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Great ideas don’t fail for lack of merit – they fail at the first explanation. Message strategist Tamsen Webster explains how to design communication that speaks to both brains – the emotional brain and the analytical one – using clear cause-and-effect logic to create messages people can’t unhear.
Why Your Marketing Messages Aren’t Sticking
You’ve crafted what you think is the perfect marketing message. You know your audience. You’ve got data to back up your claims. You’ve even thrown in some emotional appeal for good measure.
But people still aren’t biting.
Here’s what’s likely happening: you’re only talking to half of your audience’s brain. And the half you’re ignoring? It’s the one that decides whether they’ll even listen to the rest of what you have to say.
Message designer Tamsen Webster joined me on the podcast recently to explain why so many marketing messages fail—and more importantly, how to fix it. Her insights about the “two brains” processing every message will change how you think about communication.
The Two-Brain Problem Nobody’s Talking About
“We only speak to one of the two brains that we have,” Tamsen told me. And before you start wondering if you missed a biology lesson, let me clarify: she’s not talking about having two physical brains.
She’s talking about the two different ways our single brain processes every message we encounter.
The first is what Tamsen calls the analytical brain. This is the one we’re most familiar with—the voice in our head that’s looking for data, picking apart arguments, and trying to make logical sense of what we’re hearing. It’s the brain that asks, “Where’s the proof?”
The second is the automatic brain. This includes our emotions, intuition, and those instinctive reactions we have before we even consciously think about something. (You know, like when you pull your hand away from a hot stove before your analytical brain even registers what happened.)
Here’s the important part: both brains process messages simultaneously, but the automatic brain responds much faster.
“If the other person’s automatic brain doesn’t agree with that data, doesn’t understand it, if it conflicts with what they already believe, it absolutely shuts down the receptivity to that message,” Tamsen explained. “That, to me, is deadly for any message.”
Think about the last time someone hit you with a bunch of statistics to prove a point you fundamentally disagreed with. Did you suddenly change your mind? Or did you just dig in harder?
Yeah. That’s the automatic brain in action.
Why Marketers Keep Getting This Wrong
So why do we keep making this mistake?
Tamsen says we tend to focus on one brain or the other, forgetting they work together.
Sometimes we load up on data and evidence, assuming that if we just give people enough facts, they’ll come around. But we’re not accounting for how that automatic brain might react if our message conflicts with what they already believe, or if we’re speaking at a level of expertise they can’t relate to.
The flip side? The last 10-15 years have been all about storytelling and emotional connection. Businesses throw resources at creating compelling narratives that tug at heartstrings.
“The analytic brain is still going to kick in at some point,” Tamsen warned. “You can move people with the message, you can connect them with the message. But if they can’t ultimately justify some shift in thinking or behavior based on that message, based on that emotional connection in a way that they feel like when challenged that they could stick with it—it’s not as effective.”
The ITBA Framework: Your Message Diagnostic Tool
Now, if you’re thinking “great, so now I have to do twice as much work,” I hear you. That was literally my response to Tamsen.
But the good news is that both brains love the same thing: logic.
Specifically, they both love “if-then” relationships. Cause and effect. Stimulus and response.
Tamsen’s developed a framework called ITBA (If, Then, Because, And) that helps you make sure you’re speaking to both brains without doubling your workload.
If represents the question your audience is actively asking right now—a real problem they’re trying to solve.
Then is your specific approach to answering that question, described in plain language people already understand.
Because is your belief-based justification for why that approach makes sense—something your ideal customer would agree with.
And represents additional hard-to-argue-with principles that support your approach.
Here’s how Tamsen broke down Apple’s iPod campaign using this framework (because yes, it still holds up 24 years later):
If you want a better way to carry your music with you… Then iPod—a thousand songs in your pocket… Because most people would agree that the more of your library you can take with you, the better… And the smaller something is, the more places it can go.
Notice how they didn’t lead with technical specs? They didn’t say “buy our new portable digital audio player with 5GB of storage.” They spoke in terms people could immediately understand and relate to: a thousand songs, in your pocket.
The analytical brain got the logic. The automatic brain got the instant visualization and emotional connection to what that meant for their daily life.
