Ideas for profitable
communication
by Baruch ter Wal

Vanished into thin air

July 22nd, 2010

Shakespeare came up with that. You wouldn’t think so: it sounds so mundane and cliche. But when he first composed those words they were fresh, edgy, genius. Imagine it being said on stage for the very first time in 1600.

The moral is that an idea that once upon a time was a stroke of genius may not have cut-through today. The first person to say, “Hey, we don’t sell services, we sell solutions” was a genius. Describing your offering as a “solution” today does not set you apart. Yesterday I saw a dented tradesman’s van with the tagline “Solutions for Every Industry”.

Somewhere in the world, someone is coming up with the idea to call their services “solutions”. They’ve never heard the term used before. They too are a genius. But it’s still not going to have cut-through.

That’s why research, especially competitor research, is so important. Without it, you or your creative team could be re-inventing (at great expense) an idea that was once shiny, but is now dull from overuse.

Show, don’t tell

July 8th, 2010

A whole generation is graduating from our universities with a new mindset: they can be themselves and still be successful.

That’s the impression I got, anyway, running workshops at Survive & Thrive today. I don’t mean to say that the rest of us don’t have that mindset, but typically the importance of being ourselves is something we’ve learned. It involved us breaking some colonial programming.

The talks I gave were about the importance of aligning your business conduct with every claim you make. Indeed, backing up your claims with action should be the most natural thing in the world – because the claims are true.

So if your claim to fame is that you’re passionate about a topic you’ll naturally blog about it, or hold meet-ups about it, or carry out novel research into the area. If you claim to be a “true partner” you’ll naturally put your fees at risk in case of failure, or take equity in some of your clients’ businesses, or think about their issues in the shower. If you’re all about service you will die before you require people who click on the “contact” tab on your website to fill out a form before you’ll talk to them.

Most advisors will say that if your behaviour is not aligned with your marketing claims you need to adjust your behaviour. I think you’ll have more success if you adjust the claims.

My biggest screw-ups (part 2 in an occasional series)

June 7th, 2010

A while ago Shaun asked me to generate some copy for the cover of a technology product brochure.

He’d mocked up the visuals, using just the word “Easy” as placeholder text. My job was to come up with an actual title, plus some supporting benefits. But I was so taken with that one, powerful word, that I felt we should go with his original mockup. “Easy” really summed up the product’s point of difference. And to convey the service that went with the product, we used an image of a smiling young lady.

It really stood out against the competing Big Boys’ Toys tech product brochures, and the client team loved it.

The visually-minded among you will have noticed the problem: You can’t label a smiling young lady “Easy”. Doh.

I’ve spoken before about the importance of testing on real people, and in this case the screw-up was detected by Shaun’s wife. It was not, however, detected by us or by the client team members. The design solution was good in theory, and so marketing people gave it a pass.

We work in increasingly cerebral environments, where “good in theory” tends to get equated with “good”. But they’re not the same thing, and we all need to get out more.

Do you act like an owner?

May 13th, 2010

Sometimes a design turns a client off. When this happens the design can end up getting rejected, even if it will turn the client’s customers on.

If the client who is turned off is paying for the design out of his or her own pocket, you might expect a 100% rejection rate. At LTW our experience is very different.

In fact, one of the reasons we enjoy working with business owners is precisely that they’re paying us with their own money. Owners have the strongest possible incentive to decide if what we’re suggesting will pay off. That makes for an open mind and very productive debates.

If you’re commissioning design work, ask yourself: “What would I do if it was my money?”

Who wants to be “they”?

April 13th, 2010

On the bus today I heard: “They are going to cure cancer in ten years” but also “We were the first to split the atom.” Why?

Being a New Zealander doesn’t necessarily bring you into the fold of “we”. You hear “We went nuclear free in the ‘80s” but also “They want to ban smoking on beaches.”

“We” is about buy-in, about a feeling of connectedness.

How close are you and your customers from referring to each other as “we” instead of “they”?

The key to owning your presentation

March 30th, 2010

This is a guest post from my colleague Angus Blair, and introduces a simple but killer tip for PowerPoint and Keynote.

You want your audience to remember you and your message, not your slides. Gorgeous visuals can therefore be your biggest enemy in a presentation.

