Whether it's an email subject line, the headline of a press release or the title of your new book or keynote, you've got less than a nano-second to get someone’s attention before they hit delete. So how do you make yourself stand out from the pack? Do you promise to help your prospect lose 10 pounds in the next 10 minutes? Or do you tell people that they can make a million dollars and have great sex every day for the rest of their lives if they buy your audio tape or book you as a speaker? Or perhaps you’d like to guarantee them an express pass into heaven? If you can deliver the goods, go for it! But if you’re like most of us, you aren’t selling miracle weight loss, a ticket into the pearly gates, or even great sex. Speakers and meeting planners are faced with the challenge of making topics like leadership, sales, life-balance, and prioritizing sound sexy and immediately appealing. It’s a challenge to make meaningful content sizzle in an ADD world filled with fake promises, and useless information. But it can be done! Speaker and author Lisa Earle McLeod went from being an unknown to getting her first book featured on Good Morning America and keynoting at major events, by harnessing the power of great headlines. Here are her three tips to capture the attention of the people you want to attract: • Tease like Diane: When Diane Sawyer is teeing up the next segment she doesn't say, “Join us after the break for a big long complicated segment on how the human brain works where you’ll learn all about the medial temporal lobes and how they affect your processing skills and your interpersonal relationships.” Instead she says, “Coming up next, Is your brain making you want to choke your co-workers?” A good headline should pass the “coming up next” test. This is one of the most valuable exercises you’ll ever do. After you’ve taken your best crack at your headline, insert the words coming up next in front of it, and see how it sounds. If you can’t imagine Diane (or Meredith or Matt or Kate or Kelly) saying it, you don’t have a good headline or title. Even if you’re not trying to capture a TV audience, a good headline is designed to make someone want to invest more of their time. If it doesn’t sound like something that would get a TV audience to tune in after the break, it’s probably not something that would make a meeting planner read your email or Internet surfer go to your site, or an overwhelmed conference attendee want to choose your workshop over the 8 others being offered at the same time. • Pitch like Apple: The beauty of Apple computer ads is they do a great job of positioning the Apple guy as cool, hip, AND NOT COMPLICATED! Mr. PC and the Mac guy may both have complex operating systems, but the Mac guy keeps his behind the cool sleek shell. He doesn’t talk about how it works, he just tells you what it will do for you. Mr. PC is rambling on how complex he is, while the Mac guy is telling you “I can help you make a brochure in 30 minutes.” Think of your topic like a car. I don’t really care how it was built; I just want to drive it. As a syndicated newspaper columnist, people pitch me all the time. I probably get over 100 pitches a day, and most of them have boring complicated headlines like, “Author writes new book about the thirty-seven ways leaders can improve their performance.” I know leadership can be complex, but the point of good pitch is to show us that you’ve made it easy. The Mac guy wouldn’t say, “I have 5,753 widgets under the hood.” He’d say, “Click here to experience virtual Paris.” Your headline should tell people how you can help, not how your process works. • Spin like Stewart: You may be an expert in your field, but the rest of us aren’t, nor do we need to be. Here’s where we can take a lesson from comic genius Jon Stewart. Rush Limbaugh may not enjoy Stewart’s humor, but I doubt he thinks Stewart is stupid. However, if you analyze Jon Stewart’s language, you’ll see it isn’t complex at all. It’s not the words he uses, it’s the way he puts them together. One of the reasons for his huge popularity is that he takes complex things and presents them in a way that the average Joe or Jane (or pot-smoking college kid) can understand. You don’t have to like Jon Stewart or agree with him, but you can apply his techniques to your own subject. When you’re writing a headline or a speech title you’re trying to make a quick connection, not demonstrate intellectual snobbery. No one is impressed with complex language; in fact, they’re more likely to be turned off by it. I’m not suggested you dumb down your material, quite the opposite. You need to take the time to make sure your complex idea is easily understood, which by the way, takes more brains than simply regurgitating the information. A great headline grabs you by the lapels and wakes you up. It makes the reader or producer say, ”Wow, I need to pay attention to that!” Think about. Which speaker or media guest are you going to book? The one whose program is entitled How to Become More Productive at Home and Work or the one who delivers 5 Secrets to a Kick-Ass Life. I think we all know which workshop sounds more interesting. Creating killer headlines isn’t rocket science, it’s word science, and if you’re smart enough to make your living as a speaker, you’re probably smart enough to create a great headline. Get help if you need to. Just remember, you don’t have to resort to smut to keep from being boring. Lisa Earle McLeod is an author, syndicated columnist and inspirational thought-leader. A popular keynote speaker, Lisa is principal of McLeod & More, Inc., a training and consulting firm specializing in sales, leadership and conflict management. Her newest book is The Triangle of Truth: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Resolving Conflicts Large and Small (Jan 2010 from Penguin Putnam).www.TriangleofTruth.com. You have permission to reprint this edition of Lisa Earle McLeod's syndicated newspaper column electronically or in print, free of charge, without further reprint permission as long as the bylines are included. © Copyright 2009, by Lisa Earle McLeod. All rights reserved.
Article Source: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit
Whether it's an email subject line, the headline of a press release or the title of your new book or keynote, you've got less than a nano-second to get someone’s attention before they hit delete. So how do you make yourself stand out from the pack?
Lisa Earle McLeod is an author, syndicated columnist and inspirational thought-leader. A popular keynote speaker, Lisa is principal of McLeod & More, Inc., a training and consulting firm specializing in sales, leadership and conflict management. Her newest book is The Triangle of Truth: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Resolving Conflicts Large and Small (Jan 2010 from Penguin Putnam).www.TriangleofTruth.com. You have permission to reprint as long as the byline is included. Copyright 2009.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 5 4 out of 5 3 out of 5 2 out of 5 1 out of 5
