31 Million Reasons To Know Your Sentence

Can you believe it. I stayed in on Friday night. And watched terrestrial telly. Please don’t tell my younger self.

All I got to see were old US crime shows and a generally lacklustre local South African magazine show. Trying to be in the mould of an Entertainment Today, Flash rushed along to a home-grown movie premier. The interviewer excitedly quizzed stars and director of Durban-based 31 Million Reasons.

I appreciate that post-battle editing can devilishly portray interviewees as dullards, yet the first run of exchanges was amazing. Spliced in rapid fire sequence, the question put was simply;

Sum up the movie in a sentence.

Each person paused, stuttered, and was generally flustered. Even the director.

The closest anyone got to having a worthwhile stab was, complete with faux American accent;

It’s a heist movie that kicks ass.

Now, you’d expect Hollywood film studios to boast behind the scenes armies. Diligently preparing their main luvvies for such responses. Akin to a defence lawyer painstakingly readying a key trial witness. The evidence of any such forethought in this case was cringe-inducingly absent. The same fate befell the further queries, ‘what was your favourite moment from making the movie?’ and something like, ‘what does the film say, for you?’

There is of course a compelling message here for solution sellers.

What’s your sentence? For your main product, what short, snappy, memorable and wonderfully encapsulating sentence can you repeat at a moment’s notice?

And not only for that, but what about the same treatment for your other products? Or newest add-on? Or even company’s vision?

Shamefully, I sense that the lack of these such single sentences are part of the difference between winners and losers.