How “Sound Bites” Make You A Memorable Leader

It’s no secret: people have shorter attention spans than they used to.

According to a study sponsored by Microsoft: The average attention span of a person in 2000 was 12 seconds and by 2013 it was only 8 seconds.

That’s not an impressive number when you compare it to the 10 second attention span of a goldfish.

With our society experiencing information overload and messages being reduced to 140 character tweets, smart professionals are learning to adapt their message to this new era.

One of the best ways to create these short messages is to follow Soundbite formulas. A soundbite is a very short message, about 10 words long, that summarizes your main point or idea. It makes it easy to remember, quote, tweet, and share.

Have you ever heard the following phrase: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

That’s a sound bite. It follows a very specific formula which you can learn by applying the information below.

Remember, this formula is just one of many but it is historical as you will see by the use of political quotes below.

Introducing the Flip-Flop formula for a sound bite

What do the following phrases have in common?

When the going gets tough

The tough get going

————-

Ask not what your country can do for you

Ask what you can do for your country

————-

Let us preach what we practice

and practice what we preach

————-

Yes, they were all spoken by politicians. But, that’s not the answer I was looking for.

>>> They have flip-flop sentences.

Example:

Going get’s tough > Tough get going

Your country can do for you > You can do for your country

Preach what we practice > Practice what we preach

Makes sense?

Here is how you use the Flip-Flop Sound Bite

1- Think of a message you want to get across to your audience:

Example: Don’t use slides

Example: Respect your audience

2- Figure out a flip-flop sound bite for that message

Example: You either use your PowerPoints, or your PowerPoints will use you

Example: If you don’t respect your audience, your audience will not respect you

What do you think?

It’s your turn now: come up with something and share it in the comments below. I would love to see it.

Conclusion

You either change your message based on your audience, or change your audience based on the message.

Society is changing, attention spans are dropping and you can’t change that. All you can do is change your message. Sound bites will help you re-formulate your message so it fits our current times. As a result, you will be more memorable, quotable and resonant.

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