The post Ep 3: Don’t Set Marketing Goals. Do This Instead. appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

KEYWORDS

words, energetics, energy, hear, language, trudge, communication, matter, swearing, messaging, google trends, synonyms, feel, woowoo, depleted, skip, drudgery, essence, actionable

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:36

You’ve heard the expression “words matter”. Have you ever wondered, like truly wondered, what does that mean? Why do they matter? We hear all the time words matter, words matter. I mean, Pearl Strachan Hurd said, “handle them carefully, for words have the power of atom bombs”. And we tend to think of this metaphorically, but in reality, the reason words matter is because words are matter. Each one has its own energetic force. And since they are matter, they are subject to the same universal laws of physics of thermodynamics by which all matter abides. I refer to this as the energetics of language. I thought about calling this theory or whatever it is wordergy, like word plus energy, you put them together, but that just feels cumbersom to say. I’m open to other ideas. But let’s stick with the energetics of language and let’s talk through what this means. Because this is a very different way of thinking about words. Alright, so for instance, words are subject to Newtons third law of motion: for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Saying or writing or whatever-ing a word is an action. The word itself has physicality. And it takes on the energy of the mode of delivery. So let’s play with this just for a bit. I’m going to say three words, and I want you to feel the energy, like where is it? What type of energy? Upbeat, medium? Whatever it is for you, okay? I’m gonna say three words, you know all these words, there’s nothing fancy, no tricks. So the first word is walk, simply walk. Okay. And I was working with a client yesterday, and we did this activity and what came back, what usually comes back is a combination of kind of medium energy, could be peaceful, right? But nothing high vibing, but nothing low either. So, that’s walk, right? But what about skip? Skip by definition, I mean, you’ve skipped, I’ve skipped, it’s tough to skip and not kind of feel upbeat about it, unless you’re in like a boot camp and then sometimes it is, you know, not as fun, but in general, the word skip has kind of a high energy feel to it. Now what about the word trudge, even like the way you said it was sort of like leading horse to water, right? Trudge. It has like a weight to it, like a heaviness. It’s almost like a blanket, but not in a cozy way more like a ooh, you’re bringing me down type of way. Now all three of these words, and these are synonyms, fundamentally for mode of transportation or ambulatory, that will get you from point A to point B. Walk, skip trudge. You could walk from here to the coffee shop, you can skip, although that would take a lot of energy and be a really good workout, or you could trudge. They are all synonyms, but just feel how differently, like feel the difference in the energy of those words, walk, skip trudge, just different, right? So also, as matter words are subject to the second law of thermodynamics. And of course, as you’ll remember, the second law of thermodynamics tells us that there’s a fixed amount of energy in all systems. So this explains why some words seem to lose energy over time, right? They lose energy over time. So if you keep using the same word over and over and over again, it just depletes over time. Right? And as with all things, our brains start to notice it less and less, because the novelty wears off. And you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s a word or I mean, it can be anything that our brain comes into contact with. If it is new, and it is novel, our brain actually is not super picky about what the newness is. It will notice if it is new, and that wears off over time, right? So think of the word COVID. When we first started hearing it, it made our ears perk up and our hearts race right there was like danger. It was new, and it was scary. It’s still scary, right? It’s still scary, and it’s not new. So everywhere we turn its COVID this and COVID that. What we don’t hear as much, the word that we don’t hear as much, that we heard sort of in the beginning of 2020 when all of this was just amping up was the word Coronavirus. So just take a moment here and notice how those words land for you, COVID versus Coronavirus. Coronavirus now we know what it is and just because we don’t hear it as much, our brains kind of perk up a little bit more and these words have different energy. So, you know, actually in the early days I totally will out myself, I had this moment I’m like, I don’t think I know the difference between Coronavirus and COVID. Are they interchangeable? Then we learned of course that Coronavirus is as the name implies the virus and COVID is the disease that you can get from Coronavirus. So I got kind of interested in this and I was looking at Google Trends and in the US COVID is used way more than the word Coronavirus. Like way more. And in fact, that’s true globally, save for in Austria and Germany, both places where they speak German. So I don’t know if that’s something about the German language and usage. I don’t know, I find that very intriguing. But everywhere else in the world, regardless of language we were referring to the disease much more than the virus. And as a result over time, COVID became less novel Coronavirus, you know, isn’t as novel as it was when we first heard about it, but it is more so than COVID. So their energies are different out of the gate, and then one energy has been depleted over time. Let’s look at another example. And cover your ears if you don’t like swearing, because I’m about to channel my inner Megan McNally who you can listen to on episode 12 and of her own admissions swears like a trucker. I mean, she did found the FBomb Breakfast Club, so there’s that. Okay, so the second example is the word fuck. When I was growing up, like you never heard anybody say this word. I don’t even know how old I was when I first heard this word. But, I was not a spring chicken, I was older. And then you know, like if somebody actually said it, it’s like a jolt, right, because it was so unusual to hear it, and this word has, if you compare it to other swear words, and I will not go down the list because I know that swearing can be triggering for some folks. But you know, if you want to talk about energy, you can do that in your mind or out loud, they have a different energy. But again, as with COVID, because now, I mean, we abso-fuckin-lutly hear the word fuck all the time to the point that in some movies, I’m like, does it even have any meaning? I don’t know. So it is, you know, it’s not as shocking. I mean, it is the only word in the English language, I find this so fascinating, that can be used as every part of speech. So it gets a gold star for flexibility and being able to shine in a wide variety of environments. But put another way, because of its versatility, but also just the sheer increase in usage, which again, you can look at Google Trends and see that this is a thing, it has lost some of its energy, some of its spark. I mean, it’s not like saying Darn it, you know, it has more zing than that still for sure. But it’s linguistic battery has been depleted. That has been depleted. Okay, so what do these insights mean for you, aside from now, you know, whether or not you’re networking online or in person, you have some like fun facts, right? Who doesn’t want to talk about the laws of motion and thermodynamics? Someone who wants to use language, someone like you, to make the world a better place, what does this mean for you practically speaking? It means that you want to be attentive to the energy of the words you’re using, not just attentive to the words as we think of them, usually in like, the more cerebral, is that the word that means what I want it to mean? Also, just sidebar here, you know, there’s always two things happening in any communication, there’s what is said or written received, let’s stick with received, so can be any mode of communication. So there’s what is received. And then there’s what’s sent out, and then there’s what’s received. So there is the