How I got to watch (and help a little bit) in the creation of a new discipline Learning the Power of Incentives I think I first understood the power of incentives when I was in my twenties and working as an unlikely salesperson for Chicago public radio. It was my job to find sponsorship from […]| Adam Davidson
It’s so simple. So powerful. And nobody does it. Just imagine what your audience is thinking. You can even ask them. You can’t communicate well if you can’t see the world through your audience’s eyes. Do they know and understand the terms you are using? Do they know and feel why the thing you are […]| Adam Davidson
Are people struggling to understand how your company solves major problems? Don’t use data and graphs and quotes. Use a story. (At least at first). Show us the problem in action. Tell us a real story of someone facing the problem you solve. You can use a real customer story. Or create an avatar story […]| Adam Davidson
Do you fear that people forget your pitch or speech, or other important thing soon after you deliver it? They probably do. You do, right? Quick: What were the key points of the last presentation you sat through? If you had to explain it to someone else, could you? I’m guessing you don’t remember much […]| Adam Davidson
The #Humblebrag is the most appealing and effective way to get people to believe you are awesome while also liking you. It works so simply: Tell a story of a time you really messed up. Like, colossally. Mine: I lost $9M of investor money in a failed startup by being a lousy CEO. The more […]| Adam Davidson
Are people not embracing your pitch? Are they skeptical, defensive, or just plain bored? Simple storytelling trick: Linger on the pain. I see a lot of decks. People seem in a huge rush to get to their big, new product! To explain how it solves every darn thing. But most of the time, that solution […]| Adam Davidson
Are you confusing your audience when delivering a talk, a deck, a sales pitch? There is one simple thing that a surprising number of people forget: You have to use words that your audience understands. Obvious. But so often neglected. Like shockingly often. Think of all the things you’ve read recently. Decks. Ads. Memos. The […]| Adam Davidson
Are you boring folks?Losing their attention? You probably have not made sure that your pitch, speech, memo, or other story have stakes: there is nothing at stake that really matters to someone. Or there are stakes but you haven’t made them clear. Don’t do this:– We provide 3PL solutions to wholesale.– We are the best […]| Adam Davidson
I know many (most?) of the people involved in most of these companies. And, yes, we have all made a lot of dumb choices and bad decisions. But that was true during the fast-growth stage of podcasting, too. I'm not sure there was any set of choices in which these companies would have succeeded. What changed is that podcasting became mature and the economics fundamentally shifted.| Adam Davidson
From Brooklyn to a farm in rural Vermont Five years ago, almost to the day, I left my dream job: staff writer at The New Yorker. It was the job I had fantasized of having when I was in high school in the mid-1980s, tried to achieve in my 20s, gave up on in my […]| Adam Davidson