If not positioned, your customer will translate your features and functionality into benefits on their own. These translations will happen because customers don’t buy features or functionality, they buy the things they can do with them (benefits). So, while you’re talking about the wonders on your datasheet, your customer is translating these things into something they can do with them. You can’t let something as import as these translations happen on their own, this is when purchase decisions are shaped.

Discussing features and functionality before benefits reduces your value and subjects your offering to a battle of commodities. This commonly results in sales people complaining they need to offer more discount and require enhanced features to win a deal.

Features and functionality are merely things that allow you to deliver benefits. You create opportunities, solve problems, make money, and save money for your customers as a result of employing one or more features and functionality of your offering.Features and functionality are meaningless until they’re employed to do something. Your speeds-feeds-features-functionality only matter to the extent they prove your ability to deliver a benefit.

When you directly tie features and functionality to a benefit, they are highly relevant. The super-set is when you tout a feature or functionality that creates meaningful difference in support of delivering a benefit. In that case, you’ve offered powerful reason to believe.

What say you?

The post Core Story: How features and functionality create reason to believe appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

A truth that’s often ignored or misunderstood is most companies who compete in a given market look alike to the people who make purchase decisions and ultimately buy.

Buyers don’t see much difference between one company and another

Companies think they’re different when comparing themselves to others in their market. Reality is the things we offer look stunningly alike to the people who matter most — those whose opinion is voiced with dollars. The difference we tout to buyers are often subtle, convincingly argued as pluses and minuses by one vendor when comparing themselves to another.

Buyers get confused in our presentation — we sound alike, look alike, and the difference between us isn’t that great or significant as to compel a decision one way or another.  This leads to buying decisions more often than not based on who responds first and a gut feeling one vendor is better than the other. For sellers, this leads to sporadic sales and unpredictable growth.

It’s not the buyer’s fault they’re confused — it’s the sellers problem, based on the inability to articulate why dollars should be spent on them as opposed to their competition.

All buyer questions are rooted in search of the compelling reason to buy from you

Whether overtly asked or not, the question lingering in the mind of the buyer is Why should I buy from you? That question is what drives all other questions in the buying process: price, service, warranty, guarantee, limitations, exclusions, add-ons, experience, references, feature lists, supported protocols, etc.

Buyers are seeking the answer to the question Why you? And as sellers, we’re giving them lame answers from our perspective of the sale, never really providing a satisfactory answer.

The simple test everyone in sales should be able to pass

A test for all sales reps, management, and client-facing staff is to off the cuff answer the simple question Why should I buy from you? That’s the question prospects are asking themselves — the answer they’re seeking to feel confident making the purchase.

Here is a list of unacceptable answers to that question:

• We’re the market leader
• We’ve been your supplier for the past x years
• We have a world-class customer service and support organization
• We support the latest features and functionality
• We’re the low cost provider
• We’re the greatest value supplier

The answers above are unacceptable because they lack definition that leads to meaningful difference between competing offers. They are empty answers without value to the buying party — offered here as a list because they’re commonly offered as the reason to buy from a particular company.

Correct answers to the question Why should I buy from you? come the worldview of the buying party, presenting a compelling story of why your solution is purpose-built to serve the underlying interest, need, and obtainable desires of your target audience.

Signs of not being able to pass the test

Knowing the answer to the question of Why should I buy from you? is important — it closes the sale, grabs market share, and enables consistent and predictable growth. When you can’t convincingly answer the question, sale teams and business leaders share these ongoing, frustrating experiences:

• Our prospective customers don’t get it
• We shouldn’t be competing on price, but we always do
• We know we’re better than our competitors, but we can’t convince people of that
• Our website is missing something — I’m not sure what it is, but it doesn’t pop
• We contact a lot of people, but aren’t having as many sales meeting as we should
• Some of our sales opportunities just disappear
• Our sales forecast changes every week…our business is unpredictable

When you can’t satisfactorily answer that simple question, prospects genuinely don’t get it and can’t recognize anything unique about you or your offer — they revert to gut feeling and price rises in the hierarchy of their purchase decision. You’re reduced to a commodity: evaluated on price, availability, and convenience.