speaker, and there’s the listener, there’s the writer, and there’s the reader. And we will have different interpretations based on our life experience and all the rest of it, right? So yes, continue to pay attention to that, continue to wonder how your words will land, in terms of the technical definitions of them. But what I’m inviting you to do is a little bit different. I literally want you to start wondering and noticing the energy that different words and different collections of words, also referred to as sentence, give off, okay, so not just their meaning, their energy. So back to walk, skip, trudge. Those are all synonyms, right? But they each have a very different energy. So this is why when I work with clients, I almost never, ever ask the question, I really try never have a question, what do you think? So, we’ve worked together, I’ve developed some messaging, I’m showing that to them, we’re going through it, I don’t say what do you think? Because that invites them into a place that is all above the neck, right? All in their head. And language is based in emotion, right? We can look at that as well and go back to both emotion and motivation. The root is the mot, which is from Latin, which means action. Right? In French, the word for word is mot. So all of this, it really is about emotion. So what I ask is, and at first people raise an eyebrow, and you’re probably like, wow, Erica, like you are hopping on that woowoo train. But let’s just remind ourselves that this is actually grounded in science. Right? And you know what, I’m okay with being on the woowoo train. Because what I ask is, “how does that make you feel?” When you see this new mission statement, new vision, purpose, when you see your values, and the definitions that we’ve come up with, how do they make you feel? And if they make you feel meh, our works not done. And it’s such a cool experience. I mean, I just have to say, with every single client I work with, you can feel it in the group when they are there. And I can never promise a client like, oh, you know, you’re going to get there next Thursday, or you’re going to get there four weeks from now. But I can guarantee that there will be a moment when maybe not everyone, I mean, with big clients, you know, maybe it’s not everybody, but where the majority come to this, just the same place in terms of like, yeah, yeah, that speaks so powerfully and truly, to what we do and why we do it, we’re there. And this is especially true of what I call the identity statements, mission, vision, values, purpose, which I cover in Episode 27. So if you’re curious about that, and those statements, the definitions that I give them, and how I use them, you can go listen to episode 27. Because those statements are the essence of who you are as an organization, or if you’re doing it for you personally, who you are as an individual. So that’s why getting out of the head and into the body, not just the heart, but into the whole body, it’s so much more actionable. I mean, I really have to say, when I made the shift in terms of working with my clients, it’s tough, because oftentimes you’d say like what do you think, you know, that draws in like, “well, I don’t know, technically, we kind of do X Y Z and so this is a little off” it’s just that actually it is less actionable than the energy on this is flat. This doesn’t capture how we activate, it doesn’t capture, like the, you know, the energy that we’re putting out to the world. So things like flat, or too perky or whatever, which this ties to brand personality, obviously, as well, you want to stay in alignment with that, it just tends to be way more actionable. So that was kind of a cool discovery. Again, this may seem a little woowoo. And this is a very, very, very, very, very different way of thinking about words and if your brain is cramping, I totally get that. And just to be clear, I am not saying that your messaging and communications can be utter gobbledygook. Like you can’t sit back and be like, well, the vibes right dude, right? And have people be like, yes, but I have no idea what you’re saying. That is not the counsel that I’m offering. What I’m saying is you can use this insight about the energetics of language, to increase the impact of your communications of each email, of each newsletter, each op-ed you pen, write all of them, you could increase the impact by really applying these principles of the energetics of language and starting to wonder like, how does that feel to me? And how is that going to feel to the receiver of this communication? This is why oftentimes, when it comes to messaging and communications, oftentimes not all the time, but often less is more. It is why communicating the essence is so much more effective than your everything. I mean, we’ve covered this in prior episodes, but when you tell someone your everything, they remember nothing. So there’s that. And since word of mouth marketing is still one of the most cost effective modes of communication, you want people to not just remember what you’ve said, but also be able to repeat it right? So that’s why the essence matters. Also, when you clearly and compellingly communicate the essence of what you do, why you do it, right? You up the odds, that the reaction to each word will be greater, right? For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. And if you just by really distilling it down, every single one of the words and the collection of words has a greater impact, it can go further for you. It can go further for you. This accelerates and amplifies progress towards your goals, it increases the velocity at which you can achieve your vision. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And all of us go through about 15,000 words a day. Words are you know, I think of them as like one of the ultimate renewable resources. So yes, they can use their energy but there’s a different word that hasn’t been that has latent energy, because it hasn’t been used as much. And we get we get to cycle through this. So, there’s always this word with the right energy out there, waiting for you. The work is to find it, the work is to be curious enough and open enough to go find those words. So there my friends, is the energetics of language in a nutshell. I just I really hope you’re gonna start playing with this idea of the energy of your words, which have fun, you know, this shouldn’t be drudgery. One of the things that really bums me out, is when I see folks and they’re just like working so hard to find the root word. And it’s just taking all the joy out of it. Right? It’s not that the words that you land on will necessarily be sparky, that would be truly off brand, for a lot of organizations. But the process itself, I mean, this is exploration. So keep your mind open, keep your heart open, right? This should be fun, if it’s drudgery, take a break. Also, if you need or want someone to play with words with you to work to find that right energetic balance for your messaging, reach out to me. I love creating powerful messaging for purpose driven clients. I really, truly do. It’s what lights me up. So reach out, get in touch, and let’s make it happen. Even if you decide not to do this within your organization, many listeners, you know, are leaders and so, you go pretty quickly to like, okay, how can I implement this and I just want to say, if you stand up at this, the next staff or board meeting, you’re like, “let’s talk about the energetics of language”. you may have mixed responses. I’m happy to come in and talk about that, Because clearly, there are few things I love talking about more. But you know, you want to tread a little lightly, start with doing it personally. Start with your emails, your text messages. That can be a very low bar for where you begin playing with this idea of the energetics of language. I’m so excited about seeing how this plays out for leaders, for organizations, for people who really want to make the world a better place. Let me know, let me know how it goes. Let me know how you’re playing with the energetics of language goes. As always, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the work you’re doing in the world. The world is a better place because of you. You are incredible. You are amazing. You’re awesome. Never forget it. Do good, be well, and I will see you next time.

