Sometimes you do not know which part of a presentation is going to stick.
You prepare your slides. You shape your teaching points. You think carefully about what your audience needs to hear, and you hope the right ideas land in the right hearts at the right time.
And then, a few days later, someone posts on LinkedIn.
That is what happened after last week’s Nonfiction Writers Conference, where I had the honor of presenting the closing session, Publicity Reality Check: 5 Mistakes to Avoid and What Works Instead.
Nick Capaldini, who attended the conference while writing his own book, People First Analytics, shared some of his takeaways in a LinkedIn post. He mentioned three images that stayed with him from the conference.
The sheep.
The review.
The balloon.
And under “The Sheep,” he wrote:
“The Sheep — Be the red one. Make it obvious what makes you different. Thanks Joanne McCall for this one.”
Well. You know I loved that.
Not only because it was kind of him to mention me, but because this is exactly what we want our messages to do. We want them to stick. And we want them to be easy to repeat.
We want them to travel from the presentation, to the notebook, to the conversation, to the LinkedIn post, to someone else’s thinking. That is when you know an idea has legs.
Or, in this case, hooves. haha
So what is the “red sheep”? For nonfiction authors, the red sheep is critical because too many books are described in ways that sound interchangeable. Authors say their book is “important,” “timely,” “inspiring,” “transformational,” or “needed now.”
And maybe it is.
But if everyone in the field is saying some version of that, the media cannot immediately see why your book is the one to cover, not to mention the average reader.
Your red sheep is not a gimmick, or a stunt, or some made up thing that sounds too good to be true. It is the clear, visible difference that helps the right people recognize you.
It is how you’re unique. It is how you’re different. It is your angle. You can call it your point of view, your lived experience, your surprising framework, your counterintuitive truth. It’s your “only I would say it this way” message.
The bottom line is that distinct beats generic every single time. A clear image placed firmly in someone else’s mind can carry a message farther than a paragraph of explanation. Be unique. How are you unique?
Media Darling Moment: Before you pitch your book, ask yourself this question: “What is my red sheep?”
This is not the place where you try to explain your whole book or your entire life story. You need one clear, compelling distinction that makes a producer, editor, host, or reader say, “Oh, now I see it.”
Because when they can see it, they can share it.
So what is your red sheep?
To your success!
Joanne
P.S. The song of the week is True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, because the red sheep was never meant to blend in.
P.P.S. The graphic of the red sheep was drawn and given to me by friend and author Jessica Ziegler.
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