Things you need to do

If you’re having trouble answering the question Why should I buy from you? there are two things you should do 1) get versed in your core story 2) redefine your sales approach — stop selling things and instead focus on things you do for your clients.

I can help with both.

Please contact me to learn how communicating your unique value with your target audience can lead to predictable, sustainable growth in your business — reducing the pressure to discount while shortening your sales cycle, and increasing your close ratio.

There are no silver bullets to marketing and sales success, but there are proven methods to communicate with target audiences in a meaningful way that can result in spectacular returns.

Are you satisfied with your answer to that simple question? Why should I buy from you?

The post The question you have to answer to make the sale appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

Here’s how it generally starts, we’re asked a conversationally polite question:

• What does your company do?
• How long have you been in business?
• Who are some of your customers?
• Who are some of your competitors?

The way it ends is often awkward, with an incoherent answer that doesn’t create interest. The conversation stops.

We often handle these questions by falling fall back onto our products and services — spouting features and functionality of our offer. The problem with this approach is we reduce our value to access to the things we offer, forcing our products and services to compete head-on with other products and services in the marketplace. This isn’t a bad strategy if your product or service is the acknowledged winner in your market, but it sucks for the rest of us 🙂

Looking at the list of questions above, the opportunity is obvious — when asked, each is a chance to talk about your company in a favorable and compelling way, positioning your offer against competition and opening a meaningful dialogue with a prospective customer. Considering the questions further, answering them isn’t hard when you’re versed in the core story of your business. In fact, with a strong core story, you welcome these questions and more.

If you want prospects to get it faster, rely less on price to win, improve the quality of your sales leads, shorten your sales cycle, and overall close more business, your core story is where you should begin. With a solid core story, you’ll always know what to say in a compelling way that creates interest to learn more.

Here are three posts to help you learn more about core stories and create the compelling story of your business:

• Learn the definition of a core story
• Learn why core stories are so important to your business
• Create your core story using this eight step process

People are always listening. The rub is people judge our offer and form opinions as we speak. What you say next will win or lose the sale.

It makes no difference if you’re heard or not, if you don’t know what to say.

The post What are you going to say? appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

I’ve seen core stories interpreted and delivered a number of ways, here’s my take on the subject: A core story is the essence of a company — the business they’re in, the customers they serve, and the value they offer. It’s the logical and compelling story of an offer that can drive most, if not all, aspects of a business.

Your core story is the crux of your value to existing and prospective customers. It’s the thing that drives business your way.

A core story gives you the opportunity to be an orange when compared to apples in your market. Especially in commodity markets, this makes your sales less dependent on price and availability — it’s harder to compare your offer to others and as such, it’s harder to compare price. Your core story allows prospective customers to get it quicker, making your offer more compelling than those you compete against. The result is your close ratio increases and your sales cycles shortens — both lead to making more money.

Selling more and selling faster isn’t about trickery or gimmicks of any kind, shape or form. The secret to selling more and faster is communicating better — that’s what core stories are about.

When you’re versed in the core story of your business, everything you do makes more sense and is much easier to talk about. It’s a way of thinking and looking at the things you do as a means to do things for your customers — things they acknowledge as worthy of owning.

Let me be clear, there are no silver bullets in marketing or sales — there is no one thing any of us can do to become a sales machine that attracts customers like a magnet and closes every opportunity. Core stories aren’t the exception. That said, I don’t know of any more powerful tool that’s closed more business.  If you don’t have a core story, you likely need one.

Here is a link to more information on the value of core stories. And here is a link to an eight step process to create your core story.

Hopefully this post helps further your understanding of core stories, their importance, and a process to create yours. Enjoy!