The Mystery Marketing Trap (And Why It Might Be Killing Your Campaigns)
One of my favorite moments in our conversation was when Tamsen called out something I’ve seen way too often: the “mysterious” ad campaign that tries to build intrigue by keeping people guessing.
“Let’s be mysterious, and let’s invite people to come check this out,” she said, mimicking the typical marketing agency pitch. “By and large, that’s not how curiosity works.”
Research shows that if we don’t immediately understand what something is about, we don’t just fail to be intrigued—we’re actually repelled by it. Tamsen calls this “negative curiosity.”
In a world where we’re bombarded with messages all day long, people don’t have time to solve puzzles. If they can’t quickly grasp what you’re offering and why it matters, they’re gone.
“Use the audience language for both the explanation of what it is, the outcome that they’re looking for, and what it will get them,” Tamsen advised. “Tell me in clear language what this thing will get me.”
This doesn’t mean dumbing things down. It means respecting your audience’s time and brain capacity by being clear and direct.
The Counterintuitive Truth About Message Design
Here’s where Tamsen threw me a curve ball.
I asked her how we can be sure we’re building messages that resonate with our audience. Her answer? “Other than that question, it has nothing to do with the audience.”
Wait, what?
She explained that sustainable messaging can’t be about chasing the market. It has to be rooted in what you actually believe—what she calls your “theory of the business.”
“This has to be what you all believe,” Tamsen said. “What is a valid question to answer and that you validly believe that you’ve got the answer, and this is the reason why, in terms your audience would understand, why you believe so strongly in it.”
Yes, you need to make sure enough people have the question you’re answering (otherwise you don’t have a viable product or service). But the messaging itself should reflect your core beliefs about why you do what you do in your particular way.
This approach has a hidden benefit: it helps you identify what’s truly distinctive about your offering. When Tamsen works with clients on their ITBA, they often discover the actually defensible aspects of their approach—not the generic stuff like “high quality” that every competitor also claims.
“You can’t tell me it’s high quality,” she said. “Why would someone buy something that’s crappy? You need to tell me what about your approach ensures high quality.”
(This might be my new favorite response when clients want to emphasize how “high quality” their work is.)
Getting to “No” Faster Might Be Your Superpower
One insight from our conversation that I’ve already started applying: making your position clear upfront helps prospects self-select.
“Not only can it help you get to yes faster, it can help you get to no faster,” Tamsen pointed out. “For any resource-constrained communicator, and show me one that isn’t, that can sometimes be just as important.”
I had this conversation with a prospect right before recording the podcast. I basically told them (politely) that I didn’t care if they said yes or no—I just needed them to say one of them so I could move on.
When your messaging clearly articulates what you believe and how you approach solving problems, people who fundamentally disagree will move on. That’s a feature, not a bug.
“I’d rather know that someone understands you completely and prioritizes something else,” Tamsen said, “then after I’ve spent months chasing down somebody who fundamentally thinks that the answer lies somewhere else.”
Amen to that.
How to Actually Implement This
If you’re feeling overwhelmed Tamsen offers a free resource to get started.
She’s created what she calls the “Compact Case”—a worksheet that walks you through crafting your own ITBA. You can grab it at getthehandout.com.
The worksheet gives you blanks to fill in with step-by-step instructions and checkboxes to make sure you’re hitting all the right notes. Tamsen even suggested you could upload it to Claude or ChatGPT and ask for help working through it.
She also runs free monthly office hours where you can bring questions about what you’ve filled out and get direct feedback.
Why give all this away for free? “I just believe so strongly in message design being a core business and life skill that I don’t want to put it behind barriers,” she told me.
Start Speaking to Both Brains
If your marketing messages aren’t landing the way you hoped, you’re probably not doing it wrong—you’re just doing it halfway.
Start by auditing your current messaging using the ITBA framework:
- What question are you answering? (Is it one your audience is actively asking?)
- What’s your specific approach? (Can you describe it in plain language?)
- Why does that approach make sense? (What belief would your audience agree with?)
- What additional principles support this? (What’s hard for them to argue with?)
If you can’t answer all four, you’ve found your gap.
