
Remember this phrase, โA message is a mess with age.โย
When starting to create your foundational phrase, don’t attempt to make it perfect in the beginning. Get ideas out of your head and on to paper (or a spreadsheet).ย
A good starting point for creating your foundational phrase is with the number of words. Ideally, your phrase will be fewer than 10 words. However, in the beginning of this process, don’t shoot for that 10 because this is a process that takes several iterations.ย
Get ideas out of your head. For example, for my speech Sell More With Stories, the original foundational phrase was:
Create and develop a meaningful and memorable story and deliver it in an authentic style so people will remember it long after you speak.ย
Thatโs a little more than 10 words.
You’re not going to remember that. Youโre not supposed to. It was my starting point. I kept whittling and chiseling at it until I got it down to those four words, Sell More With Stories.
ย Eventually, strive for fewer than 10 words. But in the beginning, get it out of your head and on paper, then work on chiseling it down to your memorable foundational phrase.
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Michaelโs mission is to help leaders, managers and sales professionals communicate with more confidence, impact, and influence. This passion is born from his own communication difficulties early in his career.
Fortunately, he discovered that public speaking is like riding a bike, swimming or driving a car - itโs a learnable skill. Once he discovered this โsecretโ he became a voracious student of the craft. He took courses, studied some of the worldโs best speakers and storytellers and continues to study presentation and business storytelling skills.
He is hired by companies and organizations, leaders, managers and sales professionals, and TEDx speakers to help them become more confident, impactful and influential communicators.

