Author Archives: Manna Groups

The Most Important Resource

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Imagine you’re flying from New York to San Francisco in a plane that requires 7000 gallons of fuel to make the trip. Which of the 7000 is the most important gallon? The obvious answer is the gallon currently powering the engine, so long as there are at least 7000 gallons in the tank.

Of course attempting the flight with less than the required number of gallons renders the question of a most important gallon senseless. Either the total amount of fuel required to complete the flight exists or it doesn’t. It should be obvious that the same kind of thing is true for a company, campaign, or charity.

And yet, we’re regularly asked, “What is the most important resource required to bring about success?” Our answer is always the same. There is no such thing as the most important resource. For any given circumstance, a resource is either necessary or it isn’t. That means all necessary resources are of equal importance; a fact that requires close inspection.

The word “resource” is often used interchangeably with the word asset. But resources are not the same as assets. Resources are the elements with which assets are obtained. Further, when one examines the resources available to an organization, any organization, all organizations, and reduces those resources to their fundamental irreducible parts, it becomes evident that an organization has only three resources: time, money, and talent.

At a basic and invariable level every asset can be expressed in terms of time, money, or talent. An organization deficient in any given asset need only spend some of its time, money, talent, or some combination of each, to acquire the asset in question.

For instance, product development, polling, and trash removal are assets that any organization can obtain in exchange for time, money, talent, or some combination of each.

By its nature, trash removal will likely demand less time, money, or talent than product development or polling. This does not mean trash removal is less important than product development or polling. This means only that procurement of trash removal service will likely place less of a demand on time, money, or talent than will procurement of product development or polling.

We use the adverb “likely” because while some combination of time, money, or talent can always be traded for assets, they cannot always be traded for each other. Indeed the degree to which time, money, and talent are interchangeable varies greatly based upon circumstance.

A San Francisco bound plane, sitting on the tarmac in New York, with 6850 gallons of fuel in its tank, will pay the going rate for the 150 additional gallons of fuel required to make the trip. It simply doesn’t matter if the money to acquire the additional fuel is much less, much more, or about the same as the per gallon cost of the fuel already in the plane’s tank. Without the additional fuel the plane will not reach San Francisco. Nothing can change this circumstance.

Circumstance freezes time. A failure to acknowledge circumstance almost always leads to the ill-fated “we’ll worry about it when we get there strategy.” By definition, “when we get there” is a circumstance — a moment of frozen time. Indeed circumstance dictates that there will be no time available to “worry about it when you get there.”

Assets can always be expressed in terms of the basic and invariable resources: time, money, and talent. Asking the importance of each is exactly the same as asking the importance of each gallon of fuel in the tank of an airplane. Either there is enough to make the trip or there isn’t.

The Most Important Resource
March 17, 2014 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 6A24A6C8(R01) • Mar 17, 2014
Photo © alphaspirit — Fotolia.com

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Steam

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It’s common for an organization that’s running out of steam to try and get it back. Less common is the ability to discover what to do to get it back.

The usual attempt to regain steam is to store and evaluate data that not only suggests, but “proves,” what to do. This effort is flawed because data, and the “proof” it advocates, are past happenings, and knowing what has happened in the past is irrelevant to knowing what can happen in the future. No organization would ever run out of steam if this was untrue.

Organizations run out of steam when the people running them stipulate that a course of action will be considered only if it is proven to achieve a predetermined, predictable, result. This tyranny of proof is literally unfortunate in that it destroys existing fortunes. Happily, the tyranny of proof can be avoided. The key is to acknowledge the proper meaning of intelligence.

It’s very common (and very wrong) to think of intelligence as an ability to store, recall, and evaluate data. Of course the ability to store, recall, and evaluate data is impressive. We reward it in schools and on game shows. But storing, recalling, and evaluating data are retrospective acts, and retrospection is incapable of depicting what can happen in the future. This is not merely an academic statement.