The post Ep 41: Why Words Matter appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

marketing, podcast, beliefs, scarcity mindset, word, woes, hiatus, social media, feel, mindset, clarity, solve, organization, released, target audience, true, requisite, listening, skill

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:05

Hello, welcome to 2022. Yeah, I’m recording this on January 25 2022. The last time I released an episode was October 17 2021. In that episode, I talked about why words matter, which is because they have matter. And therefore they have their own energetic force, which I call the energetics of language, or wordergy, still playing around with that. If you haven’t, give it a listen, I encourage you to, I mean, it’s a very different way of thinking about words. Now, if you’re new to this podcast, something to know about me is that I spend a lot of time thinking about words, I really love them. But it felt or feels a teeny bit ironic that that was the last episode I released because the word that I would use probably to describe my energy over the past few months is like lethargic, lethargic. I mean, I don’t know about you, I personally had high hopes for 2022. If I were to give 2022 a review so far, I I’d maybe give it one star, maybe, that’s only because I’m feeling generous and magnanimous today, I just had a nice cup of tea. I don’t know, one star, half a star. It’s been tough, right? And this is true for me, it’s true for everyone I talk to. I keep waiting to talk to someone, if this is you, please reach out, I so want to hear from you, I’m waiting for someone to be like, “You know what? 2022 working for me.” But I’m not hearing that. And so this like, lethargy is part of the reason that I took a hiatus from doing this podcast. I didn’t intentionally take a hiatus to be clear. It wasn’t like I planned it. I mean, I could tell you that I did, but I totally did not. It just sort of happened. And you know, chatting with clients, colleagues, friends, etc, etc. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this sort of unplanned hiatus taking. Interestingly, the history of the word hiatus, its etymology, dates back to the 1560s, when it meant a break or opening in a material object, especially in anatomy. I thought that that was really interesting. Like it started to be about, you know, the body and physicality. And now it sort of evolved. So it’s evolved to like a sense, as we commonly think of it, and as I’m using it as a gap or interruption in events. But here’s where it got interesting, another definition, historically, is space from which something requisite to completeness is absent. That’s from the 1610s, for anybody who cares. I had to reread that last bit a bunch of times for it to sink in. I’m like requisite to completeness. I don’t know? It felt like a double negative or something in a sentence, just like I can’t quite wrap my brain around it. But if I’m interpreting it properly, which I may not, but the way that I’m I guess choosing to interpret is there’s something missing. And that’s something is holding us back. So this got me thinking, what’s holding me back from doing the podcast? What’s holding you, or people like you back? People who want marketing to be a force for good, people who want to use words to make the world a better place. Where that reflection landed me was really thinking about beliefs and mindset. So something that’s missing from any clients I work with, and this has been true, these are not new, sort of one of the things that I noticed, is that the mindset that they want is to supports them to communicate with clarity and competence. But we are socialized, I mean, don’t we all want that. I want that. That feels fleeting, like a high bar, maybe, clarity and confidence all the time? Not all the time. But we’re socialized to hold a set of beliefs that really aren’t helpful when it comes to marketing and communicating, so those interpersonal, internal marketing and external marketing, I’m using the term quite loosely today. If we can shift these beliefs, I have a belief that aeons oodles of awesomeness will be unleashed, both for you personally, also for your teams, also, in terms of again, traditionally how we think about marketing as the external impact or efficacy of any marketing effort. But of course, if you’ve listened to this podcast, for any amount of time, we talk a lot about the fact that external execution is predicated on internal alignment. And I think this set of beliefs which, you know, take it together becomes a mindset. It gets us all out of whack, not aligned. But I believe that oodles of awesomeness can be unleashed, you see my optimism, just like shine in through right there? Take that 2022. Okay, there are many beliefs, but here are like the top three beliefs that I want us to banish as we shift our mindset about marketing, and again, marketing in the broadest sense of the word. Okay I’ll say the three, and then we’ll go back and sort of chat through them. Number one, that anyone could do marketing, so marketing is less important or valued. Number two, is related to number one, that social media is the answer to all your marketing woes. Nope. And number three, is that marketing is a zero sum game. Okay, number one, that anyone could do marketing. I think this is related to the fact that we all use words, right, we communicate, we see ads, and many of us are on social media, so we’re on the receiving end of this, or we do it in some form or fashion. There’s sort of the sense of like, anybody could do this. This gets a bit tricky, right? I mean, yes, we want marketing to be thought of as a team sport, in that you want everyone in your organization on the same page in terms of messaging. But coming up with and executing an effective marketing strategy and plan? That’s tricky. I mean, in marketing, there’s rarely one right solution or one right answer. And I don’t mean to go off 50 Shades of Grey on you, but it’s we’re more grey in the land of marketing, than black or white. Marketing is techno color, forget the grey. And as a rule gets ever noisier, breaking through gets ever harder. Marketing is part art and part science. It is a skill and don’t even get me started on this whole soft skill, hard skill. I just, it’s 2022. That’s bullocks. It’s a skill. All right? Can anyone learn the skill of marketing? I feel like it’s a really accessible discipline. I do because like I said, it’s part art and part science. So can anyone learn it? Yes. But respect the fact that that people on your marketing team, the ones doing communications, it’s a skill that they have learned over time. Somewhat related to number one, is this idea that you’re just gonna get on social media and it’s gonna answer all your marketing woes. No. So actually, based on my experience, social media is such a shiny object, right? So, it’s fun to do this work for as long as I have at this point, because way back when it was Facebook, then it was Twitter, it’s like what’s the latest, greatest? Now we’re like, TikTok, Instagram, blah, blah, blah. However, I will say very consistently, two other things are what lead to marketing woes, and they’re not as sexy as social media and yet, legit, true, what takes organizations and companies down is one lack of clarity on marketing objectives, and two believing that the general public is your target audience, or just not being rigorous and real about who your target audiences are. Right? Those are the top two. If you get clear on your objectives in the Claxon Method vernacular, your what and your target audience, your who, the how, which is what social media is, how are we going to reach our target audience to achieve our marketing objectives? That falls into place. So for more about the Claxon Method, again, if you’re new to the podcast, and you’re like, what? Listen to episodes three and five, okay, get grounded in that. So is social media important? Do you want to think about adding it to your marketing mix? Well, yeah, but I mean, regardless, it’s probably not going to solve all your woes. And especially if it’s not for the folks you want to engage with are hanging out. And I know it’s like, “oh, well, duh, Erica”. And yet it’s surprising how often it’s like, “well, we’ll just get on TikTok, let’s just do the Instagram”. Okay, it’s not going to solve all your woes. Get that clarity first about the what and the who and then see what makes sense. All right, number three, that marketing is a zero sum game. Okay, sure. Sometimes companies are wooing the same customer and if that customer buys Charmin instead of Cottonelle Charmin wins. But in the social impact space, in the land of people who are purpose driven, you care about issues that are not going to be solved by you alone. No one organization or person is going to end hunger, solve homelessness, educate all kids, close the pay equity gap, end the climate crisis, this is a long list of intractable issues that all of you are blessedly, blessedly continuing to chip away at, but by definition, tackling these issues, again, team sport. When one organization makes progress, we all make progress. Believing it’s a zero sum game, it undermines progress. So this is especially tricky when you’re an environment that has a scarcity mindset, which is pervasive, especially among nonprofits. And there are a lot of important structural reasons that the scarcity mindset exists, so I’m not dismissing that. And yet, It’s not categorically true and it doesn’t serve us. There’s a whole podcast on this sort of scarcity versus abundance mindset. And if you’re listening this and you’re like, “Yeah, okay Erica, that’s great. Let’s just leap to abundance”. You know, that may feel like too much of a stretch, I get it. I feel you, you’re like “you’re on lala land Erica. We can’t just flip a switch”. No, we can’t, but we can start small. The litany of little things, put that into play and over time, shift the habits of the scarcity mindset. Just make, you know, small steps towards the idea, just start opening to what does abundance look like for our organization? Is it more volunteers? Is it just more people knowing about us? What is it? Small shifts, okay? Just release the belief that scarcity is a foregone conclusion and see what it opens up for you, your team, your marketing, your life. Because obviously a scarcity mindset and switching to an abudence mindset is not unique to marketing. So I’m curious if any of these ring true for you, and what other marketing beliefs you hold or you think others hold that feel like they undermine success by contributing to a sub optimal mindset? Let me know. Let’s see if despite 2022’s very bumpy start, we can make some headway on releasing these nefarious beliefs and opening up to some new ones. Let’s let’s let’s let’s take a permanent hiatus. You know, if we look at the history of the word, I don’t think we want a permanent hiatus because actually, that would just leave a gaping wound. But anyway, we’re going to use the modern definition, right? Permanent break from these beliefs. You are amazing. Don’t ever ever, ever forget it. The work that you’re doing is making the world a better place. Thank you for doing it. Do good, be well, and I’ll see you next time.

