Crafting Clarity: Unveiling The Power Of Simple Messaging With Ben Guttmann
On the next episode of Communicate Like You Give a Damn, host Kim Clark connects with Ben Guttmann for an insightful conversation surrounding messaging, marketing and digital communications as a whole in reference to his new book, Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win — and How to Design Them. As Kim and Ben take a deep dive into the foundation of his book, Ben shares his valuable insights on the power of simplicity in communication, highlighting the importance of minimalism. Ben also shares his five principles communicators can use that provide a framework for crafting powerful messages that resonate with the intended audience. You’re sure to leave this episode with a fresh perspective on messaging while elevating your communication styles in order to leave a lasting impact.
About The Guest:
Ben Guttmann is a marketing and communications expert and author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win — and How to Design Them. He’s an experienced marketing executive and educator on a mission to get leaders to more effectively connect by simplifying their message. Ben is former co-founder and managing partner at Digital Natives Group, an award-winning agency that worked with the NFL, I Love NY, Comcast NBCUniversal, Hachette Book Group, The Nature Conservancy, and other major clients. Currently, Ben teaches digital marketing at Baruch College in New York City and consults with a range of thought leaders, venture-backed startups, and other brands.
Find Ben Here:
About Kim:
Kim Clark (she/her) focuses her work on the communicator and content creator's role in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She is the co-author of The Conscious Communicator: The fine art of not saying stupid sh*t, an Amazon #1 bestseller and the leading voice for DEI communications and social justice messaging for brands.
She speaks at conferences, writes custom workshops, writes inclusive communications guides, and consults with companies on all things related to diversity, equity, and inclusion communications. Kim is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a cisgender woman, Native American (Muscogee Nation) and a mom of two kids with disabilities. These marginalized identities and the privileges that come with society seeing her as White motivate her daily for social change.
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Transcript
Welcome back communicators, how you doing?
Kim Clark:How's everybody doing? Checking in, um, no matter when you're
Kim Clark:listening to this, I'm sure something is going on. So, you
Kim Clark:know, I just I want to send a little bit of love out there
Kim Clark:actually a lot to communicators. And I want to make sure that no
Kim Clark:matter what you're working on that you are taking care of
Kim Clark:yourself, and that it's okay to tap out when you need to. We
Kim Clark:have a supportive, conscious communicator or D communicator
Kim Clark:support system here at Ken Clark communications, if you need any
Kim Clark:support, that's what we're here for. And this podcast is an
Kim Clark:extension of that support for you personally and
Kim Clark:professionally. And today's guest is going to come at our
Kim Clark:conversation today from a digital marketing perspective,
Kim Clark:deep, deep digital marketing experience across industries,
Kim Clark:and even academia. And so I'm really excited to introduce Ben
Kim Clark:Guttman here to communicate like, give a damn. So we
Kim Clark:typically have, you know, corporate communicators, and
Kim Clark:listening, and, but our buddies over in marketing and brands, we
Kim Clark:have to be really, really tight with them. So sharing your
Kim Clark:expertise spent with us is going to be exceptionally helpful for
Kim Clark:us to understand how marketing can work and apply to us as
Kim Clark:communicators, and especially on how we talk about and describe
Kim Clark:diversity, equity and inclusion as a narrative for our
Kim Clark:organization. So I'm really pumped for this conversation,
Kim Clark:and even more so for your book coming out, which will be the
Kim Clark:primary focus that we'll talk about today. So Ben, welcome to
Kim Clark:communicate like you give a damn, please introduce yourself.
Ben Guttmann:Thanks for having me, Kim. It's great to be here.
Ben Guttmann:The day the introduction. So a little bit about me, I, my name
Ben Guttmann:is Ben Guttman, I ran a marketing agency for 10 years.
Ben Guttmann:Now I don't, I sold this year and a half ago. And since then,
Ben Guttmann:I've been exploring a lot of different things. And one of the
Ben Guttmann:most exciting is my book, which just came out, it's called
Ben Guttmann:simply by clear messages when and how to design them, I'll
Ben Guttmann:grab a copy of it over here. And it just came out came out about
Ben Guttmann:a week ago, very exciting. It is the culmination of those 10
Ben Guttmann:years running a marketing agency working with all sorts of great
Ben Guttmann:clients. We started a local cream shop and worked their way
Ben Guttmann:up to the NFL, and Comcast and I live in New York, all these
Ben Guttmann:other great brands. And then the other pairs, inclusive of a lot
Ben Guttmann:of those years, I have also been an adjunct at Baruch College
Ben Guttmann:here in New York, and in marketing in the zicklin School
Ben Guttmann:of Business there for for a long time, which is also where I
Ben Guttmann:graduated. And I absolutely love that is my favorite thing that I
Ben Guttmann:do, it's the best. So when what happened is that when I, when I
Ben Guttmann:look at the experience that I had there, I'm really
Ben Guttmann:experienced that in, in the professional setting. And then I
Ben Guttmann:looked at my personal experience of being a consumer user of the
Ben Guttmann:world is everybody has the same challenge, which everybody
Ben Guttmann:listening here will understand what do you understand, which
Ben Guttmann:are all four things to say, and we had a really hard time
Ben Guttmann:getting them out? We have and that's why you hire a marketing
Ben Guttmann:agency, right? In the, when you're sick of it, you can
Ben Guttmann:understand, you can almost understand you can you can know
Ben Guttmann:what you're doing right? You can say okay, this is how I'm going
Ben Guttmann:to run this pain. I'm going to build this brand, whatever it
Ben Guttmann:is. But not until I was sold the business when they take a step
Ben Guttmann:back, I was able to look for credit that question, which
Ben Guttmann:drove all of those, all of those projects, which drove all the
Ben Guttmann:spy teach, which Why do some messages work? And you stopped?
