#89: How to Fascinate Your Audience

I've got a question for you. Ready? What do Apple, Lululemon and Morton's Salt all share in common? Take a minute to ponder each brand. What imagery does it conjure up? More importantly, what feelings do those images create inside you? When I think of Apple products, I think of elegant, simple design and the feeling of effortlessly getting stuff done. Lululemon brings back that sensation of looking amazing when I'm working out (even if my workout itself feels less than amazing). And Morton Salt? I think of my mom's kitchen cupboard, which feels warm and nostalgic and makes me want to go bake cookies. Here's the answer to the quiz: all three of those brands share the power of fascination. Fascination, as my podcast guest Sally Hogshead defines it, means an intense focus. "When you’re fascinated by a person or a brand, you’re completely consumed in that moment. It’s that feeling you have when you’re working on a project and you’re totally in the flow. You feel creative, you feel confident, you feel focused and energized by what you’re doing. Or when you’re out at drinks with a friend—the time flies by, and you seem to be building epiphanies together in your conversation." Click here to listen to the full episode with Sally. For years, Sally's day job was helping big name brands like Nike and BMW find the perfect words to describe themselves. The first half of that search was understanding what they offered to their customer base that nobody else did; the second half was knowing how to capitalize on that uniqueness and capture it in language. At a certain point, Sally realized that nobody had really brought that idea over from products to people. Business owners were all about finding the right words to get customers fascinated with their products, but they weren't finding the right words to help people understand who they are and how they add value. These days, she parlays her understanding of what works in advertising world into a training to help entrepreneurs understand how people perceive them through their communication.