Reading Notes For:
When trying to influence, our audience constantly searches for:
▪ What this information will mean to them;
▪ What value it will add to their lives;
▪ How it will help them achieve their goals.
Context Matters
Context plays a huge role in determining the mindset of an audience. If the audience has paid to attend, they already have decided that there is potential value in the information they are to be provided, so they’re receptive to hearing it and taking notes.
Essentially, the influence happened before their arrival. Either marketing, social presence, a book or written article, or a referral of some sort worked in favor of the presenter to prepare the audience (frame them) to see the value in the thoughts and ideas to be presented. These are examples of strategies that grow someone’s ethos and make influence and trust happen more quickly.
The tie-down is the clearest communication of value to your audience. What makes it so powerful is that it is customized to them specifically.
Magic Phrase
Again, the tie-down answers the specific question of what this message means to you, the audience. That phrase draws a clear connection to exactly what the audience will gain from your message.
A powerful image created the emotion I needed and gave them a glimpse into the future. The tie-down (what it means to them) was crystal clear—if you don’t brush your teeth daily, your teeth will look like that.
The frame creates the emotional movement, but it needs to be directed at something. Emotion for the sake of emotion in business can be frustrating and uncomfortable. The tie-down allows you to funnel the emotion (pathos) created in the frame laser-like to a specific action. That action is your influence objective (IO).
Influence Objective (IO)
To effectively execute the tie-down, your influence objective—the behavior you hope to influence—must be clear. The influence objective is the specific action, thought, or behavior you are trying to influence.
To deliver the messaging effectively requires all the skills of listening, self-awareness, and empathy. A story, statistics, or quotes without a tie-down is like a joke with no punchline.
The tie-down is not necessarily a call to action although both are closely linked. What makes it especially difficult to get the tie-down right is the assumption that – because a message is shared, it is understood. Too often people assume that because they have spoken clearly, their message has been heard.
You have read this already, but it’s absolutely worth repeating: At a high level, a tie-down is the benefit of your message to the listener. But communicating it is complicated because of the many intangibles of your audience, including ideas and emotions. We also must factor in the audience’s or client’s specific needs, state of mind, and current situation. That’s a lot to digest, but all of it is important.
If you remove the benefits from the equation, you only trigger both Broca’s and Wernicke’s specific areas of the brain that are responsible for processing language. These two tiny areas of the brain don’t contribute to behavior change.
When we return benefits to the equation by means of a tie-down, we trigger the brain to imagine future benefits, draw vivid pictures, and feel the benefits. That anticipation releases the chemical dopamine (the happy hormone) as well, which is positive when we’re trying to influence behavior.
Statistics With a Tie-Down
Let’s look at those same statistics presented with a tie-down:
▪ 97 percent of buyers search for their homes online. Tie-down: If you are a real estate agent and you don’t have an online presence, you risk losing your clients to those who do.
▪ 56.75 percent of all Internet traffic is mobile. Tie-down: If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you are alienating more than half the visitors to your website.
▪ 96 percent of Internet users increased their video consumption in 2020. Tie-down: You need to invest in creating powerful and compelling videos that communicate your value proposition or you will be left in the dust.
Similar information can have a different value to different audiences. It can become even more complex among various people in the same audience, too. That’s why it’s so important to know your audience and to have enough tie-downs to address the needs of everyone.
The tie-down draws a clear connection between the message and its meaning.