Ben Guttmann:And that was the the kind of research question that kicked
Ben Guttmann:off writing this book.
Kim Clark:Well, you did a great job with the title. Simply put,
Kim Clark:I mean, it's, you know, whenever we can use vernacular as a book
Kim Clark:title, I think really helps. And it also makes your point of the
Kim Clark:book. And you know, and it's really clear for who is going to
Kim Clark:benefit. And there's so many content creators that listen to
Kim Clark:this podcast that may or may not be formulating communications,
Kim Clark:but we know content creators, they're communicating and
Kim Clark:communicators are creating messaging. So I love the time
Kim Clark:simply put clear messages and how to design I love it. You
Kim Clark:know,
Unknown:I I'm joking. I was just gonna say You know, you,
Unknown:you know, the old cliche is that you shouldn't judge a book by
Unknown:its cover. Does a book that you wouldn't under percent should
Unknown:judge by its cover, if I didn't do a good job of title, The
Unknown:subtitle of the back cover with the eye, working with my
Unknown:publisher and all that stuff, then I wouldn't be trustworthy
Unknown:in terms of what I was talking about. So we were can we were
Unknown:joking before we recorded that I loved writing this book was a
Unknown:lot of fun. I'm excited to share all the stuff in it. But I
Unknown:wouldn't recommend anybody writes the same similar book
Unknown:again. Because every single time that you're on a podcast, or
Unknown:you're writing a blog or an email, you're going to be judged
Unknown:on that on the efficacy of your own work as part of that.
Kim Clark:Can I do that to you now? What's your story? Ben, is
Kim Clark:there anything else that's that that informs how you got to
Kim Clark:where you are today in writing the book? And having the bravery
Kim Clark:of writing the book. But can you tell it in a simple message that
Kim Clark:kind of is an example of what you teach in your book?
Unknown:Perhaps I mean, that that's a little bit of what I
Unknown:kind of said, To kick things off, right. So I would see the
Unknown:same problem over and over again, with our clients with
Unknown:anybody that I would work with, which is that to get the stuff
Unknown:out of our head, and to get it into somebody else's head is
Unknown:something that should be easy, feels like it should be
Unknown:intuitive. But it turns out that we are built to receive things
Unknown:one way and we're built to send things another way. And I look
Unknown:this challenge, through that experience of what I've done for
Unknown:a decade, my background is a design. That's my functional
Unknown:background as as a designer, and I said, Okay, well we have this
Unknown:problem, how does the design, how would a designer approach
Unknown:it? And I look at it through identified five different
Unknown:principles that we act upon to get there, you know, design this
Unknown:file, I have this conversation with a lot of junior designers,
Unknown:designers, not art, right design is it's a problem solving
Unknown:activity. It's how you arrange things in the world, but achieve
Unknown:a goal. And we often don't think about the messaging applications
Unknown:that we that inherit the things that we think of as design, we
Unknown:think of everything a piece of software is designed, we don't
Unknown:necessarily think that the messaging inside the software
Unknown:says, we've got an email that a website is designed to or
Unknown:presentations is designed. We don't necessarily think about
Unknown:the language and messaging and site as being fine. So how do we
Unknown:how do we extend that? That set of tools and attitudes and
Unknown:abilities into into the language and into the messaging itself?
Kim Clark:Hmm. Excellent. Points. Excellent points. So how
Kim Clark:was the process of writing a book like this for you? And you
Kim Clark:know, and what kind of feedback have you gotten from folks on
Kim Clark:how they've applied? What are we going to talk about in just a
Kim Clark:second, which are your five principles?
Unknown:Oh, yeah. It's, it's a ton of fun. I mean, I know a
Unknown:bunch of authors. Because before, before I started my own
Unknown:journey on this, we worked with a number of authors in my age,
Unknown:we would often other stuff in the health and wellness space
Unknown:himself, help some business. And I always I always love that
Unknown:because I mean, listen, publishing doesn't that much my
Unknown:but you work with really interesting people as part of
Unknown:it. And so I always enjoyed that I was familiar bunch of folks.
Unknown:But it's one thing to be familiar with it. And it's
Unknown:another thing to be on the side of actually being the person who
Unknown:has to write it and edit it and wrote it and all those things. I
Unknown:really like it for people. I am you you wrote your book. And I'm
Unknown:curious what your opinion is there. People tend to fall into
Unknown:two camps. I've noticed the people who love the act of
Unknown:writing a book, and people who hated the act of writing a book.
Unknown:And there's like, not much middle ground. Actually, I loved
Unknown:it. I actually really enjoy being able to sit down and do
Unknown:the rear the outlining and writing the stuff. But I've also
Unknown:met people who that every single word felt like it was pulling
Unknown:teeth. What was your?
Kim Clark:Well, I like in that example, it's muddy Jana Van
Kim Clark:Zandt says there's speakers who write and there's writers who
Kim Clark:speak, my co author is a writer who speaks and I am a speaker
Kim Clark:who writes so I am on the opposite side of what your
Kim Clark:experience was. I'd rather talk about it and teach, educate,
Kim Clark:rather than actually write. So which is why I started writing
Kim Clark:learn this about myself, because it was my first time writing a
Kim Clark:book. And then I brought in a ghostwriter. And I'm like,
Kim Clark:interview me, let me talk. You do the writing fire because
Kim Clark:that's your strike. That's, you know, but then I made sure that
Kim Clark:I re edited everything that she wrote to make sure that it was
Kim Clark:What I wanted to say, but I couldn't start from nothing, you
Kim Clark:know. And so I, at the same time, I have so much content.