The post What is a core story? appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

In summary, your core story makes it easier to communicate who you are — more people get it. Which means prospects can differentiate you from your competitors, your brand is better recognized, and price falls in your prospect’s buying decision hierarchy. Core stories can drive all aspects of a business, from product development to customer service, operations, and pricing. If you don’t have a core story, you need to get one and let it drive your business.

Without further fanfare, here is part one of a multi-step step process to create your compelling core story:

Step 1: Profile your best customers

If you’ve been involved in marketing or sales for any time, you’ve likely read about the importance of personas and their value to target marketing, positioning, and associated sales activities. If so, your eyes may be rolling as read this. Bear with me 🙂

Profiling your best customers is a necessary and critical step to creating your core story — a dependency for activities that follow.

Begin your profile by identifying your best customers. In this context, your best customers are the ones you love serving and who love telling others about you — your evangelists, the companies who get the most out of the things you do. Your best customers are the ones you wish all were alike.

Next, with your best customers in mind, consider the following questions:

• What market are they in?
• Who are their customers and what markets do they serve?
• What is the title and scope of responsibility of the people you work with in these accounts? Regarding their work-life, what are their concerns?
• What are the business challenges and/or opportunities that led them to be your customer?
• How is their condition improved by a relationship with you and your company?

In this first step, you want to get a clear vision of who your best customers are and understand their worldview. you don’t want to gloss-over this step, it’s critical to your core story and sales success.

List your answers to the question above — don’t skip anythign, be as detailed as possible.

Step 2: Identify the things you do for your customers

This is very different from the things you do, it’s the things you do for your customers. The difference is huge. You may sell hardware, software or professional services, but that’s not what your customers are buying from you and that’s not what you do for them — that’s simply the things you do.

This can best be understood with a quick example: A sales training company may sell workshops, online education, phone consultation, personalized training materials, sales tools, etc. These are the things they do. But their customers aren’t really buying these things. The training company’s customers are actually buying a means to shortened their sales cycle, increase their close ratio, and improve revenue performance. The training company offers sales training, but no one wants to buy training — it has no inherent value worth owning until it results in something the buyer cares about.

Consider your best customers identified in the first step.  List the thing you do for them — the results they realize and enjoy from the products and services you provide them. Think of the business value your products and service create. Do your products and services:

• Increase productivity
• Save money
• Allow resources to be redeployed
• Improve performance
• Reduce time requirements
• Improve response
• Create wealth

The idea in this step is to get to the root of the business you’re in, looking beyond your widgets and service delivery items to identify the things your customers buy from you. Think forest and trees, you should be looking for the forest.

The business you’re in, may not be the business you think you’re in. In fact, you may be overlooking the business you’re in — blinded by the things you do.

Step 3: List the things that are meaningfully different about your offer as compared to others offering similar benefits

All the steps in this process are important — this step is among the most important.

If a prospective customer determines competing offers from two or more vendors have similar benefits and there’s nothing significantly different between the offers, then price rises in the hierarchy of their decision to purchase — you’ve become a commodity whose value is reduced to price, convenience, and availability.

But offering something different isn’t enough.  In fact, merely offering something different can be a detriment. The key is offering something different that makes the benefit stronger or more real.

Meaningful difference can come from your company, product, service or people involved in the offer. The key is the difference has to be meaningful to your prospective customer.

Here is a simple example of difference without meaning: If I am considering to purchase your widgets and the only color I’m interested in buying is blue, the fact you offer widgets in 1000 colors is of no interest to me — it’s not a selling point or buying feature. To mention your 1000 available colors is a waste of time. In this example, color choice isn’t meaningful to the buyer so, touting it is at best a distraction and at worse the demonstration you don’t understand your prospect or market.

Meaningful difference can take several forms, as long as it adds value to the benefit your prospect is buying:

• Manufacturing, delivery or creation process
• Quality or composition of raw materials
• Tools of your trade
• Expertise, experience or accomplishment of personnel
• Responsiveness or timeliness
• Completeness of the solution you offer
• Reduced risk in the business relationship
• Volume of support

List the things you offer that are meaningfully different and map them directly to the benefit your customers buy. Again, these are the things that are different about your offer that increases the strength of the benefit you sell.

