How to Get Out of TMI Syndrome, and Laser-Focus Your Messaging with Decisionmakers - Episode 63

0:00 You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how to get out of TMI syndrome, and laser focus your messaging with decision-makers. So. Stay tuned. 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. 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.

0:41 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. To have them seeking you out as an equal partner. And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode. Has this ever happened to you? You go to engage a decision-maker. There's something specific you want from them.

1:23 And you start laying out your case and you can tell you're losing them. They're not engaging. They're kind of glazing over and you're struggling to figure out what the problem is. You're giving them your very best stuff, telling them all the key details of your work. And the more you talk, the more they glaze over. Or they pay polite attention, but when you're done, they don't have any questions. And they just say, well, thanks for coming. Appreciate your visiting. And that's it. While there could be several causes for this, one of the most common that I see very frequently is the key mistake of falling into TMI syndrome. Giving decision makers way more information and content than they want, need or can absorb.

2:09 Treating all facts as if they are equally valuable or equally important. In a vacuum that might be true. But in the context of engaging and influencing decision makers, it not only isn't true. It will actually undermine your most persuasive points. What we have to do is get to what is most relevant in this context, in this moment. That are exactly the points the decision maker needs to hear right now. The good news is there's a simple framework that will help you do this. And start getting better results from your messaging. Let's face it. Decision makers have limited bandwidth, just like everybody else.

2:51 So don't give them eight facts when only two of them are the ones you need them to focus on right now. Just give them the two that you need them to focus on. And then you can wait till they ask you to tell them more. Okay, that sounds great. But how do I know which ones are the ones they need to hear? So we can answer that question. And to do that, we have to start with the key question of what is it that we need the decision makers to get. And then we work backwards from there. When you want a specific action from a decision maker, you have to be super strategic with your messaging. So, first of all, you figure out what it is they need to get.

3:35 And then if they don't get it yet, why don't they get it? What are they missing? Are they missing facts? Are they missing a perspective? Are they missing an analysis? Are they missing a belief? And what is the most streamlined, focused way that you can help them see what they need to see. In order for them to get what you need them to get. Those are the questions we need to be answering, and using to guide our message crafting. But what often happens is we just clutter the landscape with all kinds of extraneous information. Or additional analysis, or any number of other extras.

4:18 There are a lot of different things that cause us to do that. But what's important is that we become disciplined and strategic about the content of our messaging. And that we keep it as laser focused as possible, designing it always to get the result that we need. And as subject matter experts, we all have to be constantly on guard for a particular issue. Which is that we know more about our subject matter than just about anybody else. And certainly we know more than most, if not all decision makers. So we have to be really careful because we can fall into the trap of thinking we need to get the decision maker to understand everything that we understand about the complexity of the issue and the way we solve the problem.

5:09 But particularly if there is a specific action we need them to take, and we need them to take it within a relatively immediate timeframe. We do not have time to bring them up to our level of expertise before they take action. If we operate under the theory that they have to know everything we know before they can take the right action, we're kind of screwed. We need to figure out what is the very least they need to know and understand and wrap their head around. In order to take the action we want. And we focus on that in our messaging. And we don't introduce any other stuff.

5:52 That is not easy to do. It is really simple. And it's really hard because we want to share all our good information and all our good stuff. And we have been trained throughout our lives to think that the more information, the more content we give, the higher the value, the more informative, the better it will be. And that is just not true, particularly with decision-makers. We have to train ourselves to give them only exactly what they need when they need it. Less is more. Now there will be time over a period of months and years to keep working at taking a particular decision-maker's level of understanding to deeper and deeper levels.

6:39 And we want that because that's how we build champions over time. But when you need an action from them is not the time to try to give them everything they might ever need to know or want to know. And remember they can ask questions. If you share the core pieces of what you know are essential for them to grasp. And you do it in a way that engages and compels. Once they're engaged, then they will ask questions that are based on what they feel they need to know or understand more deeply in order to agree to the thing that you want. A caution here. Don't make assumptions ahead of time about what those questions are going to be.

7:22 You have your core elements that you need them to get. Focus on those and trust that if you get that part right, they will then ask the questions that are important to them. And you never know what those questions are going to be. So just don't worry about it. I know that you have in your mental file cabinet all the possible information that that decision maker could ever want or need. And it's available to be called up at any time. Your random access memory is working just fine. So I'm not worried about you being able to answer their questions when they come up, and you shouldn't be either. If they, by some bizarre chance, ask you a question you don't know the answer to, no problem.