Kim Clark:And the beauty of writing the book was organizing that
Kim Clark:content, like it's now codified, like the same thing that I've
Kim Clark:been talking about for years and years and years. It's now
Kim Clark:organized into a book with the addition of everything my co
Kim Clark:author brought to it, which also demonstrated all the years of
Kim Clark:work that she's been doing as well. So the how this kind of
Kim Clark:documented version of what di communications is and all that
Kim Clark:it can be when we apply the depth model to our
Kim Clark:organizations. It's like, I'm so glad I did it, but boy, am I so
Kim Clark:glad it's done.
Unknown:There's Douglas Adams wrote attackers Guide to the
Unknown:Galaxy, I just read a piece that described his hatred of
Unknown:deadlines and writing is that this guy was the most so writers
Unknown:probably there's 1/8 century commercially successful. And he
Unknown:had to be locked in a hotel room, his editor at the at the
Unknown:publisher, what the two of them got adjoining hotel rooms, and
Unknown:the editor babysat Douglas Adams for like three months while he
Unknown:was locked in to finish the book on deadline. And he has a quote,
Unknown:oh, yeah, he has a quote, which I love, which is, I love
Unknown:deadlines, the whooshing sound they make as they blow past. You
Unknown:know, that one, there's a part of me for sure that whatever
Unknown:deadlines, but one thing that's also interesting about the
Unknown:experience, I had running an agency, you know, Client
Unknown:Services, I gotta, I have a scope of work, I'm trying to
Unknown:deadline. There's outside parties that have to be
Unknown:coordinated. It really prepares you for writing a book, right?
Unknown:Because I looked at and I said, Okay, well, there's a deadline,
Unknown:break us up into different pieces. And first I do research
Unknown:and I do outlines and then I, and then I would go sit at a
Unknown:coffee shop and be like, Okay, I'm gonna go write Part Two
Unknown:there. The the, the effect of having that process, though,
Unknown:where I would have the line, pick what I wanted to write in a
Unknown:daily basis, led actually to a very, an easy to write, but a
Unknown:very difficult to read first draft, because the first draft,
Unknown:every little, I ended up being very repetitive in the first
Unknown:draft, there was a lot of things that because I forgot, I
Unknown:explained something. and a half ago, when I sat down and wrote
Unknown:that piece I wrote, I explained it again, in another section
Unknown:later on. So the editing process was very valuable part of the
Unknown:Yeah,
Kim Clark:I agree. I, you know, and it made me more succinct on
Kim Clark:my ideas. And my co author is was excellent at that. She read
Kim Clark:through all of my stuff and said, Well, you already said it
Kim Clark:here. She's the one that found that and stuff. And my my
Kim Clark:ghostwriter, of course, was was phenomenal and loud as well. So
Kim Clark:it made me a stronger writer as an but it also helped me be more
Kim Clark:succinct in my ideas as a speaker as well. So the whole
Kim Clark:process, all upside? Absolutely, it was just really painful to be
Kim Clark:in the middle of it. And I'm glad it's done. So people are
Kim Clark:saying when's Hart? When's your next book coming out? It's like,
Kim Clark:too soon. All right. And you're, you know, you've got what the
Kim Clark:crux of your book is these five principles. And it reminds me of
Kim Clark:a quote, you know, I didn't have time to write you a short
Kim Clark:letter. So I wrote you a long one. I really, really love these
Kim Clark:five principles that you share with your book. So I'd love for
Kim Clark:you to and just to give you a little bit more of an
Kim Clark:understanding of the kinds of communicators that are listening
Kim Clark:now, we've got people from governments from all over the
Kim Clark:world, not just us, we have people who are communicators
Kim Clark:within the government publicly traded not for profit in the US
Kim Clark:outside of the US, medium, small, large, global national,
Kim Clark:you know, a small solo family owned all of it are people that
Kim Clark:are listening to this podcast. And so, while we represent every
Kim Clark:industry, you know, country, language or excise all of it, we
Kim Clark:do have the challenge of simple communications and common to
Kim Clark:your point, like, this is something that everybody has a
Kim Clark:problem or a challenge with and wanting to do better no matter
Kim Clark:what kind of organization it is. And dare I say, for us as
Kim Clark:interpersonal relationship people, we can we can be better
Kim Clark:at it as well, you know, have a more simplified messaging just
Kim Clark:in our interpersonal and intrapersonal kind of
Kim Clark:communications as well. But with that in mind, we are also at a
Kim Clark:time at As Diversity, Equity and Inclusion communicators, and
Kim Clark:really learning what dei is, that's our product that is our
Kim Clark:service, if you will, that we are trying to tell a story
Kim Clark:around that is inclusive of all of our employees, and engages
Kim Clark:our leaders. And we need to tell a story, tell a narrative and
Kim Clark:have messaging that really helps us understand helps our folks
Kim Clark:understand outcomes, the benefits of D AI, and how
Kim Clark:critical they are to embed across the organization. Now,
Kim Clark:I'm not asking you to be a DI expert. You do you Ben, right,
Kim Clark:you know, so you're a digital marketing expert, you are a
Kim Clark:marketing expert. And it's not, it's pretty much saying that
Kim Clark:what we're trying to do here in developing our messaging around
Kim Clark:Dei, and for us to be effective marketers and communicators of
Kim Clark:dei within the organization. So I'd love for you to walk us
Kim Clark:through what the five principles are. And then maybe you could
Kim Clark:play around a little bit with the process that you talked
Kim Clark:about in the book, and garner some imagination and some
Kim Clark:inspiration for our audience on how they can apply it to as they
Kim Clark:how they're developing their dei narratives.
