How to Build Messages That Build Buy-In
45:14 Share

Are you thinking of attending social media marketing world, but you're concerned that you're not going to learn anything new? Listen to what fellow marketers have to say. Regina Cowitt says, I've been wanting to attend this conference for years and finally got to go. It was phenomenal and packs a punch with incredibly valuable and actionable information. Katie Brinkley says, just four years ago, I made a decision that would pivot my entire entrepreneurial journey.

I attended Social Media Marketing World. The rewards promised to be nothing short of extraordinary. Rebecca Good says, I absolutely loved every single presentation and wish I could turn back the clock like Hermione from Harry Potter and get to experience every single session. I learned so much and would absolutely love the opportunity to go back again. Come see what you're missing.

Visit socialmediamarketingworld.info and grab your tickets today. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner.

Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want to know how to navigate the ever-changing marketing jungle. Today, I'm going to be joined by Tamsen Webster. Tamsen Webster is a

And we're going to talk about how to build messages that get people to take action. If you've been struggling with either your marketing messages or even your internal messages, trying to get change happening inside your business, this is going to be the show for you. Also, if you're new to this podcast,

Be sure to follow us on whatever app you're listening to us on right now. So you don't miss any of our future content. Let's transition over to this week's interview with Tamsen Webster. Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide.

Today, I am very excited to be joined by Tamsen Webster. If you don't know who Tamsen is, she is a message designer who helps leaders build buy-in for long-term change. She's the founder of the Message Design Institute. She's also author of Find Your Red Thread. Her latest book is Say What They Can't Unhear, The Nine Principles of Lasting Change. Tamsen, welcome back to the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing great.

I'm delighted. I am delighted to be back. Thanks for having me. And it's good to see you, Michael. I am super excited that you're here today. Tamsen and I are going to explore how to get people to embrace change inside a business. And, you know, I think about that David Bowie song, Change, right? Whenever I hear Change. Yeah.

And there's a lot of change that's going on in the world right now with a lot of businesses. So why is it so hard for the people that are listening to the show, which tend to be marketers? Why is it so hard that for them to get changed? What's the reason behind this? It is. I wish there were just one. But I would say that the main thing that generally ties the issues together is that

Most change, even though we're very used to it. I mean, no day goes by where it goes exactly according to plan. And so things change all the time. We're actually pretty good at it. But it's when we want things to change in a certain way and they don't happen that it starts to get like, what's going on here?

And generally what is going on there is that there is there is a fear of risk. Right. So sometimes that's a fear of loss, but also in whatever way there's there's there's a perceived risk on the on the other person's side.

And that is really what we're fundamentally managing for whenever you're presenting a change internally, or even since I know we're talking to a lot of marketers, all marketers on the outside too, like any shift in thinking or behavior, any change in the pattern,

represents a risk. And so we really have to understand that change aversion deep down is almost always risk aversion. And that sometimes can start to change how we think about presenting change.

Well, and I guess the deeper question is why are people so risk averse? What's your thoughts on that? Because I feel like we don't like the change once we've gotten something figured out. Yeah. I mean, it's so there's why are we risk averse? Well, that is where things like Kahneman's prospect theory and loss aversion come in that that anchors into it where we don't want to lose what we have because it starts to destabilize our sense of safety, our sense of belonging, all sorts of other things.

But there is one other thing that almost always is associated with that risk, particularly when we are in dialogue and conversation, whether that's through marketing or through internal announcements about a change. And that is that there is a perceived risk to someone's own self-concept or the desired identity they want to have or be perceived as having. So one of the things I talk about in the book is that

We, you can pretty much rely on the fact that everybody, every human wants to be seen as smart, capable, and good.

And they may or may not believe it themselves, but they certainly want to be seen that way. And so a lot of times when we are presenting a change and someone is feeling risk averse about it, it's because something about it either doesn't make sense, right? Doesn't feel like it's possible or.

Or there's something that, you know, in a more squishy, qualitative way feels off about it. They don't agree with it or they don't know why they should. And in that standpoint, they don't want to put at risk who they see themselves to be or the way they think things should work based on, you know, a lifetime of experience. And it's fascinating because I just think about all the different experiences I've had dealing with all sorts of different things.

