I'm not talking about drill instructors, or nuns with rulers. Though that would be a start.
Think about how much work you put into writing a speech, an oped -- or anything persuasive. Structure matters. You don't just throw things into a pile and shove them at your audience.
You set things up and build to a climax. The structure matters a lot. The typical structure for documents meant to inform -- the inverted pyramid -- doesn't work.
Persuasion demands a different format and structure.
The same thing is true with talking points.
Yet it's common to see a page of bullets with no structure, no setups, no payoffs, no climax.
Every bullet on a page of talking points is not equal. Therefore, they shouldn't be the same length and importance.
Build a page of talking points like a speech or an oped.
I've changed my thinking a bit on talking points. All the talking points I've ever seen are all the same size. It's a page of 12-point Times New Roman with bullets in front of them.
In rare cases, I've seen rebels using 16-point text, and even then, they use the same size text for every line of bullets.
No more. The more important the point, the bigger point size you should make it.
There should be one over-arching message on top. This isn't one of a crowd of bullets. It's your most important one. Think of it as your Mega Bullet, the one thing you want people to remember.
Bump up your big message, your Mega Bullet, until it stretches all the way across the page. I don't care if it's 64 point when you're done. People naturally think whatever is biggest is the most important. Use that. Go big.
Then there are supporting bullets. Facts. Arguments. Numbers. One liners.
Anything that's supporting your big message should be smaller. Subpoints beneath those points should be smaller still. You can use the outline function in Word and tab things over.
The last bullet should be a call to action. Say your audience hears your client or boss use these talking points on the radio, on TV or in a speech. Say it went great. They people love it. Fine. What do you want them to do?
That's your call to arms, your climax, your last bullet. Make it bigger than the points leading up to it. The call to arms should be the second-biggest text on your page of talking points.
People tend to remember what you say first and what you say last. So the first thing should be your big message, and the last thing should be the ask.
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