Why Your Best Ideas End Up Being Ignored

Dear {{ first name | Legend}},

Have you ever shared an idea and it falls completely flat?

You explained it with analogies, numbers, charts… it seemed absolutely obvious to you, but what you got were polite nods, a few smiles, and people quietly leaving the meeting?

What happened? You think “Am I crazy? Or is everyone else just not seeing it?”

The truth is that most ideas don’t gain traction because they’re wrong, they’re just not packaged up quite right.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tamsen Webster to talk about how we can package ideas to influence a change in behavior. (2,410 people viewed “The 10 Quotes That Reveal How Ideas Really Spread” from this episode, check it out)

(Tamsen is the founder and CEO of the Message Design Institute and a bestselling author of Find Your Red Thread - one of my favorite books if you want to put together a presentation or a write a book. She is a former TEDx executive producer, specializing in helping leaders structure ideas that drive belief and action, combining cognitive science, argumentation theory, and story to make complex thinking clear and compelling.)

How many opportunities have you lost because your ideas weren’t delivered in the right package?

I don’t know about you, but when I have an idea, I think it’s the coolest thing. I get so excited and I can’t wait to tell the world about it because I believe it’s going to change the world.

Until I tell someone… usually in a way that’s more blabbering than making a precise point.

Then doubts creep in.

And I proceed to crush that idea and throw it in the trash.

Before judging the idea as terrible, first deliver in the right package. And this is typically really hard for experts, especially when you have a ton of domain expertise.

Tamsen calls this the illusion of explanatory depth:

Because experts have spent so much time in their domain, it’s a hard task to step back and breakdown how the logic works.

I’ll give you an example. What’s something you’ve done a million times?

Say cooking scrambled eggs (I’ve dissected the best recipes over the years, and I have one that’s banger, but that’s for another time 😅) You know exactly what you need to do step-by-step, you can probably do it while listening to a podcast and not skip a beat. But try explaining the entire process to a 4 year old. When they start asking you “why?” “why?” “why?”, at some point you will find yourself saying “it’s just how it’s done!”

Which means your audience don’t fully get it and so they don’t do anything different, much less remember your idea.

1. Start With Their Goal

The most common mistake when communicating an idea is starting with your framework, your product, your strategy.

Tamsen is relentless about this:

The question isn’t “What do I want to say?

It’s: “What are they already trying to solve?” That’s your entry point.

Example - I want to help experts stop posting content randomly, resulting in burnout and build authority instead.

Their Goal: How do I become the obvious choice in my niche without becoming a full-time creator?

2. Reveal the Hidden Problem

You’ve heard this a billion times: state the problem your audience is trying to solve. But this is NOT the obvious problem, it’s the real under the surface problem.

Your audience is smart. They’ve been trying to solve the issue already. So don’t patronize them or state the obvious, instead you gently expose the unseen constraint.

Tamsen describes this as identifying:

Without this step, your solution feels optional. With it, their current approach feels incomplete.

That’s different.

Example -

Hidden problem: The real issue isn’t content volume, it’s that your content, interactions, and offers aren’t structured to reinforce a single memorable idea.

3. Introduce the Truth (The Because)

This is the step most leaders skip.

The warrant.
The justification.
The principle that makes the shift logical.

Tamsen explains it like this:

This is your universal truth. Something they already believe (the more universal the better.)

Not a statistic.
Not an opinion.
A principle.

Here are some truths:

When you state that truth clearly, resistance drops. Because the truth gives people an agreed upon reason to shift their thinking and that’s non-threatening.

Example -

Universal Truth: People trust what feels familiar, and familiarity only comes from consistent, connected exposure over time.

4. Force the Shift

Here’s where you make it extremely obvious by using the universal truth as the lens to see why a change is needed.

If this is true…
And this is true…
Then we must change this.

Spell it out.

Tamsen calls this the “moment of truth”:

This is where irresistibility is born.

Example -

The Shift: So if your efforts don’t connect and compound, your audience can’t accumulate trust, which means you may get attention, but they won’t choose you or buy you.

5. Present the Action

Only now do you deliver the idea…

The strategy.
The product.
The offer.

And notice something. It no longer feels like a pitch! It feels like the next logical move.

Example -

The Action: Go build an influence system flywheel where every touchpoint reinforces the next and compounds your authority.

Final Irresistible Idea:

You want to become the obvious choice in your niche without becoming a full-time creator. The real issue isn’t content volume, it’s that your content, interactions, and offers aren’t structured to reinforce a single memorable idea. The truth is that people trust what feels familiar, and familiarity only comes from consistent, connected exposure over time. So if your efforts don’t connect and compound, your audience can’t accumulate trust, which means you may get attention, but they won’t choose you or buy you. Go build an influence system flywheel where every touchpoint reinforces the next and compounds your authority.

(Thank goodness I’m doing a free Insider Event on this: “How to Build a 24/7 Influence System and Be the Obvious Choice in Your Niche — Without Becoming an Influencer or Creator” Save your seat 👉🏽 howiechan.com/event)

💡 Rule of thumb: If you don’t do the hard work of packaging your idea, it might go straight into the trash, impacting no one, including you.

(If you love this simple distillation of how to package your idea, you’ll love Find Your Red Thread by Tamsen Webster, she goes into deep detail with many great examples.)

Click to see an example of the playbook in use.

If you like this issue about irresistible ideas, you’ll want to read:

Change behavior, change lives 🤘🏽

Howie Chan

Creator of Influence Anyone

Read my story

​Follow me on LinkedIn

P.S. If you haven’t already, go take the free assessment and find out your preferred influence style!

Want to make sure your best ideas land?

In this episode, I sit down with Tamsen Webster — founder and CEO of the Message Design Institute and bestselling author of Find Your Red Thread — to unpack why most experts don’t struggle with bad ideas… they struggle with bad packaging.

We go deeper than the newsletter and explore:

If you’ve ever walked out of a meeting thinking, “That made perfect sense… so why didn’t anyone act?” this episode will show you a better way.

🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, the web, or wherever you get your podcasts.