The post Ep 42: Banishing Bogus Beliefs appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart on the Communicate I/O podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

outcomes, communication, inputs, achieve, problem, law, feel, leaders, team, overhaul, project, terms, apply, verbs, brain, communicate, protocol

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Welcome to the Communicate I/O podcast. If this is your first time here, welcome. If you’re a regular listener, thank you for being here. In this episode, I want to offer you a few small virtual switch ups that can make a big difference. So sometimes, when we’re thinking about communication, it can feel overwhelming, like you have to overhaul something to “get it right”. But in my experience, the law of little things can make a huge, magical difference. What do I mean by that? So, before we go deeper on the law and how you can put it into play, let’s reset the table on how high achieving purpose center leaders like you are going to get the best bang for communication buck, you’re going to start by asking, what are the outcomes I want or need to achieve with this communication? Let me just back up for a quick sec. If I can, communication buck, the best bang, the best ROI for your buck, I just want to remind us of a startling statistic. That is on average organizations waste $12,506 per employee. Now that’s for an entire organization. For leaders who have a higher salary, his can be anywhere from $17,000 to $30,000. And it goes up and up and up, the bigger your salary, the bigger the wastage because it turns out individual employees within an organization wastes almost one full day per week, one full day, almost 20% It’s like 19.68% or something, they lose the time because of ineffective communication. So, this is worth figuring out right? Like think of the time savings, the cost savings, the like happy feelings that will come out of this. Okay, so that’s what I mean by getting the biggest bang for your communication buck. Okay, so the communication can be anything from an email to a big speech, it doesn’t matter. The Communicate I/O protocol remains the same. Now, of course, you’re busy. So, you’ll want to make strategic choices about when you take the time to really, really think through this system and the protocol and apply it versus when you’re just rushing through something doesn’t feel as high stakes. Definitely, definitely, definitely. If you know that your communication, how it lands really matters. Work the protocol, right? So, you start with outcomes. That’s the O, both tangible and intangible, right? And then reverse engineer into the inputs. That’s the words and all the other things that are options in terms of input when it comes to communication. Now let’s look at the law of little things as it relates to something outside of the workplace, right, we’re going to ease on into that. Let’s take for instance, shedding some weight. I am coming off what I refer to as birthday palooza. Birthday palooza for me occurred in April when it is my birthday. It was fabulous. I ate so much delicious food with friends and family and loved ones and it was just oh my gosh, endless blessings. And I also consume more adult beverages than I usually consume. Those were the inputs, the food, the adult beverages, all of that. The outcome was not surprisingly, you know, I put on about five pounds. I expected this so I’m not really fussed about it. But you know, I’m also keen to get to my regular scheduled size. I’m not that tall. Not that big. So actually, five pounds matters. It sounds like oh Erica, who cares? Criminy don’t you have bigger things to worry about? I do, but this is on my mind because I want to feel like good in my body. Okay, so let’s be clear, the outcome applying the protocol is that I want to achieve losing these five pounds, you know losing weight is such a weird term, can we just pause on that, like, do you ever want to find it? Not really. I hear people say, let go of the weight, that feels a bit more, you know, compassionate. So, I want to let go, release back into the world, these five pounds, the tangible outcome of that will be that I can comfortably wear all my clothes again, which will be real nice. The intangible outcome is that I’m going to feel much better in my body, right? Proud, confident. So how will I switch up my inputs to get the outcomes I desire? Not a juice cleanse, no fasting, nothing extreme, right? Because as we all know, if you do that, they’re just going to find their way back onto the body. Nope. Instead, I will apply and I’m applying the law of little things throughout the day, each day, this looks like leaving two to three bites on my plate each meal, it looks like having one bite of chocolate, those are so good, right? And they’re in the like, the metal wrapping, and they have those inspirational quotes inside. I love chocolate, I really do. Right. And I’m going to have one rather than two, after dinner, it looks like a reasonable number of adult beverages during the week. You know, none of this is extreme. There’s no sense of sacrifice, which I think is so lovely and important. It’s just little things. But these little things add up, and then voila, results are achieved my outcomes and desired outcomes are achieved. You know, I’m going to be able to check that box next to desired outcomes without much sacrifice, achieved magic. When I first started trying this, I felt so too. It was right there with you. But I’m telling you, it works. And it works from a place of being so kind and compassionate with ourselves. And you know, there’s lots more to say about that as it relates to communication and leadership and just being humans. But as it relates to what did I say? Shedding No, not shedding, letting go of weight. It really it comes from a place of compassion and kindness rather than like self-flagellation, and like, you shouldn’t have had so much food. It was delicious. I don’t regret one single bite of birthday Palooza food consumption, fan friggin tastic. And here I am. It’s not good or bad. It just is. So, let’s apply this the law of little things to workplace communication. Okay. There are so many possible inputs when it comes to communication. It’s dazzling right there. It depends on the source, but somewhere between 250,000 to a million words in the English language. And the average adult goes through 15,000 words per day. So that’s a lot of inputs right there. And if you’re communicating verbally, your universe of possible options, increases dramatically, pacing, intonation, gesticulation, all of this, by the way, it’s called para language. And then also the strategic use of silence, say an undervalued input in the leadership communication space. So, let’s play this out. Let’s say you’re about to announce a new product, or it could be a service, whatever works for you, okay. This product has been many, many months in the making, and you’re unveiling it at an event in two weeks. So, there’s a hard deadline here. You have blessedly months before you found the perfect spokesperson. This person’s going to knock it out of the park, it’s going to be amazing. So, your team’s feeling like, okay, there’s a lot to do. But they’re feeling confident that this is going to be a success. And then with two weeks to go, your fan flippin tastic spokesperson bows out. Now, rather than feeling calm under control, right, your team is frantic, and they are worried that this event, this reveal, is it’s going to be a big flop. Because you are depending on this person. What do you do? So, you could go to your team just be like, we got a problem, right? Just like we are also probably I don’t know, I’m dating myself, but Apollo 13. Great scene, Houston, we’ve got a problem. Okay, you could go and do that. Now, for most people or brains don’t actually like problems comes invoke fear of like failing or of looking bad, or of so many things depends on the person and you know, what you got going on. But generally speaking, the word problem turns off our prefrontal