Ideas for profitable
communication
by Baruch ter Wal
Captain Courageous
November 29th, 2011
There’s a scene in the movie ‘Gladiator’ where Russell Crowe and his buddies are getting charged by a numerically superior group on horses and chariots.
Russ gathers his motley men together and tells them to “Hold…Hold” – hold their ground against their instincts. It looks brave, but in fact it is the only way for them to succeed.
Building a brand requires that same kind of logical courage. If you find that special intersection point where your expertise, your passion and an important problem all intersect, then you need to spend almost all of your time there. As a leader you need to invest all of your marketing budget there, focus the entire design brief there, network there. You might even need to fail there for a while.
If the results aren’t coming, you need to back yourself and be patient. Look again at the definition of that intersection. I promise you that if you’ve really found that zone, it will always lead to good things eventually. So hold.
When you stand your ground, you also stand for something.
Attracting attention in the elevator
June 13th, 2011
Warning: this is a brief how-to guide, but will be longer than my usual posts.
Elevator lines
By now we all know about elevator pitches. (If you’re just back from the monastery, that’s your proposition delivered in 30 seconds to the CEO/VC/Prime Minister whom you meet serendipitously in the elevator. It used to be 60 seconds, but lifts have gotten faster, and attention spans shorter.)
People refer to the elevator pitch as the thing that earns you the right to present a more detailed proposal. I’d like you to think about the first 5 seconds of the elevator pitch as the thing that earns the audience’s attention for the next 25 seconds, and ensures that those 25 seconds are productive. I call those first 5 seconds the “elevator line”. To do justice to them, you need to unlearn some things.
You’ll be told by experts that sales is mostly about benefits (WHY you need my product) and a bit about features (HOW it will help you). But to anchor these in their brain, your customer needs the WHAT. Let me explain.
“Gets you there faster” is a Why point. “Uses patented collision detection” is a How point. But I don’t want to hear any of that until I know What the heck you’re selling, be it cars, drugs, or hang-gliders.
Elevator lines work when you have a specific audience in mind. Every time my wife tells a friend that I run a ‘business to business design agency’ she gets a blank stare. When a prospective customer hears that line, though, they are usually very interested. They know what a design agency is, and they know that their B2B sales proposition is more complicated then that of their B2C mates. Features and benefits of our service slot neatly into that introduction.
Elevator lines are useful on websites, right at the top in a nice big font. They earn the right for people to spend precious seconds of their time browsing your content.
Taglines (aka straplines)
Sometimes your elevator line is a descriptive statement of something extraordinary. For example, our client Aquaflow’s elevator line is “Our technology harvests wild algae from wastewater, providing the raw material for carbon neutral fuel while leaving behind purer water.”
Although such a statement might sum up why you get out of bed each morning, it may not get a rise out of customers.
A tagline conveys your elevator line in a way that is more creative and inspiring. Aquaflow’s tagline is “Clean water. Green energy.”
As a final thought, keep in mind that taglines are not for everyone. If your brand has become well known to your target customers, and really stands for something, then a tagline is redundant.
We can all put that on our list of aspirations: one day I won’t need a tagline.
How to get hitched without botox
January 25th, 2011
In the business-to-business world, getting to first base isn’t worth a lot. It’s long term relationships that really matter.
Repeat business from loyal clients underpins a successful business. And these fans are also a key source of referrals (polygamy is all good in business).
A focus on the long term has several implications. One of them is the importance of truthfulness. Getting someone to believe impressive falsehoods might be just fine if you’re after a one-night stand, but the inevitable disillusionment is the kiss of death for a long term relationship.
If you’re the arty kid who can make them laugh, pitching yourself as yet another captain of the First XV who loves animals is just dumb (feel free to psychoanalyse that metaphor). And yet a surprising number of new clients come to us with a belief that branding is the science of covering up their flaws. “At heart our people are unconfident, so we need you to make us look bold.” “Word on the street is we’re a bit slack at times – so make us sound ultra reliable.” This is a doomed enterprise. It only adds ‘bull$hitter’ to your list of brand attributes.
The real task is to design and tell the most compelling true story anyone has ever heard about you.
If there’s nothing special about you and your business, no designer can help you. If you’ve got something unique to offer, but are struggling to communicate it, we most certainly can.
3 crews making a dent
December 3rd, 2010
Significant milestones today from three great organisations have got me feeling really optimistic about the future for New Zealand.
The New Zealand Leadership Institute runs programmes for emerging and established leaders that have a freaky impact on the people lucky enough to find a place on them. I was at the graduation of the third Future Leaders cohort today (supporting LTW’s own Angus Blair) and here were thirty extraordinary people whose defining trait was humility and a desire to be of service.
Joline Francoeur of the Auckland Uni Business School pointed out that in a country the size of New Zealand it doesn’t take that much to reach critical mass. A few more cohorts of these guys and the sky’s the limit.
An hour earlier, the New Zealand Institute (no relation) was launching its latest think piece. Having told the Emperor that he had no clothes on with ‘A Goal is Not a Strategy’, they are putting their money where their mouth is with ‘Plugging the Gap’ – a clear, concise and specific recipe for generating more international Kiwi success stories. The innovation ecosystem they are prescribing is perfect for LTW clients and we are big fans.
And to round things off, Andy at the ICEHOUSE is pushing many of the same themes in his inimitable style. Plus he’s doing what he does best: organising coalitions around the key goals.
All three of these organisations and the passionate people who work there are getting us to critical mass faster than the doom-and-gloomers can imagine. It was a great day.
The guy in the eye patch
October 1st, 2010
My friend Perry says that in a competitive deal there are two winners: the guy who wins and the guy who pulls out early.
This puts a premium on uniqueness. If you stand out from the crowd, you up your chances of winning (if you have a fit with the customer) or losing fast (if you don’t have a fit).
Logos and your look and feel have a role to play in standing out. Unfortunately most businesses tee up the design process in such a way that you’re likely to blend in rather than stand out. You know the process. Under the guidance of your design or branding guru, your team goes to a vineyard to generate the ‘5 words’ that truly sum up your business (and you come back with 7).
But guess what. There are really only 9 words from which everyone is picking – including your competitors. The nine words are some variation of the following: Responsive, Smart, Friendly, Experienced, Innovative. Precise, New, Reliable, Fast. Well done if your team ever came up with a word that is not a synonym of one of these.
Now if everyone is picking from the same 9 words, and if these words are truly guiding the design process, then businesses in a given category are going to look remarkably similar.
Just talking about look and feel, here are some ways to stand out:
1. Focus on the ONE thing that is truly special about you as compared to your competitors, and convey that.
2. Have character. Let a personality shine through – as long as it is in sync with what makes you special.
3. Check out what colours or types of imagery are not being used in your space.
In the movies as in life: the guy in the eye patch is always smart or dumb, never middle of the road.
‘Jaws’ on a spaceship
August 19th, 2010
According to Hollywood legend, that was the four-word pitch used to sell the concept for the original ‘Alien’ movie.
The game plan here is to sell something new using concepts that people are already familiar with.
This is an important tactic for Kiwi firms who are trying to market a bleeding edge product. How many global customers want to take a risk on the New Zealand firm doing things in a way that nobody else is? Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM and all that.
You can still be completely unique without using any unique words.
“We are the only point of sale software that operates on a software-as-a-service model, but also works offline” is wordy but intelligible. “POS – reinvented” is punchy but scary.
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.
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.
The, ahem, 3 secrets to successful business-to-business communication :-)
January 21st, 2010
Self knowledge; customer insight; design thinking.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
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.
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.
