If you’ve ever wanted to be able to get your big idea across in a small amount of space or time, this week’s video is for you.
How to make your own Message in a Minute
Here’s the video’s Red Thread:
- GOAL: Get your big idea across in the aforementioned small amount of space or time.
- PROBLEM: When it comes to creating change, volume of information doesn’t equal power—in fact, it often works against it. The more information you pack in, the weaker your case can be.
- TRUTH: That matters because every reason has a story. When someone reads or hears information, they’re looking for the key pieces of information that help them build their personal rationalization or justification for what they decide to do (or not!).
- CHANGE: So, when you want to make sure your message carries maximum power in the minimum space, build your message up from just those key pieces of information. Put another way, eliminate everything that doesn’t strengthen the story people will tell themselves.
- ACTION: What are the key pieces? In addition to what your idea actually is (the CHANGE), make sure you always—and sometimes only!—include how your idea aligns with:
- What your audience already wants (their GOAL)
- What your audience already believes (the TRUTH)
- How your audience already approaches solving the problem for themselves (the two-part PROBLEM)
- [HINT: the Red Thread Storyline is the fastest and easiest way to make sure your message has all of these elements!]
- GOAL REVISITED: Since those elements are the ones your audience’s brain is already looking for, including (only) them does a few things:
- It gives your audience the strongest story they could tell themselves, with the minimum amount of effort on their part (always a good thing!).
- It gives you a clear outline of what the “minimum viable case” for your idea needs to be, so you have it to build on…or boil down to.
If you want to go deeper
Recording these videos, writing these posts, and heck, even writing my book is always a very “meta” exercise. After all, if I’m talking to you about an approach to messaging and presenting, I darn well better be using it myself, right?
Right.
So, yes, every time I record a “Message in a Minute” video… or build a talk or talk description… or write a piece of content… I start by finding its Red Thread.
Everything, at any length, starts with finding the Goal, Problem, Truth, Change, and Action of the idea.
Sometimes drafting that Red Thread takes longer than creating the content itself! But the value of that effort pays off over and over again.
Take this very post and video, for example. I drafted the original version of the Red Thread to write a talk description. Here is the actual brainstorm I had for the talk description:
G: Meet the daily demands for content / meet demands for shorter content
So…create the change you’re looking for
P: volume / power (dilution effect)
T: “a small key can open big doors” → The biggest changes start with the simplest shifts (in the story people tell themselves) → stories about transformation → driven by action = change, change = action
C: Structure your message around the shifts — make it work in the smallest possible space to make it work larger
A: minimum viable message → Message Math
GR: Make all your other talks/messages stronger, too — faster, better, easier at any length
You’ll see how I use a shorthand for the Red Thread Statement names. You’ll also see that I haven’t fully landed on the phrasing I eventually used in the video and in the “final” Red Thread, above.
That’s also part of my process. I get enough of the Red Thread sketched out to get started, and then work the rest out by talking (or writing) through it. The talking part ends up being easier for me, as it gets me to a conversational tone a lot more quickly. Once I have the video version done, it’s a lot easier to come back and write something more prose-based like this.
But here’s the thing:
Because the message and argument work in the smallest possible space, it will also work in larger spaces.
Remember how I said this was the Red Thread of a talk description to start? The “finalized” Red Thread of this week’s video is now the starting outline for building that talk.
To bring this minute-long version to talk length, I start to add things in. But this is important: I don’t add fundamentally new ideas or information. I only add information that aligns with and supports the main Red Thread statements.
For instance, I could:
- Open with a story that illustrates the Goal of having to fit a big idea in a small amount of time
- Interact with the audience about their own experiences with that goal
- Talk through (either on my own or with the audience) why achieving that Goal is so important—I could describe what life would look like on the other side of having done so
- Give statistics or cite a study that supports shrinking time slots or the rising demands for content
- Discuss with the audience what they think or know is getting in the way of their goal
- Describe what some of the usual answers are and what the typical (and usually unsatisfying) results are
- And so on!
If I included all of that (and in a longer presentation or workshop, I might), what took 13 words and about 10 seconds can suddenly become 10 minutes, and 1000+ words… without ever taking the content off track. All I’m doing is adding depth and detail to the core concept—expanding and enriching the audience’s understanding of the question my idea answers, why it’s important, and why they likely already care about it.
All of this works because it avoids what’s known as the “dilution effect.”
That’s what happens when information that’s not core to someone’s decision—the story they’ll tell themselves—dilutes the effect of information that is core. The extra information clouds their ability to figure out what the big idea is, and thus why they should or shouldn’t take action.
What you’re doing with the “from the Storyline up” approach is the opposite. You’re starting with only the core information needed to make the decision, and then adding only information that helps support people’s belief that the decision is the right one.
So next time you need to put a message together—no matter what length!—make sure you can make it work in a minute first. Then you’ll know for sure you have an idea strong enough to build on, not to mention a quick and easy way to get people interested in it in the first place!
You're starting with only the core information needed to make the decision, and then adding only information that helps support people's belief that the decision is the right one. Share on XPlease note that many of the links are affiliate links, which means if you buy a thing I link to, I get a percentage of the cost, and then donate it to charity.
Transcription:
How can you get your really big idea across in a really small amount of space or time? By creating your own message in a minute. That’s what we’re talking about on this message in a minute. I’m Tamsen Webster of Tamsenwebster.com. And in order to do this, it really comes down to understanding a couple things. First, that there is an inverse relationship between volume and power. Here’s what I mean. The more information you pack into any message in a given amount of time, the less effective it’s going to be. So don’t try to take what you’ve got and just speak faster. You actually have to take things out, but what do you take out and what do you leave in? Well, that’s where the second piece of information comes in. And the way to remember this is this, every reason has a story.
See, anytime someone hears your message, they’re looking for a reason to act or not act. And they decide based on a story they tell themselves, a justification, a rationalization about whether or not your information makes sense. So when you’re trying to get your message across, you need to boil down and out anything that isn’t part of that core story. How does it get them something they already want? How does it align with what they already believe? And how does your new approach represent a different, but agreeable shift in perspective from what they see you right now? It’s all about taking out what doesn’t fit that story and leaving in only a new story that leads to new action.
If you want more information on exactly how to do that, you can find that in my book, Find Your Red Thread: How to Make Big Ideas Irresistible. But I’m also talking specifically about that topic on my blog and in my newsletter, you can sign up at tamsenwebster.com/newsletter and find the blog post that corresponds to this video at tamsenwebster.com/content.
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Susan Younger referred me here as I need to formulate a message in minute ASAP to update my landing page that is part of a 5 week challenge!
Looking forward to instantly implementing the above advice!
Good luck! Reach out with your questions or when you need help!