Remember: both brains are processing your message simultaneously. The automatic brain is faster and can shut everything down before logic even gets a chance. But both brains respond to clear, logical connections between problems and solutions—as long as you’re speaking in language they already understand.
Stop being mysterious. Stop expecting people to do the work of figuring out what you mean. Stop leading with vague promises like “high quality.”
Instead, be clear about what you believe, why you believe it, and how it helps them solve the problem they’re already trying to solve.
That’s how you create messages people can’t unhear.
Transcript from Tamsen’s Episode
Rich: Part message designer, part English to English translator, and now part doctoral student, my next guest helps leaders quickly craft their case for long lasting changes in thinking and behavior.
In addition to her work in and for major organizations such as Harvard Medical School, Fidelity Investments, and Databox, she’s a judge and mentor for the Harvard Innovation Labs, a professional advisor at the Martin Trust Center for MIT entrepreneurship, and has spent over 10 years as the idea strategist for one of only nine legacy level TEDx events in the world.
She was named to the Thinker 50 Radar in 2022 and is the author of two books, Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible, and Say What They Can’t Unhear – The 9 Principles of Lasting Change.
She lives in Boston with her husband, two sons, two Brindlegate Greyhounds, Hazel and Walnut, and today we’re going to be talking about creating unforgettable messages with Tamsen Webster. Tamsen, welcome back to the show.
Tamsen: I am delighted to return. Rich, how are you?
Rich: I’m doing great. This is your third time on the show as far as my notes told me, so I’m really excited about that.
Tamsen: I am too. It’s always good to talk to a Mainer. That’s what I think.
Rich: There you go. Absolutely.
Tamsen: I’m married to one as well, so I get pleasure of talking with Mainers. But it’s the more Mainers, the better.
Rich: Absolutely. And I love when Tom comes back home because I always see his Facebook posts and they always just resonate for me. So that’s always great.
Tamsen: Love that.
Rich: So what is it, Tamsen, about communications and messaging that speaks to you so deeply?
Tamsen: Well, words are pretty much the only currency that we have for ideas, right? At some level, we’ve got to take these big, beautiful, abstract things that are in our heads, and the only avenue really that we can come back to over and over again. We can use diagrams and whatever, but when we’re talking to people about it, we have to use words.
And what I’m so drawn to about communication and messaging as part of that, is that seems to be so often where great ideas or important changes fail is actually at that first point of explanation. And based on my work and my experience, that’s a solvable problem. And that’s really what I’m all about.
I’ve been focused for 25 years on one big question, and fundamentally, that’s how do we accelerate the understanding and adoption of new ideas? And since words and communication tend to be the way that we do that that’s what I’ve been fascinated by. But not the copywriting end, the way back in how do we process those words and that information in the first place?
Rich: Love it. Love it. So you have a relatively new book out. And I noticed that the dedication is to…
Tamsen: A year. It’s been out for a year. Yeah, it just has a little birthday.
Rich: Excellent, excellent. I noticed that the dedication is to Tom, your husband, and it just says, “Ding.” I’m wondering if that’s some sort of inside joke that the rest of us don’t get.
Tamsen: So it is. So I talk about ‘ding’ moments in the book, right? And I even opened the book with saying, some people have those life changing moments, they think of them as a light bulb. I’ve always heard it as a sound like, ‘ding’.
The original, before it got edited, dedication to Tom was actually “who always rings my bell”. And then I reconsidered it and just replaced it with “Ding” because I was like, not everyone’s going to… that might get interpreted the wrong way. And yeah, so I just left it with “Ding” because he’s the supplier of any number of life-changing moments.
Rich: That makes sense. And this is an all-ages show, so I appreciate that. As a kid from the seventies, of course, when I hear “ring my bell”, the song comes to mind. So that’s obviously the first thing I think of.
Tamsen: Yeah. I thought it was clever and then I was like, oh, wait a minute.
Rich: Not everybody’s as clever as me,
Tamsen: Yeah.
Rich: So the new book is all about creating unforgettable messages, things that people can’t unhear. So what does that look like in real life?