cortex and activates our reptilian brain, meaning it shuts off the part of our brain, prefrontal cortex that is real, real good at solving problems, right? So we still have a problem to be solved. It’s not like that has gone away. You don’t have your event just shifted in a nanosecond. Let’s apply Communicate I/O, and the law of little things, bring them together and see what an alternative might be. The outcome you need to achieve has not changed successful events successful launch, do you need your team now to come up with an alternative? Write a solution? How do you need your team to feel in order to be able to brainstorm so you can get to that place of solution? Maybe they need to open or energize, get clear on that. That is an intangible outcome. Right. And this is, and I talked about this in previous episode, like this is one of the biggest mistakes that leaders make is they leap over really thinking about how do I need people to feel in order to achieve the outcomes, the tangible outcomes that I need, or want to now get clear on how they need to feel, I think I’m not saying just sweep the negative emotions your team has been having under the under the table or the rug or wherever. That’s like magical thinking. It’s not literally, people are going to feel their feels, we are human, right? So, create space for the frustration, angst, whatever else is going on so they can move through that. And then okay, and then use the law of little things. So rather than coming out of the gate with a, we’ve got a problem, try, I think we can all acknowledge that we have a time sensitive project to tackle, let’s put all ideas on the table and find a solution. I know we can do this, I can do this. It may not feel great right now. And I believe in this team. And I know we can do it. So, the problem has now become a project, projects aren’t generally speaking, scary, it’s a project, it’s a thing that needs to be done. So, they invoke little to no fear. Unless it’s, I don’t know, super scary project. But in general, just the word itself has it does something completely different in our brains. So rather than stopping people in their mental and energetic tracks, you’re inviting them to focus on the solution, rather than the problem. Our subconscious minds will kick into gear, right? They’re going to kick into gear in a like focusing on the positive and you’re going to keep this prefrontal cortex online, so it’s just going to be like brain palooza. This is such a simple reframe, right, from negative to positive. And, and you could do this in a lot of different ways that, you know, project is one, you know, opportunity, you want to be mindful of that in your delivery, you feel it in your cells, right. So, you’re not being like, ignoring it, you know, like, oftentimes, like here are your strengths and your opportunities for growth. We all know that that means weaknesses, right? But, but if you genuinely feel like they are opportunities for growth, you’re para language allows you to use that. And again, the same things apply in terms of what’s happening in people’s brains. Okay? This is the law of little things in action, the law of little things. And again, just because this feels super important, as some leaders, I’m not saying it’s you, just some, skip over the part where you let your team feel their feels, this does not need to go on indefinitely, right, because you do need you have a time sensitive project in front of you, you need to find a solution. But what you resist persists. And so, if you’re saying your team resist those negative emotions, they’re still there, which means their whole brain, their whole humaneness, just can’t show up to the brainstorming session. And that’s what we want, right? The whole human. The power of little things, the power of the law of little things, is why I encourage my clients to focus on their verbs. You’ve heard me talk about verbs on this podcast many times, they are the superheroes of every sentence. And that’s because they pack a lot of energetic punch, a lot of energetic time. So, change your verbs, and you can change your outcomes. For real, it can be that simple. The law of little things, it’s also the premise behind the free ebook that I put out, called Recharge: Energize your employees and yourself one word at a time. So, I don’t want to diminish how deep and pervasive and challenging burnout can be. Okay. It’s a doozy. And there’s that there’s a ton of resources out there, but I wanted to offer people like you is like, Okay, I’m feeling this, what is something small and do a level that I can put into play, like into action right here right now, today. That’s where recharge came from. Because when you’re feeling burnt out, it’s really tough to work out to the big overhauls. You kind of have to ladder up to it. It’s again, it’s free to download. Okay, so to wrap up, yes, sometimes the outcome that you are looking to achieve requires like an overhaul or something big to happen. I’ve worked with loads of leaders and find that they are all over the place and that’s not a bad thing. There can be some fun and play and that as well. But it’s not actually the norm. Right. I would say the norm to achieving the results you want, particularly in terms of leadership communication, not a little less in terms of external marketing. But definitely in terms of leadership communication, don’t underestimate the power of the law of little things. The power of tweaking and pruning and fine-tuning or swapping things out. I was gardening the other day because it was finally nice enough here in Seattle to do so it’s a bit like tending to gardener yard, you know, like, if it’s a mature-ish yard that I’m not saying you’re starting from scratch, that’s a different deal. But most yards, they’re there, right? And so, generally what are you doing, you’re pruning, you’re moving things around, so that they you know, get into that spot where they have the light or location or soil that will allow them to thrive. You add some new plants now and then I definitely did repot my pots, they makes me happy to come home and have like nice spots to greet me. And they weren’t they were very sad, right? They had gotten to end of winter sad. And so, the feeling I’m getting is like a lot of happiness and joy every time I pull up to the house. Right. So, it’s a little like that, right? You’re not like completely overhauling. Now, if you want to go from like a, you know, the large yard you have now until like a low to no water yard. There’s a term for that that I’m blanking on. But you know what I mean? Where it’s a yard where you don’t have to water it. Okay, that’s probably a bigger, that’s a bigger deal. That’s a bigger project, right? And yet the fundamentals are the same, right? You have a desired outcome, your desired outcome change. Now you want this a low water version? So, your inputs need to be different, it is exactly the same. Was communication exactly the same? How might you apply? And this is an invitation, the law of little things to your life, do your work to how you lead your team. I want you to pick one thing today. And it doesn’t have to be a big thing, right? It can be a little thing as always, like this is about play. It’s about curiosity. It’s about like trying out these things. See what you learn? Did it help you get the outcomes or the results that you want? Like swap out a verb? See how it lands check in with your team, check-in with them in you don’t need to be like hey, what did you think of that verb swap out? Right? Like if the question isn’t about the inputs quite although that would be pretty funny. I would love for some of you to do that to be honest. But the point is getting aside, did you more effectively more efficiently with more joy with more whatever achieved the outcomes that you’re looking to achieve? We’re all learning as we go. Thank you for listening and for being a leader who cares enough and is committed enough to constantly be looking for ways to better your best. You’re awesome, keep it up and see you next time.

