Welcome to part five of Sell the Why: Reasons to Believe.

We’re aiming towards creating a Reasons to Believe library, a copy-paste compendium of proof to back up your story with data, written so it resonates with humans.

We’ve come a long way to get here.

1. In vol. 1, we set the stage: positioning gives you clarity, but outcomes are what make it land.
2. In vol. 2, we mapped your stakeholders and asked the key Q: what do they need to believe to take action?
3. In vol. 3, we sourced proof straight from your own work (yes, even if you thought you “didn’t have numbers”).
4. In vol. 4, we went digging outside your own biz for credible stats that reinforce your story.

By now, if you’ve been following along, you’ve got piles of the good stuff: screenshots, quotes, industry reports, launch numbers, maybe you even cited a peer-reviewed study or two.

Pat yourself on the back.
​

Then pour yourself another coffee/kombucha/tall glass of ice cold water (for my hydro homies).

Because....

➡️➡️➡️ Numbers don’t persuade on their own. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

Many stakeholders take a nap at the mere glance of a percent sign.

"Engagement increased 58%."

Compared to what?​
Over how long?
And most importantly: why does that matter to me?

(for all the other Marcel the Shell fans, imagine his skeptical little voice next to your raw numbers piping up “Compared to WHAT??”)

why context matters

Chip Heath and Karla Starr put it best in their book Making Numbers Count: our brains aren’t wired to hold onto raw figures.

Data only sticks when you translate it into human-scale comparisons, metaphors, and concrete context.

In other words:
​People don’t buy numbers.​
​They buy what numbers mean.

Data becomes proof when you translate it into something a human brain can grab onto:

• Scale: "That’s like adding two extra days to your week."
• Impact: "That means twice as many families got fed."
• Risk/reward: "That shift saved $X in wasted spend."

Your job now is translation of your data points, from spreadsheet-landia to the living world of your stakeholders.

remember your stakeholders

Oh yeahhhh, stakeholders! Let’s go back to them as your anchor point before getting into the thick of it.

Back in vol. 2, we mapped out who needs to believe what.​

What’s important to your stakeholders must guide how you frame your proof.

For example:

• Execs want ROI and momentum
• Ops managers want time back and fewer headaches
• Residents want lived impact

Your job is to match the proof to the belief gap in front of you, meaning that the same raw data point could result in three totally different translations.

how to speak numbers in human

Like Chip Heath & Karla Starr argue, numbers only stick when you translate them into human terms.

So here’s a few translation techniques:

1. Anchor it. Answer "compared to what, when, and for whom?"​
   "Engagement jumped 58% in one quarter, double our last launch."
   ​
2. Scale it down. Convert to human-size units (time, distance, money, objects).​
   "421 new members! That’s enough to fill eight Greyhound buses."
   ​
3. Show momentum. Pair size with speed or rate of change.​
   "43% in six hours. By Friday, they were turning people away."
   ​
4. Add a hook. Use a metaphor, plain-language comparison, or a mini story.​
   "That one change saved them a meeting every week."
   ​
5. Shrink to "1 in X." Percentages make people do math. Do it for them.​
   "2.5% churn means losing 1 out of every 40 customers."

Don’t use all of these at once
(that would be b-a-n-a-n-a-s)
​((a few times I've been around that track, so it's not just gonna happen like that))

Pick what feels like a fit.

At Strange Birds, we use the following super-simple framework -- which you are welcome to copy-paste -- for organizing our Reasons to Believe:

et voilà: Each of these is a building block in your Reasons to Believe library! (I know — we’re nearly there!!!)

Here’s a real life Strange Birds example for two of our stakeholders:

• Founders, who need to believe that their investment will result in real growth
• Team members, who need to believe that growth won’t result in overloading their desks

See how the same number can tell two very different, equally persuasive stories?

here’s your homework:

Grab one outcome from your proto-library.

1. What’s the claim? What do you want people to believe?
2. Add the data point.
3. Translate it at least twice, once per critical stakeholder.
4. Stick on the source.

This right here is the building block of your Reasons to Believe library! Friends, we did it!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

where we’re going next

At this point, you’ve got all the ingredients:

• your stakeholders, mapped
• outcomes from your own work
• external proof from credible sources
• translation techniques to make the numbers actually land with stakeholders

Now it’s time for the grand finale.

Next week in vol. 6, we’ll wrap the series with a Reasons to Believe template I built to put it all together. This is the exact same framework Strange Birds use with clients to turn all this raw material into a living, breathing RTB library.

So you’ll never ever have to wing it when someone asks, “but can you prove it?”

what’s coming up in this series

1. ​Sell the WHY: Outcomes are the proof that makes your positioning land​
2. ​Stakeholder mapping: Who needs to believe what, and how to talk to them​
3. ​Your own proof: How to show outcomes for your biz (even if you “don’t have numbers”)​
4. ​External proof: How to dig up credible stats/research outside of your own desk​
5. Make numbers make sense (today): How to translate raw data into human-friendly proof
6. ✨Free resource drop✨: Put it all together and grab our Reasons to Believe guide

What a whirlwind! I can't believe we're almost to the end of this series. Any ideas what you'd like to see from us next?

Petons!

Janel

🏳️‍⚧️✊🏳️‍🌈✊🇵🇸

Flying the Coop We did a whole episode with co-op lawyer Jacqueline Radebaugh specifically because she does law very, very differently. She helps businesses write down structures that actually hold the people within them, that acknowledge the messiness of being human, and still keep things moving forward. “The cooperative model is healing the way we interact and relate to each other… and it allows us to practice law in a healing way.”​ ​ Listen to the episode

What I'm reading

​Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers - Chip Heath with Karla Star​

Dusted off my copy of this very useful puppy to write this email!