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If you own a business, or are responsible for marketing a business, you know that two of the most important things you need to have fine-tuned is your USP (unique selling proposition) and your elevator statement....
Now, normally, most businesses start with those things in a business plan. However, more often than not in today’s Web community, ideas are rapid and businesses form quickly, and those “minor details” get left behind to be filled in later.
What to do? Well, I have an idea that may help.
Pitch your business to TechCrunch.
Or at least just pretend to. It doesn’t matter if your business isn’t about online technology; this exercise still works. The form on TechCrunch is the perfect tool to help you fine-tune your pitch.
It requires you to briefly describe what your company is/does in hopes for a review. You answer things like, “describe your product or service,” “key competitors,” and “please tell us anything else that you consider important about your company.”
I suggest that all marketers take this exercise for each product/service they work with. I recently did it myself and what I ended up with was a lot different/better than what I started with.
Oh yeah, if you get accepted & reviewed by TechCrunch (142k rss subscribers), that’s not such a bad thing either. :0
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Comments
Jim,
What a great find. I filled out the form and look forward to hearing back. Thank you!
Posted by: Lewis Green | 12.08.06
Fine tuning, indeed. Putting it mildly.
Most biz owners never truly concentrate on marketing. They're preoccupied with distractions that burn time. Fixing the copier. Hassling with callers. Stocking shelves.
They do eveything ELSE but focus on bringing in the money.
People with a pool store worry about the signs, or the chlorine display. Or the types of rafts.
They should worry about the marketing of bringing people into the store.
Posted by: D.L. | 12.08.06
Clever idea, Jim! It's hard to believe that folks would fill out an external Web site survey before they would convey the same info to their internal team, but you are on to a significant problem!!! Many marketers and sales people are very visionary thinkers, and won't go through the discipline of defining their focus (target market), value and unique points of differentiation. We (I will admit I am one of these visionary sales folks) assume people will get it, but we forget that we have an operations crew, customer service desk and management team that needs to align their resources to support our goals with our target customer. Our failure to communicate our USP inside as well as outside ensures that we are always scrambling to correct and train our most important asset: Our internal sales force.
I appreciate your pointing out the errors of our ways by giving us a double-win. Thanks!
Posted by: Mary Conley Eggert | 12.10.06