Unknown:Yeah, absolutely. So I'll even I'll go back even
Unknown:further step actually. So there's the two parts in the
Unknown:book, there's the why and the half. So why is this first piece
Unknown:and this is going to be because we, you know, what we're talking
Unknown:about a lot of the listeners here gonna know this. But the
Unknown:the essence of simplicity, I define it as a message that is
Unknown:easily perceived, understood, acted upon. And what that
Unknown:describes, it was known as a fluent message. So fluency is a
Unknown:word we know, right? It's, we play with an English or Spanish
Unknown:wine or cooking, and we there's a lot of different things we can
Unknown:be fluent in. And it comes from the word flowing, right? where
Unknown:something is fluent, something's easy. And as a cognitive
Unknown:scientists, when they will describe it without them, you
Unknown:ask them with fluency means, it means that it's easy to take
Unknown:something from out in the world and stick it in your head and
Unknown:make sense of it easier to read something, to see something to
Unknown:hear something, it's easier to take any sort of stimuli and
Unknown:input it and take action upon it. And the LE summary, when you
Unknown:look across all the research is about about fluency is that when
Unknown:something is easier, when it is easier for us to take out things
Unknown:from outside, put it inside, we have all sorts of positive
Unknown:associations, right? We like it better, trust it more, more
Unknown:likely to buy it all those things. And the opposite is also
Unknown:true, right? If we have to sweat and work to understand
Unknown:something, and to make sense of it. Well, we like it, and we
Unknown:don't trust it, and we don't buy it all. And if your position,
Unknown:like all of those different groups that you just mentioned,
Unknown:if you're somebody who inform or persuade as to what you're
Unknown:doing, that's not what you want, right? You want something that
Unknown:people can have these positive associations with. So that's the
Unknown:first part. The conflict is we have a lot of internal and
Unknown:external factors that push us towards the stuff that are in
Unknown:charge of sending, we have an additive bias, more likely to
Unknown:add them subtract, we have societal pressures, which say,
Unknown:you know, we can put a line on our resume for a thing we added,
Unknown:but we don't really put it for something we got rid of. Right?
Unknown:We don't get our picture in the paper for maintaining a bridge
Unknown:or taking down a bridge, we go for put one up. So there's
Unknown:internal, there's external pieces of that. So that's the
Unknown:goal that we're trying to, to to bridge when we're thinking about
Unknown:these five principles. And that design hat on so these are the
Unknown:five pieces I've identified. It's not step by step. It's not
Unknown:a checklist, but they're pearls for for developing a fluid
Unknown:message, simple message. So the first one is beneficial. What's
Unknown:in it for me? What's in it for the user? What does it matter to
Unknown:the receiver? People don't buy features, they buy benefits?
Unknown:This is kind of sales 101 marketing 101 People don't buy
Unknown:features they buy benefit, what does it mean to them? Number
Unknown:two, focus. Are you trying to say one thing? Are you trying
Unknown:multiple things at once? The word priority is singular, but
Unknown:you can only focus you only really communicate one thing at
Unknown:a time. salience the third one, does your method stand out the
Unknown:noise but everybody is making your use asking is there not
Unknown:contrast with the brown? This is rise to our attention as a
Unknown:standout is something perceivable that salient.
Unknown:Empathetic is number four. You speaking in a language that the
Unknown:audience understands, are you meeting them where they are both
Unknown:in terms of the actual words that you're using, but also
Unknown:where they are emotionally what their motivations are? Are you
Unknown:Are you understanding who your audience is? And then finally,
Unknown:the last one is Mel. And I don't really have these in a
Unknown:particular order, except for the first and the last one
Unknown:beneficials important because it needs to start with Janet for
Unknown:the receiver minimal is at the end here, because it's about
Unknown:thing you need, but only what you have you cut out everything
Unknown:else that's superfluous. And this doesn't mean, what's
Unknown:important to remember on this one, it doesn't mean that it's
Unknown:the fewest number of characters or words or sentences or
Unknown:paragraphs. It means this amount of friction is it is it as a
Unknown:user experience, term friction is the easier it is to take take
Unknown:two cents of to perceive. And sometimes that means more
Unknown:webpages, sometimes that means more slides, sometimes that
Unknown:means paragraphs, as long as it is easier, and the alternative.
Unknown:So if you take these five, you act upon them, you're gonna get
Unknown:to a state of when Gene you're gonna develop simple message.
Kim Clark:I think you made a really good point in there that
Kim Clark:I want to I loved it all. But there's one one particular part
Kim Clark:where you're talking about, it's not necessarily a few more
Kim Clark:words. But there's, there's a gut there. There's a there's a,
Kim Clark:there's a meat there. Speaking as a vegetarian, there's a meat
Kim Clark:there, that that's what really resonates with people. And so
Kim Clark:when you're talking about simple messages, can you help just give
Kim Clark:us a little bit more of a definition around simple
Kim Clark:messages. Because you know what you just said it doesn't mean
Kim Clark:necessarily, sometimes that can also mean more paragraphs, not
Kim Clark:less. But simple is still the goal here and provide exercise
Kim Clark:or examples that you have that you share in the book.
Unknown:Certainly, so I will, I'll illustrate by actually
Unknown:pulling it away from messaging for a second. So if you are, if
Unknown:you're the average American, you're consuming 30 hours a day
Unknown:of me some form of messaging hurdle that your brain 1000s and
Unknown:1000s of messages. There's lots of things for us to patient to,
Unknown:right, there's lots of things that are clamoring beeping, and
Unknown:buzzing and, and flashing for our attention. All of these
Unknown:things are there as competition. But if you give me a bit of
Unknown:friction, there's a bump in the road, if this has a word that it
Unknown:honors, and is a clunky paragraph or a sentence that
Unknown:feels a lot of plays. Or even your message is not visually
Unknown:design. You know, it's all just a big block of text instead of
Unknown:there being headlines and bullet points and call to actions and
Unknown:those type of things. If it's if it's if those things when the
Unknown:bumps are friction, it's just an excuse for us to pull off, it's
Unknown:an off ramp, right and we don't want off ramps won't be able to
Unknown:get to our destination, we're in the business of informing and
Unknown:persuading which everybody is we want to get people to where we
Unknown:want to go. If you're trying to do that every one of those
Unknown:pieces an offer, if you look at online shopping, we get this one
Unknown:dollars and cents go into it, right? If you look at online
Unknown:shopping, what happens when you press that button to check out
Unknown:where you're gonna go to a page, and everything on that page is
Unknown:gonna disappear, except for the buttons that allow you to
Unknown:progress into the own, you're gonna, you're not gonna have,
Unknown:you're not going to have the menu to go back to the category,
Unknown:you're not going to have the best page on the investor
Unknown:relations page, you're just going to have their credit card
Unknown:information, and your shipping address, press that button and
Unknown:get out of there. Because designers have that interface.
