Under the theory of Attention Economics, a person’s attention is treated as a limited resource. This is a trend we can all see impacting our daily lives. When someone sends us a video to watch, how likely are we to watch all the way through if the video is more than 20 minutes long? Or if it is more than 5 minutes long? Which are we more likely to read, a 14-page article, or a two-page article? Can we get by with just reading the summary?
In years past, if you wanted to sell a product or service or an idea to someone else, you had to have an “elevator pitch”: a brief, catchy way to communicate that product, service, or idea that could be delivered during the course of an elevator ride. You could expound on the thing later in various formats, but you had to catch your audience’s interest, make them want to learn more, first.
In 2022, the elevator is modern. The ride is fast. There is no stopping at different floors from point A to point B. And the audience you are pitching to may not even have the bandwidth to listen to a speech, preferring instead a single image or two which sum up what is unique about what you have to offer. The volume of things clamoring for our attention leads us to economize how we spend our attention. Attention Economy has greatly accelerated in all facets of how we live and work, and this applies to language professionals seeking the interest of new clients.
This can be a hard pill to swallow for some. As language professionals, many are exceptional at describing in detail and with precision what they do and what they have to offer. You can still do that, for those who wish to “read more”, as it were, but it is a good idea to lead with something else which is absolutely compelling, absolutely brief, highlighting your differentiators, and is easy to consume. Make that the very first thing they see. A project manager juggling various projects and deadlines will not spend too much time looking here and there to get a full picture of who you are as a candidate, nor should they have to nowadays. A best practice for getting new clients moving forward is to show them how you value the resource that is their attention by giving them a presentation of yourself as a professional that is easy to find, easy to understand, and is also beautiful.