1. Crafting Your Message and Communicating It Effectively Paul Meyer Advanced Personal Property Assessors Conference September 13, 2011

2. Blame it on Ms. Communication... You don’t know your audience. You don’t know your message. You over/under communicate.

3. Getting to Know You... Who is your audience? Hostile Friendly Neutral

4. Getting to Know You... Who are the “players”? Committee chair(s) Committee members What are the rules of the game?

5. Getting to Know You... How much do they already know? Avoid technical jargon and acronyms. Don’t over-explain what they already know. Don’t assume they know something they may not know or be aware of.

6. What’s Your Message? 3-5 key messages What are the most important issues? How does each issue affect others? How can I boil it down to the essential information and make it easy to understand?

7. Consistency is Key!! Once you have your key messages, always come back to them – no matter what! “That’s a very good question, but what’s really important here is... ”

8. Find the Right Messenger Match the messenger to the audience and to the message.

9. Practice, Practice, Practice

10. Delivering Your Message Do your research – know: Your audience. Resources/allies. What questions you’re likely to be asked. The setting and how much time you’ll have.

11. Delivering Your Message Make it personal – relate your experiences or the experiences of someone your audience cares about. Stick to your key messages. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I will find out.” Then be sure you do! Don’t exaggerate or mislead.

12. “To Be, or Not to Be...” Be knowledgeable. Research Anticipate questions/ know the answers Be respectful. Time Point of view Be truthful.

13. Know the Code “I understand... ” “You know I have always been an advocate for local government...” PIN ‘EM DOWN !

14. “To Be, or Not to Be...” Do not be over-zealous. Do not be rude. Do not be over-confident.

15. Quit Beating that Horse! Know when to stop. Say “Thank You.” Follow up, if necessary. And, even if it doesn’t go your way, don’t hold grudges – your opponent today may be your teammate tomorrow.