So you want to launch a business...

Story tellers rule!

"If you want people to remember you, tell them a story."

                                                     - Mark Schenk, professional story teller

 

Why is this true? 

By what mechanism does a story make me unforgettable?  Simple.  It engages with more of the brain than does straightforward logic.  And the richer the story, the more unforgettable it is.

Most of us know that the left cerebral cortex is our main logic engine; and our emotional, creative work is mostly done on the right side.  Other specific brain parts manage sight, smells, physical sensations, etc.  So, it's totally logical that creation of a sensory rich, emotional experience through story-telling would imprint more completely and permanently in the brains of the readers, or listeners - even if it's an unpleasant imprint.

My old Greek friend, Aesop, had the option of simply preaching "the moral of the story."  Instead, he told clever, short tales about "The Fox and the Grapes" and "The Grasshopper and the Ant."  Of course, the one everybody knows is "The Tortoise and the Hare."  That particular story has even kept its characters' names alive as useful words.  I doubt that it will ever become "The Turtle and the Rabbit."

Tell me a story about some fantastic business payoff that arose from buying your product, and I will understand immediately. What's better - I will associate that success with you.  Hand me a list of features, and I will quickly compare it to your competitor's list.  Why invite comparison?

The best stories of all?  Personal testimonial tales from happy customers.  Not fluffy attaboys. 

Real-life stories.

Is it blood? Or just ink?

"Projections are bullshit."

Jason Fried

I've become a fan of Scott Ginsberg, otherwise known as "NameTagScott."  He blogs on a variety of topics, but one of his recurring themes is honesty.  In a recent post, Scott said this...

My definition of writing is as follows:

“Slice open a vein and bleed your truth all over the page.”

KEY WORDS: Vein, blood and truth.

As opposed to “brain, ink and bullshit.”

Suppose we apply that thinking to entrepreneurial elevator speeches, pitches, and business plans.  I preach about the Four Fundamental Factors test for the probable outcome of a start-up notion.  Market - great!  Magic - spell-binding!  Mentors - plenty!  MOXIE - hmmm.  

Thanks, Scott!  I will now be asking myself: Am I hearing or reading "vein, blood, and truth?"  Or is it "brain, ink, and bullshit?"

I'm pretty darned sure that with enough MOXIE a prospective entrepreneur can find a way to fix a modestly flawed start-up plan.  But a bullshit artist will never, never find the MOXIE to make even a well conceived, well written plan really work.  Too many things change along the way.  Too many obstacles arise in the real world of entrepreneurship.  It's just too hard.

Serious success demands some bleeding, I think.  Or is it blood, sweat, and tears?  (The quotation, by the way, is really "...blood, tears, toil, and sweat."  Thank you, Teddy Roosevelt.)

Brain, ink, and bullshit won't cut it.  Remember that - whether you are writing a business plan, or reading one.

Thank you, Scott.

Spells and Incantations

"We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others."

Blaise Pascal

"You can't convince anybody of anything.  You can only give them more information."

Arthur Scharff

If your start-up plan includes exceptional Magic, you have a fighting chance for survival.  But simple possession of Magic does not put your wizardry into action.  It must be released and directed by means of carefully crafted spells and incantations.  Powerful Messages are always required.

My experience tells me that engaging the listener as an informed decision-maker is more powerful than ordering the listener to take some particular action.  That is not to say that marketing and advertising messages should be limited somehow to cold, industrial-strength facts.  Au contrere!  We have all been informed that buyers act on expectations of feelings.  So, informing them that others have, in fact and regularly, experienced those feelings by taking the desired actions is a classic strategem.  Testimonials work.

It's also perfectly acceptable, and logically important, to lead your listener/decision-maker to your preferred conclusion.  I've quoted Barry A. Densa before.  Here's a portion of what he says...

Assemble and present your credentialing elements, your evidence–your entire body of incontrovertible proof–in clear and linear fashion.

Allow your proof to lay the groundwork for what is to come. Create strong and overwhelming direction and momentum.

So, my friendly local entrepreneur, it would appear that Mastery of the art of incantation will serve you well. Click here for a comprehensive list of spells revealed in the Harry Potter tales.  Or, check out the advice of the various marketing communication wizards available to you, at no cost, courtesy of the world wide web.  Above all, start with good writing.  That is your personal magic wand.

