Developing your Message - The 4 Key Points

When you tell people about your job or your position, how easy is it to describe? I work for a nonprofit, and inside that nonprofit I work for a state/federal grant. My job title itself is quite long (Education and Outreach Coordinator) and the grant's name is, too (INDATA - stands for Indiana Assistive Technology Act).

Explaining the grant to people is not always easy. I think it actually gets harder to explain the more I continue working here because it is really easy to explain to your coworkers and others around you who know what you do and how your business works. But it's not always easy to explain to others especially once you've been comfortable making up acronyms and other words to discuss the job.

The director of marketing for our agency spoke to my department and fellow grant workers on media etiquette today. I wanted to share a piece of it with everyone here on SI, and that is the 4 key points to your MESSAGE.

What's your message? What's your goal? Well, if you work at McDonald's it's pretty easy - we make burgers and fries and people eat our burgers and fries. But my message is a little more complicated. Let me explain: I work to help any person who lives in the state of Indiana get the assistive technology they need to make their lives easier. Some big issues with that - what is assistive technology? How is it going to make my life easier or better?

So, let's say you are approached by the media and they want to do a 30 second interview. Can you sum up four major points about your company in 30 seconds? Try this activity - grab a 3x5 notecard and write the four points YOU think are most important about your company and it's message. Then, take that card and talk to someone who doesn't know your job or your company and explain to them those four points. Does it make sense to them? Are they still confused? This is a great activity to see if a media person can write a good story about you or portray your company in proper light.