When people come to our website, blog, Twitter, FB they want to know why should I do business with you? and we need to be able to make them care.
As humans one of our favorite things to do is talk about ourselves. Me, me, me, me! It’s a natural human tendency to do so. In business this is even a bigger problem because our ability to create new business depends on how we communicate (what matters) the benefits of our product or service to our audience.
When all we do is push our message of how great we are to prospects, we block others out because we’re not telling them why they should care and so it’s harder (if not impossible) for us to influence them. What they really want to hear is ‘what’s in it for me?’
I just finished reading a fabulous book written by Mark Magnacca called So What? How to communicate what really matters to your audience.
It provides an invaluable framework we can use to communicate what matters to prospective audiences when they visit our websites, when we’re networking or just when we meet new people.
Formula for answering ‘What do you do?’
Mark gives some great advice in actionable steps. Something I particularly liked was the So What Positioning Statement Generator:
Step 1: Determine the issues your clients and prospects face.
Step 2: What are the 3 things you do to address these concerns?
Step 3: Choose the most relevant of these 3 concerns and then the best answer from Step 2 that addresses it.
Once you have these put them in this format: Do you know how…(insert primary concern). Well, what I do is (insert what you do to address the concern).
Here’s how one person used this formula:
Mark: What do you do?
Floyd: Do you know how many people don’t like the process of buying a new car because they don’t like dealing the salespeople?”
Mark: Yes.
Floyd: Well, what I do, for $295, is take people through a 15-point process designed to help them determine the exact right car for them, and then I go with them to the dealership to negotiate the best price.”
That’s it! Didn’t that example get your attention? As you can see the framework is very intuitive. If you want to see this framework in action watch Mark Magnacca apply it to Andrew Warner in an interview.
Key takeaway: If you want to be better at persuading and gaining interesting from prospective clients, I honestly suggest you read So What? I’ve already sent a few copies to my team and other colleagues.
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