Telling Your Message So Others Understand

As self employed individuals, Indiepreneurs do not have big marketing departments to craft that perfect message. We do what we think best, sometimes with input from our friends and families. If it sounds good to us, we go with it.

The problem is that the message we’re sending might not be the one that others are receiving. Some of that is inevitable, but the more we consider how our message will be seen by strangers, the better off we’ll be.

Talking With Strangers

I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book “Talking with Strangers,” which is a fascinating–and often very disturbing–book about why we suck so much at picking up the messages other people send.

Sandwiched between two very difficult chapters on sexual assault comes “A (Short) Explanation of the Amanda Knox Case,” which discusses what went so wrong in Italy that an innocent woman ended up in prison for several years.

What it came down to was that Amanda Knox was quirky.

In typical Gladwell fashion, he surrounds this story with studies showing how much we as humans suck at understanding messages that mismatch our expectation. In one study, even seasoned interrogators scored abysmally while trying to spot liars when their behavior didn’t match their words…we’re talking as low as a 14 percent success rate.

This, from the very people whose job it is to suss out lies.

To quote Gladwell, “with strangers, we’re intolerant of emotional responses that fall outside expectations.”

I believe the same is true when our message falls outside of expectations.

The ABA Problem

This mismatch if expectations causes all kinds of problems. It’s not good. It shows an intolerance in our society that’s very rarely addressed.

I’m calling it here The ABA Problem.

For those unfamiliar, ABA is Applied Behavior Analysis. It is the most common treatment for children with autism…and it was probably the worst treatment we ever tried on my son.

The idea behind ABA is to ingrain into neurodiverse children responses that typical children would pick up naturally.

It’s like what Pavlov did with his dogs, just with humans. Someone is frowning? If the child with autism successfully identifies it, give them a cookie. If not, the electric shock (Note: they don’t actually use either cookies or electric shocks anymore…but the way my son responded, they might as well have).

Don’t be like Amanda Knox. Be normal! Whatever that means.

The logic behind treatments like ABA is that hundreds of millions of people have certain expectations, so we should train those who do not meet expectations to conform to them.

Threading Your Message In This World

Let me bring this back around to your message.

The fact of it is that people have expectations. Some won’t meet that expectation, and that should be fine (as long as they don’t do illegal and harmful things). We should be perfectly tolerant of the Amanda Knox’s of the world!

But when it comes to us getting our business message out, we need to be clear. People have expectations. If our message doesn’t meet those expectations, the vast majority of people will not get what we’re saying.

And that’s on us. It doesn’t make us bad people if we do it wrong, but it does mean our product won’t sell.

Being Unique–But Clear in your Niche

Fortunately, this doesn’t mean we have to be bland. It doesn’t mean that we have to be exactly like everyone one. We don’t need to go through an ABA equivalent marketing session.

It means we need to know our niche, and we need to think of how our message will sound to them.

When the Italian police followed Amanda Knox, their response to the weird behavior was she must be guilty.

When I was discussing Amanda Knox with my wife, her response to the weird behavior was, “She sounds like the kind of person I’d be friends with.”

Being unique is a good thing. But it has to be unique in a way that those in your market niche will understand. Otherwise, your message will connect about as well as Amanda Knox with the Italian police.

SIDE NOTE: Please don’t send me anything saying I’m wrong on ABA. If it worked for you or your child, great. It was absolutely wrong for mine. Which is exactly my point.