Written by: Vickie Sullivan | August 12, 2021
Give Prospects One Compelling Idea
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will run for her seat again in 2024. When announcing Warren’s re-election news, Politico revisited her bruising loss in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary election. It reminded me that Warren’s unsuccessful run for President has a great lesson for thought leaders.
Warren is known as the queen of the plans. (Remember her slogan, “Warren has a plan for that.”) She has a detailed approach for everything. There’s a problem with that strategy, however. Few voters cared enough to wade through those details. (And she gave the opposition a lot to criticize.) The voters wanted her solutions crystalized into one idea. They wanted to know if they resonated with her ideas before deciding if the entire plan was worth their attention.
Thought leaders tend to fall into the same trap with their methodology. They get so focused on specifics that they forget the summary. It’s easier to do a process dump than to identify the common thread, the one compelling thing that ties many parts under one roof.
Listen: What a Compelling Idea Isn’t
People have short attention spans, and prospects aren’t willing to drill down on the details of anyone’s approach. You must entice them first with a compelling idea that gives reason to explore your approach.
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