Marketing 101

I’ve been reading some interesting material by Robert Middleton on how to market a service company. Even though its about service companies, the concepts apply to product companies. VisualsSpeak is actually both a service and a product company. As I write this my partner, Christine, is facilitating a 2 day retreat for an executive management team for a branch of our state government. So we offer consulting as well as sell products.

The marketing material suggests that the first thing you do is create what they call an Audio Logo. Most of us know this as an elevator speech. Actually its the one-liner part of an elevator speech which is designed to gain interest in what you do. This comes in handy, because people always ask ‘What do you do’? If you have a good audio logo, they will ask you for more information about what you do. Sounds simple, right? Not so. At least for this entrepreneur.

We have been struggling with the elevator speech concept for over a year. I recently went to an event where the audience was given a chance to create a 1-line elevator speech. I came up with ‘We develop visual tools for ______ (fill in the type of professional I’m talking to). Its better than what I was saying, but its WRONG. Its the sort of statement that gets me a ‘So what?’ response.

Here’s the bottom line. People don’t care what you do or what your process is. People care about their problems and whether you can help them solve their problems.

Photograph © Tom Tiernan

Here’s the 4 ways, according to the material, that a person can answer the question ‘What do you do?’.

1) Your Label- I’m a trainer, I’m a management consultant, I’m an accountant. These are all labels which people may or may not understand. They might also think they understand what you’re saying but might be completely wrong about their assumption. If you say you’re an accountant, people already think they know what that means. But what if you are a forensic accountant who helps shareholders get their money back from corrupt companies?

2) Your Process-This is what you do or how you do things. Stifle those yawns. Most people won’t care about your process because you haven’t made it relevant to them yet. They don’t care. Its boring.

3) Your Solution- This is one that is rated as much better but still falls short of the ideal. In this type of elevator pitch you say something like ‘I help (assist, etc) _____________ (your target market) __________ (name your solution). Not bad. At least with this one you’re giving people some idea that you understand their problem and can offer a solution. However you are asking people to do some mental work to figure out that ou are talking about their problem. Most people won’t do this, so we move on to the ideal.

4) Their Problem- This is what Middleton thinks is the best approach because it addresses your potential clients’ problems first. Right upfront you are telling them that you understand them, you can relate to their challenges and you are there for them. This way a potential client doesn’t have to guess about whether you understand their problem. They already know. This is the best way to get follow-up questions about what you do. His format for this is ‘I help (assist, etc) _________ (target market) who are struggling (having problems with, etc) ______________(name their problem).

In my accountant example it might go like this: I help shareholders get their money back from corrupt corporations. A lot better than I am an accountant or I audit books. Not a bad audio logo. Maybe I should become an accountant! No, I hate accounting.

I’m going to whine a little so brace yourself. We have a great tool and unique process here at VisualsSpeak, but we cannot seem to get this basic marketing concept together. The good and the bad from a narrowing down your target audience perspective is that we have people in a wide range of professions using the VisualsSpeak ImageSet: Trainers, Facilitators, Coaches, Diversity/ Cross-cultural specialists, counselors, and therapists. Did I leave anyone out?

My question to myself is what do all of these people have in common? What are the common threads as far as what problem(s) do they face and how do our VisualsSpeak tools and processes help them deal with these challenges? I could go on, but I’ll stop here.

I’m not prepared to officially recommend Robert Middleton’s work yet. I need to read more. I will say that from what I’ve read so far he makes a lot of sense. I’ll keep you posted as I make headway. I hope some of this you will find beneficial for your own profession or business. After all, each of us needs to market ourselves in one way or another if we want to advance in our given careers.

If you have examples on how you have approached your elevator speech, please share them in the comments section. Would love to hear some other perspectives.

Tom Tiernan