Here’s a quick sentence that is very good for encouraging people to become responders to, rather than just receivers of, your engagement, which is necessary to get the second of the three levels of engagement:

Receiver of  —>  Responder to  —>  Cooperator with

You’ll remember this line from your school teacher, or indeed almost any public speaker out there, when they want to get a sense-checking response:

“Put your hand up if…”

Of course, I don’t literally mean raise your hand in the air, although it could be that!. It could also be “respond to this email if“, or “click on this link if“, or “attend this meeting if“, or “join our group if“. 

Why should you use it?

  • It’s simple: a low barrier to action
  • It’s easy to respond to: you either DO or DO NOT put your hand up
  • It filters out your target audience: those who emotionally connect with the “if” condition will respond, those who do not, are not emotionally connected to it.

AND if very few put their hand up, you can very quickly diagnose the engagement issue. Either:

  1. People didn’t hear you, or
  2. People don’t meet the “if” condition of the statement, or
  3. People are ambivalent.

What do you do next? Well, hopefully you know me: scatter, gather, matter, right? So, we gather those who DID respond, matter to them, and involve them in the next scattering 🙂