Step 4: List the key features and functionality of the things you sell

Features and functionality of your product and service are important to the extent they prove your ability to deliver the benefit your prospect is considering to purchase. Beyond that, they have no value.

For some, that perspective is hard to swallow, but it’s true.

Many companies present datasheets to prospective customers full of features and functionality, listing every possible configuration as reason to buy their products and services. They talk about their offer ad nauseam, extolling the breadth of options engineered into the solution. On the surface this isn’t a problem. And in fact, it can be a powerful thing to do. The problem is too often it’s done without tying all that product development and engineering wonder to a purpose the prospect deems worthy of purchasing.

Again, features and functionality aren’t inherently worth owning — they’re meaningless until they demonstrate a benefit can exist or make it stronger. And that’s how they should be talked about, as proof the benefit you’re selling is achievable and worth spending money to own.

In this step, list every feature and functionality you offer:

• Map every feature and functionality you list to the things you do for your customers created in step 2
• Test each feature and functionality to make sure it offers proof the things you do for your customers are real or more meaningful than doing them without
• For every feature or functionality you list that can’t be tied to the benefit you sell, forget about it for the purpose of selling

What you’re doing in this step is identifying the pieces and parts of the things you do that have real value — creating a meaningful benefit your best customers want to purchase.

Again, this is not to say features and functionality aren’t important. It’s just to make clear they only matter to the extent they prove something worth buying is real and the price is justified.

Your turn

Part one of this process will end here, there’s enough homework in the first four steps to keep you busy for a while 🙂

On a serious note, we need to pause here to get the most out of this process — putting effort into the first four steps without the disruption of knowing exactly where we’re going with it. Focus on each step and put thought into your work. Talk to others you work with, share ideas, and don’t skip any details.

Part 2 of this process will be published in a few days. At that time, we’ll bring all of this together to create your compelling core story.

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Update: Here is the link to part 2.

The post How to create your compelling core story: Part 1 appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

Your difference is all the things related to your benefit that’s part of your core story.

Things such as:

• process
• work history
• tools
• equipment
• materials
• features
• functionality
• packaging
• support
• documentation
• options
• diversity
• terms
• partnerships
• joint ventures
• facilities
• guarantee

There is one caveat to the above list — your prospective customer has to care about it.

Difference your customer isn’t interested in is of no value. For example: The fact you offer widgets in 1000 colors is of no value to me if I only want to purchase black widgets. Conversely, the fact you offer 1000 configurable options on a product I want to employ numerous ways is relevant.

Difference is often related to the advantage you offer, which leads to benefits customers buy. And difference can be reasons to believe in the benefit you offer — more on this topic later.

To add oomph to your core story, create a list of things different about the things you do, the things you offer, and the benefits your customer’s purchase. Yo can refine the list later. For now, just go crazy listing everything you can that’s uniquely yours — things your prospective customer is likely to value. This points you in the direction of highlighting meaningful difference your customers value and prospects will consider buying.

The post Core Story: Meaningful difference makes a big difference appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

And both ads offered the same reason to call the respective agent – longevity. One agent had been selling real estate for 20 years. The other agent has sold real estate for 15 years.

I know what each agent intended to imply by stating their longevity as a real estate professional. But why should I care? Is a 20 year agent more valuable to me than a 15 year agent? If so, is a person who claims 30 years on the job more valuable than them both?

Of course not.

What each should have done is quantify their longevity in a way that’s meaningful to prospective customers – dollar volume of real estate sold, number of homes sold last month and year, average time it takes for their listing to sell, etc.

When I see years lived touted as a value, my eyes roll. The number of years you’ve spent on your job or position isn’t important. What’s important is what you’ve accomplished and are capable of doing that matters most.

Do you agree or disagree?  Why?

The post Longevity is not a benefit, it’s merely a fact appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

Step 5: Why should I believe you?