8:08 You just say, you know, I don't have the answer to that right now, but I will get it for you and follow up. And then you do that. But if they're asking a question about your program and its impact and your services, I'm pretty comfortable in assuming that there isn't a single question they could ask that you can't answer. So just trust that. And chill out and focus on the pieces of your messaging that are going to get you to yes with this decision maker. So. The way we do that is we use a framework. Because even when you've gotten quite skilled at this, it's very helpful to come back to the framework and ask the same set of questions over and over again.

8:49 Beause they help you make sure that you haven't missed anything, and that you're dialing in the way you need to dial in on your messaging. So a framework to use when you're crafting messaging for a given decision-maker. And particularly when it's around a given desired result. Or where there might be multiple decision makers that you need to engage around this desired result. The first question is always, what do they need to get in order to say yes to whatever our desired action is? Meaning, what do they need to grasp? What do they need to have their head wrapped around? So you write that down. What do they need to get? And then for each of your decision makers, you can do a couple of things.

9:31 One thing that I like to do is rate them on kind of a"getting it" scale. Right. So you say they need to get this concept. And you go, okay, well, where are they now? How well do they get that? Not at all, they kind of get it, or they're solid. They really get it. And if they're in the not at all, or they only kind of get it categories. Then you identify what's in the way of them getting it. Is it simply that you haven't engaged them much, and so they don't have the information that would help them get it? Oh, okay. Is it that they have a contrary belief that's in the way?

10:13 Hmm. That can be trickier. And by the way, that can include a belief that the problem or issue has nothing to do with them, and so there's no reason to care. So those kinds of beliefs are very important to try to uncover ahead of time and craft messaging around them. But not having correct information, and having a belief in the way, are two of the root causes of decision-makers not getting it. Whatever it is you're wanting them to get. Those are kind of the two categories of root cause. Within those, obviously there are many layers of complexity. And the more you know about their specific beliefs and their specific lack of information, the more targeted and tailored you can be with your messaging with that decision maker.

11:02 But even if you can just identify generically, say the three pieces of information the decision maker would absolutely have to comprehend. And the one or two beliefs they would have to hold in order to say yes. You can build your messaging around that. Even if you don't know anything else about those decision-makers. Now. You know I always recommend that you learn as much as possible in advance about the decision maker. That you tailor as much as possible, and that you do a deep dive on understanding your decision makers over time. But, you know, sometimes things come up and that's not possible.

11:42 And for the purposes of this episode, we're going to focus on just the basics of these two pieces of messaging to help you hone in on this. There's many other episodes that get into the complexities of how you do a deep dive on your decision-maker, how you analyze where they are relative to your stuff. How you develop them over time as champions, all those good things. But today we are focusing on dealing with the TMI syndrome. And getting your messaging laser-focused so that you're only giving the information and other contextual content that's going to help them get the thing you need them to get.

12:24 So. Let's take this out of the abstract and use a really common example to illustrate how this works. Let's say the action you want is for decision makers to invest in your services at their full value, rather than using the cheaper alternative offered by for-profit providers. Okay. If that's the action you want, what do those decision makers need to get? Here's where you can get tripped up right out of the gate. Well, they need to get how good we are. They need to get how important our stuff is. They need to get all these things. No. If what you want is them investing in your services at their full value instead of going for the cheapo alternative down the street.

13:10 What they need to get fundamentally is that your services are the smartest investment. That's it. That's what they need to get. Okay, the next question is, what key knowledge do they need to have in order to get that your services are the smartest investment? Well, now it starts to get easier to narrow what you want to focus on in your messaging. If we're focused on, we are the smartest investment. And we're dealing with a context of a cheap competitor. What knowledge do they need? They need to know that the services are not the same.

13:51 Yours are much higher quality. They need to know that the for-profit, cheaper alternative relies on automation and/or self-directed work by the client to keep their costs down. You on the other hand, offer individualized high touch services that are tailored to the needs of each client. They need to know that your outcomes are substantially better. And they need to know that the reason your outcomes are better is the same reason your price is higher. Which is that there is a vast difference in quality. And the last thing they need to know is that even at the higher price, because of the superior outcomes, the ROI on your services is far superior to the ROI on the cheap services.

14:44 If they understand those five pieces of information. Then they will, on their own, get to the conclusion that your services are the smarter investment. Which is the thing you need them to get. Make sense? Okay. And I will say that learning to do this is a process and a practice. I've been doing this for a long time and I can do it quickly without a ton of effort. It was not always so. Just like everybody else, I had to learn the skill set before I got really good at it. And you will too. And so wherever you are on that skill development journey, don't worry about it. Start where you start.

