One of my favorite sessions at #BMA14 was led by Joe McCormack, Managing Director, Sheffield Marketing Partners, and author of Brief. His point? Go deep, but keep it simple. We’re all too busy for long-winded, blustery talk. No one’s going to listen if you go on too long. People will tune out. Your email will be deleted.

There’s a difference between superficial brevity, when you just don’t know that much and therefore you have to keep it short; and profound brevity, when you know your subject so well, you’re able to distill it down to the essential facts and talk about it succinctly. Where to start the trimming? What’s the right level of information you need to be sharing? It’s a matter of learning to separate the essential from the superfluous. Preparing an outline of your message and visually mapping it out is an effective approach to begin to separate the wheat from the chaff.