22 July 2026
It hurts when people don’t listen to what you’re saying. It hurts financially when people don’t listen to what your business is saying. But it’s hard for them to hear if you’re not speaking clearly.
When it comes to business, the way to speak ‘clearly’ consists of three main principles: Repetition, consistency, simplicity.
Repetition
Say it. Louder. And again. Once more for the people at the back. The most effective communication does not happen once; It happens again and again and again, by repeating the same message until it’s seared into people’s minds.
Back in 2015, during a campaign which split the nation, Brexit won the vote with one simple message: ‘Take Back Control’. Against many disparate reasons to remain, they had one simplified argument; but it was an argument people remembered.
Consistency
It’s easier to remember something if you have a message or brand to associate with it. It’s hard to remember that something if your message is always changing.
‘Just do it’ isn’t particularly creative. It doesn’t try to tell an elaborate story and could be applied to a vast number of companies. Yet it belongs to Nike. Almost half a century of consistent use has made a slogan, which could otherwise be passed off as a perfectly ordinary phrase, inextricably associated with one brand.
Simplicity
Big words make you sound clever. But they’re also intimidating, complicated and a waste of most people’s time. The best communication is the one that everyone can understand. It doesn’t need explaining. It doesn’t require focus. And it certainly doesn’t require a lot of time. You don’t need to prove to people why or how you’re the best, simply that you are, in fact, the best.
Out of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential bid, there came one unforgettable quote: “It’s the economy, stupid”. Now, one may read this slogan and think to oneself, ‘That’s hardly the type of language we expect of our politicians’. But the message worked because of that very fact. Instead of using complicated statistics and analysis, the slogan told voters that Clinton was a man who understood their struggles, in language they understood.
So, got the message? Maybe I’ll say it once more, just so we’re clear. Pick a (simple) message and stick with it. Then repeat it until your tongue is numb.
It’s not magic. But it works.
