Speaking with confidence

Most of your competition leads with vague statements such as “improving efficiency”, “providing flexible solutions”, “using high quality materials”.

One of the easiest ways to differentiate yourself from this competition is to be really specific in what you promise. What does “improving efficiency” mean? What does it look like? How will it change our processes?

And then make a bold statement about it. “X will increase Y by at least a factor of 3.”

There’s one important pitfall: You need to keep your promises. It’s easy to make bold promises. It’s a different thing to actually keep them.

Yet, this is the actual differentiator – and the reason why so many companies shy away from making specific promises. They lack the confidence to actually make them happen. They don’t go all the way to make sure that this will always work (or figure out which version of the promise will always work).

The best pitches start with empathy: Understand what matters to your customers. Make a bold innovation to improve this aspect. Work hard to be able to keep a promise around it.

When you’ve done this, speaking about it with confidence will be the easiest part.

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