There’s a reason TV ads are 30 seconds long
Over the past few months, I’ve spent some time reflecting on the lessons I learned at Event Seek. There are many – too many to write about now. However I’ll share a few with you (and myself) every so often.
One of the most important lessons I learned at Event Seek was how important sales is to any company – especially a young one. Given I’m an engineer by training and a life-long skeptic, this was a big transition for me.
Sales is an enormous question and a complicated beast to tackle, but it becomes much more manageable (at least to me) if you begin to think about it as small lessons.Much like many other things in life, sales is a game of inches. If you can control the small stuff (with an eye on the big stuff) often things will fall into place.
But sales isn’t just about convincing customers you have a great product. Sales permeates everything a startup does. Talking to advisors? Sales. Talking to investors? Sales. Talking to press? Sales. And yes, talking to potential customers is definitely sales. Every interaction of every member of your team is a sales meeting – not just the CEO. That’s not to turn every entrepreneur into a sleazy used car salesman, but to suggest that you need to recognize that every meeting is an opportunity and every interaction is a chance to create a supporter, evangelist, investor, or customer.
You make this...
One critical tool in the ability to ability to generate and cultivate these relationships is how you talk about your company and your product. I can’t stress enough the importance of your ability to simplify what you do. I spent months talking about Event Seek before I really began to find a set of language that people understood. We spent more time than I want to admit talking about technologies, features, and capabilities. Over time my language changed though, and started to become focused on the simple value we offered. It’s all about the simple value. It’s the only thing that matters.
Simplify, simplify, simplify. When building a company and product you know the details better than anyone. You know the intricate technical aspects of how it work and what it can do. And guess what? No one cares. Not a one. Not until they understand the simple value of what it does.
...BUT you sell this!
A meaningful conversation will naturally transition from generalities to specifics. It’s not bad to get specific questions but wonderful – and can only happen when the person you are talking to fully understands the simple value you deliver. Explaining the simple value in a sentence or two is your ability to open the door to a much more meaningful discussion about your company. Without the ability to hook and excite people with the simple value you deliver you’ll spend valuable minutes trying to reexplain what you do instead of really connecting with your opportunity.
All of things brings me back to my original point: TV spots are 30 seconds long for a reason. People have short attention spans and don’t want to listen to long drawn out convoluted stories. If you can keep the message to a minimum number of words, use language people understand, and add a bit of fun & jingle, you’ll find people are much more excited about your company, your idea, and your management team.
In: Entrepreneurship · Tagged with: Event Seek, Sales, startups
