Your Voice Doesn’t Matter If Nobody Hears It: My Conversation With Jeff Watson

One of the things I enjoy about having Jeff Watson on E-Heroes is that I never quite know where the conversation is going to go.

Jeff has appeared on the show three times now—episodes 308, 360, and now 415—and while a lot of people know him as an attorney who understands self-directed IRAs, there’s another side to Jeff that deserves attention.

He understands advocacy.

More importantly, he understands something most business owners should already know:

One message is rarely enough.

During our conversation, Jeff talked about the recent changes surrounding FinCEN and beneficial ownership reporting. He considered the suspension of domestic reporting requirements a major victory for American small business owners.

But the bigger lesson wasn’t FinCEN.

It was how change happens.

Government Is a Business Expense

Jeff said something that should make every entrepreneur stop and think.

When he adds up real estate taxes, income taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, Social Security, unemployment taxes, Medicare and everything else, government represents one of the biggest expenses in his business.

Yet many entrepreneurs pay far more attention to saving $50 on software than they do to what government is doing with thousands—or tens of thousands—of their dollars.

We get busy.

We’re serving customers.

We’re dealing with employees.

We’re marketing.

We’re putting out fires.

And politics becomes something we complain about rather than something we participate in.

Jeff’s argument is that business owners can’t afford to do that.

One Email Isn’t Advocacy

Here’s where our conversation started sounding a lot like marketing.

Jeff has worked to get legislation in front of members of Congress. He explained that elected officials are constantly bombarded with emails, calls, social posts, requests and opinions.

They aren’t necessarily ignoring you.

You’re competing with an enormous amount of noise.

That means sending one email to your representative and deciding you’ve “done your part” probably isn’t going to accomplish much.

You need consistency.

You need repetition.

You need clarity.

Sound familiar?

It’s exactly what I’ve been telling entrepreneurs about marketing for years.

You don’t make one LinkedIn post and declare that social media doesn’t work.

You don’t mail 100 letters once and decide direct mail is dead.

You don’t send one email and conclude nobody wants what you’re selling.

And you don’t contact a politician once and expect your issue to suddenly become their top priority.

On-demand marketing doesn’t work. Neither does on-demand advocacy.

Repetition Creates Recognition

Jeff shared how an advocacy campaign mobilized hundreds of real estate investors to contact members of Congress regarding legislation he has helped work on.

The outreach wasn’t the end of the campaign.

It gave Jeff something tangible to use when he showed up in Washington.

Now he could tell a congressional office that constituents from their district had contacted them about a particular issue—and give the staff specific language they could search for.

That’s important.

The message wasn’t simply repeated.

It was coordinated.

It was recognizable.

And it was findable.

That’s good advocacy.

It’s also damn good marketing.

Whether you’re trying to influence Congress or convince someone to hire your company, people need to recognize the message before they can act on it.

Stop Screaming. Start Communicating.

There’s another problem.

People increasingly mistake anger for effective communication.

They go on social media and scream about politicians.

They insult people.

They rant.

They call everyone who disagrees with them an idiot.

Then they wonder why nobody listens.

Jeff made an important distinction during our conversation: effective advocacy isn’t about becoming a raving lunatic for either political side.

It’s about becoming a clear messenger.

Say what you want.

Explain why it matters.

Be respectful.

And then keep saying it.

That’s a lesson that extends far beyond politics.

You Have Seconds to Get Their Attention

Jeff spent decades in courtrooms.

That experience taught him something about communication.

He said that in court, he often had about 30 seconds to hook a judge.

On social media?

Maybe three seconds.

That means the first sentence matters.

A lot.

Jeff told me there was one judge he appeared before many times where he knew that if the first sentence didn’t grab the judge’s attention, he had essentially lost him.

So Jeff learned to ask himself:

What’s my first sentence?

That’s a question every entrepreneur, marketer, speaker and writer should ask.

Because nobody owes you their attention.

You have to earn it.

Clarity Doesn’t Always Mean Perfection

Jeff also credited his longtime assistant Debbie for helping make his writing clearer. They’ve known each other since high school, and she’s worked with him for years.

She understands grammar.

She understands Jeff.

And perhaps most importantly, she understands when the rules can be bent.

Jeff and I talked about how copywriting sometimes requires intentionally breaking grammatical rules to create a hook or emphasize a thought.

That’s different from sloppy communication.

You have to know what you’re trying to communicate before you decide how you’re going to communicate it.

Sometimes perfect grammar produces imperfect communication.

The goal is understanding.

Your Message Needs You

The biggest takeaway from my conversation with Jeff wasn’t political.

It wasn’t about Republicans or Democrats.

It wasn’t even really about FinCEN.

It was about communication.

If something matters to you, you have to communicate it.

Then communicate it again.

And again.

And again.

Whether you’re trying to reach Congress, attract customers, build a movement or simply make sure people understand what you stand for, you cannot assume one message will do the job.

The marketplace is noisy.

Social media is noisy.

Washington is certainly noisy.

Being louder isn’t necessarily the solution.

Being clearer, more consistent and more persistent is.

And if your message is important enough to say once, there’s a pretty good chance it’s important enough to say again.