It’s easy to toss around phrases like “customer-focused benefits” without comprehending what they mean.
So I’ll provide an example.
Years ago I wanted to learn about a particular company—and no, I’m not going to name the company—so I read what it said about itself. And what did the company’s product marketing say?
“We’re a unicorn!”
For the benefit of normal people, when businesses talk about being a unicorn, they are saying that the firm, based upon funding from private investors, has a theoretical valuation of over $1 billion. For example, if Ventures R Us pays $100 million for 10% of the company.
Well, this company was really proud about its unicorn status, to the exclusion of everything else.
With reason, when you think about it.
Taking an example from my own industry, if you are the police chief of a medium sized city that needs an automated biometric identification system, would you risk buying one from a provider with an actual or theoretical valuation of less than $500 million?
Because isn’t company valuation the most important thing to a prospect?
What? It isn’t? Prospects care about results?
(For the record, you can buy a perfectly fine ABIS from firms with actual, not theoretical, values of less than $100 million.)
In fact, I would go so far as to say that if the first sentence of your company description includes the word “Series” followed by a letter from the beginning of the alphabet, your focus is the investment community rather than your prospects.
But if the first sentence of your company description talks about what you deliver to your customers, then you’ll impress both your prospects and the discerning investors. Nothing magical about that.
Take care in how you market your products.
Bredemarket 