Saturday, 13.33pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences. – Howard Gardner
I’ve been thinking of the difference between the tip of the spear and the person behind it.
“Word Craft” by Alex Frankel got me thinking about sales.
He points to Jean-Marie Dru who, in his book “Disruption”, suggested that communication is not something separate from your product – instead it’s an integral component of it.
In other words, your product IS your message.
As a consultant or business owner you are also a product – which means your message is hugely important.
For example, I use this blog as a thinking space. It’s where I can collect ideas and work on understanding them.
And one of the things I’ve been struggling with is separating me from my work.
To start with, I’m building a business that provides data management services to clients that need to disclose information under various regulatory and voluntary frameworks.
At the same time, I’m interested in a range of topics such as strategy and marketing.
And I’m also carrying out research into improving approaches to understanding and improving problematic situations – a field known as problem structuring – through using Rich Notes – a technique I’ve created.
So, who am I? What am?
The business builder?
The strategy consultant?
The academic?
I think what’s going on is that we are more than one thing.
But – if we’re trying to connect with other people we have to pick one personality and stick with it.
For example, I had someone mention that they had talked to a prospect about my strategy work but when the prospect checked me out on LinkedIn I came across as too energy focused.
So, I either lost a potential prospect because of my message or I filtered out a prospect that wasn’t the right fit for what I was offering.
It feels like you should put across everything about who you are – the richness that you have.
But you have to decide what you want people to think.
The kind of research I do is Action Research.
This is where you have a situation – like figuring out what to do about marketing yourself – and you try something.
Maybe rewrite your profile. Tweak your outgoing messages. Try and make it easier for prospects to work out if they need you or not.
The research comes from doing something and then reflecting on what you’ve done, looking for lessons to learn, principles to extract, steps to reuse.
That’s a messy, unpolished process that requires engagement in a situation followed by reflection and writing.
But this is necessary to work through your experience of taking action so that you can come up with theory – a way to explain what happens.
For example, here’s a five part theory
1. Your message is your product
How you describe yourself is what you are. Think about this carefully because it will determine how people respond to you.
2. If you have multiple personalities, let one out at a time
I don’t like simple frameworks. Yet they are essential – because what you’re trying to do is remove ambiguity – make it easier for people to understand what you’re trying to say.
The reason I use LinkedIn is to reach and connect with potential clients. So everything on there needs to be related to that objective.
I’m not doing a very good job of making it clear whether I’m a founder, an academic or a consultant at the moment, so that’s an improvement action I need to take.
Think of it like having more than one personality – having two operating at the same time is very confusing.
3. Cut and refine each message
Cut, cut cut. This post is too long. But that’s ok, because it’s a thinking post.
But your LinkedIn posts have to be tight. Your books, articles, promotional materials, training programmes – they’ve got to be trimmed until they fit exactly what a prospect needs.
4. Design for filtering
You are not aiming to sell to everyone. There is a subset of the market that is perfect for you. You need to find them.
If that market doesn’t exist you need to do something else.
Make sure your system is designed to filter out people who are not right for you and what you offer.
5. Test and learn
There is no right answer.
But there is the work.
Have an idea.
Try it out.
Reflect.
Learn lessons.
Try again.
And now it’s time for me to work on what the next personality has to do.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 