Unknown:And every off ramp is is is a lost sale. And so they eliminate
Unknown:all the off ramps as much as they can eliminate those pieces
Unknown:of friction. And the the the version of this that can all
Unknown:look at is, you know, let me see if I can refresh myself on an
Unknown:example here for minimal. But the you know, something like
Unknown:Michael Pollan's. You talked about being a vegetarian. So
Unknown:this reminded me it's definitely back. I mean, this if you want
Unknown:to just be a vivid example of a minimal message versus one
Unknown:that's not if you go to the US Department of Health and Human
Unknown:Services, and you look up what their recommendation for healthy
Unknown:eating is. It's follow a healthy eating pattern across a
Unknown:lifespan. Okay, I mean, it's wrong. i That's the headline.
Unknown:Cool. I get it, but it doesn't really actually it doesn't.
Unknown:There's friction there. Well, what is what is a healthy eating
Unknown:pattern? What does Michael Pollan famously it's eat food,
Unknown:mostly plants. It's not too much, three sentences longer,
Unknown:you know the words are about this longer is all of a sudden
Unknown:you get it. It's vivid, it's descriptive, it is something
Unknown:that is, that is meeting me where I am. That's an example
Unknown:of, you know, we have to admit the minimum terms of the design
Unknown:and moments from the messaging.
Kim Clark:Think that's a great example. It also reminds me of
Kim Clark:my, my girlfriend is a sign in the kitchen that says, Eat like
Kim Clark:you give a damn. And I'm like, we're doing the podcast
Kim Clark:communicate like you give it that is, that's really powerful.
Kim Clark:So is there a difference then between, like taglines, like,
Kim Clark:just do it? Or think different versus simple messaging? Are
Kim Clark:they is, are the timelines an example of simple messaging that
Kim Clark:we should be looking for and finding our voice on dei
Kim Clark:narratives? Or can they look differently outside of a
Kim Clark:tagline?
Unknown:You know, so it's my I do mentioned, tagline quite a
Unknown:bit in the in the book, and I have them kind of right in the
Unknown:front center and some of the first pieces, but I that is
Unknown:largely because that's an easy way in CS way to understand kind
Unknown:of what we're talking about. Another one that I love, by the
Unknown:way, they don't use it anymore. cadex it's talking about talking
Unknown:about empathy. I talked about how what our people are just how
Unknown:are people talking, you know, how, what language are they
Unknown:using, FedEx had one of the best slogans that was an example of
Unknown:like how a human actually speaks, which is when it
Unknown:absolutely positively has to be there overnight. But it
Unknown:absolutely positively has to be that overnight, you get that's
Unknown:that's how you would say it, right? That's how we've I'm
Unknown:sitting there. And I'm, it's, you know, it's it's five
Unknown:o'clock, and the deadline is coming, I gotta get this thing
Unknown:to the to the client. And this absolutely, positively has to be
Unknown:there. That is a great example of of meeting people that are in
Unknown:their language, their motivation, their emotional
Unknown:state, but the tagline stuff, it. It also relates to this kind
Unknown:of this idea I talked about in the chapter on benefit, which
Unknown:is, you know, how do we how do we structure the, the different
Unknown:elements of a message, because this is actually probably more,
Unknown:if you read into the bug and other stuff, it's probably a lot
Unknown:of stuff, if you're getting emails, and if you're designing
Unknown:websites, and if you're doing pitch presentations, and, and
Unknown:that type of stuff, there's a lot more meat in that, right.
Unknown:That's more that's most of our communications, that's most of
Unknown:this, I think will be relevant. But I want to talk about
Unknown:benefits. The bed, by the way, my thoughts about benefits. This
Unknown:is what I tell my students and I say if you only remember one
Unknown:thing from this class from this course, from this whole degree,
Unknown:remember senton. And it's from Theodore Levitt, who's a Harvard
Unknown:marketing professor from the 20th century. It is, people
Unknown:don't want to buy a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch
Unknown:hole. People don't want a quarter inch drill, they want a
Unknown:quarter inch hole. They don't want the thing where they want
Unknown:other things. So if you start with that understanding is that
Unknown:again, it's about benefits, not features. And you start to
Unknown:understand well, okay, what is what is the important what is
Unknown:the meaning of this feature? You ask? Sort of what right that
Unknown:gets you to the functional benefit and you can ask so
Unknown:again, like it's just the emotional benefit. Example,
Unknown:minty toothpaste. Okay, I'm not buying minty toothpaste because
Unknown:minty toothpaste, I'm buying material. So, so that my breath
Unknown:is fresher. Great. Okay, at least I'm already on a better
Unknown:footing than having a big ad that says here's my thesis.
