Sometimes it’s the Little Things

When I played basketball with my dad when I was young, he liked to post up and, when he got the ball, intentionally step on my foot before making his move. I called it dirty. He called it experience.

There are a million tiny things you can do to help sell your work. Here’s perhaps the smallest.

Before you present a campaign idea, do a little setup. Sometimes I put these paragraphs on a board, or hand them out so people can read along. Title or tagline at the top, then a few sentences that walk from the strategy to the execution (in as direct a route as possible–weed out all the tangential stuff). Maybe include a nice mood photo. This is pretty much standard. I have even played music while I read the setup.

So here’s the little trick. End the paragraph with your tagline. It’s stupid, I know, but think about when you’re reading a book, and somewhere in the prose of the book, you come across the title. It jumps out at you, and you start to think there’s something meaningful in that sentence. Like a theme. Like something deep. Like an answer, maybe. Sometimes it’s the little things.