Most organizations are well staffed with individuals capable of storing, recalling, and evaluating data. These folks can explain, in exquisite detail, why an organization is running (or has run) out of steam. Few can predict the event before it occurs, and none can offer proof of what will prevent it.

To transcend the tyranny of proof, intelligence must be held to a standard that begins where retrospection ends. We call this standard of intelligence Unusual Mind — the talent to achieve success in the absence of, and sometimes in opposition to, proof. Unusual Minds seek to answer a single question: What will it take to change the mind of a customer, voter, or philanthropist?

This is a scary question because one possible answer is that nothing is capable of occasioning such a change. In such circumstances the best thing to do is stop trying and save resources for another day. Happily, circumstances are not usually so dire. Most seemingly immutable situations are nothing more than myopia. The cure is to look beyond existing messages, products, candidates, and causes.

For instance, it is probably impossible to topple Heinz from the top of the market by offering a competitive brand of ketchup. But Heinz’s dominance of the ketchup market does not make it impossible for a different condiment to supplant ketchup.

Also, most products, campaigns, and causes run out of steam gradually. There is usually time to react. Sadly, it is precisely during times of decline that proof’s translucency is most pernicious.

The Unusual Mind is different. The Unusual Mind accepts that the existing state of affairs (that which is proven) is incapable of uncovering what must change in order to acquire, reacquire, and importantly, maintain success.

Whereas the tyranny of proof dictates that a course of action can be seriously considered only if it is proven to achieve a predetermined, predictable result, the Unusual Mind accepts that it’s impossible to prove the future. This distinction is not hypothetical, it’s real.

It’s trivially easy to recall any number of once great organizations that gradually declined to a point of obscurity. We won’t reveal our list in order to keep from appearing as though we stacked the deck in favor of our next two questions.

Do you believe organizations are ignorant of their decline? Do you believe proof of decline mitigates decline? Of course not. Organizations decline because no one knows what to do to reverse or avoid the decline! If you take one single thought from this article it should be this: The fact that an organization stands in a place of dominance today, does not prove, or even suggest, the potential to maintain that position.

There are only three elements that generate success, and every organization is in direct control of two of them. The first element is the product, service, candidate, or cause on offer. The second element is/are the message(s) used to promote the product, service, candidate, or cause. The third element, the public’s reaction, is a direct result of the first two.

It is only by attempting to parlay with patrons through the development of products, candidates, causes, and their attendant messages, that proof can emerge. The attempt comes first, the proof comes second. The tyranny of proof demands the exact opposite order.

The tyranny of proof is not merely opposite from the intelligence of an Unusual Mind, it is often directly opposed to Unusual Mind intelligence. Worse yet, the opposition is, in some respect, correct. There are always aspects of the current environment that can be demonstrated to have some value. This does not, in any way, prove, or even suggest, future value.

The plain fact is that proof is subordinate to the existing convictions of patrons. The only question when it comes to acquiring or reacquiring success is: Do current offerings, and their attendant messages, parlay with the existing convictions of customers, voters, and philanthropists?

The fact that proof is subordinate to the convictions of customers, voters, and philanthropists can be an uncomfortable realization. But discomfort does not imply inaccuracy, or dismiss reality. The only way to harness the steam that powers success it is to elevate the intelligence of an Unusual Mind above the tyranny of proof.

Steam
March 3, 2014 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 6AF9901D(R01) • Mar 3, 2014
Photo © nikkytok — Fotolia.com

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Steam (PDF)

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Sales Collateral Isn’t

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Is it possible for an individual to purchase a product, cast a vote, or contribute to charity, before making the conscious decision (however impromptu it may be) to do so? The obvious answer is no; a reality that reveals the inherent flaw personified by the term, sales collateral.

As a phrase, sales collateral is understood to mean media and activities such as print literature, radio & television advertising, eMail campaigns, mobile & desktop internet promotions, trade show appearances & exhibits, robocalls, search engine optimization, etc.

