How to explain your idea in 30 seconds or less

Are you feeling this way? That despite achingly long days, you seem to have even less time to get and keep people’s attention? It’s frustrating, right? Especially because — if you’re anything like me — it’s even more important to get your message across. To get people to hear it and want to know more.

So, I recorded a quick video to give you a way to do just that… in only 30 seconds! The video is a *wee* bit longer than 30 seconds (only four minutes and change), but it gives you my formula for building your “Minimum Viable Message.” And heck, if you’re super short on time, here it is…

In one sentence give people something that they want, via a means they didn’t expect.

The “something that they want” makes your message relevant. The “means they didn’t expect” makes it remarkable.

You need both because, as counterintuitive as it may seem, remarkable gets people’s attention, but relevance keeps it. When you have a message that combines both, you get the best of both worlds.

There are a few other “requirements” I mention in the video to make sure your Minimum Viable Message is as strong as it can be. When you put everything together you can run your message through this “test”:

• Is it one sentence?
• Is it 140 characters or less?
• Does it only use words that someone who knows nothing about your idea already would easily understand?
• Does it include something your audience wants? (This is the relevance piece!)
• Would your audience agree they want it? Out loud? In front of colleagues or friends? (This is making sure it’s relevant)
• Does it also include something they haven’t heard before?

When you put it all together, you get a quick and powerful way to explain your idea in a way that people both understand and want to know more about.

In other words, the best way to explain your idea in 30 seconds is to give people something they want, via a means they didn’t expect. (See what I did there?) 😉

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Transcription:

Let’s say you only have 30 seconds to explain your big idea. How do you do it in a way that people will both understand it and want it? That’s what we’re talking about this week on Find The Red Thread. I’m your host, Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com.

How do you explain your idea in 30 seconds? Well, here is the quick answer. You need to give people, in that short sentence, something that they want and something they didn’t expect. Now, you might say, “Why are those pieces there?” Well, let me back up a little bit and say what we tend to do. Now, what we tend to do when we explain our ideas is either dive right into the details of all how it works and why it’s important or what makes it different, but in order to really truly capture someone’s attention in a way that they’re going to listen to those extra things, we have to establish why it’s relevant to them in the first place, how it gives them something that they want.

Now, a way to figure that out is to go through and ask yourself, “Well, what are the questions that people are asking right now?” What questions are people asking that your idea is an answer to? Then make sure that answer is in your answer. If your idea is about, I don’t know, say how to explain ideas and someone says to you, “What’s your idea?”, at the very least you need to say, “Well, my idea helps people explain their ideas in 30 seconds or less.” Now, that’s great. Right? Because it tells them that they’re going to get something that they want, and they’re going to be curious to hear more. To make sure that you’ve got a super powerful message you want to make sure that it has something else you want to make sure it has that thing that they don’t expect.

You’ve got relevance, but you also want to make sure that there’s this remarkable piece, toO. Why? Because, and this may be a little bit counterintuitive, REmarkable gets people’s attention, but relevance keeps it. Remember, something that’s different is always going to capture people’s attention, but for someone to stay with it, they have to understand how it gives them something that they want. That’s why your minimum viable message, the tiniest way that you can explain your idea, has to have both of those pieces in it. Make sure that when you’re putting together something for your idea, an explanation of your idea, you’re able to do that.

In fact, I like to give people this test. See if you can write down an explanation of your idea in a single sentence. Now, that sentence also needs to meet these criteria. First, it needs to be 140 characters or less, in other words, pretty darn short. Second, it needs to include words that people understand intuitively and they understand them the way that you want them to. In other words, no jargon, no words that need additional explanation. It needs to be basic words. Three, make sure that in that single sentence is something people want. Then four, make sure that that thing that they want is something that they know that they want, that they would actually say out loud to friends or colleagues. Then finally, put in that sentence something about how to get that thing that they want that’s something that they haven’t heard before.

Now, when you put that all together, it’s going to be very, very powerful. It’s going to sound something like the best way to explain your idea in 30 seconds is to give people something that they want via a means they didn’t expect. Pretty simple. Right? That’s this week’s episode of Find The Red Thread. I’m Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. I’d love to hear your minimum viable messages, your 140 character explanations. So send those to me at redthreadme@tamsenwebster.com or ping me on social.

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