Eating Our Own Dog Food

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR FEATURES

I once had a client tell me during a messaging interview that he wasn’t interested in working with anybody who didn’t already value data. My job was to explain to him that nobody actually values data. They may appreciate the benefits that data can provide and see how those benefits can help them save time which they value, but they don’t value data.

If someone claims to value data, it’s only because they understand how it connects to what they really value. They connect the dots from more or better data to what they can do with it, and how that helps their business succeed.

If you narrow your customers to those who can already connect the dots, not nearly as many people can be customers.

At Maestro, we often use the example of anti-lock brakes (ABS) to explain the difference between features, benefits, and values. While all vehicles have ABS today, when they were an optional add-on to the 1988 Ford Taurus my family bought when I was 11, the car salesman must not have explained their benefits and values well—since my father opted not to get them. (This is why at 18 I was able to say “Shit! I’m going to hit that car!” at least three times between slamming on the brakes and actually hitting said car. Thanks, Dad.) Had the salesman connected the dots for my father by saying, “I’m sure you care about your family’s safety (value). The new ABS system (feature) means your car won’t go into an uncontrolled skid when you slam on the brakes (benefit),” my father would have opted for them.

Nobody cares about your features or what you’re doing. They care about the benefits and values that impact what they are doing. I explain this all the time. I’ve made charts about it. I have countless examples. AND YET! The web designer gently prodded us into realizing we were falling into the same trap. What work can you do with Maestro? We do assessments, we deliver training, and we can do recruiting and hiring. Who cares?! (Carla at Factor3 was much more tactful in her questioning.) “We do assessments” became “you get evaluations.” “We deliver training,” became, “you learn.” And “we do recruiting,” became “borrow our team to execute on your goals.” It’s never about your company and, in this case, it should not have been about us.

IF YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT

We teach that sales is 80 percent science and follows Newton’s first law of motion. An object in motion stays in motion, while an object at rest stays at rest: a deal in motion stays in motion, and a deal at rest dies. That is why we thought it would be so cool for our logo to look like Newton’s cradle. You might have never heard of Newton’s cradle, but you know what it is. Have you seen those 5 balls hanging in a row on someone’s desk, and if you pick up one and let it go it will hit the other balls and the one on the other end will swing out? That’s Newton’s cradle.

I just needed an entire paragraph (and a long one at that) to explain why that logo would have been perfect for Maestro. That’s a much smaller audience than we want to target, which means it’s not a perfect logo. Clever? Yes. Meaningful to us? Yes. Do other people immediately make the connection? Definitely not.

Your company name does not have to have meaning to other people. Did you know that Hulu is derived from a Mandarin word that means gourd and there’s an ancient proverb that described the gourd as holding special things? It also means “interactive recording” in Mandarin. The CEO thought both meanings were relevant. Do I care about this when I’m deciding whether or not to pay for yet another streaming service? No. I care that Hulu is the only place to watch Only Murders in the Building. If leaders at Hulu had run with the gourd theme for their logo, we probably would have assumed it was a gardening network. The logo would have caused confusion, or at least begged a question requiring a long explanation having nothing to do with the benefits and value of Hulu. A logo that requires explanation should not be your logo. Did we have the design team at Factor3 provide Newton’s cradle logos anyway? Yes. Yes we did. (Sorry, Evan!)

CALL IT WHAT IT IS (CLEARLY)

Toward the beginning of one of our engagements, a client mentioned their blog and how they wanted to find ways to use it to drive business. This confused me since I had been on their website and not seen a blog. Why? The blog was buried, called something like “Acumen” on their drop-down menu.

Your website visitors are busy people, and you need to make finding things easy and intuitive if you want them to spend time on your site. Go ahead and name your blog “Acumen,” if you want to, but call it “Blog” on your navigation menu. Again, we needed gentle prodding on this point: not everyone knows we call our blog Maestro Mastery, so we should not use “Mastery” on our menu.

Similarly, make sure the capitalization in your company name is not necessary for people to be able to understand your company’s focus. We didn’t run into this, but we have seen it with some of our clients. Luckily it has never been as bad as www.whorepresents.com, a company that allows you to find out who represents any famous person (please don’t go there for gifts), but you see our point.

We hope you see the larger point we’re making as well. There is no shame in bringing in an outside group to help you assess or change your sales process or marketing messages. We are all too close to what we do to be able to view it objectively. If you’re not looking to hire an outside company or consultant right now, talk to your most recent hires. They still remember what it was like to look at your organization with fresh eyes—even better if they were considering some of your competitors for employment. The curse of knowledge comes for all of us. It’s why I totaled my parents’ car when I was 18. That wasn’t really my fault. When I subsequently lost the car? Also, not my fault. How can you lose something as big as a car? That’s a failure story for another time.

Ready for a frank look in the mirror? Reach out at mastery@maestrogroup.co to find out more about our messaging and sales assessments.