Help! I’m Being Stuffocated and Can’t Get Up!

Infobesity is ruining lives.  It’s a self-inflicted pandemic. It’s fueled by corporate gobbledygook – words drained of all meaning. Words added onto any communication just to add heft. Volume. Count.

We asked America’s intrigue Expert, Ms. Sam Horn,  on Expert Access Radio how to POP our way back into shape and out of infobesity. I was also hoping to get a few memorable quotes out of her.

DISRUPT SOME DEFAULTS

STEVE: We live in an environment stuffed with information, we’re being stuffocated. We’re starved for epiphanies, stuff that really means something. What do you mean when you say “it’s time for us to disrupt some defaults we have that are compromising us, our communications and our mindsets?

SAM: You’re right; we’re suffering from “infobesity.” We don’t need more information, we need epiphanies. One of those defaults we need to change right now is we can’t say anything in 10 minutes. I’m the pitch coach for Spring Board.

NOT IN  TEN MINUTES – BUT SIXTY SECONDS

I had a client with a revolutionary product and when she was told she has 10 minutes to get the favorable attention from investors, she said “you can’t say anything in 10 minutes.” I said you can change a life in 60 seconds. Do you want to hear her 60 second opening that landed millions of dollars in funding?

“Did you know 1.8 billion vaccinations are given around the world every year?

Did you know half of those are given with reused needles?

Did you know we are spreading and perpetuating the very diseases we’re trying to prevent?

Imagine if there were a needle – a one use, painless needle, that was a fraction of the cost of the current model.

You don’t have to imagine it, in fact we’ve created it.”

She was off and running. She had their attention from the beginning and she won in 60 seconds. If you’re pitching and making a request, even to people who are skeptical and cynical, start with 3 “did you know” questions that they don’t know.

THE BRIDGE TO “IMAGINE” LEADS TO …

You are scoping the problem or scale of the issue, then you bridge into the best case scenario with the word “imagine.”

You’re using the power of three to paint a word picture of how this issue could be resolved or improved. Then you bridge into “you don’t have to imagine it, we’ve created it.”

You go right into social proof or precedence and you just won buy-in in the first 60 seconds.

THE BRIDGE OF “NO IMAGINATION NEEDED”

STEVE: Her initial reaction was that she couldn’t do it in 10 minutes. How did you do that?

SAM: It’s based on something George Washington Carver said,

“When we can do a common thing in an uncommon way we will command the attention of the world.”

Do not be content to be common.

If you start out with perfunctory or predictable remarks you will lose attention in the first 60 seconds. How can you pleasantly surprise them by saying something they didn’t anticipate? It’s the only way you’re going to get their heads to pop up from their BlackBerry’s and get their undivided attention.

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FULL DISCLOSURE

I was going to try to do the wrong thing and not make a full disclosure about the relationship between Sam and I, but my conscience, slight as it is, wouldn’t let me.

Sam Horn is the originator of the Thoughtless Leadership  SLAP award for business communicators and writers. It recognizes the perfect purveyor of SLAP writing and principles.

For 3 straight years I’ve has won the award.

Hands down.

Or maybe hands to face down.

So I’m not totally objective about Sam. And I’m in the running for an unprecedented 4th straight year of winning the SLAP award (despite tough competition from the mainstream media). I wouldn’t want to endanger the nomination be failing to disclose impertinent information.

Please cast a vote for me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SamHorn_dot_com — or @SamHorn_dot_com.

It’s way more prestigious for a Thought-Less Leader than a Mashable, Tech Crunch or Webby Award. (Gotta know your audience.)