Have you ever heard of the game Mad Libs? You may be wondering why a blog written by someone experienced in corporate law would be talking about a game, but aside from legal services, Legal Solutions Group can also help you with your overall business strategy and operations – whether you are a profit-seeking business or a nonprofit organization. And Mad Libs is used by some marketing and branding experts to help board members become more fluent in talking about their core values.
You have almost certainly heard of an ‘elevator pitch’, right? This is a piece of verbal communication that can concisely summarize a concept, product or service in the time it takes to ride an elevator up (or down) a building. In that space of time, you need to be able to use your pitch to ‘sell’ your message to whoever you are presenting too. Could you do that about your business or department?
If this would be a struggle for you, Mad Libs could be the answer. In most cases, this game involves selecting random words to fill in the blanks of a piece of writing or series of phrases. The only direction the player gets is whether to insert a noun or a verb or an adjective, etc. After each player has contributed their word, the piece is read out – the results are often hilarious.
Well, it turns out that the basic Mad Libs format can be adapted for creating fluent elevator pitches while, at the same time, clarifying board members as to the organization’s core identity and their own place within it. Example phrases you could try out are:
Our organization is all about _________
Our organization’s main area of responsibility is____________
At the moment, the business needs to focus on ____________
When functioning at its best, our business delivers___________ to ___________
The benefits of working with our organization include ____________, __________ and ____________
Once board members are warmed up to this exercise – and the more relaxed they are the better – two things tend to happen. First, areas of confusion and conflict are suddenly verbalized, the first step towards clarification. Second, the creative juices start flowing and board members suddenly feel more able to create inspirational and fluent elevator pitches, as well as coming up with powerful ways to tackle resistant points by ‘pivoting’ from the existing conversation on to whichever phrases best suit the context.
If you’re interested in finding out exactly what Legal Solutions Group can do to help build, maintain, protect or even sell your business or nonprofit, please contact us today.
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