Lead With Instructions, Close With What You Want Remembered

In 2007 I had Joel Spolsky keynote at ZendCon.

I remember exactly one thing he said in that talk.

"People remember the last thing you tell them."

Of course, that was the last point in his talk. The rest had something to do with lessons learned about how bad Windows printer drivers were... or something like that. But I remember that last point.

That was the trick, and I did not catch it immediately. He didn't just tell us the rule. He built the talk so the rule would prove itself on us. And it did. Nineteen years later I am still walking around with it.

I used it this week. A group of us were arguing about the order of a message going out to a few hundred people. One camp wanted to lead with the part they most wanted remembered, on the theory that anything buried gets missed. Reasonable. Also backwards.

Lead with what they need to do. That part gets used and then set down, and that is fine, that is what instructions are for. Close with what you want them to latch on to. That is the part they keep.

Now go read the last thing you sent.

Whatever you put last is what you actually said.

Originally posted on LinkedIn: "Lead With Instructions, Close With What You Want Remembered"