The secret to successful public speaking starts with organizing your message. You can dazzle an audience with stellar delivery abilities but without structured reasoning, your talk will fail to impact them in ways that matter. It’s time to learn how to craft content that wins over your audience consistently.
I want to share my favorite framework that will elevate the impact of your communication and make your work easier. When we start learning a new skill, frameworks help us structure unfamiliar information to help us process it and remember better. That’s the way we learned our ABCs in kindergarten. As adults, we are drawn to lists and step-by-step frameworks to organize our lives and make sense of new information.
My first tango lesson would have been a disaster without footprints on the dance studio floor. Beginner tennis lessons would have been a waste of time and money without the framework: racquet back, step, swing, and follow through.
In communication, structure is crucial. And that goes for experienced and novice speakers alike. My technique of choice is What | So What | Now What, a three-part multipurpose framework that provides the dance steps for a clear, cohesive, concise, and compelling message. It’s simple yet so versatile that it’s considered the Swiss Army knife of frameworks.
Your ability to persuade others to your point of view depends not only on the strength of your message but how you build your argument and deliver it with ease and authenticity. A framework helps you give solid proof, hard facts and honest feedback for better persuasion. It also saves you time. If you’re pitching an idea to a potential investor, having ordered talking points in a logical sequence makes the meeting more efficient and effective.
Introduced by Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and author Matt Abrahams, the What | So What | Now What| technique (W-SW-NW for short) helps you be more spontaneous while making your communication stickier and memorable. The structure is straightforward and practical. In three steps, you can organize information in a way that others can process quickly.
A bank president client used W-SW-NW to build his annual state of the business report to his board of directors. A non-profit executive client worked with me to apply the technique to a revamped fundraising campaign appeal using short form video.
Here’s how it works: Discuss the topic, why it matters, and the practical implications. It’s not much different from the Problem, Solution, Benefit model you may already know.
What:
Identify the idea, topic, product, service, argument, or situation.
So What:
Describe the benefits. Why should it matter? Why is it useful, important, and relevant to your audience?
Now What:
Present the next steps for moving forward. What should the audience do with this knowledge, how would they apply it and what actions should they take?
The magic of this framework is its simplicity.
Imagine using W-SW-NW to ask your boss to approve the purchase of productivity software: What’s the purchase about? How will it benefit the team’s ability to work smarter and faster (So What). Ask for your boss’s signature (Now What) on the requisition form to buy it.
In an employee feedback scenario, it may go like this:
What:
Mary, I noticed you are making decisions unilaterally when the assignment calls for team input.
So What:
Our organizational culture is based on collaboration and our success depends on using collective brainpower to solve problems. We are missing out on your teammate’s ideas.
Now What:
Would you please ensure that you check in with the team before moving forward on Project X, seek their input, and document the process?
The W-SW-NW framework works in one-on-one conversations, when addressing small groups, giving a wedding toast, delivering a business presentation, or a keynote speech. It provides a solid foundation for any type of speech or presentation whether the stakes are high or low.
Having a framework doesn’t limit your creativity as a speaker—on the contrary, it amplifies it. By giving your speech a framework, you gain control over your message, connect better with your audience, and deliver with greater confidence.
