The Lowest Common Denominator
I belong to a few business groups so educating people on graphic design, website design and search engine optimization is something I do quite regularly. Since I’ve been attending and presenting to various business groups for quite a few years, I like to think I have become good at breaking down the service(s) to the “lowest common denominator”. Well I learned the other day how I really lost an audience member
Without going into the details a business owner emailed me the next day for further information about search engine optimization. This was the question:
I’ve never used a search engine before but was interested this morning after you discussed it at our meeting. I’m wanting to talk further and have you explain it and think about cost vs. return.
Obviously I took the term “search engine” for granted. I know I USUALLY qualify the term “search engines” by saying something like, “…I optimize for the major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN …”. But, I guess I was feeling a little lazy the other day and I decided not to define the term.
Getting to the point of my post- No matter what industry you are in, I hope my experience here is a gentle reminder for everyone.
Break your services down to the “lowest common denominator” and break down all your services and terms so nothing gets lost in translation.
This post is 100% right-on. Many times I’ve seen that smart people, in a group, hate to look like they don’t know what’s going on. I catch myself in that trap way too often–not raising my hand during a discussion and just admitting: “I don’t know”.
Your point is well taken–keep covering the basics, even when the audience is educated.