Have you noticed how easy it is to overcomplicate things in business? Sales are low so we add new products or services to our offerings. A prospect goes quiet so we throw more features into the conversation. We want to impress so we add more examples to our stories.
But the more we add the more we are likely to confuse people. Confused people don’t buy.
Have you ever been to a networking event and heard a pitch along the lines of, ‘I organise business events, weddings and funerals, I’m also a graphic designer and a retailer of beauty products’. What’s your reaction? You probably think something along the lines of ‘Jack of all trades master of none’ before instantly dismissing that person as someone you might want to work with. At the very least we are confused. Confused people don’t buy and they don’t refer.
Frequently we add more because we lack confidence in our offer or our ability. Sometimes it’s because we can’t choose between a number of things we like doing or are good at.
But it’s the simplest messages that are remembered and likely to be acted upon.
That’s where the KISS principle comes in.
There are various iterations of what this stands for. ‘Keep it simple, stupid’, ‘Keep it short and simple’ and ‘Keep it simple and straightforward.’ At its core the KISS principle is about simplicity. I’m going to use the simple and straightforward version in this article.
Getting to simple isn’t easy but it is worth the effort. It’s much easier for people to want our offers when they understand them.
Where to start?
If you can nail your mission, vision and values you will have the foundation for all your business decisions and ultimately your messaging. If you haven’t already done this exercise it’s worth devoting some time to it. If you have done it it’s worth revisiting from time to time to make sure what you have is still relevant.
Your mission guides your daily actions and helps people working for your business to understand their role. Your vision sets your longer-term aspirations and can be a useful tool when making big decisions. Your values are the things that can differentiate you from your competitors.
I’m not going to pretend that this is an easy exercise. It can be for those who were driven to start their business by a big goal. But even that can lead to woolly descriptions.
An example of a mission statement in practice.
Amazon’s mission is to be the world’s most customer centric company. What does that mean? It’s the sort of woolly description we can all be vulnerable to. However, Amazon goes on to add more detail… ‘striving to delight customers and make their lives easier one innovative product, service and idea at a time.’ That’s much easier for everyone to understand.
There are three core messages here that stand out for me…
- Delight customers
- Make their lives easier
- Innovative
This makes it easy to use the mission statement for decision making. For every new product or service the questions should be…
- Will it delight our customers?
- Will it make their lives easier?
- Is it innovative?
Of course, the answer to each question should be yes and then the messaging becomes simple… how it will make the customer’s life easier and what is different/new… the customer delight is the result.
So do you have a mission statement that helps you to make the right decisions and simplify your messaging?
Using your mission and vision to keep your business simple.
I do realise that my readers are not running Amazon! However, it is a huge and highly complex company that has distilled its key drivers into a simple mission statement. If they can do it so can we.
Ideally your mission statement should include who you serve (so you need to have done the work on defining your ideal client) and what you aim to achieve for them (so you need to have thought about the results you obtain). Your vision will be where you are heading, and your values will lead to the emotional connection your ideal client has with you.
Once you have clarified your mission, vision and values it’s time for a review of your products, services and messaging.
How do your products and services deliver your mission or lead towards your vision? Do they fit with your values? If they don’t they need to go! Or at the very least you need to stop talking about them.
Once you have simplified your service offering your messaging will become much more straightforward.
If you have more than one business keep them for different audiences. Maybe promote the different businesses in different networking groups and on different social media accounts. Your audience is easily confused so simplify your messaging to make it easier for them to understand.
If you want to test your messaging with supportive business owners why not come to one or more of our networking events? If you want feedback on your introductions then we can offer it in a constructive manner. Our members say that we help them to have confidence in their businesses and their messaging. Click on the events page to see what’s on offer.
