Going from message nightmare to message delight

Copyright 2010- LÛCRUM MARKETING
Going from Message Nightmare to
Message Delight
Presented by:
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
November 2, 2010

Copyright 2010 - LÛCRUM MARKETING
Presentation Agenda
• Typical messaging nightmare scenario
• Why this happens
• What you (PM) can do
• Exercise & discussion

The Scenario
Product (Smart Credit) targeted for credit issuers to better
manage credit lines and interest rates based upon the
credit risk of their clients/prospects, resulting in more
balance build and less delinquencies and write-offs.
“The events depicted in this presentation are fictitious. Any similarity to
any person or company, living or dead is merely coincidental."

The Lead
• Sales meets an IT Manager of credit card issuer at a trade
show.
• IT Mngr – “I need a solution to detect payment fraud. Can
you do it?”
• Sales – “Yes we can!”
• Sets face-to-face visit

The Prep
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create new collateral that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer – create a new demo that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer – help me with a new presentation
about payment fraud.

The Sales Presentation
• PowerPoint Presentation
– Let me tell you how great our company is.
– Now, let me describe our Evolutionary Statistical
Algorithm (ESA) and how great it is.
• Demo of every conceivable feature (isn’t this neat).
• IT Mngr – “Do you have feature A, B, C?”
• Sales – “Yes we do” (liar)
• IT Mngr – “Here is RFP, Send a proposal”

The Proposal
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create a new proposal template for
payment fraud.
– Sales Engineer - answer this RFP.
– Engineering – We must have features A, B, C in the
product now to win this deal. We have a final demo in
three weeks.

The Close
• IT Mngr – “We think we are going with Competitor X who
has the exact solution we need (and is being used by
companies d, e, f).”
• Sales - Discount the price!
• Sales - Discount it some more!
• Sales - Send in the cavalry (executive team)
• Sales - Oops – we still lost it – Why?

The Why?
• Opportunistic v. Targeted Opportunity
• Sales message was technical v. speaking to business
needs
• Never engaged executive that owns the problem

The Impact
• Wasted resources on an opportunity that was a long shot.
• New features in the product that nobody needs.
• A frustrated and irritated executive team.
• Confusion in the market place on what the company does.

Why do these nightmares happen?
1. That’s just the way sales people (& executives) are.
2. They were never properly enabled with the right,
messages, knowledge and tools.
PM

Messaging Questions to Answer
• How do you create a compelling message?
• How do you get the company to use it consistently
(Enablement)?

Survey Results: Question 1
• Does your company use a structured approach to creating
market messages for your products/services?
– Yes: 62%
– No: 38%

• Who in your organization owns the market messages, i.e.,
is responsible for defining them? (Select the BEST option)
– Marketing Communications: 31%
– Everyone: 8%
– Product Marketing: 23%
– Other: 23%
– Executive Management: 15%
– Product Management: 15%

• When you launch a new product/service, what tools and
approaches do you use to enable the sales team on how
to sell it?
– Demos, trade shows and simulations.
– Data sheets, capabilities presentations, business development meetings
– Combination of training webinars & sales collateral.
– Positioning docs, user personas, distinctive competence, competitive analysis
– Global sales team receives traditional and localized collateral and training materials
(presentation, user guide, sell sheet, etc). Once a year HQ training to reinforce and re-
train.
– Product/service training (the sales people), support presentations, demo material
– Training on messaging, value, competition, ...
– Powerpoint presentations, Leave behind brochure, Product Samples, Website links

Six Steps to a Compelling Message
1. Who is our audience?
2. What are we selling?
3. Why should our customers care?
4. What we can do for our customers?
5. Why us?
6. Create your message(s)

Who is Our Audience?
• The message must resonate with your target audience
– Corollary: it will not (& shouldn’t) resonate with all
market segments
• Target market segments
• Key Personas – Buyers, Influencers, Users
– What do they care about
– What language do they use
– Typical profile/characteristics

What Are We Selling?
• Relate to a known category or class of products
• What it does
– Problems your product solves best for that persona.
– Identify features that solve their problem.

Why Should Our Customers Care?
• What are the buyers motivations (per buyer persona)?
– Need, pain, goal, challenge, ideals
– Personal & business
– Articulated & unarticulated
– What do they need to know to make a decision
– How will they evaluate & use your product?

What We Can Do For Our Customers?
• Value proposition
– In terms of the customer
– Benefits & value your customer will realize from
purchase and use of your product
– Relative to customer’s other viable alternatives

Why Us?
• What makes your product stand out (differentiation)
• Meaningful value to the customer
• Sources of differentiation (& value):
– Reference customers, industry expertise, internal
processes, partnerships, innovation, IP, delivery
methods, geography, social, business model,
personnel, features, guarantees, brand promise, core
competencies, etc.
– Speaking to your customers

Create Your Message(s)
• Per target buyer persona
• In your customer’s language / Avoid meaningless words
• Clear value to your customer / Clear differentiation that is
valued by customers
• 2 to 4 messages per persona
• Compare with competitors
• Validate with customer’s
• Support with evidence

Typical Positioning Statement
• For [target end user]
• Who wants/needs [compelling reason to buy]
• The [product name] is a [product category]
• That provides [key benefit].
• Unlike [main competitor (s)],
• The [product name] [key differentiation]

Goals of Sales Enablement
• Ensures everyone (marketing, sales, executives) is
marching to the beat of the same drum.
• Defines clear target market.
• Communicates clear & consistent messages.
• Enables sales to talk with the right buyers.
• Pursue target opportunities that company can win.

Sales Enablement (Base Components)
• Product Backgrounder
• Sales Questioning Guide
• Executive Level Presentation
• Message Driven Demo

Product Backgrounder
• Target Markets / Segments
• Market Needs / Challenges
• Buyer Profiles - Personas / Needs / Challenges / Goals
• Market Messages
– Positioning Statement
– Value Proposition
– Messages

Sales Questioning Guide
• Aka - Pain Sheets / Solution Development Prompters
• One per buyer role per market segment
• Challenges / Impact / Capability / Benefits
• Match to your sales methodology (if any)
• User buyer’s language/terms

Executive Level Presentation
• Market / Buyer needs
• High level discussion of how your solution addresses
needs.
• Benefits / Value Proposition
• Case Study
• Remember the key messages
• 10 to 15 slides

Message Driven Demo
• Communicates key messages.
• Show how buyers needs are solved.
• Build it as story.

Now What?
• How do you get sales to use these new tools?
– Have an executive sponsor (Sales VP/CEO).
– Train them and train them some more.
– Test them on their knowledge via certification process.
– Make the tools real (not ivory tower).
Enhances your role as market expert.

Exercise
• Messaging Grid
• Product Backgrounder
• Sales Questioning Guide

Thank You
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
tevans@lucrum-marketing.com
+1-512-961-5267

Going from message nightmare to message delight

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