We’re going to start the second part of this process with a simple question: Why should I believe you?

Think about it and consider all the work you did in steps 1-4.

Until and unless I believe you, nothing else matters. It doesn’t make any difference what you claim, what you offer or how much I may benefit from a relationship with you — if I don’t believe you.

Believing in you and everything you offer is the key to closing the sale. If I don’t believe you, then the benefit and difference you offer is bogus. You don’t make a sale. I ignore you.

Here are several ways you can build reason to believe in you and your offer:

• Degree and pedigree of your staff
• Guarantee
• Warranty
• Volume of customers served, units shipped or dollar value sold
• Process, standards, and certifications
• Awards and recognition
• Testimonials and endorsements
• Success stories (learn more here)
• Features and functionality of your product or service that prove the benefit is real (see step 4)

Notice the number of years you’ve been in business isn’t listed above. The reason is longevity isn’t a very good reason to believe — lots of poor companies have been in business for years. It’s best to quantify longevity to make it meaningful:  number of customers, dollar value of sales, units sold, etc. Being in business doesn’t mean your customers like you and your products and services are in demand. But when you quantify longevity, it can take on a meaning that creates great reason to believe in you and your company.

A closing thought on believing: The bigger the promise, the harder it is to believe. You can’t offer less reason to believe than the value of the benefit being purchased. A buyer can accept a level of risk in their purchase decision, but when the gap between reason to believe and benefit is too great, the buyer walks from the opportunity.

Reason to believe closes sales.

Step 6: Create your short story

Let’s jump at this point from analysis of your offer to the short story of your business — an elevator pitch of sort. We need to tie things together at a high level to create clarity about the business you’re in, using this high level perspective to later surface details that support it.

The short story of your business needs to immediately get to the point of the thing(s) you do for your customers. It’s what you want to say without hesitation when you meet someone new and they ask What do you do?

There are two things that go into your short story: 1) The thing(s) you do for your customer 2) The result it creates.  A quick example is my short story: I help my clients sell more of the things they have available to sell today — faster.

In that short story I let people know my focus is helping others sell their existing products and services. And the result is selling them faster. This story helps identify prospective customers, signalling people looking for near term revenue improvement that I’m a potential partner. It’s a way to open the conversation and serves as driving point for everything I do and offer.

Picture your short story as a beginning and end of every conversation. It’s is the purpose of everything you do.

Look back at step 2 and the things you do for your customers. Is there a common thread between the things you listed, something that ties them together? Once identified, this is the item we want to focus on — the common benefit your customers enjoy that bond other benefits.

Considering that common point, what are the results your customers realize from that activity? Think of how their condition is improved as a result of owning that benefit.

Now put those two elements together in a brief narrative: the common thread between the things you do for your customers and the result they enjoy from owning it.  Don’t worry about the exact language, it will mature over time. Focus more on putting the two elements together in a brief story that strikes the essence of what you do for your customers and the associated result.

While not worrying about length at this point, be cautious not to run on. Remember, this is the short story that opens and ends the conversation. Your core story is a longer narrative that begins and ends with this short piece.

Step 7: Map your meaningful difference, features, and functionality to your short story

With your short story as the starting and ending point in your mind, map the things you do, features and functionality you offer, meaningful difference,  and reason to believe together to create a story that logically tells prospective customers and stakeholders alike who you are, what you do and why people should care.

Here’s how it flows:

1. There are things you do for your customers — benefits they purchase that improve their condition. This is the real business you’re in: Steps 1 & 2.
2. To deliver these things, you offer products and services (the things you do).
3. The things you do are comprised of purpose-built features and functionality: Step 4.
4. There’s something meaningfully different about the things you do that add more to the benefit you offer. You standout from your competition in a meaningful way: Step 3.
5. Combining the things you do, the things you offer, and the difference you purpose-built into your solutions, there are compelling reasons to believe in you and your ability to deliver the benefit you offer: Step 5
6. All of these things are why you do the things you do for your customers. There are no accidents in your offer, they’re all purpose-built to improve your customer’s condition in a meaningful way.

