A financial services firm was introducing a first-of-its kind product. They approached us for advice on introducing the product to audiences who would themselves sell the service, and on sustaining and growing relationships with these ambassadors.
Invitational Incline®
Leading people to knowledge is not enough. You want to move them to understanding. Thaler Pekar & Partners has synthesized models from knowledge management, education, and media ecology to develop the Invitational Incline®, and to guide you in guiding your audiences.
Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I will remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
— Chinese Proverb
Today, information is easily had. There is a popular misperception that access to more information produces more knowledge, which results in more understanding. But, the opposite is true — more and more information without integration and interpretation only muddles our understanding of the world rather than enriching it. Leading people to knowledge is not enough when you want to move them to understanding.
Why are you engaging your listener and how can they participate in the solution you are offering? The Invitational Incline® guides you, step-by-step, in being both intentional and invitational in all your communication.
The Invitational Incline® represents the most contemporary, effective way to respectfully pull (not push) audiences into sustainable engagement with your product or cause.
“Information is having a library of books on shipbuilding. Knowledge applies that to building a ship.
“Once you’ve built your ship, Understanding is what allows you to sail it without sinking, to protect it from the storm that creeps up from the horizon in the dead of the night, to point it just so that the wind breathes life into its sails.
“A great storyteller is the kindly captain who sails her ship with tremendous wisdom and boundless courage; who points its nose in the direction of horizons and worlds chosen with unflinching idealism and integrity; who brings us somewhat closer to the answer, to our particular answer, to that grand question: Why are we here?”
– Maria Popova
How Can You Cultivate Ambassadors for Your Vision?
A great communicator advances up the Invitational Incline®, from data to information to knowledge to understanding — and moves audiences from simple intake to internalization.
Our team guides you in leading your audience through engagement and, ultimately, to evangelization for your solution.
Invitational Incline®
Client Example
Challenge
Approach
The Invitational Incline® was used to orient people within the firm, and to strategize the messages and stories shared with external audiences. The Invitational Incline® was applied to the pitch deck and scripts used by senior leaders.
Results
The product launched successfully and has exceeded sales expectations. Senior leadership is expressing great confidence in speaking both formally and informally about the new product. This confidence is translating into significant industry attention, media placements, and sales.
Trademarks
Through our trademarked methodologies — Engagement Equation®; Heart, Head & Hand®; Invitational Incline®; and Narrative Garden® — we strengthen you and your team's impact through powerful and pragmatic tools.
Engagement Equation®
The Engagement Equation® is a communications process that melds the transformational with the transactional, pulling your audience toward engagement on their terms.
Invitational Incline®
The Invitational Incline® synthesizes models from knowledge management, education, and social media marketing to guide you in guiding your audiences.
Narrative Garden®
The Narrative Garden® is a method for developing your orginization's overarching story by cultivating discrete, smaller stories shared by multiple stakeholders across diverse outlets.