The post Ep 49: The Law of Little Things appeared first on Claxon Communication.

Resources Referenced

Ep 5: Who Are Your True Believers? https://bit.ly/True-Believers-Pod

The post Ep 63: The Why behind your What, Who, How appeared first on Claxon Communication.

The post Ep 65: What type of meeting is this anyway?! appeared first on Claxon Communication.

Want to attend the next AMA? Subscribe to our newsletter and receive your invitation!

Resources Referenced:

Join the Newsletter: https://claxon-communication.com/newsletter-signup/ 

Pierre Casse Assessment: https://bit.ly/Pierre-Casse

The post Ep 72: AMA: My #1 piece of advice for 2023… and so much more appeared first on Claxon Communication.

Connect with Erica:

Website: https://claxon-communication.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricaMillsBarn 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericamillsbarnhart/ 

Email: info@claxon-communication.com  

Book Time With Erica: https://bit.ly/ChatWithErica

The post Ep 73: Erica on the Nonprofit Radio Show appeared first on Claxon Communication.

Resources Referenced:

The Credibility Calculator: https://thecredibilitycalculator.com/ 

Communicate for Good Quiz: https://claxon-communication.scoreapp.com/ 

About Michael:

Michael DeLon serves business experts and thought leaders to create a book without writing a word. As a #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author and America’s Foremost Authority on Credibility Marketing, he teaches how to establish and market your credibility to gain more clients. Business owners seek out Michael to clarify their message, make them a bestselling author, and set up their profitable podcast. They use his Credibility Marketing strategies to gain clients, get referrals, and grow their revenue. Since 2013, he has worked with business owners across the United States and internationally to establish and market their credibility.

