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Avoid the Guesswork Gap

By Ben Reed 4 Comments

Executive decision makerOne of our clients is a leading provider of workforce mobility. But what on earth is workforce mobility? Unless you’re in the industry, you could be thinking mobile phones … or travel management … or vehicle fleets … or who knows what else.

For the prospect that’s never met you before (or for meetings with lots of different stakeholders), a generic term like “workforce mobility” can open up a Guesswork Gap. When your message falls into this gap, one of three things will happen. Your listener will either:

1. Guess right
2. Guess wrong
3. Give up

Which of these three outcomes is most likely? You guessed it: #3. Instead of doing the hard work of trying to figure out what you mean, chances are your prospect will simply check out. And once you’ve lost their attention, you may have just lost the sale.

How do you avoid the Guesswork Gap? Be specific.
You’ve got to give your prospect something they can actually picture in their mind’s eye. If they can’t “see” it, they won’t remember it.

For the client mentioned above, instead of relying on the term “workforce mobility” to describe what they do, we brought in a few specific examples to paint the picture. Now, what they actually do is help companies move their employees around the world. So, we explained that they “help some of the world’s largest companies with absolutely everything involved in relocating their people – from rethinking company policies … to accurately forecasting the costs … to getting the VP’s cat through customs.”

It’s a really simple fix – just a few concrete examples. But it will keep their message from falling into the Guesswork Gap.

Why it’s such a challenge in B2B
This is one area where B2C brands have it easier. If you’re selling Cheerios or Ford F150s or gym memberships, your prospect can immediately picture what you’re talking about. There’s no guesswork involved. This holds true even if you’re selling a new feature or benefit for that product or service. The Cheerios are now chocolate-covered? I can still picture that. The F150 has bigger wheels? Got it. The gym is offering more classes, or later hours, or new equipment? Still no Guesswork Gap.

B2B is a whole different ball game. And it’s because you’re dealing with so much complexity and so many intangibles – especially in industries like technology, consulting, or financial services. You say “payment technology” and your prospect is wondering if you’re talking about credit card swipers, Apple Pay, tokenization, EMV or some kind of mysterious new wizardry no one has even heard of yet. And it’s all because you have something the prospect doesn’t have: context. You can picture it. They can’t. So, chances are, they’ll just give up and check out.

How to stop the guesswork before it starts
All you need are a few really specific examples. I’ve been working on this in my own conversations. Instead of describing what we do as “strategic messaging and positioning” and hoping the person I’m talking with will know what I mean, I’ve started going ultra specific. I’ll say, “We create everything from the tagline of the company – like the ‘Just Do It’ if you’re Nike – all the way to the elevator pitch their sales people use when they’re talking with a prospect.”

This way, I avoid any confusion (such as the dreaded “Oh, you mean messaging like text messaging?”). Would some of my listeners already know what I mean by “strategic messaging and positioning”? Sure. But even then, they might not be thinking exactly what I’m thinking. They could still “guess wrong” – picturing some kind of abstract branding exercise that doesn’t actually result in useful messaging. The examples remove the guesswork.

Find the gap – and close it
So step back, put your “prospect hat” on, and take a closer look at your own sales and marketing messaging. When you go through it with this filter in mind, you’ll start to see all kinds of ways to clarify vague terms with specific examples. Not just in your overarching company description, but in your key selling points, your features and benefits, your calls to action, everywhere.

Remember, your prospects lack context. And they’re already overwhelmed with information. So don’t keep them guessing.

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Filed Under: Marketing & Sales Messaging Tagged With: B2B Messaging, Marketing Message, Sales Message, Sales Messaging

About Ben Reed

Ben is Co-founder of PitchMaps. He is passionate about branding, sales messaging, and entrepreneurship. He writes and speaks regularly about B2B core messaging. An intrepid traveler, Ben has lived in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Connect with Ben: Twitter / LinkedIn

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Comments

  1. Seth Dotterer says

    January 11, 2018 at 10:24 am

    Ben, great post – and one that B2B companies routinely fail at. Often the guesswork gap comes from marketing peeps trying to ‘create a new category’, and looking for the 4-7 word description at the top of their home page.

    Do you have any advice for balancing the need to be concise/grab attention with the very real benefit of giving specific examples?

    Reply
    • Ben Reed says

      January 11, 2018 at 11:19 am

      Hi Seth,

      Thanks for the comment. When it comes to balancing the need for brevity and specificity, I think the real key is finding those little mental “hooks” that make the listener go, “Oh, now I get it.” Just two or three key words or phrases are usually all it takes.

      For example, one of our clients does IT infrastructure. That term could mean different things to different people. So, in their pitch, we brought in two little examples that helped clarify what they mean by that: “We do everything from building new datacenters to roadmapping new IoT initiatives.” On a website, a simple explanation like this can work great in the slightly longer (1–2 sentence) descriptor underneath your main headline or banner.

      Hope this helps!
      Ben

      Reply
  2. George Bates says

    January 11, 2018 at 4:29 pm

    Hey, I know who that client of yours is! :) Good advice Ben and thank you and your firm for the great work….we are still using it fully and getting lots of great traction from it.

    George J. Bates GMS
    Chief Revenue Officer
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebates
    GRAEBEL®
    Here’s to the world ahead.SM
    http://www.graebel.com

    Reply
    • Ben Reed says

      January 11, 2018 at 4:36 pm

      Thanks so much, George. That’s great to hear!

      All the best,
      Ben

      Reply

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