Distill Your Message to as Few Words as Possible
Your customers are constantly being
bombarded with new information. Simplicity has never been more powerful.
It's amazing how complex our lives
have become. Nothing's simple anymore. Think about it. Even
your Facebook page has a million things going on. The increase in
complexity has led to a decrease in focus. It's hard to know what even
matters anymore.
Well the same is true for your
customers. The noise is so deafening sometimes that your most important
message can easily get lost in the shuffle. What are you trying to tell
me? What do I need to know about you and your products? What is it
you want me to remember about you, your company?
Everybody's talking at once, saying
so much, that customers can no longer remember what we started talking about in
the first place. Tweets are flying through the atmosphere as thick as a
flock of birds, filling minds with an endless stream of useless information,
and crowding out the few things that were really worth knowing.
Why is this so important?
Because the world is noisier now than it's ever been, the competition is
tougher and more global, and your customer is being bombarded around the clock
with a massive stream of messaging that makes it ever more difficult to
remember you and your company.
What can you do about it?
Focus on simplicity. To be truly memorable, to be the one product
or service that people remember when the dust settles, you need to narrow down
your message, streamline your sentences, cut out all the fluff, and deliver
one--yes, just one--strong, simple message, and deliver it clearly and
concisely.
One of the most valuable skills in
the world is the ability to explain complex concepts in simple,
easy-to-understand terms. Writing lots of words is easy. Making
your point with an absolute minimum number of words is really hard. Yet
it is so much more effective. Mark Twain once said: "I would have
written that shorter, but I didn't have the time." Find the time.
Imagine you had a quick minute to
tell a potential customer why he should do business with you. Because in
today's world, that's all you have anyway. Write down what you want to
say. Now cross out as many words as you can, each time reading the
sentence again to see if it still delivers the point you want to make.
Keep crossing out words until you have created the shortest sentence you
possibly can.
Next, go to one person and deliver
your simplified pitch. As soon as you are done, have that person tell a
person who wasn't in the room what you just said. The goal is this: if a
person who hears your simple message can repeat it pretty accurately to the
next person who asks what your company does, you've got it right. If they
don't say exactly the words you want repeated--to build your brand and
establish your company's unique value--go back to the drawing board and
simplify it some more. Keep it brief, straightforward, and clear. Eliminate
any industry-specific jargon. Avoid the noise and clutter.
There is an elegance in
simplicity. Simplicity does not mean removing features, benefits,
or services from your product. It means distilling what's most
important about those features, and explaining them in the fewest words
possible. Go ahead, write yours down, and get busy crossing things out.
Nov 26, 2012
http://www.inc.com/jeff-hoffman/distill-your-company-message-to-as-few-words-as-possible.html
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