I’m preparing a spokesperson training for one of our clients, which got me thinking a lot about messaging. More specifically about how in depth B2B focused companies should get when they are talking about their products.

I think intrinsically we all know that less is more, but I’ve found when you actually sit down and try to wireframe your talk track more and more “must haves” find their way into the discussion.

The question why does this happens is pretty easy to answer. We’re often dealing with nuanced products and we want to make sure that people understand what’s being offered. The instinct is to lay at all out there and let the customer make the informed decision.

While the reasoning there makes sense, in practice it doesn’t work for a few reasons;

Confusion of message; It’s easy to remember one, two or three main product features, but when you start introducing more and more people start to forget things.

Think of it this way, when you go to the grocery store to pick up milk and eggs you don’t need a list, but you do when you’re getting ready to get everything for a home made Thanksgiving dinner. Your potential customers aren’t making a shopping list, so make sure whatever you are saying is easy to remember.

Confusion of priority; The Toyota Prius gets great gas mileage. Now it has front and side impact airbags, LED headlights and a host of other safety and comfort features, but when people think of a Prius they think of gas mileage.

We’re not all lucky enough to have that one unique value proposition to sell, but we can model our messaging after Toyota’s. Take an honest look at what sells—or will sell—your product and talk only to that.

Confusion of action; You usually have 30 minutes max to talk to an influential, possibly another 20-30 minutes for a keynote or session presentation. In that time you need to make sure you introduce the topic, explain your solution and finally let people know what course of action you would like them take. The more time you spend talking about extra details, the less time you have to convince the reporter, and as a byproduct your current and potential customers, that they should invest in your product.

The follow up question of course is where does the information you leave out go. That really deserves its own post, but in essence it boils down to having good supporting documentation. Since your marketing and sales organization always work hand in hand (They do right?), you should have a landing page, whitepapers or maybe even a microsite that explains the granular details your customers need to know to make a decision.

Tags: Influential Relations, Interviews, Keynotes, Messages

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