The ubiquitous use of sales collateral is fostered by the belief that sales collateral increases awareness, which in turn leads to improved sales, more votes, greater charitable contributions, etc.

We’ll address “collateral” a little later in this article. For now lets address the belief that increasing awareness leads to improved sales, more votes, greater contributions, etc. Is the fact that awareness precedes the decision to act, evidence that awareness induced the decision to act? If that question comes across as enigmatic, consider the following.

Universally known company A is successful. Company B is less successful than A. Therefore B increases its sales collateral, expecting that increased awareness will lead to increased sales. That logic seems sound as far as it goes, which isn’t very far. By example: All living things need water. A tulip needs water. Therefore a tulip is a living thing. But what happens when you substitute “tulip” with “swimming pool?”

Obviously, the conclusion that all living things need water does not mean that water can make everything into a living thing. The same is true with awareness, and it doesn’t take products anywhere near as disparate as tulips and swimming pools to prove it.

Most people enjoy eating ketchup. Most people who eat ketchup buy Heinz. Hunts also makes ketchup. Therefore if Hunts increased its awareness to the same level as Heinz, Hunts would sell as much ketchup as Heinz. Ridiculous! How long would Hunts delay in increasing awareness if increasing awareness worked? Also, if increasing awareness worked, and Hunts didn’t do it, Del Monte sure would.

Ask any life-long Chevy owner to name five other car makers and he or she will be able to do so easily and instantly — that’s awareness! The pivotal question is, why, being equally aware of Ford, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Chrysler, Jaguar, KIA, etc., does the die hard Chevy owner repeatedly choose Chevy? It’s because being made aware and being persuaded are no more closely related as, oh let’s say, the sport of lawn bowling and the sport of mixed martial arts.

It’s true that lawn bowling and mixed martial arts can both be classified as a sport, but there is absolutely no further similarity between the two.

The problem with words like “awareness” and “sport” is that they are proxies — words that by way of approximation loosely represent disparate things. Often the approximation is so loose that the proxy utterly fails to represent the issue(s) at hand.

Awareness does not cause people to buy, vote, or contribute, persuasion does. A promotional effort designed to increase awareness is the same as going hunting with blanks. There will be plenty of noise and others will know you’re around. But when the noise fades, nothing much will have been accomplished.

As for collateral; the pure definition of collateral is, “secondary, additional but subordinate.” That definition forces a second pivotal question. If the decision to act always proceeds the act, then in what sense can sales collateral be seen as secondary, additional, or subordinate?

The truth is that sales collateral is not secondary or additional, and it is certainly not subordinate. It’s the other way round. Successful products, candidates, causes, etc., are subordinate to sales collateral. Further, the talent to recognize the proper role of sales collateral, and to properly create it, requires greater skill and effort than that required to develop the actual product, candidate, cause, etc. How could it be otherwise?

It is only by connecting persuasively that sales collateral can motivate a sale, a vote, or a contribution. The connection is primary, for it is only after (and if) a connection is made that a product, candidate, or cause will get a chance to deliver on the connection.

As long as the belief persists that awareness is the same as persuasiveness, sales collateral will continue to be casually prepared and indifferently distributed. And the quantity of noise and spam will continue to grow, as will the quantity (and size) of trash containers in offices, in convention centers, and on trade show floors.

Sales Collateral Isn't
January 29, 2013 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 1776977C(R04) • Feb 19, 2014
Photo © vectomart – Fotolia.com

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Sales Collateral Isn't (PDF)

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Marketing’s Greatest Conviction

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We all have convictions. They’re the semi-conscious hunches, notions, and gut instincts that set our behavior in motion.

It’s difficult to directly observe a conviction, but it’s not difficult to observe how a conviction sets our behavior in motion. The following simple experiment will assist.

Start the video shown below, and then say out loud the color each of a series of words is printed in. Don’t say the words, say the color in which each word is printed. Everything will make sense once you get going, so start the video now.

