Just some of the multinationals who recently used MessageHouse.org

By Marc Fest, Founder, MessageHouse.org

MessageHouse.org founder, Marc Fest

I really didn’t expect that much when I added the Message House template to MessageHouse.org. After all, it’s no more than a page that is mostly empty, except for a watermark that looks like the outline of a house, and four areas to enter some text.

But in just the last few months a who’s who of multinationals has been downloading the file.  They include Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, Coca Cola, Heineken, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Nestle, Philips, Reuters, Tetra Pak, and Universal Pictures.  They are joined by non-profits like Montessori and the Australian Jesuit Refugee Service, communications firms like Edelman and Waggener Edstrom, and educational organizations like The Hong Kong Baptist University and the University of Utrecht.

When the downloaders are asked how they intend to use the template, responses include: “Clear message structure”, “communication to employees”, and “positioning for a venture.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be giving it all away for free. But then again, the template is a nice calling card.  Organizations can adopt it and improve their internal communications on the first day. And of course, if you like the Message House Method, then you’ll love my Message House Workshop. Please hire me!

Please keep in mind that the approach is useful for individuals as well, not just multinational corporations.  There are blog posts about using the Message House Method to ask for a pay-raise, or to succeed in a job interview.

And, of course: Message Houses don’t guarantee success, they just increase your chances of it.

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Let’s assume you want your boss to give you a pay raise (the “action”). The Message House Method can help come up with messaging for making that ask.

First, let’s think about the Big Picture Message. What’s getting a raise all about? What can you say that involves a larger notion and resonate emotionally? Do you deserve more recognition? More fairness? A better life?

Consider, as with all your messages, the audience’s point of view. In this case the audience is your boss. He or she worries about the organization’s, and his or her own success. So how about expressing that you want your department / organization / company to be the best it can possibly be? Be sincere.

Next, the Utility Message. What can you say that, in the eyes of your boss, would make it seem useful to give you a raise? “I won’t quit”? “I will work harder”? “My husband has lost his job, we need the money”? “The cost of living has gone up”?

Again, put yourself in your boss’s shoes. You don’t want to sound as if attempting blackmail (“Give me a raise or…”). You don’t want to sound whiny. You don’t want to make it all about yourself.

Remember, your boss cares about his or her own success, which is influenced by your performance, and your department’s and your organization’s. So try to think of a recent instance in which you walked the proverbial extra mile. Tell that story: “Remember back two weeks ago, when the Web went down on a Saturday. I came into the office at 11PM that night, and…” Then say something like: “A raise will motivate me to keep walking those extra miles for us.”

Now the Critics Message: It serves to disarm the most likely criticism. Often bosses don’t like to give a raise because the Human Resources department, or their superior, require them to make a very solid case for the increase. So make it easier for your boss. Say something like: “I know you’ll need to make a case for it. How about I draft a memo, from me to you, in which I explain why giving me a raise is good for the company?”

Last the  Action Message. Should it be something like: “I’d really appreciate your giving me a raise”? Maybe lower the barrier a bit, to make it easier for your boss to agree to taking a next step. Say: “I’d really appreciate your letting me draft that memo to make a case for a pay raise.”

As always, remember: You may not want to use these exact messages. Create messaging that’s tailored to your situation. Don’t necessarily use your messages verbatim all the time. Weave them into your conversation and feel free to modify them as feels natural. Know your messages well. Treat them like your very own magic spells. That’s where the house imagery of the Message House template can help you mentally. Thinking of your messages as a kind of place that’s like your home will make it easier to stick to them, to “stay inside your Message House.” Download it, and insert your messages into the placeholders. Then put a copy of your Message House  up on a wall. Keep another one in the drawer next to your bed. And another one in your back pocket. Tell yourself: “Stay inside your Message House and you will succeed ” (well, technically, you’ll optimize your chances to succeed, since there is never a 100% guarantee). For more advice on using your messaging, check out the Message House FAQ, the How To page, and download the free Message House Word Template.

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Let’s assume you’re applying for a job as an executive assistant. You made it through the initial screening. Now you’re getting ready for your job interview. What might your Message House for that encounter look like?

The audience is clear: It’s the hiring manager who will be interviewing you.

The  Action Message, obviously, is: “Hire me.”

