What can I do for you?

I was at a 4Networking Session a few weeks ago and gave the usual 40 second pitch to a group of about 18-20 people. I accept that this is a breakfast meeting, and not everyone is at their best at this time of day. During a 1-2-1 session afterwards I asked Brad Burton what he thought I did for my clients. Brad is surrounded by MBA's and knows what they are capable of but somehow the content and message of my 40 second pitch hadn't registered.

The elevator speech, is a very American, 80's throwback, power dressing, shoulder pads, back-combed concept which I don't like and usually results in an anodyne and meaningless babble; mine sounded something like, "I am an independant management consultant specialising in helping SME organisations to reduce cost and increase productivity", which sort of explains everything and nothing while being very ho-hum.

A couple of sessions later I met Vanessa Deakin from Zee2A. With her partner David, she shows small professional service organisations like mine how to market themselves; all of the focus is on describing client outcomes, rather than our qualifications and methods for doing it. Vanessa suggested using a framework they've dubbed the verbal signature. This breaks the "What I do" thing into three components, target, problem and outcome and it explains exactly what we do, and why you may want me to do it for you. Target describes the type of organisations we work with, Problem describes the issues they are suffering from and Outcome describes what will happen as a result of our being involved.

Target (What sort of organisations do we work with, where are they and how big are they?)

We work for larger SME's operating either in the knowledge sector or offering professional services.

Problem (What issues are you experiencing?)

I work with organisations that are struggling to make good strategy or decisions. Where politics, personalities or entrenched beliefs are preventing the organisation from performing as well as it should due to a lack of buy-in and commitment to the direction of the company.

Outcome (What's in it for the client organisation?)

Using analysis frameworks and group facilitation to de-politicise and de-personalise the company's strategising and planning, results in high quality decisions, that are understood, supported and effectively communicated between the stakeholders ensuring improved success, and consequently increased profits and reduced costs.

 

What do you think of this as an offering? If any of this sounds familiar, drop me a line if you would like to know more about how we can help. If you would like to know more about Verbal Signatures take a look at Zee2A