THINKing

You Have A Problem? I Have A Product!

If you have a business headache, do you really care about someone’s products and services? I know I don’t. Give me a solution, then we will talk.

Here’s the truth, most B2B companies are so egocentric that they could care less about their prospects’ problems. Well, maybe it’s not that they don’t care but that they are so concerned about selling their products and services that they have never even thought about them from their prospects’ perspectives.

If you are marketing B2B products and services, you need to start talking about specific outcomes not products, services, capabilities matrices, or proprietary processes. Never, ever say something like:

We offer an end-to-end software product built to unify collaborative design, supply chains, production, marketing and customer service through a proprietary scalable process that increases innovation.

Raise your hand if you have any idea what the above means? I’m not seeing any hands.

I used to work with a data storage company which always wanted to talk about its proprietary media coating. Customers did not care about that coating. The problem: they only wanted their data to be safe. So, instead of doing highly technical ads focusing on the coating, we suggested that they focus on data safety.  We led with an easy to understand benefit – data safety – and we briefly explained that the coating was what made their data safer. It worked.

So, get out there and define the prospect’s problem, talk about it from his perspective, and then show how you can solve it using statistics and customer case studies. Do that and you are 80% of the way to making the sale.

How are you doing in this area? Know of any companies doing a good job? Tell us about it.

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Harry Hoover

Harry Hoover is a partner in My Creative Team, the agency that makes Fortune 1000 clients look good. His communications career spans 35 years and runs the gamut from print and broadcast journalism, government and corporate communications to advertising and public relations agencies.

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