You know what separates a good message from a bad one? Giving a s#*!
Enough to say what you mean without sounding like a jargon robot. Enough to stop copying the same recycled mess and write something that actually feels like you. Messaging is clarity. It’s how your company explains what it does, who it’s for, and why anyone should care. That’s it. If it’s confusing, bloated, or inconsistent, no amount of design or demand gen will fix it.
Start with the Truth
Your message has to come from somewhere real. It can’t be created in a vacuum, during a brand sprint, and definitely not from your competitor’s homepage. What do you do? Why does it matter? Why should anyone trust you to do it?
If you can’t answer those without a struggle session, it’s not time to write. It’s time to find alignment.
One Message, Multiple Jobs
When messaging works, it needs to work everywhere. That doesn’t mean repeating a tagline in every channel. It means every version of your message—whether it’s said by your CEO on stage, by a rep in a sales deck, or in ten words on your website—should all say the same thing.
That’s where a messaging workshop can actually help. Not to invent something out of thin air, but to pull the real stuff out of people’s heads and get it on the table. When messaging works, it needs to work everywhere. Your website might say it in ten words, but your team still needs to be on the same page. That’s how it sticks.
Run a Sticky Note Workshop
The quick workshop is a great way to get all perspectives on the table without hierarchy or posturing. Here’s how it works: Gather a cross-section of your team—sales, marketing, leadership, product, operations, anyone close to customers or decisions. In a conference room, tape big sheets of sticky easel paper to the wall. Each one gets a question. As you walk through them, participants write their answers on small sticky notes and post them under the corresponding sheet.
Everyone gets an equal voice. No titles, no pecking order. Just ideas on a wall.
At the end, group the notes by theme, remove duplicates, and pull anything worth a red flag off to the side. What’s left is a clearer view of what your company actually believes, where you’re aligned (or not), and what needs to be tightened up.
Example questions to get the group talking:
· What do we actually do?
· What problem do we solve?
· What do our best customers say about us?
· Why have prospects chosen our competition over us?
· What gets in the way of us telling our story clearly?
· What kind of feedback do we hear on sales calls?
· What are words that feel at the heart of our company?
· What should we never say about ourselves?
Build on Clarity and Make It Matter
Just remember that messaging isn’t a copy problem. It’s a clarity problem. Until you solve that, everything else is just noise. Get your team aligned. Figure out what matters. Then say it, own it, and make people remember it.