And it seems like those that are most willing to embrace change are the ones that most need to change. So for example, if the business is failing or if something you're doing clearly isn't working, well, then all of a sudden it's a lot easier to be open, right? To change. But when everything seems to be working, that's when you're going to be able to change.

that's when I think I know at least if I speak for myself, I'm the most resistant to change. Cause like you said, I don't want to screw up my good thing that I've got going right now. Right. You've got something good right now. Why would you mess it up? And this is probably one of the chief challenges that marketers generally face is a lot of times people don't know they have the problem that we solve, or they are perfectly happy with whatever answer they have right now to the thing that that's happening. And so that's,

You know, that has, you know, that very real situation. And I think some very what seemed to be logically and intuitive answers to that come into play, which is, well, we have to like, you know, show them that we've got this problem and they didn't know they had. But I want to go back to something you said, Michael, because what you said is actually key to figuring out where the least risky end

entry point is for introducing a change. And that is something that somebody already knows that they are struggling with. And it doesn't have to be necessarily like a sharp, deep pain, but anything that represents, let's say a persistent irritant in how their day-to-day goes is something where, you know, we're kind of always scanning for a better way to get things done. We're

And I think we underestimate the power of something that is just kind of always there and not yet awesome for people. I don't think it always has to be this big, dramatic, awful thing.

Basically, you know, one of the things that I talk about with my clients is really figuring out what is that kind of question that, you know, urgent at some level, but particularly important question that your audience is actively and knowingly asking right now. And that's important, actively and knowingly asking right now for which this change is a legitimate answer.

Because when the neuroscience of curiosity and questions is such that when there's a gap between what somebody has and what they want, when there's an open question without an answer.

They're already invested. They're already interested. It's already relevant. And we as marketers or as leaders don't have to do as much work on the back end if on the front end, we actually spend that time and say, well, what is it right now that they really do want an answer to? Again, whether that's urgent or whether that's just this kind of persistent, there must be a better way kind of question.

And whether we're speaking to marketers that are trying to get this across their entire core audience or to marketers who want to try to persuade their boss or their boss's boss that, hey, we need to adopt AI or we need to, you know, put paid acquisition instead of just organic, you know, or whatever it is. Right. Right. So let's talk about like, how do we come up with that question? Right. That. Yeah, absolutely. We refer to how do we even like.

Figure it out. Figure it out, yeah. So, I mean, what you just brought up is a really important point. There's a lot of times we present the solution as the change without anchoring it to this question. And when we just say we need to do AI without any connection to what somebody cares about right now, it's very easy to say no to that because you're just like, we need to do this. And they're like, no, we don't, right?

So finding this question, there are a couple of very useful places to go. One is in particular, if we're talking about internal peace, like what are the strategic priorities of the company always, or what are the particular strategic priorities of the company right now? So for example, I've done some work with nonprofits over, you know, over the years and, and,

You can generally guarantee that with a nonprofit, the leadership is always interested in a better way to deliver on their mission or they're looking for a better way to retain their donors or members. They're looking for a better way to get younger people in. These are perennial questions that are happening.

But I would suggest that all businesses do that. Like, how can we do more with less? How can we attract and retain great employees? How can we get to market faster? These are perennial issues that you can also fairly rely on.

There's one last place that I'd suggest, and that is really thinking through no matter whatever you come up with. So generally when I'm doing this with clients and we have we spend some time brainstorming and saying, well, why? What problem does it solve? What question does it answer for people? And there's a pretty wide range and you can start to map those questions together.

Against a business version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Like there are questions at the top, like how can we be more successful? Which is the equivalent of the self-actualization, right? There's always going to be something that's a little bit more urgent or a little bit more specific further down. So, you know, that's where we start to think about, well, okay, yes, it's success and nobody's going to say no to that.

but they're much more likely to say yes to something that feels a little bit more specific, a little bit more on what they're trying to do right now. What's a better way for us to get visibility into which of our social media efforts are working right now? That's way more specific than how can we be more successful? Is success a potential outcome? Yes, but you're really starting to think through what is the most specific version we can get

Of a question that our audience is asking at their current level of awareness. And that's a really important piece because I think I've seen sometimes I'm sure not your listeners that we sometimes put into the language of our audience what we wish they were asking rather than what they actually are.