15:26 But this is where you're headed. If you simply train yourself to do these two processes, and use this framework, you are already way ahead of the game. The next piece then is you build messaging that focuses almost solely on the list of things that they need to know. In order to get the thing you need them to get. In order to take the action you want them to take. And any information that does not feed directly into one of these points is not helpful to your primary messaging.

16:07 Leave it out. Your primary messaging is designed to stand alone if it has to. But it's also designed very much to engage the decision maker and invite them to ask more questions and to want to know more. Because ultimately that's what you always want in engagement. Engagement is a two way thing. It's a two way interaction. It's not you just yammering at them and waiting for them to, you know, they listen and then at the end they go, okay. Yes, I'll do what you want. There's an engagement process. There's a back and forth. So the more you can trigger them asking questions, leaning in, wanting to know more, the better off you are. And the more likely you are to get to your successful outcome with your messaging.

16:49 So, this is a situation where the best vehicle for accomplishing that is with story and anecdotes. And you can blend those two together in a really cool way here. And the way you do that as you take the anecdotal bit, and you use that as the foundation for your story. So in this case, the anecdotal bit might be that you've noticed that a lot of the people you serve are folks who went to the for-profit first. And were dissatisfied. Because the for-profit didn't solve their problem. And then they came to you. And you did solve their problem. And this is kind of a common occurrence.

17:31 Happened quite a few times. Okay. You can use that core anecdotal concept to tell the entire story of what the decision maker needs to know in order to get that your services are the smarter investment. Here's how you might do that. So you've made your introductory remarks. You've said, hello, you're gotten past all that. And you launch into your story. And you might use a data point or two, if you believe they don't understand the scope of the problem. And that might be one of the beliefs is that they don't understand that this is a big enough problem to warrant much of an investment either way. If they're at that point, then obviously you need to help them with that.

18:14 But if assuming they agree that the problem is significant and does need a solution. And the question is what's the best way to solve the problem. And where should we invest in solving the problem. If they are at that point, then you're really focused on differentiating your quality and outcomes and ROI from the competition, that is an inferior for-profit alternative. What you are not going to do is talk about the for-profit alternative. Except obliquely. not going to call them out by name. But what you can say is, so you know, we've been in business for 47 years, whatever.

18:58 And we've developed a highly effective suite of services that consistently produces really extraordinary outcomes. And then you can say a little bit about what those outcomes are. We've been doing this a long time and we have consistently produced some of the best outcomes in the state. In fact, we've been nationally recognized for the quality of our outcomes. And here's what that looks like in the context of an individual receiving services. They come in. They're facing X set of problems. This is what their life is like. They go through our services and when they are finished, their life is transformed in the following ways. And then you describe that.

19:39 These are the outcomes that we get. We get them consistently. This results in some rather extraordinary savings overall. And here's the thing we've noticed. And sometimes you can come at this directly, and you will gauge this based on which decision-maker you're engaging. But sometimes taking this head on is not a bad strategy. And to say, you know, there are certainly other providers of these services. And some of them provide similarly high quality services. And some do not. And with the ones that are offering a much cheaper rate to provide services. It's important to take a look at the outcomes.

20:22 Because here's what we've noticed. We see a substantial number of clients every year who, we're not the first place they've come for help with this problem. They went to one of the lower cost alternatives because they promised great stuff. And they went through the program. And they did not get the results that were promised. They did not get their problem solved. They did not come out of it ahead at all. You know, the services are free to the client. But that doesn't mean they don't cost the client something. At a minimum it costs them their time. There's also the lost opportunity that it costs them.

21:02 They spent however long in that program or in receiving those services. Not getting their problems solved. Which means that at best, their problem stayed the same. But in a lot of cases, their problem got worse. And so by the time they come to us, now not only have they lost that window of opportunity where they could have solved the problem at an earlier stage,.But now perhaps the problem has gotten worse. And now they're kind of disillusioned and feeling like, well, maybe this stuff doesn't work. Maybe there's nobody who can help me. And so when we do help them, they're particularly thrilled. But also when we help them, their problem gets solved.

21:46 And what that means, how that translates in the client's life is. And then you describe what that is briefly. But what that also means is that the investment that was made in our services produces a net return of X dollars. So. You know, let's just talk about the elephant in the room. Our prices are higher. But that's because we get exceptional results. And when clients go through our program, when they experience our services, their problem gets solved. And that looks like this. The ROI is that. And we see those outcomes consistently.

