3 Palms, Mission-Driven Organizations and How They Connect

It was 95 degrees but it was a dry heat.

I had just taken a sip from a frosty cold cerveza and glanced skyward observing the 3 palms blowing gently in the breeze. After a couple of days of rest and relaxation, my mind was fully disengaged from its usual fretting about commitments, deadlines and financial obligations.

And I thought to myself, what stories this trio of frond producers could tell of people and life they’ve seen over the years. What trials and tribulations they witnessed. The stories of love and loss they overheard.

And then that famous quote was confirmed to me yet again. “Curiosity is the lust of the mind,” said English philosopher Thomas Hobbes more than 330 years ago. 

We just have to know.

We’ve got to find out.

We must quench that thirst.

All of which brings me to the "content and mission-driven organizations" part of my title.

Are your posts and articles engaging or should I say “magnetizing” your readers? Does your title promise a story worth reading? Does the content fulfill on that promise?

What I'm saying here is that curiosity helps you in content development because it gets your “need to know” overriding everything in your head. It's what I call my "silver bullet" when it comes to engaging content. And it’s a safe bet that if that topic stirs your mind, it’s going to do the same to those coveted readers, ambassadors and potential evangelists of yours.

Just how do you that, you ask?

Engaging content starts with one action: Asking a question.

For example: How specifically did your organization help a family in need after living in their car for 17 months?

How many trees did your employees plant on a forgotten city lot only known for its piles of litter?

Or how did your contribution help seniors lacking access to medical care?

Then your content answers that question by being specific and personal.

By personal, I mean add your own emotional viewpoint about what you saw and how it made you feel. Don’t hold back. Authenticity is not only highly valued in our world today, it is mandatory if you’re to be a trusted communicator.

Stuck for ideas and no palm trees in sight? Consider these time-tested, mind-freeing suggestions:

• Take a walk in a city park
• Visit an art museum
• Ride public transportation
• Eat in a restaurant you’ve never visited
• Listen to music you know nothing about.

My bet is you’ll come up with several worthy ideas that promise to make your audience curious (and engaged) indeed. Just as those 3 palms did for me as I dozed off for my afternoon siesta.

~hcollaborative.com~

How To Improve Your Content Thanks To a Few IPAs

"Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well."

- David Ogilvy

"Piney...

...citrusy...

...floral...

...juniper-like...

...lemony."

If you've ever tried to describe the taste of an India Pale Ale (IPA), you know the descriptors vary.

Fact is, I've heard the majority of these adjectives as I'm lucky enough to live in a city where you see bumper-stickers on Priuses, Subarus and Volvos that read "Keep Portland Beered."

Which is to say locals get to choose from a ton of refreshing and ever-growing list of IPAs.

So what's this all have to do with upping your content?

Plain and simple, you want your words and ideas pared to the bone. You want your audience to come away with one singular but memorable thought.

For example, describing an IPA as "juniper-like."

Simplifying your message is how you connect with your receiver. That is, after you've developed empathy for your audience as I mentioned in my last post.

Unfortunately, this business of simplifying seems to be anything but easy. Too often we see our nonprofit and for-profit clients complicate their messaging.

Sentences that go on and on and on.

Labyrinth-like paragraphs that scare away a reader.

And jargon that puts the audience at "tilt" mode before they finish reading the title.

If you believe in conscientious communiciation, clarity is always your standard.  

So to that end, I offer three simple tips I've followed throughout my career courtesy of my favorite guru David Ogilvy. Here they are in his own words:

1.       Write the way you talk, naturally.

2.       Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

3.       Never use jargon or pretentious words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

(From "Confessions of an Ad Man" by David Ogilvy)

If you follow these three simple rules, your message will be clear. And you will be communicating effectively to your audience.

In other words, giving them something to quench their thirst.

To get our book, "25 Building Blocks To Create a Conscientious Organization" FREE, go to HCollaborative.com for an instant download.

2 Words about Creating Killer Content

Get emotional.

Or throw your content out the window.

You can’t move people to action if they have not bought in emotionally.

The corporate world knows this (think Nike, Apple and John Hancock). And so do forward-thinking nonprofits (think “One”, Charity: Water and Make-A-Wish campaigns).

“People ‘buy in’ with emotion.

They justify their decision to buy with logic.”