And so, you know, they're probably not looking for, you know, a five column report. That's not what they're looking for. They're not looking for that. They are looking for better bills, better visibility. They are looking for more consistent measurement. They are looking for programs and data that talks to each other. So it's really about thinking about that. How what do they know right now? And based on what they know, what is that question?

Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is it's really important if you want to persuade someone in your business, for example, this is the easiest way inside the company or even with a client, right? To make a change, you have to like figure out how to latch it into something, you know, they already want, right? Correct. Or something that, you know, they're already challenged with. There's a problem that they're facing. They haven't yet solved it.

and you believe that this could help them solve that. And that framing is really, really important. Now you and I were talking about the example of the iPod. I would love you to share that example and any other examples so people can wrap their head around how this would sound. So, and this is product specific, but I will, you know, and I can do this for something that isn't product specific, but you know, the question, I mean,

Most people will think about the iPod and its introduction, you know, 21 years ago, or is it? Oh gosh, it's just probably even more than that now.

And we remember the tagline, you know, a thousand songs in your pocket. And I think most people and marketers in particular, when we're trying to figure out how do we market our product, we really want to jump right over to that tagline. We're like, what's the tagline? But one of my favorite quotes, I put it in my first book was from Agatha Christie. And she says, words are only the outer clothing of ideas.

which I love. And it explains a lot about why sometimes it's so hard to figure out, well, how do I talk about this? But that example, a thousand songs in your pocket is really useful to illustrate what the steps of creating a case for change is in somebody, in somebody's mind.

So, again, was anybody walking around saying, I'm looking for an MP3 player, you know, back when the iPod was launched? No, they weren't. But if we think about what the alternatives were for listening to music, there was there were a little persistent irritants with each one of them. Right. So if you listen to the radio.

Ads are a persistent irritant. The DJ may be a persistent irritant. The lack of control might be a persistent irritant. There's value, right? There's a value in variety, music discovery, things that you wouldn't get if you're listening to your LPs. But LPs scratch, you can't take them with you, right? But they have really good sound quality. So then we had CDs.

Which have good sound quality, not as good as LPs, but they're way more portable, except they scratch. And so you see how each of these things. Well, yeah. And and you could yeah, you could get a Sony little Walkman CD player, but you can only carry around one CD with you. Right. And it's big. Exactly. And you certainly couldn't do anything other than a glide. Right. Like you can't run when you cannot run with a disc band.

right and so each of those things had their own little issue with it so again the umbrella a way to think about an umbrella question that captures those persistent irritants it's just like what's a better way and yeah you could tailor it to what's a way to have more control what's a better way for it to go more places but they're trying to reach as broad an audience as possible much like any leader might be trying to do reach as broad as audience as possible and saying what's the

Yeah. What's that magic, like broad, but specific question. And I think it's fair to say that it answers the question. The iPod answered the question, just what's a better way to carry my music with me. Right. Because it really is. There are, you know, are and were still superior ways to listen to music at home. It was really, you know, out and about. That was the issue.

And so that's I think that's a really good example of how do you take like a persistent irritant that, again, people weren't walking around asking. But as soon as they went through this process of figuring out, well, how do we make this case for change? It didn't take long to say, well, what do we feel are the key drivers of better given what's in the market right now?

And we can, in this case, we can reverse engineer back from the tagline because we can first look at a thousand songs. Well, what does a thousand songs represent that would be a driver of a better answer? Well, way more variety, right? You know, and all the things that can come from more variety, like, you know, more control, being able to match your music with your mood, you know, just being able to carry much of your library with you.

But variety alone isn't enough, right? Because again, radio has variety, LPs have variety, you know, your home stereo system would have variety. So that's where this piece came with portability. And what they're really trying to get to is how can we make it as portable as possible? That's the in-your-pocket piece.