Tamsen: I think the reason why I wanted to write the book was my first book was very much a “how to” book. It was very much the process I used to help people make their messages more understandable as a path to being irresistible. And with this book, I really wanted to put a warning shot across the bow, put my stake in the ground of listen, there’s things that are really necessary to understand about how people respond to change, process messages, all of that, that can make a huge difference in the success or failure of that message, first of all. And whether or not that message leads to action; one-time action, short-term action, or long-term, even transformational change.
And, the more that I work with leaders, and change agents, and agents of change – wink, wink – and communicators, marketers, whatever that might be, the more I realized that I don’t know anybody who feels like they really have enough time to keep trying to find people who, I don’t know about you, but if I put a message out there that’s designed to create a change, I don’t want to have to keep putting it out there. I want something that’s really going to stick with people. So that as much as possible change, true change, meaning sustained change, becomes inevitable.
And it just seemed like that information wasn’t out there in a kind of easy to manage, all in one place kind of resource. And so that’s what I wanted to create, just here’s everything you need to know about people, if you want to create the conditions for change. Here you go. That’s what it is.
Rich: Why do you think that so many of us struggle to communicate in a way that truly lands with our audience and causes that long lasting change?
Tamsen: There’s a number of ways to answer this. I would say is that what I have found to be most intriguing lately, and it’s definitely a part of at the heart of my doctoral research, is that we only speak to one of the two brains that we have. And people might be going, wait, I only have one brain. And that is true. But whenever we hear or read or experience a message in some way, our brains are processing it in two simultaneous ways.
And that’s really important to know because they are deeply interactive with each other. And these two ways are, I like to call them we have an analytical process, an analytical brain. That’s the one we think we’re listening to a lot of the times. It’s the one that if we have an inner monologue, it’s the one that’s talking to us. It’s the one that’s looking for data evidence. It’s the one that’s trying to pick things apart. And then we have in contrast with that, an automatic brain. And I group into that not just emotion, but also intuition and our kind of experience, instinctive reactions to things that we’re not thinking about at all, right? If you touch something hot, you’re going to recoil. You did not consciously think about that. You did not analyze your behavior in that moment.
Now, what’s really important about these two is that automatic brain, while they’re operating at the same time, that automatic brain responds much, much faster, even to the same information. And we’ve seen a lot of examples of this lately where somebody will say something and somebody will challenge them on it, and then what do they do? They give them all the data and the information and all the rational explanation for why this other position is right or wrong or whatever.
But if the other person’s automatic brain doesn’t agree with that data, doesn’t understand it, if it conflicts with what they already believe, it absolutely shuts down the receptivity to that message at least for a little while. And that to me is deadly for any message. You can’t get to change if you don’t get to action. You can’t get to action if you don’t have some kind of level of agreement. If you can’t get to agreement, if you don’t have understanding. And all of that means we have to go all the way back to what will both of those processes understand and agree.
So to your question, what I find is that we pay attention to one brain or the other and forget that they work together. Meaning, we give data and evidence without accounting for the fact of how that automatic brain in that other person might respond if this conflicts with what they believe, if they don’t understand it because I’m speaking about it at some level of expertise or using words they don’t understand.
The alternative is that, and this I’ve seen a lot, let’s say in the last 10 or 15 years where everybody has gone gaga over story as if it’s like the end all be all of everything. And it’s really strong, don’t get me wrong, but they’re like if we just get them emotionally connected and attached… Yes, and? And the analytic brain is still going to kick in at some point.
And so you can move people with a message, you can connect them with the message. But if they can’t ultimately justify some shift in thinking or behavior based on that message, based on that emotional connection, in a way that they feel like when challenged that they would stick with it, again, it’s not as effective as it could be if we didn’t talk to both.
So that’s currently the big banner I’m flying is that we’ve got to be able to think about how do we talk to both brains, and that we’re making sure that our message works in both of those ways so that we maximize our probability of success.
Rich: I love it, and I hate it. And I hate it because marketing is often about getting people to change their thoughts or behaviors. And it sounds like you’ve just asked me to do twice as much work as I’ve been doing all along, talking to these two different brains.
So share with me a little bit of the insight of how do I simultaneously talk to those two different sides of the brain, or whatever you want to call it, in a way that’s coherent.
