Be FAB to be heard

This blog post explains the basics of FAB communication. FAB is a simple acronym to help you remember what people want to hear and what they don’t. Talk FAB and you have more chance of being heard. Talk FAB and you have more chance of getting what you need from your communication.

 

In training with IT consultants, I ask them to create a short personal CV for a potential client. I ask them for qualities that would be interesting for their clients.

I tend to get a lot of answers like:

1. Organisational Skills
2. Degree in Engineering
3. Bilingual French and German

 

F = Features …and basically: No-one cares

For me, the types of answer noted above are simply features of the consultant. Things they are or things they do. Most people don’t care about features because they simply aren’t interesting.

 

A = Advantages …which are already much better

An advantage is defined as what makes it better to have “F” than not have “F”. So I ask the consultants to translate their features into advantages.

This is what I get (respectively, for the aforementioned “F” answers):

1. Able to efficiently organise workload and ensure that priority work is finished on time
2. Able to understand complex ideas and translate them into models and processes
3. Can talk to Swiss customers

Already much better!! …but….

 

B = Benefits …and this is what people care about

In fact, let me slow down a bit. What DO people care about? Do I care about you? No! I care about me… and despite my wife and mother telling me to be less egoistic, I WILL ALWAYS CARE ABOUT ME.

Just like the procurement people looking for IT consultants care about themselves and their companies. So: We need to show the benefits of our advantageous feature. This means tuning in the advantage the situation, values and needs of the other person.

3 more examples:

1. Ensure on-time delivery of new IT projects
2. Help your people to implement new processes by defining clear and easy to follow steps
3. Increase sales in Switzerland by streamlining customer communication

(…notice how the 2nd and 3rd benefit statements include a clear reference to the “A” statement) Now that’s more like it!!

 

In conclusion…

Translating your features in to advantages that are beneficial for the other person is key to getting them to listen, care and act …and the applications go a lot further than selling IT consultants.

Here are a few examples of moments when FAB communication would be good:

 

Convincing your partner to take a different route to your holiday destination

• F = road name
• A = what makes that road better
• B = why your partner should care

A strong WIIFM statement in a presentation introduction

• F = “I will tell you about 1, 2, 3”
• A = Why 1, 2, 3 is good
• B = What you will get out of listening to me

The opening paragraph of this blog-post:

• F = “FAB is a simple acronym to help you remember what people want to hear and what they don’t”
• A = “Talk FAB and you have more chance of being heard”
• B = “Talk FAB and you have more chance of getting what you need from your communication”

 

I hope you liked this post and I hope you are ready to be FAB.

Feel free to leave a comment..

D

 

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