The clarity of an idea is based on the person receiving it

When sharing ideas and strategies with others, I try to be very clear. This takes two forms:

First, it’s not magic. It irritates me when people tell me they have someone “doing SEO” for their site, but they have no idea what they’re doing. We strive to be clear and transparent with what we do, because none of it is magic.

Second, and where I struggle more, is being clear from the perspective of the person listening to me. In the world of marketing, I see two common examples.

Responsive Design

Most websites these days are “responsive” meaning they adapt to all screen resolutions (from desktop to phone) smoothly. Simply saying “responsive” can make it sound more like it loads quickly, or has something to do with speed. I always try to say “mobile responsive” to make sure I’m clear about this.

Messaging

This one I’m more guilty of doing. We’re big believers in always undergoing a solid messaging strategy before we begin any project, as it makes the result far better. I often shorten that to just “messaging” and will say things like “we’ll start with messaging”. That’s not always clear.

Just last week I was talking to a potential client and I mentioned “messaging” and their response was “oh, like texting?”. That’s not at all what I meant, but I could absolutely see why they thought that.

In her book Radical Candor, author Kim Scott puts it this way:

“The essence of making an idea clear requires a deep understanding not only of the idea but also of the person to whom one is explaining the idea.”

If something I say isn’t understood clearly by the other person, it’s 100% my fault and something I need to resolve. Fixing it in the moment is fine, like I did with the messaging example above, but proactively being cautious about avoiding shorthand jargon is always a better way to go.