Unknown:Well, I'm actually don't even one first breath, what do I
Unknown:want? So what I want to make a good impression on the date that
Unknown:I have, right? Okay, so all of a sudden, at the next level down,
Unknown:I'm at that emotional level of okay, I want to have a good
Unknown:date, because I have fresh breath because I got the minty
Unknown:toothpaste. And you can even go a further level further you can
Unknown:just so what again, and you can get to the famous Maslow's
Unknown:hierarchy of needs. We is not going to there's not going to
Unknown:match up to my love and belonging. Right. So you somehow
Unknown:got from minty to face by asking by acting like a kindergartener
Unknown:and quest three times you gotten yourself to that foundational
Unknown:level where minty toothpaste aside into love and belonging
Unknown:and then that's how you really develop a good tagline is, how
Unknown:do you how do you get to the point where the you're talking
Unknown:about benefits, you're talking about the emotional needs and
Unknown:everything. And so I think that that put that one, you know,
Unknown:front and center, because if you can get that right, everything
Unknown:else gets a lot easier.
Kim Clark:Mm hmm. Yeah, I can see that and I love you bringing
Kim Clark:up that that, that reminder of people want the whole, they want
Kim Clark:the result. That's the outcome. You know. So when I'm talking to
Kim Clark:clients, and on this podcast, frankly, I tried to say it every
Kim Clark:chance I get where we have to be describing dei from an outcome,
Kim Clark:what is the hole that they need? And then we can go even beyond
Kim Clark:that. So what does that whole giving us? Is that whole giving
Kim Clark:us a place where we can put the string to hang up the picture?
Kim Clark:You know, what, what? And then what's the picture doing on the
Kim Clark:wall? It's reflecting to us love family togetherness, wonderful
Kim Clark:memories. Okay, well, what serve as well, then we're back to
Kim Clark:belonging, we're back to you know, community. You know, we
Kim Clark:can we can go as deep as we need to, to find those places. And
Kim Clark:that's what our challenge, that's what I'm asking di
Kim Clark:communicators to do. Is, you know, D, I can be the drill. But
Kim Clark:the outcomes is leading to I need a hole right here. So what
Kim Clark:do I need to get to that hole? I need D i to make that hole? And
Kim Clark:then that hole is going to give me What's so just just doing the
Kim Clark:introspection, just pausing and thinking this through? Because
Kim Clark:there is, you know, I thank you so much for bringing this to our
Kim Clark:audience, because it's giving them language and a framework
Kim Clark:and tools to help them identify what their unique narrative is
Kim Clark:around, what are these outcomes of D AI? What is this whole? Why
Kim Clark:do I need the whole and to what end? And, and allowing people
Kim Clark:just to see D on a deeper level and creating the language around
Kim Clark:that because one of the things we always say on the podcast is
Kim Clark:language leads to behavior. So that's why my money is on
Kim Clark:communicators to really turn around what's going on around
Kim Clark:the battle, honestly, around dei narratives and what it is and
Kim Clark:what it isn't. Which leads me to my next question that, you know,
Kim Clark:we've really leaned in, especially in the summer of
Kim Clark:2020. And there's a lot of folks that put up the social posts,
Kim Clark:you know, in the box squares and stuff. And that was very few
Kim Clark:words. And we could say that was simple messaging. But it had
Kim Clark:profound impact on the work behind that messaging. And then
Kim Clark:when we started leaning back, which is where we are now, we
Kim Clark:left this space open for other people to fill the void, and
Kim Clark:enter in catchy phrases like woke now, and then we're caught
Kim Clark:off guard, and employees are saying, I don't want to work I
Kim Clark:don't you know, we're leaders, I've heard leaders say this to
Kim Clark:communicators. We're not a woke company, we're not going to have
Kim Clark:pronouns to the emails, our corporate email templates. So
Kim Clark:because we're not low, I don't want to work at a woke company.
Kim Clark:Now, not everyone can define what woke is. And a lot of
Kim Clark:people don't know that. It's it's based, it's co opted and
Kim Clark:appropriated from the black community and now used as a
Kim Clark:pejorative. But, you know, even if it can't necessarily be
Kim Clark:defined, there are a lot of people who say they just know,
Kim Clark:whatever it means I don't want it. Right. So how on earth did
Kim Clark:this term catch on? But all the rest of the ways that we talked
Kim Clark:about dei did not, that's fascinating to me, to kind of
Kim Clark:like water it down into a word that doesn't even belong to the
Kim Clark:community that is often repeating the word. And so you
Kim Clark:know, from your work and working with clients, in marketing,
Kim Clark:using language, figuring out their messages, what kind of
Kim Clark:guidance can you provide, for communicators to help us
Kim Clark:understand this odd phenomenon? And how to take it back?
Unknown:That's a that's a hard question. Right? That is really
Unknown:what happens is, this is the same, you know, it's a different
Unknown:it's a different beat, but it's the same kind of song of, of, of
Unknown:what's happening across all of all of media, all of marketing,
Unknown:which is everybody's, you know, there's there's a war for
Unknown:attention, right? Like, that is the most finite resource that we
Unknown:have the we, we have plenty of food, we have plenty of water,
Unknown:we have plenty of shelter. We don't have that much attention
Unknown:with the same 20 person that we had before we have even less
Unknown:because we're so frazzled after 13 hours of those being spent
Unknown:communicating messaging. So there's there's a whole army of
Unknown:practitioners on either side of the marketing equation of the
Unknown:politics equation that are going to try to do They're gonna try
Unknown:to win as many of those as many of those little skirmishes,
Unknown:pretension as you can. So it's tough. I mean, I don't I don't
Unknown:have a good answer. Things just out there if possible tools for.
Unknown:Number one is I mentioned this, when I talked about when I talk
Unknown:about empathy in the book, which is, it's a tool at the very end,
Unknown:which is how what does your message sound like this?
Unknown:Tensions are somebody who won't give you the benefit of the
Unknown:doubt. How does it look in the worst possible light, that
Unknown:you're just playing a little bit of preventative effects can
Unknown:sometimes avoid the the issues which come up down the line, I
Unknown:want to wait into the relatively what would be a better phrase or
Unknown:not. But we've seen also in the last couple of years that the
Unknown:defund movement has been something that the folks on the
Unknown:other side have twisted and said, hey, you know what, okay,
Unknown:well, this, you know, this means x, but I really want forehand.