So what’s your Utility Message for why you should be hired? What are the benefits for your future boss? Look at it from her or his point of view. A great executive assistant enables a boss to work as efficiently as possible. He or she flawlessly takes care of the daily mechanics of office life (scheduling meetings, taking calls, planning travels). But a truly great executive assistant will do more than this. He or she will be a discrete thought partner, helping the boss catch opportunities and mistakes. So a great Utility Message might be something like: “I’ll take care of the logistics; plus I’ll be a discrete but pro-active thought partner who will help catch opportunities and mistakes.”

So what’s the Big Picture Message? It should involve a larger, more universal notion. Something emotional. How about: “Your trust will be my number one priority.” That includes everything you promise in the utility message, but wraps it inside an idea of a higher order. Trust is an emotional and practical prerequisite in the relationship between an executive assistant and a boss; actually, it’s essential in any relationship. So this is a great Big Picture Message to use.

So what’s the Critics Message? That depends on where your biggest weakness lies. Do you have too little or too much experience? Have you never worked in the area before? Are you a convicted felon? Whatever it is, look at it from the other person’s perspective, and think of a way to disarm the criticism with a positive message. Let’s assume you’re applying for a job in a field that you have no experience in. A good critics message would be: “I’ve proven that I am a very fast learner.” You’ll need good proof points for this, for instance a story about how you quickly attained a lot of knowledge in a new area. With all these messages, it’s important that you are honest and authentic.

Now download the Message House template from this Web site, put your messages inside and tell yourself: “I’ll succeed if I stay inside my Message House”.

Look at your Message House before you go to sleep the night before. Put it under your pillow. Look at it again when you get up in the morning. Put it in the back pocket of your pants and look at it one more time just before you interview. Remember, you don’t have to use the messages verbatim. Don’t sound like a robot. Simply infuse what you say with your messages.

You’ll have maximized your chances for success!

Download

You can download both, the sample Job Interview Message House shown left, and the Message House Word template to create your own Message Houses.

Remember: Stay inside your Message House and you will succeed!

Good luck!

About the Message House Method:

Message Houses are a remarkably easy but incredibly effective communications framework. Ultimately, they are about getting an audience to take a desired action. Their ease of use also makes them a great way of getting organizations to make more use of communications. There’re short videos about how they work and what they’re good for on MessageHouse.org.

Message Houses work because their underlying principle is based on the workings of our brains. A Message House contains four messages: The Big Picture Message speaks to why something matters in the larger scheme of things; the Utility Message speaks to an audience’s self interest; rhe Critics Message disarms, in a positive fashion, a likely criticism; and the Action Message tells your audience what to do.

Learn more at www.messagehouse.org.

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The “3-Room” Message House style

The Message House template on this site, on the other hand, only has one “room” for all its messages, and the messages are always titled “big picture”, “utility”, “critics” and “action”. Let’s call it the “MessageHouse.org approach”.

The MessageHouse.org approach

Needless to say: There is no right or wrong way of doing message houses. The “3-room” is a fantastic step forward if you’ve never used Message Houses before. It might even be perfect for you.

But I wanted to share the three reasons why we at MessageHouse.org  have arrived at the particular style of Message House that we use:

1) Structure

The 3-room message house requires users to create an umbrella statement and three core messages. I must admit that this was pretty much the way I used to go about coming up with my messages. I’d meditate, and wonder “what’s the most important message?” and “what are the next three most important messages?”

It’s a somewhat unsystematic, unguided approach.

The MessageHouse.org way, on the other hand, uses a structured approach, leading us to core messages by asking a standard set of four questions about the larger picture, the immediate utility, the most likely criticism and the call to action.

It’s like having a roadmap for your conversation about your messaging; and it pretty much always leads to useful results. It also provides an agenda of sorts for team meetings in which you discuss your messages. Over all, I’ve found that this structured approach leads to better, more high-quality messages.

2) Brevity

Three-room style message houses tend to pack a lot of text, especially since they invite to also include proof points, supporting materials and evidence into the space on the bottom (although this can, of course, be avoided).

The MessageHouse.org approach, on the other hand, tends to lead to briefer amounts of text by seeking only four messages. It advises to put proof points, and supporting materials such as answers to dicey questions and faq-style information into separate documents.

