What’s on your first page?

Recently, marketing guru, Seth Godin, wrote: “There will always be first page news because there’ll always be a first page.” What he meant is that news publishing houses determine which news article should be on the first page for only one reason: to attract readers.

People do not get fearful or angry because of the news themselves, but because of what is shown on the first page. 

There is a positive side to this topic in that the first page means focus. You can change the focus of people by the headlines you show on your first page. Sure, you probably do not publish a newspaper, but you have a virtual first page of your business or your team. 

The issue is this: if you as a leader do not decide what should be on the first page, everybody will put their own stuff on it.

With the effect that everybody has a different focus. And from what I see, this lacking alignment of focus is one of the key issues for virtually all businesses and teams: they don’t have clearly defined and shared business headlines. 

I suggest you do the following with your team: Create a first page of an imaginary newspaper for your business or your team.

Create the headlines you want your people to believe in and focus on (see below 10 examples of such headlines). Then, explain and discuss these headlines with your people, assign an owner for each headline, and let the headline owners write a story that explains and details the headline. 

If this exercise feels awkward, get a business coach for support. The value in return will be tremendous. 

Next steps: 

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10 Business Headline Examples:

xyz (your company name) about to get 10,000 new customers in only 3 months!

There is no better place to work, say team members of xyz (your company name)

98 percent of customers of xyz (your company name) say they will buy again at the same company

“We work here for our joint mission, not for money”, report the team members of xyz (your company name)

How we turn our customers into raving fans

Customers of xyz (your company name) report over and over again how excited they are about the service levels

The business strategy has never been as clear as today, say employees of xyz (your company name)

By the end of this year, xyz (your company name) will be number one in their market for customer service excellence

How we set the industry standard for joy and productivity of our workforce

Why employees at xyz (your company name) are eager to start work on Monday mornings