Michael is the husband of one and father of four. He’s a committed follower of Jesus Christ who is deeply involved in his church. You can normally find Michael investing time with his family, reading a great book, or facilitating growth in the lives of those around him.

Connect with Michael: 

Website: https://paperbackexpert.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeldelon/ 

Email: Michael@PaperbackExpert.com 

The post Ep 81: Michael DeLon on Credibility Marketing appeared first on Claxon Communication.

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This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

file folder, organization, communication, kids, organizational level, talk, work, sub folders, taxes, file, fun, podcast, important, education, matter, team, equal footing, expand, water sanitation, cleaning

Welcome to the Communicate for Good podcast where leaders on a mission to make the world a better place come to talk and learn about how communication language and words can help increase awareness, revenue and impact. With less stress and more joy. I’m your host, Erica Mills Barnhart, and I’m so excited. You’re here with me. Let’s dive right in. 

Hello, and welcome to the Communicate for Good podcast, I am your host, Erica Barnhart, and I’m excited you’re here. Today we’re going to talk about a concept that I actually don’t think I’ve talked about on this podcast, or if I have, it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten and so it’s time for a revisit. That concept is mental file folders. In the last episode, Episode 82, we talked about spring cleaning, right, and because it’s spring cleaning season and April is when these are all originally going to be released. Let’s just stick with that for a second, which is, let’s assume that you have cleaned up, you know, said bye-bye to some of the dust bunnies so there’s a bit more clarity around your communication. Now the surfaces are kinda cleaner, all those things, but you’re left with the task of organizing.

If the last episode was about cleaning up and whatnot then this is about organizing. It’s also tax season, at least in the United States it’s tax season, so we can use this right now as an analogy because it has to do with file folders, right? I’m literally, I’m not kidding, looking at the stack of tax related things that have come in. Can you hear my tone of voice on tax related things? I love paying taxes, taxes mean that, you know, I’m blessed and I’ve been successful. I have nothing against taxes but I don’t like preparing for them, kind of bogs me down because there’s paperwork which bogs me down, but I’m looking over here and I’m like, Okay, I need to get all this stuff out and it needs to go into the file folders. Now, one thing to know, there’s a reason that we have both physical and electronic file folders, right? That when we transitioned to a more electronic virtual environment we kept that structure, right? Big file folder, little file folders, and it gets more granular from there. You can actually tell a lot about somebody by looking at how they file things. Oh, please don’t come look at how I file things! I mean, the basics are there, right? The basics for everybody are this idea of what’s the big idea, and you go from there.

Why does this matter for communication? Now, let me pause here for a second. If you’re new to this podcast, it’s called Communicate for Good. That’s the model that we talk about so I want to orient to which level we’re talking about. With the Communicate for Good model, it’s good for you, yourself, your team, your organization, and by extension, the world. This I mean, really mainly, at the organizational level and there’s tidbits you might apply at the other levels but this one is really about the organizational level and external communication. Okay, so where and what is the big file folder that a client, a customer, a donor, a volunteer, insert, whoever it is, that is important for you to attract to your work because you need them in order to be successful? What is it? Okay, so there’s the big folders and then there’s sub folders. Now, the question is, what’s the primary first, okay? I’ve done this so many times and in so many trainings with so many organizations, the most effective way, and honestly the most fun way that I found to do this, is to actually have this, is so cheesy sounding but trust me when I say it’s really effective, is to literally have file folders. Okay. Then you can really play with putting smaller one into a bigger one. I have brought in a file cabinet because it’s tactile. If you’re gonna do this, which actually is a fun way to do it is to bust out the office supplies. 

I’m going to run through a few examples. Let’s just start with a generic sort of Starbucks. I mean, there’s a good story here. Starbucks, what’s the big file folder? For most people, it’s going to be coffee. Now, does Starbucks sell a whole bunch of other things? Yeah, they totally do. Right. They have a lot of food. They kind of they want to be known as this community gathering place or at least Howard Schultz would like that. But really, it’s all about the coffee. And then what are the sub folders? You can have sub folders but they’re always going there. They are a coffee company. That’s their big file folder. The interesting story is now we’re used to walking into Starbucks and being like, oh, look, there’s food and some of that food now is hot. Their first experiment, or one their early experiments, I don’t know if it was first, was soup. The reason that this was a failed experiment was that the soup competed with the smell of coffee so they had to ixnay that because that would have undermined the mental file folder that people might have filed them under. Now, they’re like, wait, is this like a restaurant? What is it? And so they’re a very interesting example. One that most of us know, of is the primary file folder so nothing can really compete with that. Now, let’s talk about taxes. Let’s go there. Now, there may be a little variation, as you might do yours a little bit different but fundamentally, most people will have a file folder that says cleverly taxes. Then it’s going to be by what? By year, and then by what? By quarter, if that’s something that you need to do. Then it’s taxes, year, quarter. Now you may have your files slightly differently for taxes. If you file separately, it might be taxes by person, by year but the big file folder is always going to be taxes. Right?

Why is this so important? From an organizational communication perspective, this is about branding, right? Branding is about how our brains work, so you want to make it as easy as possible for somebody to retrieve you from their mental file folders. This isn’t necessarily just about where they put you first, where they file you away. It’s about retrieval. This is important because it becomes about word of mouth which is still one of the biggest forces of communication, success, and momentum for almost any organization but especially for nonprofits, so where are they going to file you? Okay, so maybe they file you in nonprofits, great. There are what now 1.3 million nonprofits just in the US alone. So what’s the next thing? You may be listening and be like, this is going to be so easy, and I think you might be surprised at the difference of opinion of people within the organization. That’s important to tune up because those who work for the organization are talking about the organization and so it’s a way to get alignment internally so that it drives engagement externally. 