Here’s why such brevity is useful: The MessageHouse.org approach is not just about creating messages and messaging discipline for a project or organization. It’s also about creating the habit of using Messages Houses. Keeping Message House short helps a great deal in creating this habit. The shorter they are, the more likely an organization’s staff will like them, ask for them and make a habit of using them.

The idea is to get your staff to think of Message Houses as something that makes life and work easier, lighter, clearer. That’s why you want brevity and clarity in your Message Houses.

Also, brief messages are more likely to be used when it matters. When time is scarce (say, just before a speech or a media interview) people will be more inclined to glance over a very concise set of messages, as opposed to a densely packed document that takes minutes rather than seconds to read.

Again, this does not mean you don’t need proof points, supporting materials, and the like. But the idea is to put them into separate documents so we get the benefit of having one core document that is brief, clear and essential.

Less is more!

3) Practical

Message Houses are sticky, in large part because of the visual metaphor of the house. The image of “staying inside the message house” resonates with people, much more than the abstract concept of a set of key messages. But often it will still be appropriate to send the messages in the good old-fashioned bulleted way – even if the message house image gets lost in the process. For instance, if time is of the essence, then you don’t want to force somebody to open an attached pdf or word document (which would retain the message house visual and template). Instead, you want to place the messages inside the main body of an email, just as bullets, so they can be glanced at quickly without having to first open an attached document. The MessageHouse.org template makes it easy to quickly pluck its contents by copying and pasting in such situations. On the other hand, if you have a template with many “rooms” and many text boxes, copying and pasting becomes a multi-step ordeal.

Conversely, the “one-room” template also makes it quick and easy to take a set of pre-existing messages and copy and paste them into the MessageHouse.org template, thus immediately adding the benefit of using the house imagery. This ease of use helps make the Message House method spread within an organization as a habit. Ease of use is key.

So there you have it. The three reasons why we do it the MessageHouse.org way: Structure, brevity and practicality.

But again, there is no right or wrong. Choose for yourself what suits you best. You can download the Microsoft Word template for the MessageHouse.org style for free.

Marc Fest is the creator of the New Message House Method. Download the free Message House Template at MessageHouse.org to improve your messages and increase messaging discipline.

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In the 15-second video-snippet above, you can see nearly 100 local non-profit representatives packing a recent Message House Workshop sponsored by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. There were executive directors, board members, marketing managers, communications directors, and development directors. They represented a food bank, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Habitat for Humanity, a Botanical Garden, Meals on Wheels, and a Military Academy, among many other organizations.

The event was the idea of Susie Bowie, Director of Nonprofit Strategy at the Community Foundation. Susie had attended and liked a Message House Workshop at the Florida Philanthropic Network a few months earlier. She was mindful of an upcoming “Giving Challenge” in Sarasota. The challenge is an opportunity for local non-profits to raise funds and connect with new donors during a community-wide drive.

In a blog post after the workshop Susie wrote: “The Giving Challenge is a fertile ground for practicing the Message House concept: inviting communications to the table, appealing to both sides of human nature, developing messaging with others on your team, addressing the critic’s message, and simplifying it all for your audience with a no-brainer action item.”

Below are some testimonials that speak to the impact of the workshop, including one from Susie, and a video in which I talk about the Message House Workshop.

A big thank you to Susie Bowie and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County for making this Message House Workshop possible.

Marc Fest
Founder, MessageHouse.org

Testimonials from Sarasota:

 A Message House workshop is an empowering gift that every foundation should consider giving to its nonprofit community.

 Will be sharing this tool with myriad small organizations to help them stay focused and on message.

 Definitely felt the four areas in the message house was right on target and will use!

 This helped me tie it all together and put it in a format that each person in our organization can use.

 Excellent workshop; enjoyed being with a variety of people from different positions within other NPOs.

 Using the Message House keeps the focus on short and effective communications, and the visual template helps keep that goal foremost in mind.

 Marc combined knowledge of his subject with an engaging and friendly character, mixed with just enough light-hearted banter to sugar the pill of useful information.

 Good presentation and positive energy.

 Very engaging personality who demonstrates a significant aspect of messaging is to engage with just the right amount of enthusiasm.

 Well set out – very informative. All in all an excellent presentation!

 Marc was extremely likable and was a fun presenter.

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TIP #1: Get over your SELF

We have a compulsive focus on our own interests and on ourselves; this is probably the number one cause for poor communications. There are countless symptoms: a news release in which the first sentence includes the lengthy name of your new organization, even though no one has ever heard of it; the word “I” everywhere in your communications; more time spent speaking about yourself than asking questions.

