Category Archives: The Power of Stories

Lost in Translation, Part II – Context is King

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Ever heard of the Rosetta Stone? One man spent his entire life unlocking its secrets. We know you don’t have that kind of time, so just watch this video to get up to speed:

It wasn’t until the discovery of this stone in 1799 by Napoleon’s troops that the modern world was able to decipher hieroglyphics. This stone carried the key to finally cracking the hieroglyphic code.

It contained a carved text made up of hieroglyphs along with Egyptian and Greek translations, which enabled scholars who knew Greek and Egyptian to work backwards to finally understand the hieroglyphs.

In some ways, sales people need to be like the Rosetta Stone. They must translate your product and services details into something the customer will understand and care about.

Context is King!

Customers know what they are trying to accomplish, and they understand there are challenges that are causing them pain. They are looking for a partner company to share a unique insight and clearly align their offering with these challenges, demonstrating how they will provide relevant value in meeting the customer’s objectives.

This is called “context.” Without context there can be no translation. Or the translation will be questionable because you are forcing your customer to do the heavy-lifting.

What happens if you leave the translation of your message up to your customer?

  • It’s hard work! It takes a ton of effort to listen to a message that’s all about your company, your product and your technology and try to figure out what that means to me – the customer. People like to hear ideas and answers for their problems; they don’t like to be sold product features and have to intuit how it helps.
  • It’s confusing! Your customer wants to know what they will be able to “do” with your product. What they can “do better” or “do different” in order to succeed.  Forcing them to translate your product features and capabilities into something meaningful can become frustrating and futile.
  • It’s boring! How long can you sit in any conversation listening to someone talk all about themselves before you tune them out?  If you ask the right questions to uncover their pains, issues and challenges, then you can focus your entire message on your customer. Putting your product and your message in their world – in their Story. You’re making it more relevant and more exciting for them.

Language translators didn’t need more hieroglyphs in order to finally come up with a translation. They had thousands of years of hieroglyphs. What they needed was the hieroglyphs to be put into the context of a language that made sense to them.

Similarly, your customers don’t need another company capabilities presentation or credentials dump. They’ve heard the same thing a thousand times. What they need is your company to put your offer into the context of what they need to accomplish.

Does this mean more work for you? Yes! Is it going to be harder to do? Probably!

But know that most of your competitors aren’t taking the time to do this. You have an opportunity to be your customers’ Rosetta Stone.

You’ll not only translate a better message, you’ll win more business by doing it!

— by Mike Miller, Consultant, and Tim Riesterer, SVP of Strategic Consulting & CMO at Corporate Visions Inc.

If you’re in sales, check out The Power of Story webinar to find out more about translating your message into your buyer’s world.
If you’re in marketing, check out the Bridge the Messaging Gap webinar to see how you can translate your 30,000-foot level brand message into a 3-foot level field message that’s ready for your sales team to use.

Lost in Translation

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Whether you’ve traveled abroad or not, you can certainly appreciate the humor in this clip. Watch this funny TV spot:

It’s safe to assume that all of us have experienced the wish for conversation intervention. That’s when you were desperately hoping someone would intervene in a conversation because you didn’t understand what was being said.

Well, how about your customers? What language are you speaking to them? Are you making it easy for them to get your message? Are you making it easy for them to understand? Or, are you expecting them to do the translation?

One of the big challenges of selling (especially in the business-to-business space) is that you rarely sell to just one person. The more complex your product, the greater number of buyer types you have to interact with, and accordingly, so does the number of languages you have to speak.

Once, while traveling through Luxor, Egypt, I visited the local Souk, or marketplace. It wasn’t long before I had a bunch of kids swarming around me, trying to barter off their wares. It was fascinating how shrewd these young kids were.

First they spoke in French. When I didn’t bite, they tried Italian. Getting nothing there, they tried German. Still nothing.  “Strike three, you’re out,” right?  Finally, they spoke in English.

“English, English, English! We love English!” They yelled loudly and now every other little kid in the area knew that when they came up to peddle their goods, they had to speak English.

They were brilliant!  Even at this very tender age they’d identified one of the basics of sales and communication. If you want to make a sale, you need to figure out the language the customer speaks.

I bet you know your product specs, features and capabilities inside-out, but how adept are you at changing up your message to match the buyer type you’re meeting with?

You get relegated to who you talk like.

How often have you found an executive who wants to spend time talking about product features and specs – the ISes of your solution?  It’s incredibly rare. Even if they want to, they often have so much going on that they simply don’t have time.

Instead, they only need to know the high level message – the MEANs of your solution. What value are you going to bring to their business? How are you going to make them more efficient? More competitive? More profitable? How are you going to help them solve the critical issues they’re challenged with, and either put them back on the road to success, or help them achieve greater success?

 

Put your story in the customers context. The conversation is differs depending on who youre talking to.

Put your story in the customer's context. The conversation differs depending on who you're talking to.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, your key influencers are probably the technical buyers. Unlike the executives, these guys are interested in getting their hands dirty. They do want to spend time on the nuts and bolts of your technology and product. And boy, is that a completely different language and experience than the executive conversation.

But you’re still selling the same solution or product. How different can that conversation be? And on top of that, you’re not sure if they’ll buy, and changing the message every time is time consuming and hard work! Isn’t it better to talk to more prospects, instead? They know what they’re looking for. Why not simply share the exact same message with everyone, saving time and letting them do their own translation?

Because this is your big chance to be different and stand out from the crowd. Imagine if only one of those children I met on the streets of Egypt identified me as an English speaker and began explaining his wares in a way I could understand. Meanwhile, the rest of the children continued to babble on in foreign languages, only confusing me further. This would be an easy purchase decision. I’d choose the one that helps me understand. (I’d probably even pay extra for some additional guidance and advice on how to get around town.)

