The holiday and end-of-year hustle and bustle is in full swing. And as everyone attempts to cross the last items off their personal and professional to-do lists, I offer one small piece of advice: pause.
It’s easy to get swept up in what we think we should be doing at this time of year — and not so easy to determine whether it’s necessary or needed. We often whip ourselves into a stressed frenzy over things that — in truth — our families and friends wouldn’t want us to worry about. In one continuous thought string at 3 a.m. last night, I pondered that I should be baking holiday cookies, packing for an upcoming trip, writing an introspective year-end journal entry, and planning a memorable holiday activity for my teenage boys — all by sunrise. Rather than taking a moment to pause and be rational, I let my thoughts snowball. Certainly, it’s a failed holiday without Rice Krispie treats or Instagram-worthy Hallmark movie family moments, I thought.
I was suddenly snapped out of my own end-of-year rabbit hole by my buzzing phone. Panicked, thinking it could only be bad news at that hour, I picked it up. Apparently, someone at a shoe company I patronize was also working on his or her year-end to-do list. “I need to make one last pre-holiday messaging push,” the go-getter marketer thought. “I know! I’ll make sure our message is the first one our customers see on their phones when they wake up. I’ll program the message to be delivered at 3 a.m. Genius!”
Although the offer of 30% off was lovely, the middle-of-the-night delivery decision was anything but. I’m sure the majority of recipients read the message first thing in the morning, as intended. But for those of us who picked up our phone thinking only the worst at 3 a.m., I assure you it did not put me in the frame of mind to buy shoes.
It’s a lesson even professional communicators can forget. In our zeal to make sure our messaging breaks through, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Our messages land on real people. And although you’re never in complete control of the context in which a person will receive your message, you can give an extra pause to think through all the variables.
It’s not about the message itself; it’s about your customers. And it’s a pretty simple formula: Is this the right audience + the right message + the right time?
Not sure? Pause. Especially at this time of year, there’s power in it.