Tamsen: Absolutely. Okay, so there’s some good news with all of this, right? The first good news is that both brains love logic. They love an if/then, they love a cause and effect, they love a stimulus and response. So what that means is very simply, and by the way, you as a marketer, you as a salesperson, as a message creator, wouldn’t come up with a message without knowing both of those things.
You wouldn’t say, “We have this product. I don’t know why people would want it.” And you wouldn’t go into the market saying, “We know the market has this problem and we’ve got nothing for it.” So all I’m suggesting is that one of the biggest things that we can make is make sure that both elements of, if you want this outcome, market, prospect, audience, whatever, then this is the approach. Then take this approach at the very least. And by the way, a lot of messages would fail right there. Make sure that people understand both sides of that, and that both sides are presented within fairly short order.
So again, we can be creative with campaigns and whatever, but we don’t want to leave people guessing as to why would I care? Which is this kind of this, if you want this piece, the if. Nor do you want to keep them guessing about the then, right? What is your answer to that? Like you can’t just keep dialing up the problem and just not offer people an answer to that.
Now the second thing is to make sure that we’re talking to both brains, is make sure that when you are talking about both the ‘if’ and the ‘then’, that you are talking about it in terms and in concepts people already understand. Now one of my absolute, arrgh, I just I get so annoyed with it is when marketers, advertisers…
And let me be clear. I’ve worked in marketing firms and in advertising agencies where they decide, oh, let’s be mysterious and let’s invite people to come check this out. By and large, that’s not how curiosity works. Especially in an environment where the world is super, super busy and we’ve got a lot of different things coming at us. In fact, the research shows that if we don’t understand immediately what something is about, and we don’t feel like we understand it enough to want to know more, we are negatively curious. So not only are we not intrigued, we are repelled by it.
So that’s why when I’m working with clients, we’re talking about using the audience language for both the explanation of what it is, the outcome that they’re looking for, and tell me in clear language what this thing will get me. Don’t tell me to buy the iPod, one of my favorite examples. Tell me I’m going to get a thousand songs in my pocket. Because then I’m like, oh, if I say hello to iPod, then I’ll get that.
Now the last piece to make sure you’re talking to both, is to explain why, and why that’s the case. Now, what was brilliant about the iPod tagline of, “say hello to iPod, thousand songs in your pocket”, is that in that case, it was built in such a way that people filled in that why on their own. What is a thousand songs compared to what the other alternatives were at the time? That was meaningful to certain people. Their automatic brain immediately goes, “Ooh, a thousand songs variety”, or “a thousand songs control”, or “a thousand songs mood matching”, or “a thousand songs I can take my entire library with me.” Same thing for in your pocket. This world right now is way too busy, I think, to leave so much up to chances, particularly if you’re introducing an organizational change or something like that.
So again, I would suggest that at the very least you identify for yourselves, what is your organization’s justification for that/then, for that approach to answering that question. And if that justification is, and I know it’s going to sound weird, not data, but the belief underneath the data. That’s how that automatic brain goes, “Oh, that’s true. Yep, it’s okay.” And now that you put them together, because they both love logic, they both say almost at the same time, “I can see why that would be something I’d be interested in.”
And to me, that’s the golden moment, right? We’ve got that one. Like we’ve just created that space where someone goes, “Now I’d like to know more.” And from that point, now they are operating with agency and their own curiosity to explore. And it’s our jobs as marketers to make sure then that they get the data from there. But we’ve passed the danger zone of having that automatic brain rejected outright.
Rich: How do we know if our messages are only firing on one cylinder in this case? Because a lot of times we think we’re clever, or a lot of times we might think we’re sending out the right kind of message, but I’m guessing that many times marketers and thought leaders and communicators are missing that mark. Is there a way that we can take a look at a campaign or a tagline or something else and just be like, this isn’t done yet. This needs another layer.
