Dorothy Parker was right

We’re facing a tectonic shift in the way we do business, connect, and communicate. Two-hour multi-stage keynote extravaganzas have been replaced by 20 minutes of impactful on-demand video. Less is more and will be even more more in our post-pandemic world.

Shrinking attention spans may make some people in the tech industry sad, because after spending an ENORMOUS amount of energy identifying problems and building solutions for them, you and your team REALLY want to talk about what you made and how it works.

Your customers, though, care about their business problems. Does your product solve their most urgent business problem? Great, they’ll buy it now, please.

Think of your message like the Eiffel Tower - really skinny until the very bottom. You communicate at a very high level, in outcomes only, to 80% of your audience - the business managers, the check writers, the executives. This audience gets 20% of your story.

You go deep – the thick base of the Eiffel Tower – with your users. 80% of your message goes to the 20% of the people in an organization who will get their hands on your product. You’ll deliver that detail to them in modules they can consume - how and when they’d like.

Imagine your customer watching your talk on their phone. Edit your slides and talk track accordingly. It’s both shrewd and compassionate to be aware of how much energy your audiences have to listen to you! They are in charge of managing their attention as a resource. You are in charge of honoring that.

When you say less, what’s essential for your audience grabs them - especially on the small screens we’re now using to reach each other.

If you can create a complex solution to a complex problem, you absolutely have the brainpower to distill your story down to its essential brilliance. Your customers will be so relieved!