Relevance Archive - Page 5 of 20 - The Art of Communicating

Would they agree?

When you think that this little detail is crucially important in your communication and can’t be left out under any circumstances, would your customers agree?

I mean there’s no doubt that it’s crucial to building the service but is it crucial for your communication?

Your customers don’t need to know everything you know and neither do they want to. They reached out precisely because you are the expert. They want you to know all the details.

If they cared as much for the details as you do, they’d probably build it themselves. But they chose not to … quite likely for a good reason.

So, what’s crucial when looking with your customer’s eyes?

The better deal

I’ve seen many pitches end in frustration as a result of begging for a yes. Sometimes that works. But often it doesn’t.

The thing is: a pitch is not about you making a good deal. It’s about the decision maker making an even better deal. They might be in the mood for doing you a favor. But don’t count on it. Usually, they are not. They are much more likely to give you a “yes” when they see how it’s a no-brainer deal for them.

That’s not about undervaluing yourself or agreeing to terms that are less favorable than you deserve. Nor is it about overpromising or making things sound better than they are.

It is about actually being the better deal.

The beauty of it is that in a great partnership, both sides feel like they got the better deal. They have money that you don’t have, you have ideas that they don’t have. They have connections that you don’t have, you have innovations that they don’t have.

So, why are you the better deal? There’s no need for begging when you are. (All you need to do is tell a true story about your idea.)

Getting likes

Speaking of what you want to be known for: Make content around that, not what your audience is giving you likes for.

What works in social media is not necessarily what works for your business.

What works for your competitor is not necessarily what works for you.

What works for the audience you had is not necessarily what works for the audience you want.

Sales

Have you ever been tricked into buying something you didn’t even want?

Perhaps the salesperson just found the right words to trick you into the decision and in that moment it felt like you had no other choice?

That’s no wonder because skilled salespeople are great persuaders.

And sometimes that’s a good thing because it turned out that although we didn’t know it prior to the purchase, the thing we bought was exactly what we needed.

But just as often (if not more often) the opposite is true: We really didn’t need that thing. In fact, it was of inferior quality. Despite the huge discount we got it was a poor value for the money.

Which makes us more cautious the next time we encounter a salesperson. And so we enter the vicious circle: Skilled salespeople will try to persuade harder. Which makes us more cautious. Which makes them persuade harder. And so on …

Great salespeople don’t persuade harder. They resonate stronger. They don’t bait us with discounts and other psycho tricks. Instead they listen carefully, they tell true stories, and they trust us with making the decision.

The hunt for visibility

Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me!

In the hunt for visibility, the space is overflowing with “Look at me” messages.

The irony being that what gets our attention is the exact opposite: “I see you”.

(Here’s a great example of that.)

The quest for amazing words

Here’s one of the biggest roadblocks for making a better impact with your communication: The ambition to find the most amazing words for saying what you want to say.

That’s not what great communicators do.

Their words don’t touch us because they use “amazing words” or because it’s the most groundbreaking thing.

They touch us because they say out loud what’s on our mind but which we couldn’t find the right words for ourselves. They capture what we would have liked to say ourselves but couldn’t.

Most of all: they simply say it out loud, often in the simplest form.

Stop trying to say the most amazing words. Stop trying to always have to say something groundbreaking.

Instead look closer and say – in plain English – what you see.

I’ve figured it all out

A professor once told me:

“When you’ve graduated from school you think you know it all. When you’ve graduated from college you know that you really know nothing. By the time you get your Ph.D. you see that no-one does.”

The most useful insight here for me was to realize that this is actually good news. It’s precisely the fact that I don’t know that leads me to look closer, to figure it out, to learn about it.

A similar story exists for startups. When you start out, it’s tempting to feel like you’ve got this covered. Your idea is definitely going to change the world. Just do this and that, and success is pretty much a no-brainer.

Until you discover that, well, there’s a lot more to it than you thought. As you dig deeper and build your product you discover all the nitty-gritty details that you should have thought of and all the mean traps of having to make compromises.

Only to discover that a new competitor has suddenly surfaced who seems to have solved all of it.

Which they haven’t, of course.

At the time you’re a venture capitalist you know that no-one has figured it all out.

That’s why VCs are not interested in founders that have it all figured out. They wouldn’t believe you, anyway. They are looking for people who are willing to figure it all out.

What you need to prove to them is that

it’s something that’s worth figuring out and that
you are able to figure it out.

Better than the truth

If your customers knew everything you know, would they still buy?

Well, of course they are never going to know everything, so the real question here is this:

Is the story you are crafting about your offering a truthful representation of what you do (and how you do it)?

Selfish marketers don’t really care. They will happily bend the truth, tweak a few things here and there, and leave anything out that would make the story sound less favorable. Selfish marketers look for ways to tell their story that makes it sound better than the truth.

An early client of mine, some 15 years back, was obsessed with giving their “effectiveness charts” more bang – the problem being that the underlying data had no bang at all. But rather than to optimize the product, they invested heavily in graphic design to make it look like it had bang.

Selfish marketers can’t trust the customer with the decision to buy because they don’t trust in their product, either.

The best brands are different. They start by building great products – products which are actually effective and which really do serve (real) people’s needs and desires in a delightful way.

And so these brands dare to tell true stories about their product and the experiences that their customers have.

The best part is this: For the customer, it will still sound better than the truth – their current truth. And if it’s a truly great product, it will even exceed these expectation. These products delight because the marketer was telling the truth.

Do you trust your product in delivering that experience? Do you dare to tell a true story about it?

Compared to what?

You might copywrite a text faster than anyone else in town. But on the other side of the planet, I can find someone who writes better.

You might make the best burger in New York. But if I’m living in Germany, I will choose a different restaurant for tonight’s meal.

“Faster” and “better” can have a very different value depending on the arena you’re competing in.

Which arena are you competing in? Does it influence how you communicate why people should choose you?

Edgy and weird

Average blends in.
Edgy stands out.

For example, there’s this super weird fashion store that draws an ever growing crowd of loyal superfans.

It’s no wonder that imitators started to spread who tried to copy the edginess.

And failed.

Because they misunderstood the reason people fell in love with the original. Which was not the fact that they were edgy. It was the fact that they were specific.

The imitators copied the look but lacked the understanding of the specific needs of the customers. The edgy look was a consequence of being specific. The fact that it felt kind of weird was much more a coincidence than a choice.

Being specific almost inevitably leads you to become edgy.

Specific can be weird, but more often than not it isn’t. Weird is just one way of being edgy.

Can you be more specific about who you serve? And what they need?

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