Unknown:So, that's an example of kind of failure to stress test your your
Unknown:message a little bit, I thought, No, I don't want to get until
Unknown:more than one because I don't really have one, right. But the
Unknown:the, you have to run that test a little bit. And, you know, I'll
Unknown:leave this other piece, which is, a lot of times when we're
Unknown:when we're trying to focus our message to try to just say one
Unknown:thing, because this is kind of what happened before we get out
Unknown:there that happens on the in the inside a lot of times, either
Unknown:internally, in our own heads or in organizations is that we want
Unknown:to say this, and this and this and this. And if we do all those
Unknown:things, I call it the Frankenstein message, which
Unknown:actually, if you look at the the book, Mary Shelley's book, how
Unknown:she describes the monster, is not that, oh, it's the ugliest
Unknown:thing on the planet. It is individually, each element was
Unknown:beautiful, it's got big, strong muscles got lustrous hair got
Unknown:these beautiful wide eyes. And, and every item that Dr.
Unknown:Frankenstein selected for the monster was beautiful that it
Unknown:was selected. Before we put them together, it was a gruesome
Unknown:composite, it was something that was worse than the sum of his
Unknown:parts. And if you're not able to, not able to focus, if you're
Unknown:not able to get kind of to that one piece. And because you think
Unknown:everything else is so good, it has to be there, you're only
Unknown:getting down, we, we want to live in an infinite world. And
Unknown:we in many ways, sometimes we do. But attention is finite. If
Unknown:there's saying one thing all of our attention is going to that
Unknown:if we are trying to mess up three or four or five things at
Unknown:once, each one of those things comes at the cost of message of
Unknown:the attention that is given to the other things.
Kim Clark:Very interesting. Let me let me kind of I love the
Kim Clark:Frankenstein read Frankenstein example. Because it's something
Kim Clark:else that we deal with as communicators is that we are
Kim Clark:constantly battling noise, right, so much information
Kim Clark:bombarding our employees. And so it just, you know, everyone in
Kim Clark:their brother wants to get messages out into internal
Kim Clark:channels for examples. So we have constant challenge of
Kim Clark:finding the quality, rather than the quantity. So I think the
Kim Clark:Frankenstein thing example, is really helpful because we have
Kim Clark:lots of singular messages. And then we try to do too much all
Kim Clark:at once and it ends up falling apart. I'm going to rephrase
Kim Clark:part of the question I just asked you to see if I can add
Kim Clark:ask it better. When a message is simple, and it meets the
Kim Clark:criteria of the five principles, like apparently the term woke
Kim Clark:has because it's it's gotten widespread use. It's it sticks.
Kim Clark:It, it has a it has this factor where it has taken up space like
Kim Clark:people use it, it has stuck, right? I'm what about that word,
Kim Clark:or? Let me see I'm gonna look at your principles here. So
Kim Clark:beneficial, that's that's interesting to see how that work
Kim Clark:fits into the principle of beneficial besides I can see the
Kim Clark:benefit of that word basically shutting down conversation about
Kim Clark:di it just stops it. So there's a benefit to saying that word.
Kim Clark:So if somebody is uncomfortable and wants to end the
Kim Clark:conversation, they can get out of it by saying, Whoa, okay, so
Kim Clark:I can see the benefit of that. It is very focused. It's one
Kim Clark:more about one salience.
Unknown:Well, I actually the eye I would argue that maybe
Unknown:what has happened now is that the focus is lost a little bit,
Unknown:right? So it's because the, it's hard, it's harder to, to apply
Unknown:this to a single word, right? Because that's, it's, it's, you
Unknown:know, getting down to like the atomic quantum level of space.
Unknown:But the, the problem with how the, the power, especially in
Unknown:the other direction, try to define woke is that they don't
Unknown:define Have you asked, you know, there's always the funny clips
Unknown:from The Daily Show or tick tock, whatever, have some
Unknown:journalists comedian going and asking folks at a Trump rally,
Unknown:like what is woke mean? And they don't really have a dispersion?
Unknown:The problem so what what they've managed to do the other side is
Unknown:turn woke into a boogeyman. So it's not so much that the word
Unknown:has, you know, the letters that form the word that's wrong with
Unknown:that is that they've taken it, and they've said, Well, you
Unknown:know, what, this isn't? Okay. So it doesn't just mean what it
Unknown:original me everything. That's bad, right? Like, that's, that's
Unknown:how they've, they've co opted that phase. And I think that it
Unknown:been for their audience very successful in doing that, right.
Unknown:Like, there's entire presidential candidates that are
Unknown:running campaigns on like, the anti walk agenda. Because what
Unknown:does it mean to be anti the things that you think are bad
Unknown:like that, that's, that's what they've heard that word into.
Unknown:And, again, I'm no, I'm not a linguist or anything, but I
Unknown:understand that. Just like how a brand can get diluted, a word
Unknown:can get diluted as well, if use a word, if it gets used and
Unknown:misused. And it'll, it'll turn to mush. And it'll turn to
Unknown:whatever somebody else wants to just, whenever I hear, you know,
Unknown:I've written the book or talked about the dictionary adds a new
Unknown:word in the Oxford English Dictionary adds or updates a
Unknown:definition or 29 scenario isn't prescriptive, right? The
Unknown:dictionary is descriptive. Every word in English is a living
Unknown:language, just like everything else. And the, the forces
Unknown:pushing, pushing in the other direction, have managed to, in
Unknown:many ways in the least, your audience to redefine that word
Unknown:that is not focused that it just it just means that generic ad.
Kim Clark:So it's, it's lost its focus there, it's focused.
