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Today’s episode is a continuation of the mini series, “Top 10 Things to Consider Before Starting Your Business,” which was initiated by one of the show’s listeners, Kathy. She is making the shift from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, and is in the process of starting her first business; she asks, “What do you suggest that I consider and avoid before taking the leap of faith?” Tom discusses the seventh thing to remember before starting your business, how to tell your story.
Key Takeaways
An important part of connecting with your customers and audience is to know how to tell your story. Tom’s role as the Kauffman Foundation’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence of Western North Carolina allows him to work with startup early stage companies and founders; he continually encounters interesting patterns that emerge about companies’ ability to effectively tell their stories. In this episode, Tom reveals three out of five quick tips for you to follow so you can get better at telling your story. The fourth and fifth tips about storytelling will be delivered in tomorrow’s episode (023).
In order to successfully convey your company’s products and services, you first need to know your audience; know whom you need to reach, what they want, and what drives them. Reach out to your customers or whom you think your audience is and test out your assumptions. Do they align with what you originally thought? Connect with your audience before you get too far down the path of launching your business. Take a step back and ask yourself: am I communicating with my customers at all? Many times we make the mistake of thinking that we know exactly who our customers are and the best way to reach out to them but oftentimes, we are so busy with running our business that we never go out and communicate with them until we launch—then it’s often too late.
Make sure that you know how to speak their language and not just communicate through yours. You must be able to communicate well with your prospective customers and partners in a way that’s easily understood. As an example, imagine presenting something that’s highly technical to a financial type CFO but you deliver your story using highly technical jargon. This person could be a financial decision maker for you, yet they don’t understand what you’re talking about and might think that they are the wrong person. The subjects that you are comfortable talking about may not translate well to other people who aren’t experts in your field. Some companies have the chance to get to the absolute right person from a decision-making standpoint, but they end up talking themselves right out of the office by not speaking the right language. Realize that your products and services aren’t as interesting to other people as they are to you. In order to get your audience’s attention from the get go and in the right sequence, translate your message from your language to theirs; get on the same plane as your audience otherwise you aren’t connecting.
Another important tip coincides with a dating analogy. Don’t pop the question on your first date. This means that you need to deliver the right information in the right order. Many people end up making the mistake of telling their story in the wrong order. Before they identified a connection, they went right into talking about the nitty gritty details of their business. You need to earn the right to discuss the details of your business, products, or services by first communicating the benefits you aim to deliver to your audience. What will they gain by supporting you? A company out of Asheville, North Carolina, Beeswax Websites, does this well by first saying they help artists and artisans to spend more time on their craft and less on managing and building their websites. This approach makes a more powerful connection with a potential customer than saying we make websites for artists using Etsy because it communicates what’s really in it for the artist up front. Once they are intrigued, you can then move into explaining the specs of the business. In sum, remember to deliver your communication with customers in the right order to be most effective with marketing your platform.
Tomorrow’s episode will explore the last two tips regarding an efficient story telling method to use when reaching out to your audience.
Companies Mentioned: Beeswax Websites
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