22:29 And the reason for that is that that is our commitment. One of the secrets to our success is that we don't do generic services. We do individualized, tailored services for each client, meeting them where they are. And developing a success plan for each client, so that they're getting exactly what they need and nothing that they don't. That is designed to help them thrive and achieve success. And so yes, that tailoring costs more. Of course it does. But it gets the results that we all want to see. And it means that that client then does not return into the system and continue to cost the system money.

23:15 So there's multiple ROI here. So that's how you weave those together. And if you want to know more about how to use story in a detailed way, I recommend you go back to episodes 13 and 57. And listen to those as well for how to use story very effectively with decision-makers. Now. Let's talk about what information is not a value add in a story like this, or in a context like this. All the details of how you provide your services. It is very important to call out distinguishing characteristics like high touch, individualized, tailored, client-centered.

23:59 Those kinds of things, which are conceptual captures of the details of what you do. But do not tell them about the details of what you do unless they ask. Or if there is a specific single detail that you do that is so unique that nobody else does it. You might call that out and say, And within that client centered, et cetera, et cetera, we do this one thing that is a massive factor in client success. And every client who receives that one thing gets extraordinary results.

24:40 If there's something like that, then you would call that one detail out. But you wouldn't take them through any more details on what you do. They can ask about that. And you'd love to chat about it if they do. But wait until they ask. It is not a value add, generally speaking, to get into details about how long your organization has existed or its history or its evolution or any of those things. The exception would be, if you have never encountered this decision maker before, and they have no idea who your organization is, you're going to have to give them a little bit of context about who you are and what you do. So that they have some idea who they're talking to.

25:20 But assuming that they've got those basics, then do not include that in your messaging, unless it becomes relevant to one of your key points of what they need to get. Otherwise, you can say things like we've been doing this a really long time. And we've seen a lot of different approaches and models come and go. But over time, consistently, what we have observed is the clients who go through our program have exceptional results and they always have. And that those results are rarely matched by other providers, particularly those that are lower cost. Something like that. Similarly details about how many people you serve and all of that generally are not relevant to this type of messaging.

26:04 Unless again, it goes to providing either credibility, if they don't know anything about your organization and they need to know whether you're big or small. Then you can say, we serve a Tri-County area or a tri-state area or whatever you do. And, you know, X number of people a year. A quick bit of context. The only place it might be really relevant in service of your specific points, would be if you are trying to help them understand the proportion of the need you are addressing. So you might say, We serve 30% of the total population, which is awesome.

26:44 But if that were closer to 50 or 60% that we could be seeing these outcomes multiplied dramatically and the ROI multiplied dramatically. So we're really looking to you to make an additional investment here in the stuff that we know works. That's when you would use that kind of information. Contextual. Always in context, in service of the pieces of information they need to wrap their head around in order to get the thing you need them to get. To take the action you want them to take. And pretty much anything else that you might want to talk about and share with them. If it is not in service of those points, leave it out.

27:26 You can always offer it if they ask. So to do a brief recap of what you're going to focus on. You're going to start with, what action do you want this decision maker to take? What do they need to get in order to say yes to that? What do they need to comprehend? What's in the way of them getting that concept? Both in terms of a lack of information and any beliefs that might be in the way. What key knowledge or beliefs do they need to have in order to get the thing you need them to get? Those are your four questions. And then you craft your messaging based on those points that you've laid out.

28:12 And then you check it for those TMI elements that might have crept in. Anything that doesn't align with those core concepts that you've laid out, that you know that you've got to communicate and get them to get. If it doesn't serve that, leave it out. Be ruthless. It is better to give a little less information than they need, than to give more. I know that sounds crazy. But again, Bandwidth. Attention span. Decision makers do not have much of either. And so you have got to get right to the heart of it.

28:55 And get them engaged from the very beginning. Obviously you will be framing this in context and terms that are as relevant as possible to the things you know that decision maker cares about. That should go without saying. And we say it a lot on the podcast. I have left out the framing piece because I wanted to just zero in on this one issue that I see cropping up over and over. The TMI syndrome is such a sneaky saboteur of otherwise good messaging, that I really want you to be able to have the tools to get your messaging laser-focused. So that you can engage those decision makers and keep them focused so that they can get what you need them to get, so that they can take the actions that you want them to take.

29:42 And that is messaging success. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.