Alright, so I’ll give you a couple examples. I was working with an organization, and they teach kids to be great readers. It’s a peer-to-peer tutoring model and fundamentally about teaching elementary school kids how to be great readers, because they believe every kid deserves to be a great reader, a wonderful organization. Now, what’s the primary file folder? Is it kids? Or is it education? Or is it reading? Right? When we did this, there was a difference of opinion but it was between those three things, nobody was like, I don’t know, like wallabies, it should be wallabies, clearly. There were these three things but the hierarchy matters. The hierarchy matters so they decided that it was going to be education first. That’s their big file folder, they are about education. Now, why would that be? It is because it was possible that down the road they might approach and  broaden what they will be doing within the education space. It is always going to be for kids, they were always gonna be K through 12. They had no aspirations of beyond but education was the main place that they were going to be and then it was K through 12. Then it was reading because it turned out that those could have been swapped, right? It could have been education, reading or literacy and then kids or students, right, so K through 12k, through 16. This is a matter of what’s the likelihood that we might expand to different subjects versus different ages of students. Every time, this is the question of what it boils down to so whatever you’re focused on you’re gonna end up with your big file folder and then it’s like, what’s next? What are the subfolders and are they on equal footing or do we need to sequence them? Why does this matter in terms of your messaging? Because this bubbles up into your sequencing of your messaging, especially in your mission, vision, values, and purpose statements – your identity statements as I like to call them. 

Let me give you another example. There is an organization and what they do is clean water for kids around the world. This organization is called Splash. They do all sorts of interesting things around water and water sanitation but their file folders, whereas the other organization which is Tea Read which started with education and literacy, Splash started with kids. When we were having this conversation, they were like, there’s no scenario where we’re going to change for whom we do this. It is always going to be kids, so then interestingly water sanitation was a sub folder of kids because there’s all sorts of ways that we may want to improve the lives of these kids and they work internationally. That’s why kids went first, water sanitation, and their ability to predict the future was pretty darn good. Great. They have expanded, they’re still mainly about cleaning water for kids around the world but then it’s like what’s the application of clean water? What are the other variables? Now it’s about water sanitation and health, right? It’s about the health, which is an outcome but there are other elements to it. Water isn’t the only thing that they’re focused on. It’s not the only thing that they’re talking about. They knew that intuitively that probably somewhere down the road they were going to want to be able to expand but it was always going to be for kids. They work in orphanages and they leverage existing systems or places where there’s already clean water and this amazing organization is always going to be about the kids for them. That’s what they want to be known for. Those are two different examples. 

The question, and I’ll give you an example of Claxon because we did go through kind of a recent, I would say, a reorganization of the file folders being put into a larger file folder which can happen. If this resonates with you, this might be a move that you want to consider. Claxon was known as Claxon Marketing for a long number of years. We were known primarily for the work we did was at the organizational level of the Communicate for Good model. Then over time and for a variety reasons I’ve talked about but including that you really can’t separate, organizational from team from individual communication, it’s all related. Then we expand, but that work of using of Communicating for Good and use the words to change the world and workplaces. Marketing, in my world, in my brain, is a subset of communication. Now, other people don’t see it that way but in that I’m founder of the company so I get to make some choices. That is why we transitioned from Claxon Marketing to Claxon Communication which was to broaden it all, and that all roads lead back to communicate those clarity and confidence. All roads lead back but we expanded the types and the level at which we were going to work. Now a lot more of Claxon’s work is between the individual coaching with leaders training teams. That has become much more central to what we do because of moving ourselves up into a higher level file folder. Maybe it was a different file folder altogether. We could debate that a little bit but that’s the idea. It does take some effort, if you’re gonna do a shift like that, to make sure that people are like, Oh, I’m not just gonna think of Claxon when it’s about me being frustrated our mission statement? Yes, we still help organizations but the format is different. It’s down that accelerated format so that you can get the results you want a lot faster than in the past. However, that’s not the only time. That’s one application of the Claxon method that we work with our clients but that expansion took some time and it’s still in progress. Like I said, our work has shifted, we are doing that work at the team level at the individual level and it’s awesome. It’s fantastic, but it does take some intentionality to get there.

If you need to do a shift like that, I totally get it and I also get maybe some resistance to it because it’s change and change is hard. Right? Change is hard, as we’ve talked about, and we will inevitably talk about again in a future episode. So that’s how the metal file folders like make it easy. Make it easy for people to do that. Oh right, Claxon Communication. Great. You know, subfolders, organization, team, individual, those are all on equal footing but those are the sub folders for us as opposed to only being at that organizational level. What’s your main file folder? Hey, what’s your main file folder and what’s the secondary and what comes after that, but really getting that clarity at the higher levels. You can go gangbusters if you want with like, oh my gosh, all the file folders and things that we will put in the file folders and that actually can be very helpful work because, again, this informs sequencing of messaging. What’s your biggie? What’s your biggie and what comes next? This is super fun to do as a team or at the organizational level and you’ll get a lot of insight. Again, the point of this is to make it easy for the people that you come in contact with and not just to file you away, but to be able to find you because you know what, if you don’t make it easy, you’re gonna go into the miscellaneous file folder. In all the times I’ve had those, I’ve had one person who’s like, I have to confess I only have a miscellaneous, everything goes into miscellaneous but it’s not an efficient system. If you’re sticking everything in there it’s so hard to find what you want, so are people going to make the effort to remember you and your organization and the good work that you’re doing? Make it easy for them, if you can. 

All right, my friends. That’s it for today. I hope you will play with the idea of mental file folders. Do good, be well and I will see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Communicate for Good podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would so appreciate it if you would rate here right now. Go rate and review the podcast. Your review will help even more purpose driven leaders, teams and organizations learn how to use words to change the world. To find more ways that communication can help you increase awareness, revenue and impact, head on over to www.claxon-communication.com

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