Know your audience
Stay a While
Stay a While Remember who pays when you linger in slides Eric Harris October 02, 2026 The Cost of Lingering Walk into a casino and try to find a clock. You won’t. There aren’t any windows either, so an hour in, you can’t tell whether it’s two in the afternoon or two in the morning,…
Read MoreThe Pronoun Problem
The Pronoun Problem Why the story that worked in room one is tanking in room four. Eric Harris June 19, 2026 The Idea Was Good. The Campaign Wasn't. Getting a great idea across an organization is rarely a single conversation. It's a budget meeting with your VP. Then a working session with the team leads…
Read MoreProjections of People
Projections of People The audience you think you're addressing might exist only in your head. Eric Harris May 22, 2026 You Decided Who They Were Here’s a hard pill to swallow on a Friday: the audience you prepared for almost never shows up. Some other audience does. They sit in the same chairs, eat the…
Read MoreOther People’s Scars
Other People's Scars The advice is real. The experience behind it isn't yours. Eric Harris April 03, 2026 She Knows Her Material Cold Alex stands at the front of the room, twelve pairs of eyes anxiously glued to her. She has prepared for this. She has over-prepared for this. She knows the data, the stakeholders,…
Read MoreWe, Not You
We, Not You One syllable that decides whether your audience follows Eric Harris March 20, 2026 The Reflex to Audit There’s a habit so embedded in how leaders speak that most never notice they're doing it. They stand at the front of a room and begin describing the future. The strategy. The transformation. The ask.…
Read MoreStop Guessing. Start Archetyping.
A Shortcut to Empathy One of the fastest ways to connect with your audience is to stop guessing what they care about and start seeing them for who they really are. Enter the archetype. First popularized by psychologist Carl Jung, archetypes are universal, recurring patterns of behavior that live in the collective unconscious. When used…
Read MoreHow a CMO Reclaimed her Team’s Trust with Storytelling
Sarah was a newly minted CMO at a national restaurant chain. She was sharp, ambitious, and upwardly mobile, but she was already in trouble. Her team was burning out. Every quarter, they were tasked with producing the board materials: an exhausting parade of slides, talk tracks, and pre-reads on top of their already demanding day…
Read MoreHow to Get People to Show Up at Your Presentations
Recently, when speaking with a franchised restaurant client, we were discussing one of the greatest chicken/egg issues in the business: traffic. It’s a pretty simple equation, really, but talk it long enough and it starts to look like the snake eating its tail. More so than average guest check, traffic drives restaurant sales. And as…
Read MoreBetter Storytelling Through Chemistry
Moving an audience isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would do it. But even though it can be difficult, that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. In fact, many of the most effective storytelling techniques are actually simple, neurological hacks. Let’s take a look at three primary chemical agents of motivation and how storytellers…
Read MoreThe Transaction is the Reward, not the Goal
I recently had the privilege to address FreemanXP’s creative staff in a Hangout. Creative Director John Jaeger and I mused on the topic of selling ideas, and how important this skill is for creative staff at marketing agencies.
Read More