Those who have worked with me over the past ten years have probably heard what I’m about to share way too often. But I keep saying it, because I’m really not kidding that I believe this to be if not the secret to creative success, then certainly a secret.
Ready? Here it is.
Imagine a wide river roaring down a chasm. The sound of the water rushing and crashing over and around the rocks is deafening. On the far bank of this river is an audience. On the bank nearest you is a communicator whose job it is to cause the audience on the other side of the river to hear what he has to say … to remember it … and to act on it. Compounding the challenge is the roar of the river which, in this little metaphor, is the noise generated by all of the competing messages clamoring for attention in today’s media-saturated marketplace.
With me so far?
You be the communicator. You don’t have a whole lot of options, so you must do anything you can think of to get your audience’s attention. You jump up and down. You scream and shout. Maybe you even throw a rock and try to hit the audience in the head. If you’re successful, the audience on the far bank may notice you … and may even catch a few words of your message.
That’s what happens when the goal of the communicator is to get an audience’s attention. If you’re lucky enough to get it, you don’t hold it more than a few seconds before another, competing message interferes with the communication. Getting an audience’s attention doesn’t have to be as complicated or as difficult as I just sketched out. I can also get your attention by leaping out of a closet and screaming, BOO! But again, how long do I hold your attention? A couple of seconds? Maybe?
Rather than focusing simply on getting an audience’s attention, the true secret to success is all about capturing their imagination.
When you do that, you effectively build a bridge across the river. The communicator and the audience exist on the same side. The roar of the river – of the competing messages – becomes inconsequential. Suddenly, your audience doesn’t merely hear you – they listen to what you have to say. They take your messages away with them and use them to fuel their stories, to drive their purchase decisions, to cast their ballots – whatever.
But that’s the real trick: How do you capture an audience’s imagination?
And that’s the subject of the next post.
Until then …
No comments yet.