Time. It isn’t what it used to be.

The pace of change will never be this slow again. This was a phrase we used to bandy around back in 2017ish. It made us feel like seers. As though we’d seen the fast-accelerating future and were wagging a mark-my-words finger at anyone who’d listen.

Times certainly have changed in recent years. And more dramatically than anyone might have prophesized. But, more significantly in business, the nature of time itself has changed.

Much has to do with the pandemic. Our humanity and collective spirit compelled us to connect with others, whether out of curiosity or a simple need to share. The absence of normal working lives of travel, dinners and meetings created unprecedented access. Everyone was suddenly more available than they were before. Moments away from a screen and ready to hop on a video call.

With this new-found access came urgency. People started using words like pivot. Fixing things that long-needed fixing. We suddenly had an excuse to make difficult decisions. The situation in which we found ourselves gave us permission to have ideas. And to take immediate action.

The marriage of access and urgency changed the nature of time in business. Three-month deadlines concertinaed into three weeks. Accompanied by greater energy, speed and we’re-all-in-this-togetherness. Being decisive began to beat dithering.

The infrastructure of work also changed to accommodate this dynamism. People, particularly in professional services, were permitted to go remote. Which meant spending more time in front of a screen. And this began to homogenize our working days. The weeks just seemed to get faster, with fewer real-life experiences to punctuate them and make them memorable.

Why am I wasting your time with this article? And bordering on TL;DR territory.

It’s because we at Heavenly have a vested interest (of course). We believe that the context of acceleration of time in business is a good thing, particularly when it comes to better, faster communication in this impatient world of ours.

The evidence is everywhere. Attention spans are shrinking to sub-8 seconds. Exacerbated by myriad ADHD-inducing digital distractions. While better technology is enabling an increasing explosion of brand choice for consumers.

Getting to the point is pointier than ever.

We can take inspiration from the concept of ‘BLUF’, or ‘Bottom Line Up Front’, popular throughout the military as an effective communication tool. Effectively BLUF encourages communicators to start with the conclusion. And keep things fat-free.

Two examples.

This was purportedly one of the last telegrams sent from RMS Titanic: WE HAVE STRUCK ICEBERG = SINKING FAST = COME TO OUR ASSISTANCE = POSITION: LAT 41.46 N. = LON 50.14 W. A message truly focused on the tip, rather than the iceberg.

In more recent times, one of our favourites from Steve Jobs. Launching the iPod in 2001, he described it as giving you 1,000 songs in your pocket. For fans of brevity, this is music to the ear.

We call our brand of BLUF the ‘seven-second sell’. A pithy nugget that explains what something does and why anyone should care. These ‘seven-second sells’ are handy little time-saving devices.

A few years ago we worked with a big bank. They had a problem. They were launching a new type of mortgage but couldn’t succinctly describe its benefits amongst themselves. The launch team all had a slightly different take on it, so they were getting tangled up in different angles. Their lack of simplicity and consistency were costing them valuable time. According to research from the Harris Poll and Grammarly in 2022 almost one working day per person per week is wasted on bad communication in companies. In the case of our clients at the bank, they eventually scrapped their cashback-cum-capped-cum-tracker mortgage for something simpler.

Good seven-second sells are created by crunching a lot of information into something super-consumable. With a side-order of lightbulb moment.

To bring this to life a little. We were working with an adtech client. We’re not doing them a disservice to say that their technology serves ads to people on websites and mobile in interesting, disruptive and (some might say) annoying ways. They talked a lot about things like ‘selling eyeballs’, ‘maximizing impact’, ‘connecting consumers to brands’. They thought that this is what their clients, advertisers and ad agencies, wanted to hear. The seven-second sell we created for them dialled up the real benefit of what they did: they ‘make marketing unmissable’. Bottom line, up front.

In our experience, new companies, particularly in the tech space can find articulating their offer succinctly particularly challenging. Often trading at the cutting-edge, the words don’t always come easily to conjure up a clear seven-second sell. Default position is to blind with science, as though simplicity is for the weak. But adding throwing the kitchen sink into the message is only likely to do one thing: turn the audience off with too much information. Throw one tennis ball, not three, if you want a prospect to catch your drift.

Early-stage companies pitching for investment are taught lessons in focus. The average time venture capital firms spend evaluating pre-seed pitch-decks was 3 minutes 32 seconds in 2021. This year, that’s cut to 2 minutes 42 seconds. And the runway afforded to such start-ups to prove market traction is also shortening as VCs look for ROI much more speedily. Time is a luxury that increasingly few can afford to waste it seems.

No stranger to investment pitches, Sir Richard Branson is a fan of keeping the story tight, short, and simple, believing that this is what great leaders do best. In his words, when he hears a long-winded speaker, he has to restrain himself from grabbing them by the collar and yelling ‘Life’s too short! Get to the point’.

If you’ve got this far, thanks for spending a few minutes reading this. And if you only had time to skim it, here’s three takeaways.

1. The marriage of access and urgency is changing the nature of time in business.
2. Being succinct and original is the only way to capture diminishing attention spans.
3. In business, time efficiency is an increasingly crucial KPI.

Enough of this for now. We’ve all got stuff to do. Time to crack on.

To get help keeping your own story sharp, email sevensecondsell@heavenlygroup.com.