It’s the same in your customer conversations. Are you clearly aligning your story with the customer’s context and what they care about? Or are you carrying on in your native tongue?

— by Mike Miller,
Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

Check out our new The Power of Story webinar to learn more, and stay tuned next month for Part Two from Mike Miller!

Put Your Deck on a Diet

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It’s that season again, the season for thanks, for family, for spirit and giving. But if you’re like me, you’re still in a food coma from one holiday meal or another, so it’s also the season for looking down at your stomach and saying, “Whoa, where’d you come from?”

Yes, it’s about this time of year a lot of us start making promises that include dropping that five, 15, 25 pounds we’ve been trying to lose since… forever. There are so many options out there for diets… low calorie, low carb, low fat. Atkins. Jenny Craig. Grapefruit. Avocado-only. South Beach. South Deck. Wait, what? South Deck?

That’s right, the South Deck Diet. Last month’s edition of The Feed showed you how your company’s packaging, collateral and presentations can get “plump” from letting too much well-intended input clutter your message. (Just like we tend to plump up around the holidays from all the well-prepared food.)

This month, we’re giving you a proven, five-step lifestyle change to get your slide deck looking leaner, hotter and healthier.

Step #1: Detox by watching this introductory video.

Step #2: Cut your intake. You can’t force your prospect to digest content if they don’t know how it helps them.  Take an honest and naked look at your marketing and sales slide deck and ask yourself:  Is it everything on the menu, or just what the buyer is looking for?  Is it loaded with extra, high-calorie content that contains little nutritional value?  Or does it deliver high-energy nutrients in every slide?

Challenge yourself to cut your slide deck by 75%.  (This means if it’s 100 slides, you need to lose 75, for your ideal figure of 25). Less is more. Increase your font size, and keep your slides to five bullet points or less, each one on a single line, if possible.

Also, don’t throw in ingredients that your buyer won’t understand. Propylene glycol alginate, carrageenan, and lecithin probably don’t mean anything to you when you read the back of an ice cream container, so don’t use unknown acronyms, abbreviations, or tech-speak in  your deck  or your delivery. You are looking for a decision, so use the slides that make it easier for a prospect to make that decision, don’t just pass out a lot of information.

Step #3: Dress for your body type. Nobody’s perfect. But you can make sure your deck flatters your company’s strengths and unique differentiators.  Show the parts of your solution that really make you stand out from your competition. Never show slides that you’re not willing to talk about, or that look like everyone else. Use the “B” key to black out the screen when telling stories, asking questions and after you present to keep eyes on you.

Step #4: Use the Buddy System. All successful South Deck Dieters have a support system.  Grab a colleague and show off your slimmer self.  Let them see and hear the new presentation.  And, ask them to hold you accountable to your deck dieting goals.

Step #5: Rest & Maintain. Once you’ve trimmed the fat, don’t forget to keep your newfound slim and sexy deck sharp by giving it a break. Force yourself to step outside the comforts of a PowerPoint-only presentation. Use it, but don’t abuse it. Spice up your presentation by adding in a healthy amount of variety. Try using a flipchart or a whiteboard. Bring in a physical object to help you illustrate a point. Tell a story. Finally, revisit the slide deck now and then to make sure it hasn’t gained back any of the excess baggage.

Stick with these five steps, and you’re sure to get results!

Enter our Slim Down Sweepstakes to win a Slide Deck Makeover by sending an email to newsletter@corpv.com with “Slim Down Sweepstakes” in the subject line. One lucky winner will receive a full makeover from one of Corporate Visions Inc.’s professional consultants, for one presentation.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

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What do webcams and Oreos have in common?
Well, not much, except that both are a part of a perfectly executed message. How can you tell a perfectly executed message apart from the others? Watch this video and ask yourself the following questions:

  • What is this commercial selling?
  • What do I remember?
  • How did it make me feel?

Business travel whisks me away from my family frequently. I am away from home two nights a week. How do I keep in touch with my kids? With a webcam, of course. If you have one, then I am willing to bet that you immediately connected with this advertisement. After seeing it only once, I could recite the dialogue, “Good night, Buddy.”  “Good morning, Dad!” I bet you could, too.

Do you remember details like the Asian music in the background? Do you think you could confuse the Oreo brand with some other brand? No way! Will you forget who brought this message to you? No way! It’s “milk’s favorite cookie.” They were able to convey a lot of emotion and brand-building in only 32 seconds.

So how can you quickly connect your message with your customers? How do you get them emotionally invested in what you’re selling? Do you do it by using “techno jargon” or “industry speak?” Those riveting and compelling words like integrated, flexible, and scalable?

Or, do you connect your message to the problems and challenges your customer is trying to solve – those ‘hot buttons’ that are holding them back from growing their business and accomplishing their business, financial and personal goals?

Create a vision for them. Show them what they’ll be able to do differently, how they’ll be able to solve those pains and problems that are holding them back and slowing them down. You’ll be well on your way to getting them emotionally hooked and connecting with them in a meaningful way.

Back to the Oreo commercial:
If I didn’t have a webcam, I would go out and buy one after seeing that commercial. I would go as far as saying that this commercial will sell far more webcams than Oreos! So why is it a perfectly executed message? Because they connected to me on an emotional level, and that emotion helped me remember their message. The ad connected the Oreo brand to my feelings around my family and that is a strong brand connection.

Use the creative half of your brain to find that connection to your audience, and don’t be afraid to stretch a little.

— by Larry Florio,
Director, Partner and Channel Sales
Kronos Talent Management Division

Corporate Visions alumni are always on the hunt for good messaging examples. This video and accompanying article were sent to us by one such long-time alumnus.

Have you seen a great messaging example lately?
Let us know and get published.