Last week, I watched The History Channel’s 3-part mini-series, The Sons of Liberty. I’m a history buff, especially when it involves the Revolutionary War era. The show was good, the acting decent, and the entertainment fine. That being said, it was purely fiction. For instance, the young man playing the spirited Sam Adams was probably 33 years old. In reality, Adams was 50. His second cousin John (eventually to be our 2nd President) was portrayed as meek, cautious, and quiet. The real John Adams was loquacious, emotional, and cantankerous. The show had poor Paul Revere in virtually every battle and conflict, when in truth he was mostly a spy.

Here’s the deal… Even though the station is called The History Channel, the intent of the mini-series was to be good theater. Just as in public speaking, never let the absolute truth get in the way of a good story meant to convey a message. The goal was to be interesting, which it was. In fact, it caused me to do some research on factual events and I learned a few new facts. Mission accomplished.

You and your business need to be an object of interest. If all you ever do is spout out the boring “facts” about what you do, then your audience may flip the channel before they even get to know you. What they want to hear is how you improve their condition, and it had better be engaging, dynamic, and interesting. We humans have a short attention span. It’s grown shorter as platforms like Twitter make us think in sound bytes. Your “bytes” better be delicious or your target market will find other more appealing morsels.

Bottom line, you may need to eschew a little “fact” for “entertainment”purposes to gain and keep attention. Focus on your message of how you make people and businesses better by becoming a true object of interest.

© 2015 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved