real time upgrade #2

 
Greetings, oh loyal and lovely words(r)matter followers.


I borrowed today's example from a status update a colleague posted on Facebook.  I've modified the posting ever-so-slightly out of respect for those mentioned in said post.  

If you haven't checked out (Marketing Coach X's) new (product she's selling) - you will want to contact her...

The opening caveat:  "If you haven't..."  suggests that if you have, then there's no reason to read further, which wunconsciously discounts plenty of potential clients.  Moreso, it's not relevant - it's a space filler, time waster.  She's stalling.  With two minute elevator pitches shrinking down to 90 second blocks of available attention, with Tweets capping our updates at 140 characters, we have less and less time to land our message.  As such, we are well-served with concise, deliberate brevity, such that our every word is consciously chosen for a very specific purpose: to deliver our message with absolute efficiency, potency and grace.

Let's talk about that "you" in "...you will want to...":  Have you read Nonviolent Communication?  The teachings are an integral part of a deliberate communication practice, and I highly recommend it. A pillar of nonviolent communication is the practice of owning our experience without presuming to know anyone else's.  In this instance, the colleague would be wiser to word her update as follows:


"I encourage you to contact her."


thus, owning her experience, which is wanting her followers to do a specific thing, without actually bossing them around, or bullying them.


In addition to her telling her followers what they want, she claims to know the future in saying:


"...you will want to..."


Even if the sentence was an effective means of communicating (which it isn't), to say that we "will want" is to steep her allegation in the conceptual notion of a linear future, which allows her followers to sidestep their present moment, and to wait until this supposed desire washes over them.  The downside of future-based communication is that it allows us to procrastinate, while taking us out of our present moment experience.


The most effective upgrade for this sentence reads as follows:


"I encourage you to contact (Marketing Coach X) immediately.  I just tried her (product she is selling), and am inspired and excited beyond measure."

The last sentence is optional, and is an honest way of mentioning the product, and of hyping it - authentically.

This concludes our words(r)matter real time upgrade.

Happy, happiest New Year to us all.