Tamsen: Oh, a hundred percent. Yes. Glad you asked. I don’t talk about this in the new book because it hadn’t been fully fleshed out yet. But I can answer it now. Which is so the kind of diagnostic test, and I also use this as a framework for building messages, is something I call the “itba”. So it stands for ‘if/then/because/and’, and it really represents not only the core claim that you’re making; if you want this, then this approach, or then we believe this approach, if we’re talking about from the organizational perspective. And then the because and the, and are those justifications are those kind of hard to argue with principles about why that approach would make sense.
So just using the saying we were doing this with the iPod, for instance, and I do say that these are steps that should happen before you start copywriting an ad. The kind of implied question for the iPod is like, what’s a better way to carry my music with me? Think about 21 years ago, oh my gosh, 24 years ago, what were the options? Alright then iPod, a thousand songs in your pocket. Which let’s say that represented for them, maximum variety in the most portable space. So really what we’re looking at is variety and portability.
So the, ‘because’ and the ‘and’, using the ‘itba’, we’d say, is there a very difficult for our ideal customer audience to argue with justification for variety being important to a better way to carry music with you? And so you could say something like, most of their ideal customers would agree that the more of your library you could take with you, the better. Now you can plug in, the more control, the more options, whatever. Something very similar would happen with portability as well, right? The more portability, the better, or the smaller something is, the more places it can go. So therefore, if you want a better way to carry your music with you, then maximize variety in as portable a package as possible. A thousand songs in your pocket. Why? Because the more variety, the better. The smaller something is, the more places it can go.
So I say that if/then/because/and is important because there’s two ways that you can use it diagnostically. Number one is to say, where are we missing something? Maybe we don’t have a ‘then’, maybe we don’t actually understand and haven’t made explicit our belief-based justification about why this approach is the right way to go. But the second thing to check for is exactly that. To what extent does our ideal audience agree that’s valuable?
So number one, this shifts a lot of times when I’m working with clients on what that ‘if’ is, so I like to frame it and help people find it by shaping it as a question so that ‘if’ represents a question that is being actively and knowingly asked by the audience right now. It’s an outcome they are actively and knowingly pursuing. Meaning it’s not some unknown problem. You may see it as not the right problem, but it is the one they’re looking for right now.
Let’s take it to a B2B example. They’re looking for making sure that their leaders are equipped to make some kind of major strategic shift, right? That’s an active problem for a lot of folks, and they probably are trying to find answers to it, and it probably doesn’t necessarily have one right answer. There’s a lot of different ways to make sure, but let’s say that my client Vince Molinaro, that you have a very specific opinion about what’s really necessary for that. And for him, it’s about scaling accountability.
So just using these things, as I was talking about before. Number one, he’s not saying, “What’s the best way to grow our business?” Because a), that may be a question that people are asking, but his leadership training programs and coaching, there’s a lot of, if/thens that have to happen right before our automatic brain goes, “believable, plausible.” So we tighten it to very close to what that thing is.
And then notice, rather than saying his product name, which would be one of his products is the leadership contract. We describe it in human words that people can intuitively understand. We need to scale accountability. If you agree with just that claim by itself, great. You would ask “how?”, and the answer would be, “Vince and a leadership contract”, because their stuff delivers on that. But if you’re like, all right, fine, but why? Because that’s where the analytical brain pops in. He would say, “because I/we leadership contract believe that accountability is the ownership of outcomes. So if you want to make sure your folks are equipped to make this change successfully, wouldn’t you agree we need something that drives ownership.” That’s accountability. That’s why we need accountability.
Now we could just stop there. And if he was the kind of person who would throw competitors under the bus, he might say, “And some of our competitors actually also have this.” But if you only focus on accountability, what’s the problem? You might only get one or two people in your organization that are accountable. And again, “we believe”, a statement that’s hard to argue with that, success requires execution at scale. So we need accountability, but we need it at scale.
Now, how do we do that? And if somebody agrees, and again we’ve designed it for the person whose mindset is already leaning that way, that person would be like, “Yeah, okay. In principle, I agree with you.” Then we fall into our normal marketing sales behavior. We say, “Okay, now explain to me how”, and now we can start talking about features, benefits, all of that stuff, because that’s the additional data that moves something from possible and principle to possible and practice. Yes, not only do I believe this is possible, I believe that you can do this with me and that we can do this at our organization.
