Simple Sells

Have you ever been subjected to the “K.I.S.S” framework? No, it’s not a playground thing. It has its origins in the US Navy and it’s an adult-society-really-uses-this thing.

The first time you’re introduced to it, the conversation invariably runs something like this:

“Oh I see you’ve written “KISS” in your comments on my work — what does that mean?”

“Aha! It’s a funny and memorable acronym for… “Keep it Simple, Stupid!”

“Ok so I need to make my story simpler. Also, did you just call me stupid?”

The individual leaves the interaction wondering how they can explain themselves more simply, but without any guidance on how to do it.

If Keep it Simple, Stupid is too “simple stupid” to be an effective guide, how to make a complex story simple enough for people to understand?

Why Keep it Simple? 

First, is it really worth the trouble? I’ve delivered several workshops to startups and most recently Singapore’s Economic Development Board on the topic of storytelling, and I always start with why it’s such a crucial skill, as many of us overlook the power of a simple story to change hearts and minds.

Last week’s article explored how some pop science and self-help books sell millions of copies because of their ability to distil ideas into a simple, compelling story that removes life’s niggling complexities.

The fact is, simple sells. And whether we’re negotiating multi-million dollar contracts or asking someone we live with to wash the dishes more often, we’re all sales people in moments where we want to get the job done.

The philosophical theory of Occam’s Razor proves that a simple explanation with few underlying assumptions is less likely to be called into question than a complex one. In practice, this means that with a simple explanation, we’re less likely to interrogate the underlying evidence and more likely to give the owner of the explanation “the benefit of the doubt”.

Last week I cited the famous Freakonomics case of crime rate reduction in the US. This is a living example of Occam’s Razor (so-called because it shaves off parts of the full picture in the name of simplicity). The authors confidently explain that other economists in the field failed to identify the true cause of the early 1990s drop in crime rates: legalisation of abortion eighteen years prior.

This is much more compelling than explaining that among many other factors such as increased education, increased investment in policing and increased affluence, abortion also played an important role. Whilst this explanation is much more likely, we are less inclined to believe it, buy into it and remember it because it’s a murky mixture of factors, not a simple, clearcut story.

Not only is this a reminder to take a critical eye to the simple stories we read, it’s also a reminder that sharing the full complex picture doesn’t sell, and we’d be wise to keep things simple (ideally without misrepresenting the truth!) if we want to see results.

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How to keep it simple?

Whether it’s telling a story using words or numbers or simply explaining your point of view, it all boils down to storytelling. Crafting a story is like drawing a picture. Two steps are needed to make it engaging to look at: 1) draw a clear picture and 2) colour it in.

Draw a clear picture

Decide what exactly you’re going to draw: start by considering how you would explain the core idea as an elevator pitch, distilling it down to the key details.

Structure it on paper: does you story have a beginning, middle and an end? We think of this simple 3-part framework as relevant only to the fiction stories we wrote as children, but it can help us structure our thoughts ahead of any meeting or presentation.

• Beginning: what context does my audience need? 

• Middle: what message do I need to land and how do I spare them everything else in the murky middle?

• End: how do I want to leave my audience feeling?

Lastly, neaten up the lines: use ChatGPT and other AI tools to help you flesh out the key points, change the tone of voice, reduce the words or tidy up sentence structures.

Obligatory AI health warning: take too much advice from these tools and you’ll end up with bland, generic prose, miles away from the engaging story you were after in the first place.

Colour it in

Colour can make a drawing leap off the page. Similarly, a clear, well-explained story is only half the battle. Adding colour makes it sticky, memorable and easier to understand. How to do it?

Add emotive words: a good way to learn how to do this is to read newsletters from famous news outlets. At first glance, This New York Times newsletter seems to be reporting the facts of the recent US presidential debate, but in the space of three sentences the journalist slips in emotive words like “panic” “brace” “tanked” and “shaky” that engage (and perhaps enrage) the reader, encouraging an emotional response.

We’re all emotional beings, and a good story produces a chemical reaction in our brains when it appeals to our emotions, releasing hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin and making us much more likely to act on it.

Use metaphors and analogies: something’s only simple if you understand it. And explaining something to someone who does not have the same context as you often means coming at it from a different perspective. That’s where analogies and metaphors come in.

Analogies are especially useful when explaining technical concepts, for example, blockchain, to people with non-technical experience. Block Geeks explains blockchain’s distributed ledger succinctly using a familiar metaphor: “Picture a spreadsheet that is duplicated thousands of times across a network of computers. Then imagine that this network is designed to regularly update this spreadsheet.”

Lastly, use images: don’t underestimate the power of design to illustrate the point. If pictures could do it better than words, use pictures. An estimated 65% of the population are visual learners, so pictures go a long way to telling a good story.

One more thing

The one thing we’re missing that makes the picture most engaging of all? Credibility. The most famous galleried artwork is not necessarily the work of the most skilled artist. The credentials of the artist have a significant role to play. Why are YOU the right person to be telling this story? Every good author and speaker makes no mistake to emphasise that upfront.

Keeping it simple is not as easy as it looks, but structuring clearly and adding colour is a good place to start. Next time someone tells you to “Keep it Simple, Stupid”, resist the urge to tell them their framework is stupid and follow the steps above instead.

Author’s note:

As I mentioned above, this is a topic I’m passionate about and have run workshops on. I truly believe storytelling is at the centre of everything we do!

I’ve also been exposed to the old “storytelling is fluffy” rhetoric more times than I can remember. If that’s the case, we’re all a little bit fluffy: a simple story well-delivered catches our attention and can spark a powerful emotional response. Why should we leave that superpower unused?

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