Tamsen Webster breaks down how to explain any idea in 30 seconds or less. Start with a single sentence under 140 characters that combines something people want with something unexpected, skip the jargon, and show the outcome. Send your best version to RedThreadMe@TamsenWebster.com.
Let's say you only have 30 seconds to explain your big idea. How do you do it in a way that people will both understand it and want it? That's what we're talking about this week on Find the Red Thread. I'm your host, Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com.
How do you explain your idea in 30 seconds?
30 seconds? Well, here is the quick answer. You need to give people in that short sentence something that they want and something they didn't expect. Now, you might say, why are those pieces there? Well, let me back up a little bit and say what we tend to do. Now, what we tend to do when we explain our ideas is either dive right into the details of all how it works and why it's important, or what makes it different. But in order to really truly capture someone's attention in a way that they're gonna listen to those extra things, we have to establish why it's relevant to them in the first place, how it gives them something that they want. Now, a way to figure that out is to go through and ask yourself, well, what are the questions that people are asking right now? What questions are people asking that your idea is an answer to? And then make sure that answer is in your answer. So if your idea is about, I don't know, say, how to explain ideas, and someone says to you, "What's your idea?" At the very least, you need to say, "Well, my idea helps people explain their ideas in 30 seconds or less." Now, that's great, right? Because it tells them that they're gonna get something that they want, and they're gonna be curious to hear more. To make sure that you've got a super powerful message, you wanna make sure that it has something else. You wanna make sure it has that thing that they don't expect. So you've got relevance, but you also want to make sure that there's this remarkable piece too. Why? Because, and this may be a little bit counterintuitive, remarkable gets people's attention, but relevance keeps it. Remember, something that's different is always going to capture people's attention, but for someone to stay with it, they have to understand how it gives them something that they want. That's why your minimum viable message, they, tiniest way that you can explain your idea has to have both of those pieces in it. So make sure that when you're putting together something for your idea, an explanation of your idea, you're able to do that. In fact, I like to give people this test: see if you can write down an explanation of your idea in a single sentence. Now, that sentence also needs to meet these criteria. First, it needs to be 140 characters or less. In other words, pretty darn short. Second, it needs to include words that people understand intuitively, and they understand them the way that you want them to. In other words, no jargon, no words that need additional explanation. It needs to be basic words. Three, make sure that in that single sentence is something people want. And then four, make sure that that thing that they want is something that they know that they want, that they would actually say out loud to friends or colleagues. And then finally, put in that sentence something about how to get that thing that they want that's something that they haven't heard before. Now, when you put that all together, it's going to be very, very powerful. It's gonna sound something like, "The best way to explain your idea in 30 seconds is to give people something that they want via a means they didn't expect." Pretty simple, right? That's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. I'd love to hear your minimum viable messages, your 140-character explanations, so send those to me at RedThreadMe@TamsenWebster.com or ping me on social.