Now, it is natural to communicate with our own interests at heart. But the paradox is that our messages become most effective when we try to put ourselves in the shoes of our listeners.

So if you want to announce the launch of an organization in a news release, use the first sentence to explain the useful things it will accomplish, in words everyone can understand. The second sentence can then mention the new organization’s name.

And when you respond to an attack, first express that you value whatever issues your attackers have. In the case of the cop stopping you for speeding it’s therefore probably a good idea to first express that you know what you did was wrong. Be genuine. Then try to wiggle out of the predicament.

The unselfish approach also means that you strike a balance between telling people about yourself and showing an interest in them. This makes for much more interesting cocktail conversations.

TIP #2: Cause goose bumps

We only have one chance to make a first impression. And that first impression often determines what people think, no matter what we say or do later. We also make decisions much more based on feelings than on logic. Therefore, whenever you have a chance, have your initial message create a positive, deep emotion. Often this means that you want to lead with why something matters in the larger scheme of things. Let’s say you’re applying for a job at a pharmaceutical company. You could lead with your passion for contributing to curing cancer.

TIP #3:  Avoid creating red flags

In many people’s eyes, red flags foreshadow problems down the road. So do not create red flags. One of the most frequent, and most easily averted, ones are exaggerations. Avoid them. For instance, don’t use the phrase “tipping point”, unless there truly is one. Don’t describe something as “unprecedented” or “groundbreaking” unless it is.

Typos and grammatical errors are another kind of red flag. Make a habit of reading every email one extra time before you hit the send button.

Tip #4: Measure how clear you sound

It might sound simplistic, but the overall length of your sentences and words predicts how easily people will understand you. There is a tool that measures these factors. It is called “Flesch score”. It’s so effective that Microsoft has built it into Word. There are also Web sites that allow you to easily measure the Flesch score of a text. You want to score at least above 45 (this blog post has a Flesch score of 73). There’s a great article about Flesch on the Knight Foundation Web site.

TIP #5: You’re in communications!

Lastly, understand that you are in the communications business no matter what you do for business.

I once had a doctor who was concerned about some count in a lab result. He ordered another test a month later and told me he’d personally call me within 10 days. 10 days went by and no call. I emailed his office. No reply. Two days later I called the office. The assistant said the doctor would call me before the end of the day. No call. Same thing next day. He finally talked to me the following day…

The episode reminded me of what a chief technology officer at American Airlines once told me: The airline, he said, is as much in the communications business as it is in the transportation business. That’s because for airline passengers, much of their satisfaction depends on how well the airline communicates with them (about delays, re-bookings, etc). The same is true for doctors: they are as much in the communications and information business as in the medical profession.

We’re all in the communications and information business, no matter what we do. The more clearly we realize this, the better we get at what we do.

In addition to these five tips, follow the Message House method to fine-tune your messages.

Have a great 2013!

MessageHouse.org helps people, organizations and projects maximize impact through key messages and messaging discipline.

The post 5 Tips So Your Messages Succeed in 2013 appeared first on Messagehouse.org.

The Message House Word Template now includes a field to indicate target audiences.

There’s a new Message House Word Template, sporting one change:

A field on top of the page now indicates the “intended audience(s)” you’re trying to reach.

Why this change?

When you create key messages, you should always begin with one question: Whom do I want to reach? (The second question is: What do I want them to do?) The reason: You may have different desired actions and different messages for different audiences.

The revised Message House Word Template helps guide teams to consider the target audience when building and using Message Houses.

Here’s something I’d appreciate getting feedback on: I briefly considered moving the action message from the bottom of the template to the top. Why? One does indeed want to begin with thinking about the desired action when building a Message House. However: I decided to leave it at the bottom since when using the Message House, one would rarely convey the action message first; having it in first position may suggest to use it first. Normally, you will convey the action message after you’ve prepared the ground with your “Big Picture”, “Utility” and possibly your “Critics” messages.

If you have questions or thoughts, please share them with the comment box below.

About the Message House template:
Because it’s so intuitive and easy to use, the free Message House Word template is your most important tool for creating Message Houses, and for creating the transformational Message House habit in your organization.

You can download the new template here.

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