Step 8: Test your core story against your short story

Test your core story against your short story to make sure the two support each other. Do they both tell the same basic story? Does your core story explain your short story in a logical and flowing way?

If not, you need to revisit your short story — likely you’ve missed the essence of your business.

Remember, your short story serves two broad purposes: 1) It’s a way to introduce your company 2) It’s a focus point in conversation to keep mapping everything about your business to and from.  And while your short story is part of your core story, we need to take this step to make sure we are properly focused — forest and trees.

Practical ways to use your core story

There are number of practical ways you can use your core story:

Every time you’re asked about your products and services (features and functionality), start with your short story and then explain how specific things you offer and do support it. Everything comes back to a logical explanation of the things you do for your customers — the beginning and end of everything you do.

When asked by a prospect why they should buy from you instead of your competitor(s) (meaningful difference), start with the difference you built into your offer and explain how it’s meaningful to the things you do for your customers.

When a visitor arrives at your website, immediately present your short story as opposed to the things you do — the latter is about you, the former is about them. Organize information around your core story.

Lace your core story into proposals and presentations. Never mention a feature or functionality without difference tied to the things you do for your customers.

Closing thoughts on your core story

Your core story is just that: your story. It’s the story of who you serve, how you serve them, what makes you stand out from competition, and why you can be believed. Your story will mature over time and you’ll soon fall into a comfortable pattern of talking about your business. As you mature your core story, keep referencing the eight steps in this process, testing each tweak along the way.

Test each of the features, functionality, and reasons to believe you listed in the early steps of this process. Listen to people you talk to about your business and note which aspects of your business and core story earn the best reaction and response. You’ll likely find particular differences and reasons to believe are stronger than others — it’s never what you believe to be the greatest part of your offer, it’s what a prospective customer believes that matters most; run with the combination that works best.

Now it’s up to you. Create your core story and enjoy the resulting success.

The post How to create your compelling core story: Part 2 appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

Direct mail isn’t a good fit for all companies, but it’s a great option for many who unnecessarily overlook it. Especially in B2B complex sales, direct mail is as relevant today as it has ever been. Those who badmouth direct mail, saying it’s all SPAM and doesn’t fit in a permission marketing world, miss the point — relevant business communication is always welcome…in every form.

Twelve ways direct mail can fail

There are a number of reasons a direct mail campaign can fall short of expectations. Here are 12 common things I look for and more often than not find as the reason for underperforming direct mail:

• The open rate is low — the envelope isn’t doing its job
• The read rate is low — the letter is too hard to read or doesn’t grab the reader’s attention before the urge to throw it away
• The offer is wrong — the offer isn’t compelling or of interest to the addressee
• The offer is weak — the offer is vague, implied or confusing
• The timing of the letter is wrong — the letter is OK, but it’s arriving outside of the addressee’s window of concern or interest
• The addressee is wrong — the letter is sent to the wrong person, someone without the ability or interest to act
• The wrong person sent the letter — the letter is OK, but the addressee doesn’t recognize the sender as a peer worthy of responding to
• The letter looks like junk mail — too many font changes, bold print, highlights, etc.
• The letter doesn’t have all of the necessary elements — something is missing: valued benefit, meaningful difference or not enough reason to believe
• The call to action is wrong — the letter asks the addressee to do too much or act too soon relative to the addressee’s purchase cycle, this is especially common in complex sales lead generation
• The letter isn’t compelling — this is generally found when the letter is artificially cut short or is unnecessarily long
• The letter is cheesy — the letter doesn’t read or present as professional as it needs to be to get serious consideration

If you are chasing named accounts or have a list of companies fitting a defined profile, direct mail is an excellent tool to open sales opportunities. In fact, when working with defined markets and named accounts, direct mail is one of only a small number of ways you can proactively engage with a prospective client and open a sales opportunity – cold calling and email being common alternatives.

What is your experience with direct mail in B2B complex sales environments? Any success or horror stories to share?