The Simple Secret of Strong Brand Identity

"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble."

     Samuel Johnson

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."

Judy Garland

Branding expert, Alina Wheeler, relates those personal exhortations to corporate branding. 

"In psychology, authenticity refers to self-knowledge and making the right decisions for the right reasons. In branding, companies who know they are, what they stand for, and how they are different, have a competitive advantage."

The secret really is a simple one.  Nobody remembers the imitator.  They remember the original.  Be original, and make your originality obvious to the world!

Truth in advertising

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

                                                                            - Mark Twain

Business, like most of life, is all about relationships.  And, as many sages have noted, strong relationships are built on mutual trust.  I hate to bring this up, but it has to do with one of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make.

Never, never, never lie about your product or service - or about anything else, for that matter.  You can only lose your reputation once.  If you lose it early, your startup will likely never recover.

"Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended."

                                                                                       - Benjamin Franklin

Pressing the Flesch

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
                                                                                    Arthur C. Clarke

"Any sufficiently obfuscated meaning is indistinguishable from baloney."
                                                                                    Jim Flowers

I've posted on this topic before; but it's important enough for a return engagement.

Your hot new invention may well be over-the-top incredible.  Unfortunately, if the language you employ to describe it is not clear, powerful, and direct, all your creativity and effort may be wasted.  Your Magic will not work because your Message is weak.

OK, you say, I get it; but what's the point of the title for this post.  And why did you leave a typo in the headline?

Hah!  Gotcha.  The Flesch to which I refer is exactly that, Flesch, not flesh.  Rudolph Flesch is the godfather of readability analysis.  I was recently reminded of Flesch by Joe Roy, aka "Mr. Clarity," in a post about "readable writing."

It happens that I can test my writing for readability right inside Word.  So can you.  Here's how.

Open your Word document.
Check (turn on) “Check grammar with spelling.”
Check (turn on) “Show readability statistics.”
Left-click “OK.”
Spell-check your document. (Press the Flesch.)
After the spell-check, you will see a report of “Readability Statistics.” The Flesch Reading Ease score is the second-last number in the list.

Mr. Clarity also provided a handy scoring comparison scale for reference.  The numbers are Flesch ratings, just like the one at the end of your spell check.

60s Reader’s Digest
50s Time magazine
40s The Wall Street Journal
30s Harvard Law Review; white papers
20s IRS forms; academic papers
10s Many high-tech web sites

So, Mr. Entrepreneur, if your linguistic skills are insufficiently advanced so as to avoid obfuscation, your contemporaneous paucity of revenue-producing events may well be exacerbated.  In actuality, you may even commit inadvertent prevarication as a consequence of perplexity on the part of your intended patron.

All silliness aside, I owe special thanks to Joe for the George Carlin example of clear writing, even if it is PG-13. ("63.6 on the Flesch Reading Ease test of readability – higher than every Fortune 500 company annual report issued last year.")

"Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet"

They left out motherhood.  But sometimes more is too much.

I have no idea how well that old campaign theme fared in the ad wars, but I just love it!  And I can still sing it.

What a great example of warmth by association.  And it doesn't even involve sex.  Those were the good old days.  (1974 or 75, I think.)

Metaphors, delivered in various forms, can evoke strong feelings.  Companies substantially improve market acceptance by identifying with a feeling that their prospective customers would like to experience.

How about "...when it absolutely, positively, has to be there in the morning."  Or "...the real thing."  Or "Irish Spring." 

They can also identify themselves with a strong symbol, such as the lonely Maytag repair man, the classic personification of product reliability.

Recently, Apple has managed to personify their competitor, the PC, as a buttoned-up, stuffy, slightly befuddled, "organization" man - in contrast to a 20-something, hip, relaxed, with-it fellow with more important things to do than fuss with a confusing computer system.  Pure genius.

Sometimes the metaphor is used to clarify complex situations or product features.  Here's one I especially like.

Think of your business (or proposed business) as an automobile, perhaps even a Chevrolet.  The Market is your destination - where you want to go.  Your Magic is the powerful engine that takes you along the road.  Mentors are the dials and gauges giving you important information that reduces your risk.  And Moxie is your gasoline.  Without Moxie, nothing happens.

Omigosh.  Moxie is motherhood.

And good metaphors give great force to your Message.

