We live in the most exciting time for communicating and spreading ideas.
The Internet has far surpassed the printing press, telephone, and television combined for getting your ideas out there. Despite this communication revolution, too many great ideas are still being ignored by the very people who need them most. If we have the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere around the world, at any minute, why is it so hard to capture attention still?
It’s not easy to get the attention your ideas deserve.
There’s a lot of competition to attract the eyeballs and affections of the people you want to reach. It’s a noisy world out there. It seems to get noisier every day. Through our phones, computers, ads, posters, billboards, and acquaintances from high school trying to sell us essential oils, we are hit with thousands of marketing messages everyday. We’ve all had to adapt by tuning out most of it.
I’ll show you how to get around people’s attention defence system so that they actually look forward to hearing from you.
It’s time to get the ever-precious attention you need to get your ideas to stick with people. There’s a way to speak up so that the right people will listen. There’s a strategy you can use and tools you can deploy so you’re getting noticed by the very people who need to hear you most.
Here's The Big Idea
Fans of Building A StoryBrand will know that the best way to get someone's attention is to show them how you can help them win their story. As I said, We have adapted to tune everything out except that which helps us solve a problem that is getting in the way of fulfilling our dream.
Thankfully, there is a way to get around those defences and get the attention of the people you want to reach.
The 4 Principles You Need To Understand For Capturing Attention Today
1. Everyone has a dream that is driving them each day.
As Don Miller reminds us, we are all the main characters in a story. It's our story and it is frankly the only story we really care about. All day long we are driven by something we want, a "happily ever after" we are pursuing. Whether it be conscious or subconscious, our dream of a successful life is what gets us out of bed every morning. It fuels all our decisions. It is why we do what we do.
Unless you understand what motivates people, you'll never be able to position yourself properly as someone who can help. If you're not deemed helpful, you're deemed irrelevant.
2. Everyone has a problem that is keeping them up at night.
Like all good stories, there's something keeping us from getting what we want. We need more money, scale a business, increase our health, efficiency, find a mate, do better marketing, or find some faster Wifi.
This problem, whatever it is, keeps us up at night. It's holding back our dream from being fulfilled. So we are now looking around trying to solve it.
When you speak to people's problems, they cannot help but listen. Talking about problems is the secret sauce for keeping someone's attention. People pay attention to content they think can help them solve their problem.
3. We are looking for a Guide to help us, not another hero.
We may tune out irrelevant noise but we are actively searching for help for our problems. We listen to influencers, binge on podcasts, read/listen to books, scroll through social media looking for help.
Building A StoryBrand was so effective for showing us how we are Luke Skywalker looking for our Yoda (not Baby Yoda). We are Catniss looking for our Haymitch. We are Frodo looking for Gandalf. We all need a guide to help us solve a problem to win our story.
When we market our brands like a guide who is in the business of solving people's problems, our ideal customer instinctively listens.
4. Winning businesses seize market opportunities to help real people.
This is where the breakthrough can happen for you in your quest to capture attention. Your ideal customer's problem has created a market for you. You know you won't be disrupted or ignored if you can provide real solutions to real people struggling with real problems.
You may have competition but if you can show that you really care (and not just talk about how great you are) you will earn trust and win business over your competitors.
Go Help Some People
At the heart of why they exist is someone struggling. They are there to help. Your work would be much more rewarding.
The late Zig Ziglar once said,
"You get all you want in life when you help other people get what they want."
You start caring, you start getting attention you deserve. Your idea will get noticed, your company will start growing and you'll be helping the very people you know you can benefit.
You deserve more attention. You need to stop talking about yourself and start identifying with the dream and problems of your ideal customer. They're looking for someone. They're looking for someone like you.
But they're not going to know it's you if you sound like all the noise out there.