And so like that very much is that process of saying, OK, now, given this question that we are fairly sure people are asking at some level, but as soon as they're aware of it, they're going to be like, yes, I do want to know a better way. Thinking through what for us are those key drivers of a better answer.

And then this is where the magic happens, because the way our brains work is that we fill in the gaps of a story that we need to tell ourselves about, you know, why that's the case. Because we just if they just said, hey, the better way to carry music with you is to make variety portable. You know, part of you is going to go, OK, but.

Tell me more. And that's where I like to introduce this idea of these principles, like these ideas that we already have. Real quick, before we get to the principles. Sure. Going beyond the...

very complicated case of creating a product for millions of people and bringing it down to a case of trying to sell someone inside the business. I would love to just do one other practical example, maybe something you've done with a client or they've done inside a business or something like that, just so people can wrap their head around it. Sure. So one of my, one of my go-to examples, another one of my clients who does leadership development

And so imagine there's a company, it's a company that's facing a big strategic shift that they're trying to make in the market, either internally or externally. They're trying to implement some kind of new system or policy, or maybe they're trying to move into a new market. And they are, as Vince calls it, they're suffering from leadership dread disorder. I love that phrase that he has, which is that they're like the upper leadership are looking around. They're going, I don't know if we've got the people right.

to do this. And so, you know, the question that he has, you know, he and his business answer is, you know, how do we successfully execute a strategic shift? And they kind of implied there is like with the leaders we have. And so,

So, again, that process is just saying, okay, we know we're about to do this. What do our leaders need to have in order to get there? Like, what do we need to make sure that we're doing so that we can figure out what kind of training, what kind of support, you know, how to know whether or not somebody is going to be even able to do this or not?

And so for Vince, again, this first stage of really thinking about a change very much starts with you or why you think it's a good idea. And so for Vince, when I asked him that question, I'm like, OK, well, what is a key driver of that? What do you think, based on your opinion, is just absolutely impossible to successfully do that if this one element isn't present? Right.

And he just, you know, right away, he said, accountability. Okay. And then, you know, there is that process of that would follow, which is to say, well, why? And he said, well, I believe, I mean, we got, we worked together to get here. So, well, fundamentally, I believe that accountability is the ownership of outcomes. Well, if you think accountability is the ownership, if you agree that accountability is the ownership of outcomes, then it seems to be very clear about why you would need accountable leaders in order to successfully execute this shift. Right.

But this is one of the things where when you're thinking about this core case, as I like to call it, this compact case, the shortest, strongest possible case you can make for something, one element isn't enough because, A, reality isn't enough. But particularly for marketers, one element does not differentiate. You need two. So that's where the other piece comes in. So when I said, is it just accountability? He's like, well, no, because if you only have one accountable leader,

You're still not going to do it. You know, success requires execution at scale. So we also need scale. So then, you know, it ends up being that because accountability is the ownership of outcomes and because success requires execution at scale to successfully execute a strategic shift.

equip your leaders, you know, build a community of accountable leaders at scale. We need to scale accountability throughout the organization. And that's what we're trying to get to. Just so I understand this. So in this particular case, this client, Vince, who we just know as Vince, because you've mentioned his name a couple of times, identified two things because he wants to basically, it sounds like change the direction of the business, right? Into some new industry or a new product or something. And he identified that the only way to do it would be

First of all, accountability is something that he believes that he and all of his team understand. And they also understand that they need to scale. So somehow he combined those two things together. And did he come up with a little sentence or something that helped him implement the change? Or did he just quite simply say, hey, we all know we need to scale better.

But in order to get there, we need this extra level of accountability. Was it something along those lines? Yeah. I mean, so this is the this is the process that that it under is it kind of sits on top of the principles I talk about in the new book. And it's it is coming up with this this compact, conceptual, principle based case. So for for.

for Vince, this is actually because he runs a company that helps companies do this. What he's able to do is basically is to use this as the introductory language for what his company does. So basically he says, so if you're interested in, if you are facing a strategic shift, um,

Our company believes these two things, that accountability is necessary, here's why. Scale is necessary, here's why. So that's what we help companies like you do. We're going to help you scale accountability throughout the organization. And what that gives is a very, whether it's on website copy or whether it's in a 30-second introduction of a conversation, it gives people that perspective of,

Why they would care. That's the question facing a strategic shift. What your answer is, scale accountability. And you are also supporting why that would be a viable answer to that question based on, and this is key, principles that your ideal audience, whether that's a client, customer, internal team member, would already agree with.

