Nov. 21, 2023

Crafting Clarity: Unveiling The Power Of Simple Messaging With Ben Guttmann

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:

LinkedIn

Book

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
Kim Clark:

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.