More about simple

I don't really think you are realizing that what I meant to say was probably not what you thought I had previously been intending with regard to what you had possibly expected to hear and therefore was not being presented in a form that was permitting full communication between and among whomsoever may have been party to the misunderstanding originally in the first place.

Have you ever seen a sentence like that?  More to the point, have you ever written a sentence like that?  Golly, I hope not.  But if you have, it's not too late to save yourself.

A murky Message is no Message at all.  Or worse, it can turn out to be negative.

Here's one first-rate writing blog - Mr. Clarity, real name, Joe Roy.  There are countless others lurking on the web, of course.  Copyblogger is aimed at online work, but is loaded with great stuff.  66 Proven Copywriting Tips are available at Headlines from Floyd.

I feel certain that your mother told you this: if you want to be a good person, hang out with good people.  That also applies to communication.  Dwell among compelling writers and persuasive speakers.  Give yourself a chance to become more compelling and persuasive.

Simple is not easy.

"Too many entrepreneurs correctly envision a great business opportunity, but can't clearly communicate the value of their proposition. In fact, simplicity is one of the most complex challenges you will face in selling your business plan."

                                                                                                    Marty Zwilling

When I spotted Marty's assertion I was reminded of an earlier post - on simplicity.  It's actually worth repeating.  Here it is.

When I was in college I occasionally played chess with my roommate.  Now this guy was/is a wizard - Phi Beta Kappa as an Economics major, Harvard Law School, president of a billion dollar company.  You get the idea - one smart dude.

If I tried to compete with him on a full board, I would lose every time, and badly.  Chess is a complex game, and he could quite simply deal effectively with more data at one time.  BUT... I found that if I traded him pieces until there were only a few left on each side, I could WIN, at least some of the time.

I had found a way to make the game simpler, to increase my chances of success against a powerful adversary. 

The ability to reduce your strategy to its essence lowers your risk.  It permits you to understand very clearly (in most cases) what is required and what will result.  It also enables you to make things understandable to your employees, your allies, your clients, and your investors. 

In describing your prospective business, this amounts to communicating four things, clearly and concisely.

• What will you do? 
• For whom will you do it?
• Why do they need it?
• Why will they pick you?

Make no mistake, however.  A simple strategy is generally a good idea; but simple does not mean unsophisticated.  Remember Thoreau's apology to his friend: "Please excuse me for having written such a long letter, but I did not have time to write a short one."

And a simple strategy does not automatically make success come easily.  Even though I managed to give myself a fighting chance to win at chess, I didn't always win.

This has been said and written many times by many people, but I'll give credit to someone who said it in my presence just two weeks ago.  "Never confuse simple with easy."  Brian Engleman, SRI International

Become a thought leader

David did, in fact, slay Goliath.

And your company-to-be can make itself well-known in the face of larger, older, and richer competitors.  Yes, you can.

According to Wikipedia, "Thought leadership is an increasingly vital driver of business success."  So, how does a poor, rookie entrepreneur earn the title?

Elise Bauer, way back in 2003, blogged a very nice how-to summary for wannabe thought leaders. 

Here's her top 7 list.

1. Cultivate the press.

2. Write. 

3. Spread the word.

4. Speak.

5. Use your website.

6. Unlock your white papers! Don’t make people register to learn more about you.

7. Make thought leadership a strategic imperative for your company.

But Elise's prime admonition (and it's shared by every commentator I've found on the topic of thought leadership) is this:

"Thought leadership requires a spirit of generosity - generosity of one's time, intelligence and knowledge. It requires a trust that by being open with what you know, and by sharing your time and knowledge, the world will reward your efforts."

Suck it up and get it done.  Yes, It takes MOXIE to deliver a strong Message, to become a thought leader in your industry.  But that's what separates the sheep from the goats. 

Grab the cool factor.  If they don't think you're cool, they probably won't buy your stuff.

Business plan competitions - vicarious mentorship

"American Idol" for business.

VT KnowledgeWorks will be hosting an all day Entrepreneurship Summit in just three weeks. 

One segment of the program is a student business concept competition.  27 student teams from around our region submitted one-page concept documents in the first stage of the competition.  After two rounds of preliminaries, the field will be reduced to three finalists.  Those teams will do live, stand-up presentations before a panel of judges and a room full of spectators on April 2.  They will deal with both questions and criticism in public. 