Because, you know, think about it. If they're talking to someone who doesn't believe that success is, you know, requires execution at scale, there's very little that's probably going to convince them. And so this is, you know, that's where it is. But there's a second benefit, a hidden benefit, which is by having that so clear, it makes it much, much easier for somebody that he is trying to sell to, to sell it further into the organization when Vince isn't there.

Because instead of saying, we've got all these, you know, we've got these programs and we have to do this and there's seven steps and here's, right? Person can just say, hey, we're really interested in working with kind of with, you know, Vince and his team, right?

Because we're facing this shift and because we need to make sure it happens at scale, right? We need something that really makes sure that our leaders are taking ownership of the outcomes. And that's what Vince's team does. They help us scale accountability. They've got programs, they've got coaching. We can even bring him in to come talk, but that's what they do. And so that's really, you know, in that is the heart of what this is all about, which is

To introduce this change that you are more likely to get buy-in for, no matter who it is, anchor it in something that they already want and argue for it based on things they already agree with. And putting those together into that case creates that

for someone to say, oh, I understand in principle what this is and why it would work. And second, ideally, you've found a way to argue for it where they would agree with it in principle as well. Yes, you have to go and show that it's going to be possible in practice. Yes, you have to worry about implementation. But so many changes, whether that's in the market or just in somebody's mind,

fail simply because someone didn't hear in a way that they understood very quickly why it would work. And that's what brings us right back to risk aversion, because if we don't feel like it's going to be successful, most of us are not willing to put ourselves out there. So, you know, being able to establish that kind of really strong foundation of possible success right from the beginning makes a huge difference in the success of the change.

Okay. So there's really, I think two principles we've talked about in this last little section here. Number one is the beliefs of that target audience. And number two is the why, whatever your message is, is relevant to them. So what about people that don't really have a grasp on the beliefs side of things? How can they find that? Case file 2025.

Marketing professionals report alarming symptoms of declining engagement, mysterious algorithm changes, and vanishing organic reach. Multiple witnesses confirm similar patterns across platforms.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to investigate this critical case plaguing marketers everywhere. Our expert investigators have assembled a comprehensive dossier of solutions, including previously undisclosed AI tools revolutionizing content creation, covert strategies for breaking through Instagram's algorithm, and secret tactics for maintaining Facebook ad performance.

Field agent Laura Pence Atencio investigated social media marketing world and said, each year, I believe we've reached the pinnacle and there can't be anything better. Only,

only to be proven wrong as the education, energy, and enthusiasm exceed my expectations. And it's not an exaggeration to say I'm already anticipating next year's surprises. Join thousands of fellow marketers who've cracked the code on their marketing challenges. Pursue truth in marketing by attending Social Media Marketing World. Get your tickets at socialmediamarketingworld.info. This message will self-destruct in five minutes.

Four, three, two. Yeah. So this is, I will fully admit, this can be the trickiest part because all of us walk through the world with a set of assumptions and beliefs about how things work.

We also all walk through the world subject to a cognitive fallacy that's known as the false consensus effect, which is until somebody proves otherwise, we walk around believing that everybody else sees the world the same way we do. Which is oftentimes why you like, and I'm sure we've all had this experience when all of a sudden somebody comes out with some belief or some position on something, you're like, whoa, what? Like you...

