“Get to the point” has never been more at the forefront of our subconscious mind than it is in present day. Attention is so subdivided in the internet era, making it so much more important to communicate our message in the utmost brevity.
Tell me in one paragraph.
Tell me in one sentence.
Tell me in one word.
If you want to extend the conversation, you must bring meaning to the first words you say, that is relevant to your target audience. Otherwise, “Gongggg!!!”, and this Gong Show goes on perpetually.
I recall an associate telling me a story where a new staffer was preparing to give a presentation about a proposed new initiative, to the CEO of Nortel. The presenter had prepared a slide deck of 40 slides. But just prior to the actual start of the presentation, the CEO says to him: “Just give me your best 3”. Being on-the-spot in this situation made it exceedingly difficult to be effective in getting the point across. But at least he was told up front about the attention span that he was going to get, and I am sure that he learned a valuable lesson in brevity.
Another excellent example of this when startups are presenting their business case with the goal of obtaining investment capital. Whether the presenter is at a public pitch event such as Startup Weekend or within the offices of the venture capital firm, the scenario is the same. Much of the important decision making will still happen in the first 5 minutes, whether you are scheduled for a longer time span or not. The number of winning investments is finite. And the VC knows that he must dismiss the non-starters as quickly as possible, in order to continue on the quest for the right investment. If your message does not resonate in 5 minutes, you are done.
Wherever it occurs, this ultra-fast processing of information is borne out of the fact that we are truly in the information age, and there is no shortage of information that is flowing. In fact, there is a continual opening of the tap and the flow of information continues to increase. Consequently individuals are now processing the flow in a rapid fire manner by looking for quick reasons to disregard messaging before investing a deeper level of attention. And it happens whether people are deciding whether to read a book or open an email.
Without question, the universe of writing is changing to adapt to the new behaviors of readers. Within the book publishing industry, we are seeing authors put extra attention on first sentences, as well as building up to the plot much more rapidly than in the past. Readers want to get to “the point” sooner, rather than later. I don’t know how much of a chance a 1,300 page classic like War and Peace would have, if it was a new release in present day.
Within the world marketing, getting attention to the information that you have to offer, has to work well within this new paradigm. It has to resonate immediately with the audience or else it flows down the drainage pipe, never to be given a second thought. Extra attention must be given to all things that our viewing audience will see first. First sentence. First paragraph. Executive summary. Subheading titles. All of these build on each other in rapid succession to capture and hold attention. And for you to do this effectively, means you must really know your buyer and what will resonate with them.