Now you can appreciate the influence convictions wield on your behavior. It really didn’t matter what you were directed to do, when words were presented on the screen your behavior was to read them. That’s because the conviction (the semi-conscious, gut instinct) of literate adults dictates that words must be read before they can be otherwise considered.

If it were any other way, you would be able to say the color of the words whose letters do not match, as quickly as those whose letters do. What this experiment makes perfectly clear is that convictions are the foundation of behavior.

Sadly, those whose prosperity is most dependent on influencing behavior — marketers tasked with delivering success — are often the least interested in understanding how convictions influence (and often control) behavior. Marketers will do almost anything to accommodate behavior once it exists, except exploit its origin.

That’s a problem because convictions set the agenda for the very behavior marketers seek to accommodate. Marketing’s greatest conviction is simply this: Success results only when products, services, candidates, causes, and their attendant messages, parlay with the basic and invariable convictions held by customers.

This conviction has been demonstrated time and time again. It explains why White Wave’s Silk brand soy milk is a leading seller of chocolate “milk,” even though Silk contains no milk. It explains why Starbucks was conceived as a social place to drink coffee, not sell it. It explains why Apple owns the iconic mobile connection device, the iPhone.

It’s important to point out that none of the above success stories were brought about through the identification and accommodation of market segments. Knowing the demographic and/or psychographic profile of people who like chocolate milk had no bearing on White Wave’s decision to liquefy soy powered, put it in a milk carton, and shelve it in the refrigerator next to cow milk.

Howard Schultz didn’t know the ages or IAO (interest, activity, opinion) profile of any of Starbucks’ customers when he remade Starbucks, because Starbucks had no customers when Schultz remade it.

In fact Schultz is on record as saying he had no idea how many, or what class, of people would want to visit a Starbucks store. (C-Span Global Innovation Video – Watch the 4 minute segment beginning at minute 7:00 and ending at 11:10)

Consider also that Folgers, Maxwell House, Sanka, et. al spend lots of time and money trying to identify and then accommodate the whims and desires of segmented “target” markets. This differentiation process is required because Folgers, Maxwell House, Sanka, et. al are easily (and therefore often) compared to each other.

Starbucks doesn’t have to worry about differentiation because Starbucks doesn’t trade on coffee. Starbucks trades on convictions, namely those associated with human connection; a conviction that can be experienced through coffee but not compared to it. Speaking of human connection…

Steve Jobs turned a deaf ear to the “big time” consultants who argued divergence would rule the mobile phone. The explicit purpose of a mobile phone is to connect people. How “divergence” could occasion a sense of connection is nonsensical on the surface — worthy of a very different type of conviction. (Why the iPhone Will Fail)

It’s tempting to think that White Wave, Starbucks, and Apple are unique, idiosyncratic, unapproachable, one-offs, but that is not the case. White Wave, Starbucks, and Apple are no different than every organization.

There are three elements that effect success, and every organization is in direct control of two of them. The first is the product, service, candidate, cause, etc., on offer. The second element is/are the message(s) used to promote the product, service, candidate, or cause. The third element, public reaction (word of mouth, news, public attitudes, social media buzz, consumer groups’ reactions, etc,) is a direct response to the first two.

White Wave, Starbucks, and Apple aren’t unique, idiosyncratic, unapproachable, one-offs. White Wave, Starbucks, and Apple use convictions as the raw material to create their products, services, candidates, causes, and messages. That’s why they’re winners!

Winners understand that it’s pointless to tell people not to read when presented with words. Winners understand that convictions are inceptive gut instincts that spark behavior. What winners understand best is marketing’s greatest conviction. Success results when products, services, candidates, causes, and their attendant messages, parlay with the convictions held by customers.

Marketing's Greatest Conviction
November 8, 2012 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 6C674909(R04) • Feb 17, 2014
Photo © chrisharvey – Fotolia.com

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Marketing's Greatest Conviction (PDF)

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Hut, Hut … Hut

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A major flaw of many organizations is that they operate within a single communication structure. At the top are the C people: Chief This, Chief That, etc. Middle management appears (as the term suggests) in the middle, and the foot soldiers are at the bottom. This structure is known as a hierarchy and is commonly represented by the boxes and lines of an organization chart.