I had no idea that you thought that way about this thing or that you're like suddenly like, and it makes sense that we wouldn't constantly be thinking about how everybody sees the world differently from us. That just takes too much effort. And our brains are fundamentally, let's call it energy efficient. Lazy is another word to worry about it. But when we're trying to make this case, we actually have to start digging pretty deep and keep saying, okay,

well why is variety important why is scale important why is you know a focus on strategy important and your first couple efforts will will kind of come out to the equivalent of because they are or you know very likely outcome in the first couple tries are like because it achieves

something related to the outcome that they're looking for. Like, well, that's just a loop, right? We have to say why it achieves that thing, right? So it's not just, well, you know, how do you successfully achieve a strategic shift? Well, people have to be accountable. Why? Because they have to be, right? We have to say, well, what is it about this thing that makes it fundamentally beneficial?

you know, related to and essential to achieving this thing. So like going back to the iPod example, you know, we could say variety and some people would go, okay, yeah, but we need to make it explicit why for them or what, you know, they're, they're, you know, just anchoring on what we think is going to be the most attractive aspect of variety. So it could be something like

you know, the more of your library you can take with you, right? The more control you can have or the more of your library where you can take with you, the more you can match your music to your mood.

And you could you could kind of generalize that to something where it just says, well, when it comes to variety, more is more. Right. And the ideal client or the ideal customer for that for the iPod is going to go. Yeah. I mean, that's what most people did. Thousand songs. They their story making brains put their own principle in about why a thousand songs would be better.

But sometimes when we're particularly when we're having internal conversations about change, you don't want to leave that open to chance because, again, people will fill in the blanks with how they already see the world. And if how they already see the world and their go to doesn't actually support that change. Hey, the thing I'm doing now is working just fine.

If we're not explicit, not just on why we want to do this change, but why we want to do it this particular way. This is really important. It's like Simon Sinek version two. Like it's not just know your why, which is outcome we're hoping for from this change, but it's this next but critical layer, which is the why behind your how, right? Why are you doing it this particular way?

Because that's actually where our beliefs, our principles, our long-term alignment, our true investment in a way of thinking or behavior is going to come in. Because if

And fundamentally, we don't agree with how someone does business or how a leader goes about their work or how I'm being asked to treat somebody. I just can't do it. I remember one time, Michael, early in my career, I worked as a change management consultant and I had this realization as I was working with this company because we provided training to the folks that were basically going to get

screwed over in a merger. And the training we were giving them was all, on the surface, it was all for the employees so that they'd be more successful. Except I started really paying attention to what were the messages in this. And the messages in it were essentially, go along, do what you're being told. If you don't get doing what you're being told, expect to be fired. And I got to a point where I'm like...

fundamentally cannot work for a company that is

saying one thing, like saying one thing to these, to the employees saying that this is going to be what's good for you. And meaning something completely different. And meaning something completely different. And I was just like, Ooh, I can't, can't do it. And maybe I misinterpreted, but it's how it felt to me. And ultimately that plus some other issues with the company. Well, that's probably how it felt to everyone else too, right? If they figured it out, right? Because I mean, that's the thing where you come in and you're like, wow, this is the best way to be. I mean, people are like, Hmm,

I don't know. Again, if it doesn't align with kind of their intuitive sense of what would work, it's not going to work. So this is really about kind of like, let's make the intuition explicit. So it is about digging. And you had asked about how do we get there? I think that classic five wise exercise is a really good way, right? So it's just like, well, why does it do that? Well, why does it do that? Why does it do that? And ultimately, usually what you come down to is, okay,

Some kind of descriptive phrase about how you believe the world works. And there's generally two forms. One is a definition, right? So accountability is the ownership of outcomes. And the other one is a kind of cause and effect relationship, right?

Success requires execution at scale or, you know, when it comes to variety, more is more, more variety is more better. So I've got, first of all, I love this a couple of things. I keep coming back to like, I think that a lot of marketers are decently well skilled at how to get at a why, but I think that they're not as well skilled at getting at beliefs. And that's where, um,

That's where I feel like what I'm hearing you say is, look, no matter who you are, whether you're a marketer or CEO or entrepreneur or whatever, you really...

Tamsen is saying you really need to understand what this person or groups of people believe to be true, or you're just going to bang your head up against the wall because your why is based on a presupposition that you understand what their beliefs are in the first place. Do you understand where I'm going with that? And that could be completely off. So you could have a greatest why in the world, but if you don't understand what people believe to be true,

and align those things really nicely, I think you could be in trouble. I don't know. What are your thoughts on this? Absolutely. I mean, I think that that's fundamentally part of why I wrote this book is that, you know, I've been in marketing for decades.

