What Moneyball Can Teach You about Messaging

Make sure your messages and medium st... Salesperson in a box: The reality of ...

What Moneyball Can Teach You about Messaging

Imagine your job is to make a movie about statistics.

Sounds fun, huh?

That's exactly the challenge that the director of Moneyball faced.

Moneyball tells the story of how Billy Beane, GM for the Oakland A's, used statistical analysis to find players who were undervalued by other teams.

It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It made over $100 million.

How did a movie about statistics achieve such success?

Through outstanding storytelling. Storytelling that used numbers in the right way to tell a story.

The movie opens with a montage of clips from a baseball game between The Oakland A's and the New York Yankees. You see a quote from Mickey Mantle saying, "It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." You see more clips from the game. You learn that it's an elimination game in the playoffs. Then it flashes two numbers on the screen – $114,457,768 vs. $39,722,689. Then, you get a bit more context. The team names are added to the screen. You see that those numbers represent the payroll of the two teams from the clips. You immediately see the problem. Then… "Columbia Pictures presents… Moneyball."

This all occurs in the first 90 seconds of the movie. You're instantly hooked. The problem is clear. How could the A's possibly compete? In a movie about statistics, virtually no other numbers show up in the movie after that.

The director, Bennett Miller, had to figure out a way to get his audience hooked as quickly as possible. He had to show people the challenge his hero was facing. He needed to suck you into the story. And in a story that could have had thousands of numbers, he chose just the right two to get things started.

Part of the magic was in the delivery. Show the numbers. Create suspense around what they might mean. Only then, explain what they represent.

Part of the magic was in the contrast. You can't help but look at those numbers and think, "That's not fair! That's an impossible situation!"

Part of the magic was the insight. You quickly understood the world was different than you realized. Even if you knew that small market baseball teams had trouble competing with the Yankees, it's still hard not to feel shock at the raw disparity in the payrolls.

Less than 90 seconds to get Attention, give a Memorable Insight to the Problem and start the Telling of a Story.

That's an amazing way to start a movie. It's also an amazing way to start a sales message.

What are you doing today to take whatever boring old thing you're selling (and it can't be more boring than a story about statistics) and turn it into an Attention Getting, Memorable Story?

If you love Moneyball, breaking the status quo, or great messaging, then you're going to love our annual Marketing and Sales Messaging Conference, taking place on September 18-20 in Chicago. No, Brad Pitt won't be there… but Billy Beane, the real star of the movie, will be one of our featured keynote speakers. Billy, along with Marketing and Sales leaders at Fortune 100 companies and your favorite Corporate Visions messaging experts, will be there sharing best practices on breaking through the Status Quo Barrier. There's even a special track for sales managers on how to coach to Power Messaging and use the techniques to become more effective leaders.

Register now!

http://conference.corporatevisions.com