about.
00:26:31.257 --> 00:26:35.076
They need to understand what your organization does in a nutshell.
00:26:35.640 --> 00:26:40.950
And that description has to be concise enough that they could repeat it back to you accurately.
00:26:41.490 --> 00:26:46.380
But it can't be so generic that it makes you sound like all the other programs, because part of what you're doing is distinguishing.
00:26:46.990 --> 00:26:52.009
Your messaging should be clear on the specific problem or problems that you solve.
00:26:52.549 --> 00:26:56.039
Or in some cases, a key piece of a larger problem.
00:26:56.297 --> 00:26:59.926
Which is often the case with some of the most sophisticated service solutions.
00:27:00.553 --> 00:27:02.682
What's unique about your solution.
00:27:03.073 --> 00:27:03.942
What's different.
00:27:05.083 --> 00:27:08.323
And the impact of that unique solution.
00:27:08.923 --> 00:27:15.343
And how it creates exceptional outcomes for both the people you serve and for the community or for the decision-makers organization.
00:27:16.103 --> 00:27:19.133
And all of that basically goes to your unique value.
00:27:20.116 --> 00:27:21.916
So I'm assuming you've got that dialed in.
00:27:21.916 --> 00:27:30.009
Because if you don't have that at your fingertips, it's going to be very difficult to craft imagery that reinforces your core messaging.
00:27:30.130 --> 00:27:31.690
Obviously, right.
00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:35.799
So what you're using imagery for is to drive home something specific.
00:27:36.252 --> 00:27:41.182
And it's a tool in your messaging delivery toolkit.
00:27:41.893 --> 00:27:50.700
Now part of the problem with this particular technique of using one or the other, or a combination of parallel and contrasting imagery.
00:27:51.002 --> 00:27:55.292
Is that it's probably going to feel uncomfortable if you're not already using it.
00:27:55.952 --> 00:28:00.843
It's going to take you out of your orderly facts and figures presentation mode.
00:28:01.353 --> 00:28:03.573
And it's going to put you in the center of the ring.
00:28:04.413 --> 00:28:11.103
The decision maker's attention will be focused on you and on the imagery you're creating as you talk.
00:28:11.630 --> 00:28:20.480
That puts you on stage and at the center of attention in a way that frankly doesn't happen when you are presenting a slide deck.
00:28:21.042 --> 00:28:30.009
And so if you're not accustomed to having that decision-maker's attention laser-focused on you, then that's going to take some getting used to.
00:28:30.682 --> 00:28:31.859
But it's essential.
00:28:32.257 --> 00:28:37.537
Because the heart of all effective communication is the interpersonal connection.
00:28:38.153 --> 00:28:44.880
And so particularly if you have been using, and this may take some reflection for you to consider whether this is you.
00:28:45.750 --> 00:28:58.826
But if in some settings anyway, you tend to use a slide deck or other dry data presentations as a way to deflect attention from you and put the decision makers attention on the information.
00:28:59.462 --> 00:29:04.457
That is a key reason that you're not getting the engagement you want.
00:29:05.057 --> 00:29:08.116
Always, always the engagement is between two people.
00:29:08.866 --> 00:29:11.982
And so you have information to convey.
00:29:12.297 --> 00:29:14.519
You have an engagement you want.
00:29:14.670 --> 00:29:16.319
But you want a conversation.
00:29:16.380 --> 00:29:18.539
You want them involved.
00:29:18.779 --> 00:29:22.737
You want their brain involved in a joint problem solving endeavor.
00:29:23.259 --> 00:29:26.742
And that doesn't happen when you're spraying them with facts.
00:29:27.682 --> 00:29:34.153
Now another thing I want to make sure to point out, is that even when you get good at using parallel and contrasting imagery.
00:29:34.487 --> 00:29:35.987
And weaving it into story.
00:29:36.886 --> 00:29:40.846
Not every initial image that comes into your head.
00:29:41.267 --> 00:29:44.416
Is going to be perfect or even good.
00:29:44.980 --> 00:29:47.650
You're going to want to workshop those images a little bit.
00:29:48.212 --> 00:29:50.317
So an image will come to you.
00:29:50.881 --> 00:29:52.351
And then you want to play with it.
00:29:53.141 --> 00:29:59.921
And the questions to ask are, how can I make this simple, concrete, and a little bit unexpected.
00:30:01.040 --> 00:30:08.127
And use that to refine an image that you ultimately want to stick in the decision makers mind.
00:30:09.218 --> 00:30:14.137
And you have to always be focused on what it is you want them to get, or to believe.
00:30:14.461 --> 00:30:18.090
And make sure that the imagery you're creating is going to lead them to that.
00:30:18.671 --> 00:30:19.750
Because here's what can happen.
00:30:20.142 --> 00:30:26.321
and I'm guilty of this from time to time, I can get an image that I think is like the most perfect image.