25 years. I mean, I've been in and I have always considered marketing to be change communications at its core. It really is. It's about how do we communicate to create change? Our jobs are getting people to understand and adopt new ideas. Like that's our job. And the thing is, like in order to really understand our job, we have to understand how people come to understand and adopt new ideas. And

And, you know, the more that you dig into that, the more that you realize that, I mean, I think we know at some level that it's based on belief because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people to believe like that they need this thing or they want this thing.

But I knew and I know perfectly well, like that who, like when all things are equal, who do we trust most? Like whose experience do we trust most? Whose judgment do we trust most? Ourselves, of course. Ourselves, of course. And so this is really figuring about what is it that kind of most...

most people would agree is true. And what's hard for marketers that I've seen over time is that we have to pull the marketer hat off and think about what makes this true, like this element, what makes this true no matter what is true. Because if we're talking

about accountability is the ownership of outcomes, we could be talking about that over in some other context entirely, right? And not be talking about navigating a strategic shift. It's true over there, right? Therefore, it's probably true over here too. So we're looking for some universal truths or beliefs on which we can tag this whole thing together is what I'm hearing you say. That's right, exactly. And this is a place where

I am deeply interested. It's where I'm starting to like focus my doctoral research because I think that there are layers of kind of beliefs. I'm not going to get too scholarly on you here, but there's layers on belief where we, whether we come in from kind of a physical sciences standpoint or whether we come in almost from a philosophical standpoint, there's still layers of belief. Right. And,

And a lot of our issues, I would say from a societal standpoint is that we've started to lose some, you know, we've started to kind of try to act as if one is like, or unlike the other. Most people would agree that there is some level of physical reality that we experience. And I don't care whether that's a result of living in a simulation or not, right? Like regardless, whatever

you think is driving it like whether that's a higher power and that higher power is you know related to your faith or whether that high power is like some kid in a computer somewhere going oh this is fun that you know there are certain things that the there are certain rules that seem to apply universally within this world that we're living in no matter what like things fall pretty sure that's gravity germs pretty sure they cause disease we know they do like there's an overwhelming

amount of fact, right, that says certain of these things happen. And then there are more subjective things, right, about why those things are true or where they come from. And this is where I think the kind of innate talents and the developed skills of marketers come into play because this is where you start thinking hard about your ideal customer, your ideal client. And it's about figuring out to what extent

are you and your company, your brand, if you're a solopreneur or whatever, what position are you willing to take? Now, this is really important because I think we, you know, as marketers, we spend a lot of time thinking about our positioning statements that we're, you know, we're the only people who do this for that for whatever.

I am of the opinion that in order to really successfully have a position in the market, you need to be really clear on what position you take, which brings us back to that question and those elements that create an answer, right? Vince takes the position that

The way to successfully navigate a strategic shift is to scale accountability. There's other people in the leadership development space who would argue something different. Amy Edmondson would argue for psychological safety, right? There's different answers and it's the answers that are A, how you differentiate. But even when you've got two companies that are offering the same thing,

The only place that you really can differentiate then is why you have built your product or offering the way that you have. Right. So the other day I was doing, I was chatting with somebody at a social media management platform that I'm sure we all know. And.

You know, that's that's one of those examples. Right. Because, you know, it's very possible that multiple social media management platforms are answering the same question. Right. With what on the surface looks like pretty much the same stuff. Right. There's going to be tiny details.

But as marketers, because we don't think that there's anything else, where are we spending all our time? On the tiny details. Where our thing has color, right? Our thing has five reports, right? Our thing has this report. No.

