In this episode, I share how to create a unique and impactful statement that defines what your business, product or service does and how it helps people. After listening to this simple process, you can write your own story that sells what you do, and create more impact with your content.
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Full Transcript
Emma Drake:
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works with me, Emma Drake. For today, we’re going to learn all about how to create a compelling statement that’s unique to your business, your product, your service. And this can be used for any campaign really, any project that you’re selling, any product that you’re selling, and for your business itself, I’m going to talk you through how I put this into my business, so a firsthand account.
And it’s a really simple process that I think works, and it’s derived from something called the five whys, which is how I was taught to write a press release actually a really long time ago, but I think it still works. And it’s a bit like you have to imagine you’re talking to a really curious child who just continually asks why and forces you to really pin down exactly what you mean.
So hopefully this is going to be fun and I hope you find it interesting and useful. So let’s dive in.
Your business story is the special ingredient that sets you apart from the competition. When it’s told in a way that’s compelling, it really, really does sell. It’s the thing that you do that resonates with your customers or audience, and it can be used consistently across all your materials. So whether that’s your website or your newsletter, or all of your content, a great story cuts through the jargon and speaks directly to your audience, whether that’s customers, investors, or potential new recruits.
So easier said than done, right? I know how hard this is firsthand. So when the tables were turned on me and I started my business, and you have to do this all on your own without any help, there’s no big corporate team there or big agencies supporting you, you have to work this out yourself. And I feel your pain.
So having said that, I have helped tons of businesses work out what I call work out their why. So I’ve done that successfully. I’ve taken it on board, and hopefully, I did it for my business okay, which is why you’re tuning in. So I’m going to do that for you today. And hopefully at the end of it, you will have a really unique and compelling statement that you can use in whatever project you’ve got going on, or in your entire business.
So when we’re starting to tell a story, it’s really easy, and I’m guilty of this too, to jump right into the technical speak. We’ve all done it because, in my business, I’m the expert, and in your business, you’re the expert, and we want to tell people the details. We think that’s the important bit, right? But we forget that we need to tell people why. Why does it matter to them? And a strong well-thought-out story has many, many benefits about the why, but I think the most important and useful one is that it can help you sound consistent over a long period of time. If you get it right and you really nail it from the beginning and you consistently talk in that way and talk about your story, you will build trust in your growing business or startup much more quickly.
Now, this is a little audience dependent, because if you work in a very, very technical area, you might need to explain quite a lot of the technical issues associated with your product or service. But generally speaking, being too technical with your content can lead to there being no really compelling reason for people to engage in that content or with your product, service or business, and more importantly, to take action from reading it or hearing about it. So whether that’s to buy a product or invest in one or join that company if they’re advertising for a job and you want to work there, for example, it doesn’t compel the person to take action.
The other thing is it doesn’t speak to your customer’s pain points. If we talk about what the product physically does and how it works, dah, dah, dah, what we’re not doing is we’re not saying why that person should be buying that, and if they don’t buy it, they’re going to have a serious issue.
One of the things I refer to is the bleeding neck issue in business to business. So metaphorically, to buy your product or service, somebody needs to be bleeding from the neck. It needs to be able to stop them from bleeding from the neck. So it’s a serious issue metaphorically, and it has to be compelling enough for them to go, “Right, yeah, I need that now. That’s going to stop me from bleeding from the neck.”
I can’t take credit for that phrase, bleeding from the neck actually. I do use it. One of the people I know uses it really, really well. I think probably where I got it from is a lady called Gemma Gilbert. She is an excellent coach and she has a group over on Facebook. So if you’re a service provider or an entrepreneur, you should check her out.
So what we want to focus on is the overarching reason you do what you do, as this is at the very heart of your story. So solving people’s problems is at the heart of your story. So we’re putting that people-led or audience-led problem at the heart of your story. Not necessarily your corporate story of how you came about, okay? This is the very, very big difference here. This is all about audience-led story creation.
So I’m going to walk you through a process that I use, which is super simple, I love a super simple process, and it doesn’t take very long to do. It’s based on the five whys, which is a process to writing a press release and something we were taught a long time ago, but actually still stands very true. And as I said previously, you need to be thinking about talking to a really curious child who just continually asks why.
So let’s dive in. So we start with a statement about what we think we do as a business and what we’re trying to help people with. So mine, for example, might be as simple as I help leaders and managers in growing businesses with their communications and PR. Okay, super simple.
Next, we ask why that particular topic is important to this group of people or the sector that I’m talking to. And then I write down that answer. Okay? So if I unpick why doing PR and communications is important to help leaders and managers in growing businesses, it might sound a bit like because it’s really important to startups who often don’t have someone like me on their team, or they may be double-handling some marketing or comms in the business with a product development or sales service delivery role, or they may have a technical background, and maybe having designed the product and grown up through the business, they may just be new to the role, or this size or type of business just doesn’t have a simple step process to follow to implement communication.
So then we ask why that matters and we start to break it down. So to me, it matters because they want to grow their business. That’s the real reason, they want to grow their business, but they don’t know how to do it with communications and PR support. And perhaps they don’t know what steps to take or they don’t want to stop and learn a new process or undertake complicated training or read business books or have the time to read business books. So my podcast [inaudible 00:07:11] Packages, provide simple time effective and budget-friendly how-to tools and advice. Okay? Simple.
But then we ask why does this matter? So we’re on why number three, okay? Well, this matters to them because they may rely on investment or funding and need to demonstrate return on investment for that growth. And also, they are focused on sales to generate revenue, but also [inaudible 00:07:35]. So they recognize they need good comms, but they haven’t the time to undertake any of that themselves or hire someone in at this particular point in their journey.
So next, we ask why that matters. This is why number four. And it matters because they want to grow the right business with the right brand message in place and have the right processes and tools that can make all of that work. Oh, but why does that matter?
Step number five. Now, this is the really crucial one because you’re getting to the point where you’re going, “Okay, why am I actually doing this? Why are we actually doing this? Why are we doing this campaign? Why are we selling this product? What do we want to say to people? How do we want to articulate what our business does?”
So it matters to leaders and managers for me in startup and growing businesses as they’re successful and driven, they have something to prove as the business is growing, and they’re competing with much more established businesses in their sector who may have already nailed this process and are doing it really well.
So by this point, we’ve got five statements, five compelling statements about what you do. And it’s important through this process not to overthink it. You just got to imagine that that child is in front of you asking why five times, and you just have to keep writing down the answers and be truthful and honest.
So what we do next is we shuffle them about. Now, the interesting thing here is that quite often, statement number five is actually the most important one because that’s the one where you’ve really drilled it down. So I’d be really interested to hear if statement number five ends up being your top message.
So I use this process on my business and it’s how I actually formulated the trailer to this podcast. So I’ll be really interested to hear what you think about that. So get in touch on social media or follow my Facebook page, Comms That Works, or follow me on LinkedIn and send me a message. I’d really like that.
You can use this process for any campaign idea. It really translates really super well and it’s a really, really quick way if you just need to nail something as well. And it’s good to do as teams. I’ve done it with a team and we split off into groups and we took different parts of the business and we did it on different kind of sector areas. You can work this up or make it as simple as you like.
So today you have learned how to create a unique and impactful statement that defines what your business does and how it helps people. You’ve also learned how simple this process can be, and hopefully you’ve got some takeaways so that you can actually go away and do this yourself.
So finally, thank you for listening to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works. Don’t forget to check my show notes for those links that I mentioned, and I’d really love it if you would subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. And also, if you think there’s someone that could benefit from listening to this podcast, please share this within your networks. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.