Emmy-award winning TV journalist, formerly of CNN, and author of the book, 10 Simple Secrets of the World’s Greatest Business Communicators, Carmine Gallo, has a lot to offer B2B Marcom practitioners.
While Carmine most frequently pitches on how to give a great presentation, I think we can all learn how to be better Marcommers. Here is what I mean:
Here is a quote, from a review of the book on Jian.com :
After interviewing more than two thousand executives and spokespeople in my career, I’m convinced the best stand out by crafting a lead that answers the following four questions in thirty seconds or less:
1. What is my service, product, company, or cause?
2. What problem do I solve (or what demand do I meet)?
3. How am I different?
4. Why should you care?
Answering these questions will help you start strong while giving the rest of your presentation a direction.
The way I see it, answering these same questions succinctly will also help us describe to our team (product managers, sales types, tech support staff, etc.) just what we can do for them. B2B Marcom groups work best when their entire team “gets them” and works with them.
I’ve got examples of exactly how that happens. And, I’ve got examples of the myriad OTHER ways things can go down when the understanding just isn’t there. I take ths personally, and believe that it is MY job to sell my Marcom services to people within my own company (versus waiting for them to “get it”).
I love this insight and am planning on implementing these thoughts into my practice. I’d like to hear from you on this. Please comment.
Nancy Pattarini:
I generally agree and just approach it from the flip side. My philosophy is that success in selling marcom services is achieved by proving to your “clients” that YOU get THEM, and that you are the key to their success. (The “client” is sales, marketing, tech support, finance, HR, etc). Marcom sits in a power position when it not only demonstrates that it is sensitized to the client’s challenges and goals, but serves as the “grand facilitator” among an organization’s various functions.
In traditionally structured companies, departments tend to work in silos and communication is weak or poor. Each group can become so focused on a task or program that its deliverable falls short of customer or market needs. And marcom is the first to see these results because our job is to convert their information into an effective communications vehicle.
As communication experts, we are in the best position to mentor and guide program initiatives, facilitate understanding among the groups, and most important — keep their eyes on the prize. That means pulling from each group the information needed to meet the ultimate goal of satisfying the customer. Armed with that kind of information, the rest is easy…we can always produce the “stuff.”
One could almost take each of the four questions and pose them in reverse.