It's deeper than that, right? One thing that was so interesting as I was watching just a clip, you know, in the midst of this thing was that each of the testimonials that they had chosen was speaking to kind of the reporting functions. And I said, you know what, that's a clue to what's important to you. Yes, your client said it, but you put this, you put this, this ad together. And so think about what is it that you believe that this reporting is

does that makes it fundamentally better than something else. And I was like, it sounds to me based on what they're saying, that you all believe to your core that visibility is really important. And I was like, and it's probably something along the lines of, you know, the better you can see, right, the effects of your posts, like the better you can know what's working and what's not. Again, cause and effect. Most people aren't going to disagree with that. And if they do, not their client.

Right. And then it was thinking about, OK, well, what else do they do? And he's the other piece that was very strong in those testimonials was this kind of comprehensiveness, right?

And, and I, you know, we were talking a little bit about that. He's like, well, yeah, we're, you know, we, we make sure that all our data talks to each other. And I was like, oh, see, now that's a thing, right? So it's just like, okay, if you've got visibility and you've got all this data, but you can't actually compare it across platforms, across anything else, because you've got all the silos of data and nothing actually matches. Well, how useful is that?

But now they can start to and they already do this. But now they've got the ability to take what we were talking about and make it explicit to say, yeah, if you've got this question, you already know the answer is some kind of social media platform. Right. You know that. But you need to decide whether or not like this kind of comprehensive visibility is the thing that you want or somebody else's approach.

But here's the, I just, it's like, this is magic secret that kind of free bonus, you know, Seth Godin was a free prize inside for doing that.

So few companies and brands actually make that clear that honestly, it's like the first people to do it. Suddenly their whole product makes more sense than anything else in the market. And everybody else is playing me too. Oh, we've got visibility. We've got comprehensiveness. And it's like, yeah, but they're the ones that kind of really set it out that way. So yeah,

I think that, I mean, I'm biased because again, spent my career in marketing. I think marketers are truly uniquely skilled to drive to these kinds of questions internally, to keep asking and to have that hat of the consumer, of a skeptical consumer on. That's the important thing. You know, when you're doing this interviewing internally, you have to kind of take off the

I'm an advocate for the company. And when you're faced inside, you've got to be an advocate for the consumer. And your job is to represent the skeptical consumer. And you need your leadership, your product team, your, you know, your program managers to convince you why they've done it that way. Because it's only when you can understand and you can make the case for it,

As a skeptical person, can you then turn around and then be that kind of like enthusiastic advocate for the company, making that case back out? And that's, I think, I really don't know anybody else in the organization that is based on their background, what they know, that ability to translate the market to the leadership, et cetera, better suited to do this work than the marketers.

If people are to grab your latest book, say what they can't unhear, what will they discover as a result of reading your book? They will discover what they need to know about how change happens to significantly raise the probability that they can be that kind of agent of change.

Cool. And I'm sure you're going a lot deeper into some of the stuff that we're talking about right here. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, there's, yeah, there's nine principles. And I, in the spirit of the book, say what they can't unhear those principles. I've, I've framed them in such a way that I'm hoping that they are nice and easy to remember. And also when we printed it, we printed it with like a, a, a,

like a bookmark that has all nine of them on there. So, Oh, very cool. So that you can kind of like a quick reference point to be like, Oh yes, that's right. Every decision has a story. Have we given, have we made sure that over the course of this copy that we have introduced those elements? You know, have we based this on beliefs that people already have?

Have we reinforced the fact that people want to be seen as smart, capable, and good? Or are we putting little snarky things on our buttons like, no thanks, I like paying more money, which is personal bugaboo mind. It's like, why would I want to work with a company that insults me when I press no? So, yeah.

Tamsen, if people want to connect with you on the socials, maybe they want to hire you or they want to work with you. What's the preferred social platform? And also, if you want to send them to your website, where do they want to go for all? Sure. Yeah. So preferred social platform is LinkedIn, though also a little bit more casually apparent on threads as well. But LinkedIn is the primary platform and the best place to visit to see more about me and what I do and how people can start to do this themselves is MessageDesignInstitute.com.

- Tamsen Webster, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. - Thanks, Michael.

Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 638. And if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a longtime listener, would you let your friends know about this show? I'm at Stelzner on Facebook, at Stelzner on LinkedIn, and at Mike underscore Stelzner on X. Also, do check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting socialmediamarketingworld.info.