The Power of Communication that Dramatizes a Point

Whether you own a business, work for a business, or are looking for a job in business, it is important to be on the lookout for ways you can communicate effectively to your customers and clients. I saw an advertisement the other day that did a splendid job of getting an idea across in such a way that it demanded the reader’s attention. This advertisement for Allstate Insurance read, “If 9 fully loaded jumbo jets crashed every year, something would be done about it. Every year, more that 4,000 teens die in car crashes. When even one plane crashes, the story is in the headlines for weeks. But the equivalent of 9 planes full of teens dying every year is barely a blip on the national radar.”

This ad went on to discuss their STANDUP Act program, and by, how placing certain restrictions on teenage drivers, states have been able to reduce fatal crashes among 16 year-old drivers by almost 40%. This example is very powerful analogy. It takes something the news media places an enormous amount of attention on, jumbo jet crashes, and connects it something you know happens on a regular basis, teen driver fatalities. By drawing the comparison, it brings a new awareness to the tragedy of 16 year old teenagers dying in car crashes because they are distracted by friends and driving late at night.

The question for you is how can you create an analogy of how your business benefits your potential customers. For example let’s say you own or work at an accounting firm. By doing the bookkeeping for a small business owner, you save him or her ten extra hours per week. What the owner earns per hour, should be substantially more than what he or she would pay a person to do their bookkeeping. This business owner can then take those ten hours and do a more effective job managing his or her employees.

The key to dramatizing your ideas is to communicate a concept or idea that taps into your listener or reader’s analytical and feeling side of their brain. When you are able to do that your message is able to create logic reinforced by an emotion. By themselves, neither one is very convincing, but when put together, both logic and emotion can form a solid bond that moves people to take action.

You can also use this method with your employees. For example, you can dramatize the amount of time and money that is wasted by having to rework a job. When you multiply the amount of money times the number of jobs that have been reworked, it can come to a considerable amount. Let’s say a reworked job costs the company $1,000 in materials and labor, and this kind of error happens twenty five times per year. The sum of which is $25,000. By going to the bank and getting 25 stacks of ten $100 bills and dumping them out of a sack at your next company meeting, you can dramatize your point of the need to reduce reworked jobs.

My point is when you use dramatization to communicate a point, you can influence people to change their behavior by putting logic and emotion to work for you.

Tom Borg is a consultant in leadership management, team building and customer service. Please see more of his blogs go to businessworkforceblog.com and administrativejobsblog.com. To view additional job postings go to Nexxt