When I find my audience distracted by my visuals instead of listening to me, I walk over and hit the ‘B’ key. Check out what happens.

It has the dramatic effect of shifting all attention in the room to you. It gives you a chance to demonstrate how well you know your message. And it tells people that you personally want to share the idea with them, because it matters that much to you.

Lest we forget

March 17th, 2010

We learned some useful things during the recession.

Yesterday I hung out with a room full of buzzing entrepreneurs who saw more opportunities than they had time to grab (I’m not quite sure what Auckland would do without The ICEHOUSE).

As much as it looks like 2010 will be a great year, it was clear that many of the opportunities spring from what we learned during the dark days of 2009.

We learned that marketing benefits – new or deeper relationships and sales – should be measurable.

We learned to seek lower cost channels that were just as effective as the old high cost ways of getting attention (one of my favourite stories was Turners Auctions tripling profits while cutting marketing spend in half to focus on a smart online strategy).

We learned to paint a clear picture of how our products and services would improve our customers’ lives and businesses.

Let’s not forget.

My biggest screw-ups (part 1 in an occasional series)

February 23rd, 2010

Four years ago we were asked to design sales material for a new software service.

We produced a “before and after” diagram aimed at strategic decision makers. It beautifully illustrated the behavioural changes required, and the various efficiency gains that these would make possible. The client liked it, as did a small test audience of CEOs and CFOs.

When the material was used in practice, however, it emerged that operational staff were also key decision makers, along with the strategic managers they reported to. The strategic managers were conceptual thinkers. But the operational staff were concrete thinkers, and they found our diagram shallow and unconvincing.

One of the most important principles of business-to-business design is to identify all of the different decision makers, and tailor material to them. Four years ago, we failed to live up to that principle.

Don’t forget to test on (real) people

February 8th, 2010

When designing something with a clear call to action (brochure, ad, website landing page) it’s easy to be captured by textbook or expert opinion. But there’s no replacement for user testing.

The toughest part is not finding the people. The toughest part is getting them to be real. When marketing advice is just a blog away, most people you “test” your design with will put on a marketing hat and try to say what an expert would say. That’s of little use to you.

You need them to act like your customers would act. Don’t ask, “What do you think of this?” Set the scene properly. “You’re a really busy engineer. What would you do if one of your staff put this on your desk?” Or “What would you click on next?”

Jakob Nielsen says that testing with five people will reveal 85% of the usability problems in your design. He means five real people.

The, ahem, 3 secrets to successful business-to-business communication :-)

January 21st, 2010

Self knowledge; customer insight; design thinking.

1. Self knowledge. This is about truth. What does your business truly do better than anyone else? (BTW: that means now, not what you will be the best at, or hope to be the best at.) Narrow the scope until you find it. Ideally it will be something you are also passionate about.
2. Customer insight. Who are the people and organisations most in need of the thing you’re best at? What do they currently believe about their needs? What do they currently believe about your ability to meet their needs? (Hint: it won’t be the same as what you believe).
3. Design thinking. On a blank piece of paper, paint the world’s most compelling and truthful picture outlining why those customers (with those beliefs) need what you have to offer.

If you’re 100% committed to these three steps, I will always be happy to talk to you with the meter off. Not before 10am though.

How can you change the game?

January 12th, 2010

Here’s a simple recipe for doing something really transformative for your business or career in 2010.

Make a list of the things you’ve been wishing you had the time or money to do. Pick something off the list.

Now (this is the important bit) tell all of your LinkedIn, email, Twitter or flesh and blood friends that you’re going to do it in the next 6 months. Now you’ve got peer pressure to make it happen. As a bonus, people will want to know whether you’ve achieved your goal, and you’ll generate a truckload of free and useful word of mouth marketing.

My game changer is this: I’m going to hire someone smarter than me to drive my business forward.

What’s yours?

Sometimes you need to be narrow minded

December 10th, 2009

Should we be saying “no” to lucrative opportunities just because they fall outside the target market specified in our business plan?

Some of the time it makes sense to grab these opportunities when they fall into our lap. But it almost never makes sense to actively chase them.