00:30:26.644 --> 00:30:29.749
Oh my God, this actually says everything in a nutshell.
00:30:30.548 --> 00:30:35.439
And it may say something in a nutshell, but it might not be the thing that I need that decision maker to really get.
00:30:35.709 --> 00:30:39.999
So I have to always do a check of, that may be awesome, but not for this.
00:30:39.999 --> 00:30:42.909
Let me file that away that I can use another time.
00:30:43.505 --> 00:30:49.115
So you always want to make sure that the imagery you're creating is going to lead the decision maker to the thing you need them to get.
00:30:49.744 --> 00:30:54.328
And to get there, you're definitely going to need to workshop it a little bit.
00:30:54.961 --> 00:30:57.541
Your initial idea might be on the right path.
00:30:57.815 --> 00:30:59.075
But it's not quite there yet.
00:30:59.255 --> 00:31:00.875
Something about it doesn't quite work.
00:31:01.352 --> 00:31:02.192
So you play with it.
00:31:02.612 --> 00:31:04.471
And you can play with it in your own mind.
00:31:04.471 --> 00:31:08.071
You can get together a couple of colleagues and say, Hey, I'm messing around with this.
00:31:08.071 --> 00:31:09.061
Help me make it better.
00:31:09.821 --> 00:31:17.632
Now sort of next level, ninja version of this is when you workshop it in real time in front of a decision-maker.
00:31:18.134 --> 00:31:19.454
This is not optimal.
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:23.388
But when you develop the skill enough, it will be possible.
00:31:24.068 --> 00:31:27.281
And there will be moments when it's a good idea.
00:31:27.922 --> 00:31:40.036
I have had it happen where I had learned something relatively recently, a new fact or a new piece of information would help me compare the thing that we don't want, to the thing that we do want.
00:31:40.605 --> 00:31:46.199
In the moment that I came across that piece of information, I was like, yeah, that's a really good contrast.
00:31:46.739 --> 00:31:48.118
need to find a way to call that out.
00:31:48.959 --> 00:31:52.259
But I hadn't yet gotten to, okay, what's the image I want to use?
00:31:52.348 --> 00:31:56.189
I just kind of filed it away as, yep, that's going to be a really good contrast to draw.
00:31:56.741 --> 00:32:00.266
And then unexpectedly, I find myself in a room with a decision maker.
00:32:00.496 --> 00:32:06.939
I may be in the middle of a conversation and an image tied to that contrast pops into my head.
00:32:07.551 --> 00:32:10.486
And depending on how the conversation's going, I might just say it.
00:32:10.665 --> 00:32:13.278
I might just say, you know, this is a lot like this.
00:32:13.821 --> 00:32:14.961
And gauge the reaction.
00:32:15.592 --> 00:32:19.071
If it doesn't land, if it doesn't do the job, it's not the end of the world.
00:32:19.638 --> 00:32:20.568
They just won't remember it.
00:32:20.915 --> 00:32:23.195
They're not going to say, oh my God, how could you make that comparison?
00:32:23.638 --> 00:32:25.499
They might look at you funny, like, huh, what was that?
00:32:25.949 --> 00:32:27.742
So if it doesn't land okay.
00:32:27.833 --> 00:32:28.403
Nevermind.
00:32:28.823 --> 00:32:29.932
But if it does land.
00:32:30.383 --> 00:32:31.252
Oh, my goodness.
00:32:31.432 --> 00:32:33.143
Then you can really capitalize on that.
00:32:34.012 --> 00:32:38.093
So to give you an example of this, I'm working with some clients in the nutrition space.
00:32:38.482 --> 00:32:49.500
And there's a problem there of a lot of competitors with very substandard offerings that claim to do what the much higher quality, much more tailored services do.
00:32:50.280 --> 00:33:00.570
We'd been working on a lot of messaging around a lot of different angles of comparison and contrasting, and I just had a moment where I was like, you know, what I've never done is actually look at the ingredients.
00:33:01.117 --> 00:33:05.357
So I look up the ingredients in some of the competitors products.
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.624
And I was astounded.
00:33:08.104 --> 00:33:13.760
They were so much more substandard than I had imagined that I was actually pretty shocked.
00:33:14.394 --> 00:33:21.258
And what popped into my head in that moment was, oh my God, this is an ingredient that goes in kibble.
00:33:22.131 --> 00:33:26.218
A couple days later I'm in a room with a group of people.
00:33:26.721 --> 00:33:34.691
And I raised this and said, I was just looking at ingredients and I discovered that they're using ingredients that go in kibble.
00:33:35.471 --> 00:33:38.201
They're using ingredients that I wouldn't feed my cat.
00:33:38.718 --> 00:33:46.780
And what happened was that, within minutes, everyone in the room was using the kibble reference.
00:33:47.298 --> 00:33:50.778
That's how you know when you have nailed an image.
