“He’s making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”
Hey, we thought this Santa Claus was a nice guy. Turns out that he makes lists, he checks them, he keeps records of who’s naughty and nice.
Well, actually, he just likes lists and so should you. Actually, we all like lists. Marketers especially. That’s why you’ll see “Nine Ways to Be Successful” and “13 Things You Should Never Say at Dinner.” Why are lists so attractive?
Because they’re finite. What if the title read “3,428 Ways to Be Successful.” I’m guessing people would be less interested, figuring they’ll never be able to remember them all, so why bother?
However, if the come on read “Remember these Three Ways to Become Tremendously Wealthy,” you might think, “This I can handle.” Plus, you’d have the power of 3, which is a proven winner. Why lists have become so popular lately might have something to do with short attention spans.
So the unwritten deal when we present something in a list is that the individual items will be short, so we can get through the list quickly, and of course, if it’s being spoken, there’s always a bit of excitement as we count down to Number One. It works OK for Dave Letterman.
10 Things We Did Right
There are other lists you can make that can summarize things that will help you in marketing and personal planning. These don’t have to be shared with anyone, though you can use them as a team building exercise if you wish.
Let’s start out positive: The 10 Things We Did Right This Year. Or “The 5 Deals That Would Have Been Breakthroughs Had We Been Able to Close Them.” How about “The 5 Ways We’re Changing the Game Next Year.”
This will force you and yours to do what journalists do all the time: create the first draft of history or an honest recalling of an event. You might find out something interesting: people tend not to remember things that just happened. There’s even a meme for this that you’ve probably seen: “What Just Happened.”
There’s an experiment the famous lawyer F. Lee Bailey used to conduct on television. He’d be chatting away with an interviewer, and suddenly something bizarre would happen like people coming out on stage, dressed in raincoats and jousting with umbrellas. Then the audience is asked to report what they saw. And they get it all wrong.
That’s why a review of the year by month or by list can be really helpful. You may be involved in a group project, and upon review, half the group thinks A happened and half the group thinks B happened.
Or, if you fly solo, you can go through your daily calendar and try to remember what all the commotion was in June. People resist making lists and reviewing things because they’re afraid they might encounter information they don’t like. That’s why you do it.
Works for Letterman, works for Santa Claus too.