The post 12 things that may be wrong with a poorly performing direct mail campaign appeared first on J. Stuart Logan.

Especially in hi-tech and professional service markets, talking about your company can be difficult.

It’s expressed a bit differently experience to experience, but here are the things I hear people say all the time, generally with great frustration knowing their business should be performing better — Does any of this sound like you:

• Our prospective customers don’t get it
• We can’t express our greatest value
• We shouldn’t be competing on price, but we always do
• We know we’re better than our competitors, but we can’t convince people of that
• I look at our website and know something is missing, but I’m not sure what
• We contact a lot of people, but aren’t having as many sales meeting as we should
• Some of our sales opportunities just disappear

The common thread is many people have a hard time talking about the things they do for their customers, as opposed to the things they do. This results in prospects who genuinely don’t get it and can’t recognize anything unique about you or your offer.

You end up being lost in the crowd of your market.

Your core story may be missing or forgotten

Core stories are about communicating the essence of who you are and the things you do. Core stories aren’t about the speeds-feeds-features-functionality or price of your products or services, rather your core story is about who you are as a company and how you improve your customer’s condition.

It’s common for companies to talk about the things they do. For example: sales training companies often lead with their multistage process, years of training experience, and number of clients trained; technology companies commonly lead with the number of ports, quality of service, and spec sheet support for numerous features; professional service companies are known to lead with the pedigree of their staff, nut-n-bolt descriptions of their service delivery, and industry jargon they believe help identify or somehow impress prospective clients.

All of those things can be important and have a place and time in the customer’s buying process, but none are the essence of who you are or how you meaningfully help your clients.

Lack of communicating your core story makes it easier to commoditize your offer — reducing your value to access, convenience, and price. Again, you’re lost in the crowd, looking and sounding like every other company in your market.

When you think about it, it’s not hard to see how most companies in a given market sound alike. Companies sharing market space make similar things and wrap them with similar services. As long as we leave the conversation there, prospective clients have little to differentiate us except for price, convenience, and availability.

What makes a great core story?

Great core stories come from communicating your unique ability to help a client solve a problem or enable an opportunity. Your core story begins and ends with your client’s worldview.

It’s not about the training company’s multistage process, it’s about the training company helping their clients reduce their sales cycle and increase their close ratio; it’s about the technology company enabling more billable minutes or diversifying services to create new revenue streams; it’s about the professional service provider’s ability to increase profitability or reduce risk.

Core stories are about the reason you got into business and the customer condition you’re improving in a meaningful way.

How do you use a core story?

You use your core story to deliver your message in all forms. You can look at it as the foundation upon which everything you do in your business is built.

Because your core story is the essence of who you are and what you do for your customers, it drives everything in your business:

• Your elevator pitch
• Content strategy
• New products and services
• Website design and layout
• Target marketing
• Sales process
• Service strategy
• Business 0perations and policies

And the list goes on.

Certainly, you can operate a business, have processes, development schedules, customers, and revenue growth without a core story. It’s just that things get easier when your core story drives your business and customer communications.

Clarity in who you are and how you help your customers leads to purpose-built solutions in the form of products and services that speak to your prospective customer’s worldview. Your core story makes it easier to communicate who you are — more people get it. Which means prospects can differentiate you from your competitors, your brand is better recognized, and price falls in the buying decision hierarchy.

When it’s easier to talk about who you are, how you’re meaningfully different, and why your prospect should care, people respond to your offer faster and more willingly. You’re less frustrated and have a greater opportunity to reach your business potential. Lead generation becomes easier and qualified prospects self-identify their interest in your company, products, and services.

Core stories are that powerful.

Next

In the next few days, I’ll follow-up this post with a step-by-step plan to create your core story. In the meantime, think about the way you currently communicate with prospective customers. Do they get it? If not, your core story may be the exact place to begin the journey to greater success.

What do you think?

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Update: Here is the link to a simple step-by-step process to create your compelling core story.

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