So those kind of two levels, is everything there and is everything actually something that your audience wants and would agree with?
Rich: So I love that idea, and I’d like to think that I am in tune with my audience enough that I can interpret that, and I can guess at that. But how do we know that we’re right? Or is it just a matter of throwing spaghetti against the wall, or trying something out in the marketplace to see if it works?
Tamsen: Yeah, so this is what I have found to be one of the most counter-cultural things about this approach, because it actually has other than that question, has nothing to do with the audience.
And here’s what I mean. I’m dipping way back into the management literature, but back in the fifties or sixties, Drucker talked about what he called the “theory of the business”, and what he described as a theory of the business was essentially the almost instinctive operating code system of the business about why it did what it did in its particular way. That’s my language for it, but in essence, the organization operates on a theory of if/then, if we do this, then this will happen because.
So this is not something that if you want this to be sustainable within your organization or within yourself long-term, can be geared on chasing the market. This has to be what you all believe is a valid question to answer, and that you validly believe that you’ve got. And this is the reason why in terms your audience would understand why you believe so strongly in it.
Now, the test of what does the audience care about is important. I kind of use that as the way in when I’m working with my clients on this, because if not enough people have that question, then you don’t have a viable product or service. And so that’s important, but it’s not about chasing the market, it’s about understanding how to draw the connection between what the market is looking for and what you all do, whether you can’t even help it, right? Because it is exactly what you do.
So when I’m working with clients on this, the process that anybody can follow by the way, is you start with that question because you’re like, okay, our ideal client would have that question. Oftentimes, I’ll refer to it even as a think of it like a qualifying question. If they don’t have that question, they’re probably not your people. If they’re not wondering how do we equip our leaders, if they’re not wondering, like my client data box, how do we make our data more usable, and you’ve got a data presentation and processing platform, let’s save everybody some time.
And then from there it’s by saying, okay, that’s a valid question. We believe we can answer that. And we believe this aspect of solving this thing, whatever it is, I call it a core component, is absolutely necessary to answering that question, and it’s only we, or pretty much only we are paying attention to this aspect of it. So Vince was really paying attention to, for instance, accountability. And he actually makes a clear contrast with Amy Edmondson and psychological safety. It’s like a lot of people think it’s this, I believe it’s accountability. I’m not saying he’s right, but the people who agree with him, those are his people. If people are a hundred percent in the psychological safety camp, they’re going to go with a provider that’s that way.
What I come down to is to say we, individuals, organizations, must know. To me it’s so core that we understand the actual operating strategy, this intuitive, go-to strategy about why we’re doing what we’re doing. Not just Simon Sinek, we’ve got a purpose. But why are we specifically taking this approach to solving this question and what question are we solving and why are we taking that approach?
And so what I find over again is that a), what you end up with is something that will resonate with the right market. First of all, I’ve been testing this particular model for two and a half years. The second thing, this is like a free prize inside, Seth Godin style, is that often what you end up with is the truly distinctive aspects of your approach. And not only that, it’s defensible. Because part of what we’re looking for in those pieces that we’re going to support with the ‘because’ and the ‘and’, are things that the audience wouldn’t predict or wouldn’t expect as a default part of the answer.
So when I’m working with clients on this, I take a whole bunch of words just off the table. I’m like, you can’t tell me it’s high quality. Why would someone buy something that’s crappy? You need to tell me what about your approach ensures high quality, and then be able to defend that. So that to me is like it flips it all around and says actually, the very first step that we need to take is, why are we even doing this? Why are we even doing this way? Because if we don’t understand, how could they ever? And if we don’t believe it passionately, why would they ever?
So to me, this is really like the first step in message design is understanding kind of this internal rationale, which I capture in the ‘itba’. And then from there, then you can start to wrap market language, copywriting, all that kind of good stuff around it.
Rich: It sounds like we have to have a pretty good sense of self and understand what our premise is and what our perspective is when we’re bringing it to the marketplace. But do you ever find that some of your clients are just too close to their own messages that they can’t articulate it to an outside audience? And then what do you do?