Let’s face it. We humans are emotional creatures. We feel fear, anger, sadness and joy. And that emotion is the most critical part of connecting with any person let alone your base.

The plain and simple fact is that if you don’t connect emotionally, you don’t connect at all. Your efforts are completely wasted.

No matter how brilliant your strategy is.

No matter how clever your headline is.

No matter how attention-getting your design is.

All of which means emotion needs to be the heartbeat of every piece of communication your organization produces — from emails to web content, flyers to videos.

The first step in building that deep connection with your audience is to put yourself in their shoes. Get a deep understanding of them. Survey them. Talk with them. Eavesdrop on their online conversations. What are their concerns? What gets their blood boiling? How do they define joy?

When you understand their heart, you become a better communicator.

Every piece of content needs to start with that empathy. It needs to be part of the title or headline of your posts or mailers. And it needs to be in your opening sentence and paragraph.

Every. Single. Time.

Without that emotion, you’ll not engage. And they will hit the ‘delete’ button or move to another site in a blink of an eye. Remember: the average consumer is exposed to 362 ad exposures and over 5,000 brand exposures daily, according to respected research giant Yankelovich in a 2014 study.

Needless to say, it’s crowded in the content cosmos. You greatly enhance the odds of your organization's message resonating with your audience by getting emotional with them.

To get our book, “25 Building Blocks To Create a Conscientious Organization” FREE, go to HCollaborative.com for an instant download.

How To Obliterate Fear: My Personal Mantra

It's a nasty four-letter word I detest.

But one I've learned not only to confront but actually move past. Although getting here was anything but easy.

While I always considered myself a confident person, I found myself freezing up in epic fashion at various stages in my life. Big presentations...personal relationship challenges...parenting challenges all come to mind.

So it's been both the personal and professional sides of my life.

And then one day, I came across this quote from the Dalai Lama:

"The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your action will be."

A light bulb went on.

And I asked myself these questions: Do I not love this client organization and all it stands for?

Do I not love my partner in life?

Do I not love my children?

Suddenly this fear thing all made sense to me.

And that the only way to deal with it was to bring my heart into the equation.

Which I now do on a regular basis. (In fact, for a presentation I'm giving to about 50 people in 7 hours.)

So next time you find yourself paralyzed by fear, or rattled by anxiety, look at what you're facing and see if you can't be motivated a bit by love.

Love of the situation.

Love of the individual.

Love of life.

Because as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, you will discover the more fearless and free your action will be.

And that fear thing will just go "poof" and be gone with the wind.

To get our book, "25 Building Blocks To Create a Conscientious Organization" FREE, go to HCollaborative.com for an instant download.

Dangers of Isolation: Lesson from a Habitat Build Day

If you've ever doubted the idea of one being a lonely number, you most likely have never worked on a Habitat for Humanity build site.

Last week, I spent my Saturday with a dozen other volunteers finishing up two new and affordable homes in Portland's Cully district. In fact, the house I helped paint was to be occupied by its new owner and family three days later.

Everywhere you looked on the site, the Habitat staff teamed up with the volunteers to see to it that the necessary tasks were performed with excellence. No one-man-bands in sight. Just the teams of painters, sawers,  and cleaners as they went about their business being accompanied by Brazilian music on one boom-box and old Steve Miller tunes on another.

Yes, there was the occasional volunteer doing a little rumba step thanks to the music tickling his backbone.

From time to time, one of the Habitat leaders would remind us of the need for hydration. "Take a break...get some water in you," we would hear on occasion. After all, these passionate folks were out on this site known as "Helensview" 5 days a week, week-after-week.  

Clearly the work completed during those six hours could not have been done without that strong esprit de corps.

What I mean by that is that isolationist thinking serves no one. No community, no organization and no country. Certainly, not in this day and age.

Practicing teamwork builds more than houses. It builds satisfaction and esteem.

And it truly is how things will always get better as every Conscientious Leader knows.

Which means, of course, better product, better marketing and better(happier) employees or team members.

It's clearly what Millard Fuller saw when he and his wife started Habitat for Humanity in 1976. And I think it embodies what Helen Keller wrote when she penned the words, "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

To get our book, "25 Building Blocks To Create a Conscientious Organization" FREE, go to HCollaborative.com for an instant download.