Have you ever looked at a business’s website, scratched your head and thought…what exactly do they do?
I’m often surprised by the number of businesses I work with that struggle to clearly articulate what their business actually does to people outside of it.
Of course, you know what you do… and no doubt you do it very well, but if you can’t clearly explain it to someone who doesn’t work within it, then you’re absolutely missing a trick.
Basically, you should be able to explain it in the average time it takes to ride an elevator between floors (30-60 seconds).
Often businesses get stuck in ‘what we do’, rather than ‘how we can help you?’. They look at their offering from the inside out, from their own perspective.
What they should be doing is looking from the outside in to determine what customers need and how the product or service is going to help them.
And this means standing back, looking at it from a different angle and articulating your business differently.
Ask yourself, how would I describe my business to strangers at a BBQ? Is it waffly? Is it clear? Do I say it the same way every time? Do people understand it straight away? Or, do I have to provide context and explanation? Do my staff all explain it the same way?
There has never been more competition in business, so you need to be very clear on what it is you do and what your offering is. You only have one shot at getting a potential customer’s attention and you want to be sure they understand exactly how you can help them.
Think about: 1. What do you offer? 2. What problem do you solve? And 3. How is your business unique?
Then articulate this in an engaging way that a customer would understand in 30-60 seconds because sometimes that’s all the time you have before a potential customer switches off.
Often CEOs and Founders may not be the best people to solve this problem, they are so deep in the trenches that they can’t see it from their customer’s point of view.
Having an external eye, someone who can come in and provide a non-biased view on behalf of the customer is important.
An external consultant can help you see the wood for the trees, they’ll also help you refine your elevator pitch effortlessly because they have fresh eyes on the business.
A good general management or marketing consultant will come in with no history or bias, seeing it clearly from your customer’s POV.
And in this market, where every dollar counts, you’d be crazy not to take all the help you can get.
Because if you can get your elevator pitch right…it’s priceless.
