I’ve been re-reading “Clients for Life” by Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel and saw a very nice piece of advice about ensuring that your message to your clients and potential clients is heard and remembered. The book, which is very good and has been on my recommended reading list for quite some time, has a chapter (#5) titled “The Big Picture” that provides a nice discussion on helping clients see ‘the big picture’ as well as how to see that picture yourself. In the chapter, the topic of presenting information to clients is discussed and a few examples on messaging are given.
Sheth and Sobel state that most people are “only able to absorb and remember three main points from a discussion or presentation” (Clients for Life, p. 123). Because of this, it is key to keep messaging as short and simple (without being simplistic) as possible. The authors provide a nice easy reminder for helping us to focus on our messaging with the following:
Before any client meeting or presentation, ask yourself: if someone encounters my client in a week and asks him what we said today, how would I like him to respond? What are the main points I want him to remember? (Clients for Life, p. 124)
These are some nice questions to ask yourself while you prep for a presentation or client meeting. I think they’re probably just as good for writers to use when writing a new post/article as they should help to focus the message…and I know I need help focusing my posts sometimes! 
There are many very good blogs/authors that dive into this topic in more detail. They are:
[tags] Communications, Clear messaging, Clients for Life [/tags]
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