Botox is either a miracle cure for migraines and worry lines or a toxic scam – it all depends who you speak to.  Fuelled by our obsession with youth and beauty, it is estimated that more than a quarter of a million injections were given in Australia last year alone.

When did we decide that older does not mean wiser, and in fact, now means unattractive and unwanted?

Somewhere along the line it has become unappealing to let others see our emotions. The smile and frown lines we have come to expect and rely upon, are disappearing. If a person’s appearance is frozen and expressionless, how do we know what they are thinking and feeling? And more interestingly, does anybody even care? Are we trying to mask the facial clues or cover up the underlying emotions?

We now have infinitely more tools to articulate ourselves but do we really have better communication and relationships? More and more we find ourselves relying on highly impersonal means – SMS, Facebook, Twitter and email – to keep in touch, convey information and build relationships.

It seems like we are talking to everyone but not really connecting with anyone.

Only 7% of your communication is attributable to your words and 93% is conveyed by non-verbal means. Even though it is largely unconscious, you rely heavily on body language to discern what is (and is not) being said. Without these vital clues, you must make assumptions to fill in the gaps and hope that you are right. Oftentimes, you may find that you have missed the mark completely.

In essence text messaging, social media and email are the communication equivalent to Botox.

They allow you to defy time and distance by reaching MORE people but connecting with and accomplishing far LESS.  What happened to the good old days when you picked up the phone and spoke to the person you needed to be in touch with or met them in person?

Perhaps we’ve all just become far too busy for such primitive means?

Technology does have its place in our personal and business lives – but when is the last time you shot someone an email in order to avoid speaking with them? Have you ever sent a message and later discovered that the person on the other end took it the wrong way? I would bet you can think of a handful of examples where you have used technology in order to sidestep a difficult situation.

My point is this – if you want to build effective relationships and influence others you need to take responsibility for the effectiveness of your communication. While it may be easier to cut corners, inject fillers or hide behind technology, the wrinkles it creates will eventually come to the surface and bite you on the cheeks. Not only is it cheaper to grow old and communicate directly, it is also more beautiful and less addictive.

Today, I’ve got a major challenge for you. I want you to take a look at what you are currently spending on marketing – whether it’s on brochures, your website, pay per clicks, PR, newspaper, direct mail, social media etc. – and I want you to slash the total budget by 20%.  No matter what you are selling and where you are selling it, I guarantee that you won’t miss that 20%.  And there is a very good reason for that.  96% of the people who see your message right now, don’t get it anyway.  You are spending thousands of dollars each year on sales and marketing materials to increase your sales and the vast majority of your prospects don’t understand your message – so they can’t possibly recall it and buy from you.

So with the money you just saved in your pocket, we are going to take a few minutes right now to re-engineer your message and give you a much better chance of getting through and being understood.  The good news is this – it is not going to cost you much to take the time right now to create a message that helps more of your prospects to say “yes”. And if more leads say “yes”, the money you do spend on sales and marketing is going to increase your sales.

To prove my point, I’d like to make you an interesting offer – I can either give you $50 cash right now or a piece of paper where I will write the net present value of a five year annuity at a compound annual interest rate of 10%, adjusted for CPI.  Which of these sounds more appealing to you? Which would you rather take right now?  Which of these can you take now, put in your wallet or spend it at the shopping centre?

Unless you are one of those very rare individuals who can calculate in your head the value of my second offer, I’m willing to bet you’d rather just take the $50.  And that makes a whole lot of sense, because everyone knows what $50 is and what it is worth. There’s nothing confusing about it, is there?

The part of your brain that makes decisions is not interested in working hard to figure out what my message means and what it’s worth. That part of your brain is looking for something that is tangible.  And if you’re unsure about whether a message is tangible or not – ask yourself “would a 6 year old understand it?”

Think about it – if I offer you a $50 note or an orange, you don’t have to think very hard about it to figure out what I am offering you, do you?  Both of them are equally easy to understand.  As soon as you see it, you know what it is and you know exactly what you can do with it. $50 will buy you enough food to cook a meal and the orange is good for you – it’s tasty and you can eat it.  There are no directions and no heavy thinking required to make sense of what I am offering you.  Your new brain doesn’t have to do any thinking (and wasting time) to get my message.

So what does this mean for you, your message and your customers?  If you are making it hard for your customers to understand what you do and whether they are getting a good deal, you need to spend some time right now making your offer more tangible.  Ask yourself “does my message include a bunch of big words, fluff and jargon?”  Could it be boiled down to something that a 6 year old could understand?  What do you need to do to communicate it more clearly to increase your sales – t0 help your prospects to be able to say “yes”? Can you simplify the words that you use or introduce photos or props to get your message across faster?

Now, I think you can guess that coming up with a simple, succinct message is a lot harder than being lazy and throwing together an ad full of useless, complicated information.  A good rule of thumb here is to remember that you should be working harder to craft and simplify your message than your prospect has to in order to decipher it.  Someone has to do the hard work – either you are committed to doing it before hand or your customer will need to think about it.

Now if you are serious about saving money and you want to increase your sales, you won’t spend another cent until you stop, take a good hard look at your materials and do whatever it takes to make your message tangible.  You don’t have to spend more money to chase find customers.  What you really need to do is take the complication and confusion out of your message so that more of your prospects can say “yes” now.