This week in the world’s #1 newsletter on leadership communication:

• Why Most Openings Suck (and How to Fix Them) ​
• On the Show: How Leaders Get People to Want to Follow Them​
• Book Recommendation: How to Try Again​

Why Most Openings Suck (and How to Fix Them)

Hello from Carpinteria in Southern California, where I'm recording leadership communications courses at LinkedIn's studios this week (more on my IG).

Whether it's a video, a conversation, a meeting, or a presentation, what you say first matters more than anything. It's called the primacy effect.

That's why a weak opening is self-sabotage. "Hello, thanks for joining. Aaaahm, uhhhh, … it's nice to be here today,” signals the opposite of what you want to signal.

It signals that this moment doesn't matter. And if it doesn't matter to you, why should it matter to your team or audience?

There's an easy fix. Always start strong and with intention (you can find my 10 Killer Opening Lines here).

More than the exact words you use, what matters most is how you prime your audience.

Priming is how you want your audience to feel. Framing is how you want them to think about your topic. Your strategic choice is: do you want to prime your audience in a positive or a negative way?

This has far-reaching consequences. Received wisdom is to start negatively with the pain or problem. You describe their pain to a customer, and they're more likely to buy. You describe a problem to your team, and they go and solve it.

I recommend frameworks like Problem-Solution-Benefit or Problem-Agitation-Solution to build a story that starts with a problem.

But to always start with a problem or pain point is a mistake. A lot of NGOs are learning this the hard way as they try to get people to support their causes by describing a problem like hunger, poverty, or climate change.

That gets them attention but also paralyses people. If you hand people a problem, but they don't have the power to solve it, inaction is the result.

Selling with negativity also has its limitations. Many customers and clients have become immune to the “FOMO meets pain” approach, and for more expensive products or services, negativity is less effective anyway. A BMW is “the ultimate driving machine”, not “your remedy against low status”.

So if you want to move people to action, start with a vision or goal. You can use frameworks like GPS – Goal, Problem, Solution – or Vision, Commitment, Execution.

The upshot: Negativity gets you attention but can make it harder to move people to action. That's why successful leaders have a clear vision they keep bringing up with their team and beyond.

A positive opening can feel a little softer, but it allows people to see a brighter future or understand a goal. Michael Margolis put it best: Do you give people an ice cream cone, or do you hit them with a sledgehammer?

ON THE SHOW

How Leaders Get People to Want to Follow Them

▶️ Episode 327 with Mark Victor Hansen on YouTube, Spotify or Apple.

Says Mark Victor Hansen – co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, with more than 500 million books sold and 59 New York Times bestsellers. On top of that, Mark is also extremely successful in business.

Here are five ideas Mark shares in this week's episode of Speak Like a CEO:

1/ Leadership is storytelling – full stop. Management tells people what to do. Leadership gets people to want to follow you. The only tool that does that reliably is a great, inspiring story.

2/ It always has to be the promise of the future. The best leaders don't sell products, strategies, or tasks – they sell a desirable future.

3/ Your brain is wired for negativity – fight it. 90% of media is negative, and it's easier to absorb than positivity. Leaders must be relentlessly, deliberately positive – otherwise they get pulled under too.

4/ It's no harder to ask for ten times more than twice as much. Thinking bigger doesn't require more effort – it requires a different perception. Set a goal large enough that your subconscious has to get creative to reach it.

5/ Success without sharing is failure. The leaders who leave the biggest legacy use their success to lift others. It's not just a moral position – it's a leadership strategy.

This is a rare and insightful podcast appearance by the man who holds the Guinness World Record for the most NYT bestsellers at any one time.

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BOOK RECOMMENDATION

How to Try Again

“Some people wake up at 4 a.m., run 15 miles barefoot, and take an ice bath. This book is for the rest of us.”

I met Steve Kamb, the founder of Nerd Fitness, at a mastermind in Atlanta two months ago and we immediately hit it off. He was kind enough to give me an early copy of his new book, which I devoured on the flight home.

“How to Try Again” speaks to me, maybe because I failed at pretty much everything from French tests to keeping plants alive to more serious personal and professional failures: speeches that bombed, a video course that three people bought, investments that went to zero, and a couple of businesses that were – to use a euphemistic startup expression – learning experiences.

But “we are not failures. We are humans who failed at something.” So how do we try again? Not by being more disciplined, but instead by being more compassionate with ourselves.

Steve suggests we make a PACT with ourselves: Pause, Accept, Change, Try.

If you're feeling stuck or are just hungry to try again, grab yourself a copy of this very human, helpful, and funny book.

Have an inspired weekend,

Oliver

PS: Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: private coaching; my 10-person cohorts; transforming your organization’s communication.

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