Surely you’ve run across a messaging structure that helps boil down everything you have to get across into simple steps. These frameworks are easy to use and help you think while reducing the time and effort required to prepare a customer presentation. Let’s look at two of them:
Is-Does-Means
If you have a module or a feature, you can quickly and clearly get across what it is, what it does, and then close the point with what that means to your audience, e.g. “my mobile phone is a small, battery-powered mobile device which helps me do email, messaging, and phone calls, which means I can stay in touch with family, friends, and business partners wherever I am.”
What-How-Why
As you prepare your solution and how it specifically applies to your customer, you might find it helpful to write the words What, How and Why on separate pieces of paper and brainstorm through a mind-mapping exercise. You’ll come out with something like “our product is a call center (what), it handles inbound and outbound communications and manages tickets through to resolution (how), so that you can better serve your customers (why).”
The direction of these structures is from your product to the benefits they provide the customer. What happens if we play these in reverse?
If you want to stay in touch with your family, friends, and business partners no matter where you are, it would be helpful to have a single device that can help you do emailing, messaging and phone calls, like a mobile phone!”
If you want to serve your customers better, you’ll need to handle inbound and outbound communications and tickets through to resolution. Our call center product…”
If you want to grab your audience’s attention, start with the value to them, progress through what they’d logically need to accomplish that value, and conclude with your product as the solution.
The Whys and Means will usually jump out at you during discovery. Flag them. When you craft your messaging, simply collate and prioritize them.