Hierarchies are appropriate when information must flow from the top of an organization to the bottom. Their flaw is that hierarchies are one way streets that keep information from flowing in other directions. Let’s take a look.

A good example of a hierarchy is a football team playing a game. During the game a play is sent from the “C” people (the coaches) to the quarterback. The quarterback fulfills the role of middle management by relaying the play to his teammates (the foot soldiers), each of whom has a specific assignment. If the players do what they are told, the right way, something desirable happens.

But it takes more to win than doing things right. Consider that there are 2800 players in the NFL during pre-season. These players are the best in the world at what they do. Even so, by the time the season starts the number of NFL players is reduced to 1700. Everybody who plays in a regular season NFL game can do things right.

What separates the winners from losers is knowing the right things to do. That’s why the C-people (the coaches) set hierarchal structure aside during the week(s) before a game.

Before a game coaches seek information from players who once played for the opponent. Statistical scouting reports are picked-over in hopes of revealing traits and trends. Film is reviewed. Weather conditions are monitored, etc. Coaches must create winning game plans to be successful, and that means having a way to communicate with as many credible sources as possible.

Of necessity a plan (for a game or anything else) must be rigidly defined and clearly articulated. But plan creation is different. Plan creation requires flexibility and openness to react to the competition. When an organization is creating a plan, the top to bottom one way nature of a hierarchy is inappropriate because hierarchal structures are rigid, and by definition, rigid structures can’t react.

Plan creation demands a framework that stimulates the free flow of information, regardless of hierarchical structure. There is such a framework. We call it Broadcasting — the communications framework that assures information at any level, from any source both within and outside an organization, can flow directly to where it is most needed.

We have many personal business experiences working with Broadcasting. We chose the following because the brand is exceptionally well known, enjoys a wide market segment reach, and clearly exemplifies Broadcasting.

For years the Scott’s company was mired in third-place behind Dow Chemical and Sears Roebuck in the sale of seed and fertilizer to commercial farmers. Scott’s remained in third-place regardless of their many attempts to promote the product.

Scott’s product was good. In fact Scott’s offered a 99.91% weed free seed. However it cost more than the competition and Scott’s was having difficulty convincing farmers that fewer weeds was worth the high price. Scott’s leadership questioned, “Can we lower the price?” They asked, “How do we make the product better?” Those questions didn’t solve the problem.

The facts are a little sketchy, but supposedly a Scott’s sales rep was made aware of what led to Scott’s ascent by a farmer who had recently returned from his fields. The rep, who had repeatedly failed to sell what was a demonstrably superior product, turned to the farmer and out of frustration asked, “What is it about our product you don’t like?”

The farmer replied, “It’s not the product. My problem is I need a better way to spread seed and fertilizer.” At that moment the rep realized that getting the sale was about product application, not product performance. After all, the product was already known to perform better than the competition.

The rep realized he had to interrupt Scott’s hierarchy and convince Scott’s leadership to seek a solution to the application problem. Scott’s rep had to be allowed to influence the decision making process. And thankfully for Scott’s, he was!

Scott’s purchased and promulgated the use of commercial seed and fertilizer spreaders. That single action redefined Scott’s in their customer’s minds. As a result, Scott’s became the spreader company that sells superior seed and fertilizer, not just another seed and fertilizer company.

Agricultural operations have spreading needs other than seed and fertilizer, so when the question of spreading anything arose, Scott’s got the call. Today Scott’s is a leading producer and marketer of not only seeds and fertilizers, but also herbicides and pesticides.

Scott’s subsequently introduced the first home lawn spreader. After all, every homeowner shares the same need as farmers – to spread seed and fertilizer. Today, with its Turf Builder and other high quality brands, Scott’s owns just over half of the do-it-yourself lawn care market.

