Try describing it to your aunty

Joe Miller: Now, explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old.

• Philadelphia

I’m a huge electronic music snob and unapologetic about it.

At a family function, my aunty grabbed me and said meet so-and-so’s boyfriend he DJs.

I shook his hand and introduced myself, and threw out a few feelers:

“Yeah I’m a huge fan of progressive house, melodic techno, and and used to love tech trance back in the day”.

Fairly blank looks.

“John Digweed? Hernan Cattaneo? Gabriel Ananada?”

Again blank looks.

After talking to him further I learned he was at least 15 years younger than me, and despite our both liking electronic music the Venn diagram of overlapping artists was small.

The most impressive part though was my aunty was able to go “this guy’s a DJ, Luke loves that stuff, I’ll introduce them”.

My love for electronic music passed the aunty test.

Your offer needs to do the same.

It needs to be able to be explained by someone that vaguely knows you and can refer things your way.

There’s ways to test this.

Next time you’re at a family function, explain to your extended family (you don’t have to keep picking on Aunty Deb) what you’re offering/building/starting and watch to see if they understand what you’re saying.

Good indicators: nods, them being able to explain it back to you, excited exasperation, and “I know just the person who could use this”.

Bad indicators: “oh yeah”, so what do you mean?, “I’m just going to get a drink”, so what else are you doing these days?

You need your offer to pass the BBQ test.

If you can’t explain it. That’s on you. Not on who you’re explaining it to. Never blame the person who is listening.

Go back to your offer, simplify it, and make it easy to explain. A complicated offer rarely works - especially when you’re new.

Take ownership and responsibility for your clarity.