There is always a temptation to spread the marketing net too wide. You know that your service can add value across industries, and is useful for both large and small businesses. So that’s the message that you take to market. But if your sales and marketing tries to appeal to everybody, you end up appealing to nobody. Helen Clark may have rubbed many people up the wrong way, but compare her popularity to Phil “all things to all people” Goff.

And the benefits of a clear focus go beyond perception. A clear customer focus

• Helps you pick your marketing channels
• Influences which networking events you’ll attend
• Determines your PR and case study priorities
• Pushes you to make your products special by being sensitive to how customers are different – not how they are the same.

So narrowing your focus, and sticking to that focus in your marketing and planning, helps you to end up with better products that are easier to sell. It’s a no brainer. But so is grabbing the odd amazing opportunity, even if it’s outside your focus. It’s New Zealand, not New York.

Just remember: they’re not gift horses if you’re chasing them.

Make it stick

November 25th, 2009

Last night, Bart Simpson came to me in a dream. He said I needed to jump across a small chasm.

(“Small chasm” might be an oxymoron, but it was a dream, OK?) It was only 2 metres wide, but it was really, really deep. Parts of me shrunk with fear as I looked down. I could make it across. But the fear of slipping and falling kept me from attempting the jump.

I think that’s how we are with a lot of things in business. Once we’ve made the leap (invested in a new hire, switched to new systems, ditching a shrinking market) we kick ourselves for not doing it sooner.

What I actually want to talk about, though, is Chip and Dan Heath’s book, “Made to Stick”. It’s fabulous. They’ve got a great framework, under the acronym SUCCESs, for making messages memorable and impactful. We know most of it, but once again it’s about the discipline of applying what we know.

• The first S stands for Simple (a core idea: making the obvious leap can still be scary).
• The U is for Unexpected (Bart Simpson is an unusual way to start a blog post).
• The first C is for Concrete (2 metres wide, parts of me shrank).
• The E is for Emotional (fear).
• The last S is for Stories (Last night…).

The second C is for Credible. Maybe I’ll replace Bart Simpson with Yoda…

I’ve got you pegged

November 9th, 2009

I know that if you talk fast, dress in a business-like manner, and quickly get to the point that you hate people who sit on the fence and will judge me by my track record.

Here’s the full table, simplified and adapted from conversations with the experts at RogenSi.

If you weren’t aware of models like this, now you are. There are many more. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

If you’ve known about these tools for some time, ask yourself: “How often do I apply them in my interactions with clients and prospects?”

Most sales people revert to their own style. Analytical thinkers will provide lots of detail and focus on process – even if they are boring their Expressive client to death.

Just as common are so-called “experts” who will tell you to lose the detail and cut down the word count in all situations. If your audience in an Analytical one (like a majority of lawyers, systems analysts and financial controllers) you’ve just sunk your battleship.

Another interesting trick is to talk to all the styles at once on the same piece of paper. I’ll leave that for another post.

‘When’ is the new ‘What’ [part II]

October 29th, 2009

We can all talk for a long time about how special our products and services are. But when should we be selling what benefits?

One of the most common mistakes I come across is trying to sell benefits that will only become clear once someone has been a customer for some time. The productivity gains in 6 months may indeed be the most valuable thing about your product. But that’s intangible. More important at the outset are the benefits that people can easily believe and see demonstrated.

If you’re clever, your pricing strategy will allow you to capture more upside once the longer term benefits become available and believable.

The best sales people make a distinction between what gets them in the door, and what keeps them there.

‘When’ is the new ‘What’ [part I]

October 19th, 2009

What you tell a prospective client is important. But timing is everything. If they are not in a receptive frame of mind, you’ve wasted your breath (or dollars).

Most people are loyal to their mediocre accountants. And switching accountants feels like a pain. The only times that they are going to be especially susceptible to marketing from a new accountant are:

• After a major screw up
• When starting a new business
• At the start of a new financial year

A good accountant should point out the screw ups that mediocre accountants are prey to. She should appeal to entrepreneurs, and she should be ramping up her marketing at key times in the financial calendar.

When are your prospects going to be receptive? What will they be doing at that time? Where?

You need to find the answers to those questions. When you do, it will dramatically change your pitch.