Challenge: Test Your Team With this One Question
WHAT DO WE DO?
We’re pretty confident you’ll be surprised by the variety of answers you receive. In fact, there are studies that show that more than 70% of front-line employees cannot clearly articulate what their company does and how it’s different than the competition.
Building a Storybrand author, Donald Miller, equates this to branding a cow over and over in the same place but with a slightly different branding iron each time. It doesn’t take long before the brand is completely unrecognizable. When your team can’t clearly articulate exactly what you do in the same way, every single time, it can cause confusion in the marketplace around your business.
Clarity is key – clarity is what drives more sales.
Miller recommends creating a business one-liner that’s crafted around the problem you solve for the customer and having your team memorize it — really memorize it!
His business one-liner model has 3 simple parts:
- State what you do in terms of the problem you solve
- Describe how you solve it
- State what life looks like once you’ve solved the problem
One of our LXCouncil members adopted this in her business and the difference has been tremendous. As an internet marketing agency, she has several services and products available for businesses, but the vast array of services caused confusion in the minds of her customers (and prospects) – they didn’t understand what most of the services were or which ones they actually needed. This can lead to decision paralysis (AKA not making the sale).
When she tried this exercise and asked her team, “What do we do?”, a common response went something like this:
“We design websites, and we do social media, eNewsletters, directory management, SMS text messaging, Smart Visitor ID, Smart WiFi, and lots of other stuff for businesses.”
You can see where confusion might occur — the person listening gets lost in the buzzwords and really has no clue what problem is solved for them. It’s just a lot of tech stuff that they really don’t want to expend energy thinking about.
Taking Donald Miller’s model of the business one-liner, she spent some time clarifying her business message around the real problem solved for clients.
Their new business one-liner is:
“We help businesses get found online with highly effective websites and robust social media campaigns. As a result, our clients dominate their competition online and make more money.”
It was written in a prominent place in the office (breakroom whiteboard) for all the team to see and memorize. Now they randomly spot check around the office by calling someone out (publicly) with the question, “Hey Susan, what do we do?” When Susan articulates the one-liner clearly and confidently, the boss hands her a $5 bill! It’s a fun way to engage the team in learning and internalizing the message in a way that repeatable the same way every single time. Plus, there’s a small reward to incentivize the effort.
The result for this member’s business is powerful clarity around what problem they solve, how they solve it, and what the outcome is for the client. And most importantly, every single team member can articulate it the exact same way.
So here’s the challenge for you:
Around your office, randomly ask your team members, “What do we do?”
If the answer isn’t the same from every single team member and isn’t in alignment with what you (the business owner) would say, it’s time to take action steps toward to clarity.
As Donald Miller famously says, “When you confuse, you lose.”
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This idea was brought to the table by one of our business owner members at a recent LXCouncil meeting. Being around the table with other business leaders, listening to their concerns and challenges, along with solutions and best practices can help you take your business and leadership skills to the next level.
If you’re ready to take your business and leadership skills to the next level, and if you think your business could benefit from more insights like what’s offered in this article, let’s start a conversation. LXCouncil may be the perfect next step!
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