00:33:51.698 --> 00:34:00.637
When it is instantly memorable, and put into use as a shorthand for the contrast or the parallel that you were trying to draw.
00:34:01.567 --> 00:34:11.858
We could keep going around examples, but I think this will give you a decent idea of how this works and how you can use these two techniques of parallel and contrasting imagery combined with story.
00:34:12.208 --> 00:34:15.974
To create a highly memorable, highly sticky image.
00:34:16.304 --> 00:34:23.503
That in a perfect world actually becomes a shorthand reference for how the decision maker talks about the thing going forward.
00:34:23.918 --> 00:34:29.677
That's when you know you've really hit a home run, is when they start using your image in their language.
00:34:30.454 --> 00:34:34.710
So I hope this will have given you enough to work with to get started on this.
00:34:35.117 --> 00:34:36.983
And start experimenting with it.
00:34:37.521 --> 00:34:38.690
Try this at home first.
00:34:38.690 --> 00:34:41.601
Experiment in your office, experiment with your colleagues.
00:34:41.601 --> 00:34:42.771
Play around with it.
00:34:43.521 --> 00:34:48.018
Even if this feels unfamiliar to you, It's still a good thing to play with.
00:34:48.077 --> 00:34:49.668
And what I would say is.
00:34:50.050 --> 00:34:52.451
Really, really just have fun with it when you start.
00:34:53.074 --> 00:34:56.134
And be a little bit outrageous.
00:34:56.851 --> 00:35:01.260
One of the best ways to learn this, and we're talking about playing in a safe space here.
00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:05.418
You're not gonna do this in the room with decision makers with untested imagery.
00:35:05.688 --> 00:35:12.043
But when you're just spit balling on your own or with your colleagues about what's a contrast we need to draw.
00:35:12.534 --> 00:35:14.273
What's a comparison we need to make.
00:35:14.313 --> 00:35:18.514
What's something we really need a decision maker to get that they're just not getting.
00:35:19.054 --> 00:35:22.563
Let's try imagery and see if we can make it work that way.
00:35:23.201 --> 00:35:27.851
And this is actually a really fun thing to do as a brainstorming session, when you treat it as playtime.
00:35:28.317 --> 00:35:32.710
Don't treat it like oh, God, here's another messaging technique I have to learn.
00:35:32.710 --> 00:35:33.760
This is going to be hard.
00:35:34.530 --> 00:35:41.400
The more creative and playful you can be, probably the better of the images that you generate are going to be.
00:35:42.061 --> 00:35:48.074
So give yourself and your colleagues permission to be playful and outrageous.
00:35:48.717 --> 00:35:54.086
Color way outside the lines with this and just say, what's this like?
00:35:54.536 --> 00:35:57.027
What images come to mind when we think about this?
00:35:57.414 --> 00:35:58.043
And play.
00:35:58.724 --> 00:36:00.403
You will refine it later.
00:36:00.403 --> 00:36:02.204
There will be things that you will say, okay.
00:36:02.204 --> 00:36:05.384
No, we really cannot use that image for this reason or that reason.
00:36:05.434 --> 00:36:07.773
We are pretty sure that will land very poorly.
00:36:08.487 --> 00:36:15.987
But many of the others that are highly creative won't come to you if you're not in a playful and outrageous mode.
00:36:16.530 --> 00:36:26.293
And especially if your primary way of presenting data and information has tended to be in one pagers and PowerPoint slides.
00:36:26.873 --> 00:36:31.824
You gotta jail break yourself on this one and just give yourself room to really play.
00:36:32.490 --> 00:36:35.851
I recommend getting out of the office to do this.
00:36:36.110 --> 00:36:37.876
If you are working in an office.
00:36:38.177 --> 00:36:40.456
Or even if you're working virtually from home.
00:36:41.027 --> 00:36:42.797
Go outside, take a walk.
00:36:43.271 --> 00:36:47.536
Literally go to a playground to put yourself in a playful frame of mind.
00:36:47.536 --> 00:36:48.797
Whatever works.
00:36:49.586 --> 00:36:53.536
If you're in the office, make some popcorn and make a game out of it.
00:36:54.157 --> 00:37:03.110
Once you start opening up that creativity that exists in all of us, some really powerful and effective imagery will start to surface.
00:37:03.811 --> 00:37:07.951
And then you can get busy turning those great images into messaging gold..
00:37:08.806 --> 00:37:12.677
I would love it if you would share with me some of your creative images that you come up with.
00:37:13.217 --> 00:37:18.347
And let me know how you turn that into powerfully effective messaging for your decision makers.
00:37:18.646 --> 00:37:21.746
I'd love to feature some of those examples on a future episode.
00:37:22.449 --> 00:37:23.650
So go have some fun.
00:37:24.007 --> 00:37:25.146
And thanks for listening.
00:37:25.507 --> 00:37:29.226
I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
