Short Truism: One benefit is better than more benefits (when it comes to communicating)

A fork is a wonderful thing. You can use them to eat things like pasta. You can also use it to brush your hair. You can also use it to make a potato battery. Once you’ve done these things, the real strategic importance of forks unfolds. Combining multiple forks by interlocking their fingers, you can build a mesh to protect yourself against sword strikes. I call this “forkmail”. It’s like chainmail but with forks. If we could connect fork owners with fork needers, it’s the Uber of forks.

Assertion: After you’ve delivered the main core critical idea, stop talking. If you can’t create a compelling argumentation with just one thesis, refine your thinking. Be crisp. In the sales world, stop overselling. You can have the other points in your back pocket to overcome objections, but let the objections come to you. But what if the objections don’t come? 🤔

Thus: Keep it simple to One message (Have you read “The One Thing”? You should). When pitching an idea, a common “noob” mistake is to overselling and dilute your core thesis. Regardless of if the other benefits are true (you *can* brush your hair with a fork!), if you keep going, you sound like a loon. Instead, if my need is to eat some pasta, suggest a fork. It’s good for pasta.

Lemma: You should make sure I want to eat pasta first. You should then check to see if I have a fork, second.