This is not a revolutionary program by any means.  Universities around the world have been hosting similar events for years.  It's a great learning experience, and not just for the student teams.  Non-competitors who go to observe the public finals receive meaningful vicarious mentorship as the panelists point out to the teams how their concepts and their presentations might be strengthened.

In our particular case, the morning student competition will be followed in the afternoon by serious attempts by real-live entrepreneurs to convince angel investors to support their ventures - again, in public.  Two regional organizations that are deeply engaged in early stage investing processes will bring together pre-screened company founders and highly-qualified investors in a "Live-Fire" funding event.  Vicarious mentorship for prospective entrepreneurs doesn't get more useful than this.

This is where the founders' Market, Magic, Model, Message, and MOXIE get the ultimate Mentor test.

When events of this type hit your town, spend a few bucks and go sit in.  The payoff may well be more valuable than years of business class tuition.  (Just don't tell the professors I said that.)

Prove it first!

Turn hype into an undisputed conclusion.

As entrepreneurs, we are understandably proud of our incredibly special products and services, which offer unparalleled benefits to hordes of unbelievably needy consumers.  The trouble is that those consumers all-too-often do not agree that they are needy, and even if they do, have become immune to messages that offer quick, cheap and painless relief from their neediness.

Here's an excerpt on this topic from a great post by Barry A. Densa, one of America’s top freelance marketing and sales copywriters. 

Consumers learn quickly–they have to. By one account, the average American is deluged with over 5,000 advertisements in one form or another every single day.

And, it’s probably fair to say, most of these ads are poorly presented, either in concept, design or execution.

Hence, the unavoidable consequence: skepticism and disbelief abounds in the marketplace.

So… while in the past, making a claim and immediately following it up with proof may have been a wise, prudent and necessary tack to take–times have now changed.

And marketers must adapt.

No longer do you, as a marketer, have the luxury, or more to the point–the time to prove your claim–once you make it. So what’s the answer?

Avoid the ad-killing claim.

You avoid the ad-killing claim by making it instead an unavoidable conclusion.

While the following is not an inviolate rule–it’s certainly worth testing…

Before making any concise and memorable claim to unparalleled excellence—prove it first.

Assemble and present your credentialing elements, your evidence–your entire body of incontrovertible proof–in clear and linear fashion.

Allow your proof to lay the groundwork for what is to come. Create strong and overwhelming direction and momentum.

In other words, turn hype into an undisputed conclusion.

You can sign up for Barry's highly regarded FREE ezine: Marketing Wit & Wisdom here.

It's all about you!

Your business will reflect your image, including the one in the full length mirror.

Steve Jobs earned the privilege of wearing jeans and T-shirts in public appearances by building, then re-building,  Apple.  The rest of us haven't delivered that kind of value yet.  We typically have to dress in a manner that will be accepted or even praised by our clients, prospects, important members of our value chains and even our employees.  We have to look like they want us to look - like we mean business.

We're always selling, after all.  And people buy feelings.  The way we present ourselves affects the feelings we evoke in others.  So personal appearance is part of our corporate Message.

But Jim, you say, one of the reasons I started my own company was to get free of all that dress-up pressure.  Sorry, I say.  Get over it.  Unless, of course, you spend all your time in a back room and leave the public appearances to a hired suit.

It's not that hard, really.

"Business casual" for males typically means khakis and a collared shirt, perhaps with a blazer over the top.  But don't mistake that for khakis you have been wearing for three days and a collared work shirt that was wadded up in a drawer.  That's Hollywood stuff.

Oh, and by the way, this applies to the look and feel of your workplace, too.

And Steve Jobs wears really nice jeans and T-shirts.

A path to your door...

Your Magic can work on your Market, but only if people hear your Message.

Neil Sagebiel, one of our first-class bloggers here in southwest Virginia, recently posted a uniquely appropriate quote from William Randolph Hearst.

“If you make a product good enough, even though you live in the depths of the forest the public will make a path to your door, says the philosopher. But if you want the public in sufficient numbers, you better construct a highway.”

And, Hearst might have added, there had better be very clear signage at every intersection.

Read all of Neil's post here.  And, while you're at it, check out the rest of his good stuff about inbound marketing and other ways to craft and to publicize your Message.