Toastmasters

Warren Buffett once told a group of Columbia Business School students he’d pay $100,000 for 10% of their future earnings. Then he added, “If you communicate well, I’ll make it $150,000.”

I took that advice to heart and joined Toastmasters, a club-based organization that helps people develop public speaking skills.

Toastmasters meetings are highly structured. They include lessons, but most of the time is spent actually speaking. During meetings, members deliver prepared speeches as well as short, impromptu talks on random topics.

The piece of advice most often repeated by instructors and seasoned members alike was: “The audience doesn’t care about you. They care about what’s in it for them.”

At first, the advice was meant to calm nerves by shifting the focus from yourself to your audience.

But over the years, I’ve realized it applies far beyond public speaking. It’s the foundation of all effective communication.

Whether you’re addressing an audience, serving customers, or leading a team, everyone is tuned to the same frequency:

WIIFM — “What’s in it for me?”

Everyone Tunes In

WIIFM isn’t a marketing concept but a biological one.

For most of human history, attention was a survival tool.

We evolved to focus on what mattered most to us; food, safety, belonging, opportunity.

Every decision, every glance, every ounce of energy had to answer the question, “Does this help me or hurt me?

That ancient filter never went away.

Today, it just operates in the contexts of conversations, inboxes, social feeds, sales pages and meetings.

Our brains still scan for relevance before engagement.

When someone encounters your message, they subconsciously run a cost-benefit check:

“Is this useful to me? Does it make my life easier, better, or safer?”

If the answer isn’t obvious, attention moves on.

This is why WIIFM isn’t selfish. It’s human.

It’s the modern expression of an ancient instinct to conserve attention for what serves us best.

When you recognize that instinct and speak directly to it, you’re aligning not manipulating.

You’re tuning in to their brain’s default frequency.

The question is, how do you keep that frequency clear in the noise of daily life?

Let’s look at how to apply WIIFM across every part of your business.

Applying WIIFM to Your Business

Before we get into specific areas, let’s define a simple framework apply to each area.

The WIIFM 3-Question Check

Get into the practice before you create, write, or speak, to consider:

Audience → Desire → Value

1. Who am I trying to reach?

   → Identifying or recognizing the specific person or audience segment you are addressing.

2. What do they want or need right now?

   → Clarify the problem, desire, or outcome that matters most to them.

3. How does this help them get it?

   → Connect your action, message, or offer directly to their result and NOT your feature, goal, or metric.

Now, let’s apply this framework across functional areas.

Marketing & Sales

Speak to benefits, not features.

The most common mistake I see, and one I’ve made often myself, is selling features instead of benefits.

If you truly know your customer (Audience) you will understand they’re problems (and desire to fix it).

Customers don’t care about your product. They care about their problem and how you can solve it, ie the value.

Your language should focus on what they want and how you help them get there, not on product details.

Steve Jobs didn’t sell the iPod as 10GB of storage or 6 ounces of aluminum.

He sold it as “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

That’s the difference between attributes and outcomes.

Before you create any content, ask: “Why does this matter to them?”

Then write from their perspective: “you’ll” instead of “we.”

Reinforce it with testimonials that describe real-world results, not product specs.

Product or Service Design

What job is your product or service really doing?

In a previous issue (99 Problems), I shared the story of a large restaurant chain that hired consultants to boost milkshake sales.

The consultants began with a deceptively simple question:

“What job does the milkshake do and for whom?”

Instead of rushing to add new flavors or larger sizes, they studied the customer.

One key group turned out to be morning commuters (Audience) with long drives to work.

For them, the milkshake wasn’t just a drink. It was breakfast, entertainment, and a way to make the commute feel shorter (Desire).

Its real job was to prevent boredom (Value).

When you understand the actual job your product or service performs, everything changes.

You stop guessing what to build and start designing around what people truly hire you to do.

The better you perform that job, the harder it becomes for anyone else to replace you.

Customer Experience

Was it worth it?

Once someone chooses your product or service, every touchpoint whether it be onboarding, support, billing, or follow-up either reinforces or erodes the value you promised.

With so many points of contact, answering, What do they want or need right now? can be daunting.

There’s a hilarious sketch from Baroness von Sketch Show called “Did You Want a Fight?” that perfectly captures the idea. The cashier recognizes the customer doesn’t want a transaction fixed but to feel understood.

People want to feel understood, supported, and appreciated without having to ask.

A smooth checkout, a clear email, or a thoughtful support response each sends the same signal: you matter.

A delayed reply, confusing process, or generic message sends the opposite: you don’t.

When you get this right, customers stop feeling like transactions and start feeling like relationships.

Team

Your Team Is Tuned In Too

In business the focus is often on external audiences but every employee filters their experience through the same question: What’s in it for me?

It’s not about greed or entitlement. It’s about meaning, growth, and understanding.

People want to know how their work connects to something that matters.

They want to know how company decisions impact them and how they were considered.

They want to feel that their effort leads somewhere, that their ideas and feedback matter, and that their contributions are seen.

The best leaders don’t just assign tasks or give directives; they translate purpose.

They make it clear how each person’s role contributes to the larger mission and to their own development.

The communication is not always positive but when there is clarity and alignment, a group of people turn into a high functioning team.

When people can see themselves in the story of the business, accountability, creativity, and momentum naturally follow.

Stakeholders

WIIFM applies at every level

Investors, board members, and partners are no different. They filter your updates, projections, and strategy through the same question: What’s in it for me?

External audiences most often desire clarity.

They struggle to answer “What’s in it for me?” because they’re outsiders. Jargon, excessive detail or technical explanations (the expert’s curse) create static.

Keep communication short, structured, direct and don’t bury the lead.

Start with what matters most to them, then provide context.

And don’t shy away from uncomfortable truths.

Missed projections, delayed launches, or lost clients aren’t signs of weakness they’re reality.

When you communicate with clarity and candor, you help stakeholders tune in with confidence instead of guessing between the lines.

Because when they trust what they hear, they’ll stay tuned for what comes next.

The Next Step

Just like a nervous speaker who focuses too much on themselves loses their audience, so does a business.

The moment you stop tuning in to what people care about, their attention drifts.

Customers disengage.

Teams lose energy.

Investors start guessing instead of believing.

But when you keep WIIFM at the center of every message, product, and decision:

• Your marketing resonates.

• Your products find traction.

• Your people feel aligned.

• Your stakeholders stay confident.

That’s the real power of WIIFM.

It keeps everyone tuned to the same frequency, where trust grows and momentum builds naturally.

My goal with The Leap is to provide you each Saturday with the knowledge, tools and lessons learned to help you get started and keep going toward building your future. 

Whether you are making the leap to startups, solo-entrepreneurship, freelancing, side hustles or other creative ventures, the tools and strategies to succeed in each are similar.