Here are some of Broadcasting’s tenets as illustrated by the Scott’s story.

Never present a problem as a question. Present a problem(s) as a situation to be changed. When Scott’s leadership asked — “How do we make the product better?” — they unwittingly directed their focus on the product, and the product wasn’t the problem. The danger in asking a question is it presumes the question is correct. When the question is not correct, you get an answer, but you don’t solve the problem. Lower cost and better product were not the farmer’s problems.

Knowledge has the right to judgment. The quality of any decision is enhanced when those with the most pertinent knowledge about the subject being decided participate in the decision making process. Broadcasting ensured that the Scott’s rep got to sit at the decision making table.

The person with the problem has the freedom to communicate directly with the person with the answer. Departmental boundaries don’t exist in a Broadcasting environment because it is impossible to know where individuals with the most pertinent knowledge exist. Indeed those individuals may only exist outside of the organization. Scott’s solution came from a farmer in a field, not from within Scott’s.

The role of a leader is not to make decisions, but to monitor the decision making process. Within a Broadcasting environment a leader isn’t a player, he or she is a referee tasked with ensuring that the person(s) with the greatest insight of the subject at hand has access to the person(s) with the problem. The revelation that Scott’s would sell seed not by making the seed cheaper or better, but by making the application easier, literally came from the ground up. A farmer in a field, told a Scott’s rep, who told Scott’s leadership. That’s the power of Broadcasting!

It’s clear that luck sometimes plays a role in success. But luck can’t be planned. It’s also clear that success requires the talent to do things right. But success requires a measure of talent beyond an ability to do things right. Success requires the talent to discover the right thing(s) to do. Successful companies posses this talent in great measure and make the ultimate case for Broadcasting.

Hut, Hut … Hut
October 24, 2012 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 79DD1EE9(R04) • Feb 16, 2014
Photo © Mary Knudson – Fotolia.com

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Hut, Hut … Hut (PDF)
Broadcasting Book (PDF)

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Success Is Built On Frameworks, Not Rules

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Bookstores are in decline. So are electronics stores. As for music stores, are there any left? People continue to buy books, electronics, and music, yet the decline continues. Why?

The decline continues due to the conviction that success is a model. Those with such a conviction argue that a painstakingly crafted set of rules, derived from an analysis of past events, will guide an enterprise to future success. The term for this process is “business model.”

Change happens however and it demands accommodation. Model makers respond to change by adopting a strategy of differentiation — a process of re-tuning, re-positioning, and re-launching existing products, purported to allow an enterprise to appear as if it is adapting to change.

The model maker can think of no other way to respond because the model maker believes the future is bound to what came before. And in a way it is…

Differentiation has been around for at least 50 years, ample time for its results to be assessed. And what does the assessment reveal? The failure rate for new product entries is 80%.

Faced with this fact, the model maker is forced to lay blame not on the rules of differentiation, but on a failure to properly implement the rules of differentiation. That narrow point of view is complete and absolute nonsense. The rules responsible for past and current success are totally discordant from what can happen in the future.

What rules did Amazon adopt from the historical bookstore model to sell books? Why hasn’t Radio Shack and Best Buy been able to differentiate themselves back to their previous levels of success?

Isn’t it more likely that the future success of Radio Shack and Best Buy (if there is one) will result from discarding what worked before, in order to seek and discover what can work in the future? The obvious answer is yes! The means to do so requires an understanding of the difference between rules and a framework.

Rules are explicit controls designed to regulate behavior. A framework is the environment within which behavior exists.

The twelve notes of the musical scale comprise a framework that enables notes to be assembled in ways that convey various musical motifs. The framework doesn’t determine whether a piece of music will be considered jazz, classical, rock, etc. That determination results from the set of rules the composer follows as he or she creates music.

Also, there is no predetermined set of rules that determine whether or not a composition will be successful. Success is the result of the composer’s ability to create music that can coalesce with an audience’s emotions. That ability is the literal origin of the phrase, “striking a chord.”

