Your prospects are overwhelmed today.  Unprecedented pressures from work, home and personal pursuits have destroyed their attention span. Today, if you can’t connect with them, stand out from your competition and quickly communicate, you are ignored or commoditized. 

What if you could quickly and distinctly communicate who you are, what you do, and, more importantly, why it matters?  What if you could break through the noise so the right people truly hear you?

As the product you sell increasingly blurs into a maze of options, the key to successful differentiation lies in your ability to deliver an effective message that is aligned and targeted to your audience.  Here are tips to doing so successfully.

1:  Be Focused on Your Who

The single biggest problem with commercial messaging is that the message is too vague.  Powerful messages are clearly targeted to specific groups. If you’re not distinctly targeting, the message can only be vague and/or focused on the features/benefits of your product or service.  As I often share, if you treat your products/services like a commodity, your prospects/customers will treat you like a commodity as well.

In my experience, the primary reason for vague messages and the failure to clearly focus on your target is a fear that you may fail to appeal to someone who could benefit and possibly buy from you.  This is the death of most messaging.  Don’t fear turning off potential markets - embrace it! A message can only be powerful and stand out if it both attracts and repels.

2:  Make Sure Your Message Is Focused

The second most common and damaging mistake is the failure to communicate a clear, simple message. Most companies over-communicate their message.  They’re so focused on trying to get everyone to understand everything they do (a result of trying to appeal to too many people) that the message competes with itself.

To stand out and break through the noise barrier you must focus your message behind one clear principle. When you clearly communicate one central theme, your prospects and customers can quickly assess if what you’re saying matters.  When you communicate multiple ideas, your message blends into the background and you throw yourself to the center of The Commoditization Trap. 

3:  Tell A Story

Don Hewitt, the famous producer for 60 Minutes shared the success formula he used.  He said it was a formula that every six-year old understood – “Tell Me A Story.” While this concept is certainly not new to me (I’ve been evangelizing it for years), what struck me was its simplicity and how well 60 Minutes has delivered on that philosophy for more than 40 years.

I’ve become even more aware of just how rare businesses tell stories, and how little time they spend articulating their story. Today, I was discussing the issue with a CEO friend of mine. He tends to be more operational-oriented than I am, and often, finds his company stuck between the investments he’s made in improving the company and the acceptance he’s getting from the market (as measured by revenue growth, margin growth and profit growth). My advice to him was, “The best operation doesn’t win – the best story does. So if it ever comes down to a choice between investing in making the story better or investing in making the operation better, make the story better.” This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to invest in improving your operations (YOU DO!), it just means that you should never let improving your operation get in the way of making your story better.