Kim Clark:For for a particular audience, you know, when when I look at
Kim Clark:empathetic and your your principle around empathetic
Kim Clark:care, it's like it speaks the receivers language and exhibits
Kim Clark:insight into the reality. So you don't even have to define what
Kim Clark:that reality is. But if you say it to a certain demographic,
Kim Clark:that that is they come up with their own picture, and it works.
Kim Clark:It works for them. And obviously, it's minimal. So it's
Kim Clark:interesting to look at terms that have made it especially in
Kim Clark:the DIY space, since that's primarily what we're we talk
Kim Clark:about on the podcast is, you know, narrative messaging,
Kim Clark:words, phrases, terms that have worked that have moved people,
Kim Clark:either towards or away from dei work, where people feel opted
Kim Clark:in, that they're a part of the work that have opted out. It's
Kim Clark:an interesting conversation that I'm asking communicators to
Kim Clark:engage in, like, what are the terms, the words the messaging
Kim Clark:that has worked? That is either turned people off? And on to the
Kim Clark:outcomes of the because, again, we're going for the hole here?
Kim Clark:And what is the purpose of the hole? What does that give us? So
Kim Clark:I'm, I asked this question at the end of every interview band,
Kim Clark:so let me know what your perspective is. But what does
Kim Clark:communicate like you give a damn mean to you? What does that look
Kim Clark:like, given your five principles?
Unknown:So, the most foundational thing, that if you
Unknown:take it away, this, I think, will change a lot of people's
Unknown:perspective. And it's like, I don't know, maybe there's, I
Unknown:probably a lot of people listening are gonna already
Unknown:understand. Some people I know in business and in other realms
Unknown:don't understand that, which is I break it down. There's doesn't
Unknown:matter whether you're a kid or an educator, if you're a
Unknown:politician, if you're a marketer, you're a sender,
Unknown:there's the center. So that's all one bucket is simplify that
Unknown:get everything else out of the way. And the other side, you
Unknown:know, the voters, the donors, the buyers, that is those are
Unknown:the receivers, right, keep it keep it to its core essence
Unknown:seven receivers. Just like if you're sending a letter, you
Unknown:have to pay the postage, the sender has to bear the literal
Unknown:and metaphorical cost of sending a message. It is our
Unknown:responsibility as someone who has something they want to say
Unknown:who wants To inform who wants to persuade to mixers, every
Unknown:receiver has plenty of stuff they want to do. They woke up
Unknown:today with a lot of things on their mind about their favorite
Unknown:sports teams and their political parties and the movie they want
Unknown:to watch later. And the thing that deadline they have crashing
Unknown:on for work. They didn't wake up wanting to hear your ad, they
Unknown:didn't want to know every commercial you've ever seen
Unknown:going against your will, every nobody has on their to do list,
Unknown:I want to go click an Instagram ad, everybody is perfectly doing
Unknown:what they're doing. And if we're coming in as a senator of we're
Unknown:in that, you know, that bucket, we have to have that bit that
Unknown:humility to that, it's our responsibility to make sure that
Unknown:we get heard. So if you can get at that everything else is going
Unknown:to be easier.
Kim Clark:Wonderful, very practical. So everybody, you
Kim Clark:know, want to make sure that you go out and get simply put Ben's
Kim Clark:new book and take a look at these five principles a little
Kim Clark:closer, and you no matter who you are, how long you've been
Kim Clark:doing di and how long you've been talking about it, this is
Kim Clark:something to kind of go back and use it as a litmus test. Because
Kim Clark:the language around EI is ever evolving as well. So are so are,
Kim Clark:so are the needs of our employees and our customers,
Kim Clark:especially as Gen Z continues to enter the workforce, that
Kim Clark:evolution is not, you know, we are in the midst midst of it
Kim Clark:all. And so our language needs to evolve, to reflect and to
Kim Clark:your earlier point also shape how, how the conversation needs
Kim Clark:to go forward, and, and meet people where they are, but also
Kim Clark:lead them towards our desired outcomes and simple messaging
Kim Clark:that includes being beneficial focus, salient, empathetic, and
Kim Clark:minimal, are all the key principles that you will get out
Kim Clark:of the simply book, it simply puts book whenever other people
Kim Clark:have done that, but simply put a book. So Ben, how can people
Kim Clark:find you get the book following you, etc?
Unknown:Well, appropriately, if you go to simply put book.com,
Unknown:you'll you'll find, you'll find the book. And so, I URL, because
Unknown:my last name is Guttmann Gu TT N A N N 2002 Ns. And it's really
Unknown:hard when I'm talking on a podcast, somebody would have
Unknown:been gottman.com and make sure they spell it right. But go to
Unknown:Ben government.com, spell it correctly, or go to simply put
Unknown:book.com. And you can find out the book there. There's a free
Unknown:chapter you can download. You can buy the book anywhere, books
Unknown:are sold Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And there's also an
Unknown:email, that's an email once a week, you know, pretty
Unknown:straightforward, I write something, I share something I
Unknown:find interesting idea. And anybody can subscribe to that.
Unknown:So that, you know this because in the message they're in is
Unknown:useful to to a lot of people and helps make a lot of the folks
Unknown:that we're talking to today are doing incredible work and
Unknown:meaningful. And if this helps them do it a little bit better.
Unknown:I'll be very, very happy. So yeah, if any of them I can help
Unknown:with any anybody have anything or if the book made a
Unknown:difference. Please shoot me an email. I'd love to hear about
Unknown:it.
Kim Clark:Thank you, Ben, thanks for your time. Thanks for
Kim Clark:sharing your expertise in marketing and doing some
Kim Clark:crossover work with us communicators to help us be
Kim Clark:better storytellers around the RDI narrative. Thanks for your
Kim Clark:time. Thanks
Unknown:so much. Kim had a blast.