Anticipating and coalescing with audience / customer emotions and behaviors is the proper objective of a business model. Such an achievement is almost always temporary. In the same way as most music falls in and out of favor, so do most business models. Change of this sort is not due to a lack of adherence to rules, it’s due to a shift in the audience’s / customer’s emotions and behaviors. (…)

The Latin alphabet is a framework within which the rules of Italian, French, English, et. al can exist. The futures of Italian, French, and English have almost nothing at all to do with the rules of each. The futures of Italian, French, and English are dependent upon what happens within the environment in which each exists.

For instance, Italy was once the banking capital of the world. At such time Italian was a dominant language. When Italy’s banking industry faded the popularity of the Italian language declined. The Italian language did not change, but the audience sure did!

A very important point regarding marketing must be made here. No amount of marketing expertise can mitigate the forces that bear when emotions and behaviors change. The dislocation of the Italian language, of the book business, of the electronics and music business, has nothing at all to do with the level of marketing expertise in each. In fact marketing expertise is totally disconnected from the talent to predict and coalesce with changing emotions and behaviors.

Imagine you’re stuck in an apparent traffic jam on a highway that is totally covered in fog. You can make out the bumper of the car in front of you, but nothing else. Given your situation it might make sense to honk your horn at the car in front of you. Marketers call this advertising, SEO, Networking, “filling the funnel,” eMail Marketing, etc.

But if you could see through the fog to an assembly of cars surrounding you, then honking would be revealed as an absurdity. Seeing through the fog reveals that the problem lies at some level other than that of the car in front of you. What you have done by seeing through the fog is reveal the framework within which cars operate.

You still don’t know the basic and invariable cause of the jam. But you do know that no amount of expert horn honking (marketing) will help. This is framework stuff, and what is needed is knowledge of the forces that can act on highways and traffic. The rules for blowing horns and motoring through fog are inconsequential.

The same is true in business. When a large number of people change what they normally do, business models and marketing become barriers.

Success (be it in electronics, music, books, or banking) only accrues to those individuals with the talent to anticipate and coalesce with an audience’s emotions and behaviors. This talent is built upon an ability to look past the barriers of existing business models and marketing techniques to the untapped possibilities available at the framework level.

Success Is Built On Frameworks, Not Rules
October 8, 2012 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 71D02937(R05) • Feb 20, 2014
Photo © zhu difeng – Fotolia.com

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Success Is Built On Frameworks, Not Rules (PDF)

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Bullet Insanity

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How can you claim that bullet slides should be eliminated from presentations when 95 out of 100 presenters use bullet slides in their presentations? That question summarizes much of the follow-up correspondence we received to our recently published article entitled, Communication Insanity.

Our answer — not only to the bullet slide question but to every occurrence of replication — is to point out that mindless adherence to familiar practices is common, even when it fails to be productive.

The fact (if it is one) that 95 out of 100 presenters use bullet slides does not rule out the likelihood that 95 out of 100 presenters fail. And we’re not talking theoretically here.

Eight out of ten new product launches fail within three months. The reason why is clear. It’s because the messages used to promote the products do not persuade customers to give them a try. When a new product isn’t tried it’s the communication promoting the product that has failed, not the product itself.

Presentation failure is likewise. A presentation is a failure when audience members do not take the action(s) desired by the presenter. It’s the fault of the presenter when such a failure occurs. It’s not the fault of the audience. Often the failure is due to a lack of impact; a condition that is made worse by bullet slides.

Impact is thorny because it simultaneously demands two things. The first is articulation, the second is talent. Articulation means mastery of the technical skills for clear communication. Talent is knowing what properly articulated content will be persuasive.

Talent is subjective, but articulation is absolutely not. And everything about a bullet slide renders a presenter inarticulate. Here’s why.