Tamsen: Yeah. That’s what I’m there for, but I don’t believe it’s just me. I don’t believe it just requires me. So the first thing is, to quote the folks behind a field known as action science, the science of how intention turns into action, talk is data. And there is also something really powerful about talk, which is another kind of phenomenon in psychology and learning known as the self-explanatory effect. Which is the effect of the self-explanation is that for whatever reason, people who work to explain something out loud to themselves or to other people, come to understand and be able to identify better the holes in their own argument or their own position, and/or they are able to understand where there are gaps in their understanding.
So that’s part of why, whether somebody’s working with me or not, I’m like, this must be a discussion. This must be a discussion because we humans are wired to make really strong versions of our own case, and simultaneously wired to be able to pick apart yours in two seconds flat. So this is why talk to, even if that other person is Claude or ChatGPT or Perplexity, that’s really helpful because you can say, why would somebody disagree? Actually, given how those large language models are trained, they’re really good at that saying, where would someone pick it apart?
So that’s really important, and part of what I’m working with when we do that, because like I said, the closer those are to natural laws, to things that anybody would agree with. And again, if somebody wouldn’t agree with it, you’re like, I do not need to know that person. That person would never be our client if they didn’t agree with that, is that it guarantees some level of common ground.
Now the biggest danger of any of this is simply that someone understands you completely and prioritizes something else. To me, I’d rather know that, and I’d rather know it in the first introduction of that idea from a salesperson’s mouth or somewhere in the body copy on my homepage than after I’ve spent months chasing down somebody who fundamentally thinks that the answer lies somewhere else. And so to me, I’m continuing to discover the aspects of why it works and what else happens as a result. But to me, that’s another really important hidden benefit that not only can it help you get to ‘yes’ faster, it can help you get to ‘no’ faster. And I think that’s really, for any resource constrained communicator, and show me one that isn’t, that can sometimes be just as important.
Rich: Absolutely. In fact, I was literally just telling a prospect today, I don’t care if you say yes or no, I just want you to say one of them so I can go on with my life. I put it nicer than that, but that was basically my message to that person.
You mentioned the pressures of time and things like that. And obviously, not everybody can work with you and not everybody can focus just on this. If people are listening and what you said resonates with them and they want to get started, what’s the first step that they could take so they would make progress on this approach today?
Tamsen: I’m happy to say that there is an ungated handout that they can start with. And all they need to do is go to getthehandout.com, still my proudest URL purchase. It’ll take you right to a PDF that all you need to do is download it and you’ll have your own copy to get started. So I call it the “compact case”, but it’ll get you started on crafting an ‘itba’. It gives you blanks so that you can fill in, and there’s step-by-step instructions underneath with little check boxes about, hey, is it doing this? And it’s frankly something you could probably just upload into Claude or ChatGPT and say, “help me figure this out”. And honestly, I’m totally fine with that.
Because you asked me at the beginning, why do I care about this? It’s because who’s got time to waste at this point. And I wanted to make getting started with this as easy as possible. So that’s the place. It’s free. You don’t have to give me any information. And even once a month, I do a free office hours live, just so if you’ve got questions about what you filled out, I’m happy to answer them for you. I just believe so strongly in message design at all being a core business and life skill, that I don’t want to put it behind barriers. So getthehandout.com, and no, you cannot buy the URL from me.
Rich: Awesome. And we’ll have those links in the show notes. For people who do want to learn more, maybe end up working with you, but also just follow you online, where can we send them?
Tamsen: Yeah, I think the business center is messagedesigninstitute.com. There’s information there, you can sign up for the newsletter. That’s where you see a lot of these ideas start to verbal and pop first. That’s where I announce things like the office hours and where you can sign up for that. But there’s also a list of different ways and different formats of working with me/us at a whole different bunch of different price points so that you can figure out what works best for you, your organization, and your budget.
Rich: Awesome. Tamsen, this has been great. I want to thank you for your time and appreciate all you shared with us today.
Tamsen: Oh Rich, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Show Notes:
Tamsen Webster is a message strategist, keynote speaker, and author. Using her “itba” model, she helps leaders turn complex ideas into unforgettable messages that drive sustained change. Grab her free download to help you get started!
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, a web design & digital marketing agency in Portland, Maine, and founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his 25+ years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.