Permission To Move About The Market Using Your Outside Voice!

By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

While waiting for my automobile to have some maintenance done last week, I was sitting in a coffee shop near a mother and her two inquisitive, young children. They incessantly asked questions to understand everything going on around them. Many of us with adult children no longer living at home look forward to these wonderful moments!

The youngsters were a bit loud at times and this caused mom to patiently offer them a lesson on outside and inside voice. They immediately got it! The volume was reduced, but their questions continued, and so did my entertainment.

Listening to the mother answer their questions using words they understood got me thinking about inside and outside voice differently.

Too often as B2B marketers we use our inside voices when trying to engage our target audiences. We speak about ourselves using language that is meaningful to us, but not an external group.

Our messaging is packed with jargon. ”The new Model X is value-engineered with 21st Century passion!” What? We load our taglines with words like synergy, new normal, out of the box, world-class…you get the picture.

Missing from our messaging are our prospects and customers. Instead of that reference to being a one-stop-shop, how about this? “You’re busy! Managing projects with multiple vendors requires time you don’t have. That’s why you have a dedicated project manager when working with us.”

This week consider using your outside voice more, one that captures the perspective of the very people you’re trying to attract.

I hope you have a great week!