Most bullet slides contain more than six facts. That doesn’t work because the human mind is only capable of remembering about 6 new facts at one time. This discovery was first documented in 1885 by Herman Ebbinghaus.

Ebbinghaus went on to demonstrate that a violation of the six fact rule will cause facts to be discarded to the trash heap of memory. We call this phenomenon the six fact trash heap rule. An under-recognized downside to the six fact trash heap rule lies in not knowing which facts will be discarded. The discarded fact(s) could be the most important in the presentation.

The six fact trash heap rule raises an interesting question. Could a single six fact bullet slide comprise an entire presentation?

The answer is yes, if the six fact trash heap rule is considered in isolation. However, we have attended and counseled the creation of innumerable presentations and none of them consisted of a single slide.

If a single six fact bullet slide presentation did exist, it would likely ignore another important quality of an articulate presentation, the ability of audience members to recall what the presentation was about.

Recall is dramatically increased when a presenter simultaneously reads aloud the same words an audience member is reading to himself or herself. This is called the multiple sensory reinforcement rule and it is a well established fact.

Unfortunately read rate is twice that of speech rate. That’s a problem because multiple sensory reinforcement is only possible when the presenter speaks the words displayed on a slide at exactly the same time as the audience reads them. A mere 4 seconds into the display of text, audience members will have read about 18 words, while a presenter (speaking quickly) will be on word 10 and falling further behind.

This is disastrous because the mind prioritizes when disparate information arrives simultaneously through separate senses. The written word is the minds top priority. The spoken word is second. That’s why people read before they listen and always give preference to written words when they differ from spoken words.

You can test this phenomenon the next time you are at a restaurant seated with 4 or 5 other people. Observe what happens if the waiter hands out menus while simultaneously announcing the specials of the day. Without fail the first persons receiving menus will begin reading and will, at the end of the waiter’s announcement, ask, “What was that first couple of specials you mentioned?” It is likewise in a presentation. We’ll call this the menu rule.

The menu rule is decisive. The more there is on a slide to read, the less the audience will listen to the presenter. Incidentally, the menu rule is why notes or copies of a presentation should be distributed after the presentation is over, not before.

Back to the single bullet slide presentation. If the decision is made to deliver a single bullet slide presentation, the presenter should display the slide, sit down, remain quiet until the audience has finished reading, and then ask for questions from audience members.

Of course that situation denies the presenter the opportunity to deliver a persuasive presentation. Projecting a bullet slide in a quiet room isn’t delivering a presentation, it’s disseminating facts. If that’s the intent, cancel the presentation and send out a report.

We now have three reasons why bullet slides are inarticulate. The reasons are (1) the six fact trash heap rule, (2) the multiple sensory reinforcement rule, (3) the menu rule. We’re not done.

Bullets beget more bullets. A multi-slide presentation we were recently asked to review contained seven bullet list slides, each of which had at least NINE bullets.

Sixty-three bullets seems to us to be just a bit less ammunition than all the armament the allied forces had with them during the invasion of Normandy. We don’t know the origin of the term “snowball effect,” but we can well imagine that it came from the deteriorating mood of an audience that was forced to endure the dashed hopes brought on by “another boring bullet slide” six times over.

Bullet slides are a pure and perfect example of inarticulate communication. They break the six fact trash heap rule. They violate the multiple sensory reinforcement rule due to the mismatch between read rate and speech rate. And they break the menu rule — the fact that people go deaf when they read.

Only the most gifted presenter (and there are only a few) can pull-off a great presentation when the rules of articulate message delivery are ignored. And we have just scratched the surface.

We did not cover such things as the proper use of text, voice control, presenter visibility, sound track accompaniment, room lighting, and table/chair arrangement. Each is important. Most important is to end mindless adherence to inarticulate communication practices. Doing away with bullet slides is a good place to start.

Bullet Insanity
September 24, 2012 by Bob Manna & Matt Manna
Version: 6C0542C6(R04) • Feb 13, 2014
Photo © stokkete – Fotolia.com

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