From Impossible to Inevitable, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 4Your Pitch

We've identified your best target, and perhaps a backup. And you know their pains. So when you meet a prospective customer at a conference, or email one, what do you say or write? How do you tune your elevator pitch and messaging?

IF YOU WERE A RADIO STATION, WOULD ANYONE TUNE IN?

Imagine you're clicking through radio stations. You have jazz or classical, classic rock or easy listening, and then you hit one called KALL—“we play jazz, hip-hop, rock, classics, oldies, dance, holiday music, and anything else you want—you tell us what to play!” It'd be a confusing mishmash. Don't be a mishmash!

Get narrower. Get to that one thing people really want from you. To whom or when are you most needed? Remove the clutter to make it easier for the right customers to see why they need you. Easier said than done. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Going Narrower Simplifies Everything

Do you have too many good opportunities in front of you, in your radio station? You have to narrow it down to make it easy for people to tune into your frequency. And when you do, it vastly simplifies many of your challenges, like whom you're going to go after and what you'll say to them to see if they're interested.

As the world gets busier and people's mental inboxes get more crowded, what you need to do to stand out from the crowd and connect with your customers will also change.

The simplest way to do this is to go narrower, that is, to further specialize and simplify. Remember, ...