Does everyone on your team know what you do?
I’ll bet you’d be surprised by some of the answers employees or coworkers give to the question,
“What does your company do?”
Do you ramble incoherently when you’re asked?
You’re not alone. This is the most common problem I come across when I start working with a company.
I’m going to share the brand script framework I use for clients (and myself) in this post. Follow this structure and you’ll clarify every piece of communication that comes out of your company. This precise script has helped teams of all sizes convey a consistent brand position.
But first a little story…
I recently went to a neighbor’s house for a party where I only knew a couple of people. The scene transpired as you’d expect. We stood around, ate food, had a few drinks, and rattled through the standard conversation.
I stepped onto the porch to grab another beer and ended up chatting with a nice (and talkative guy). I could tell he was amped up to tell me about his work, so I let him lead the way.
He was passionate about their company and spent five or six minutes explaining what they do. Five minutes is a long time for a dinner party pitch. I’m fairly certain he would have referenced a slide deck if he had one on his phone. I started regretting my third high gravity IPA as I struggled to follow their founding story, key technologies, office location, funding to date, and a list of every single product they offer.
When he finished, he finally asked me what I do. I simply answered,
“I help people like you that are passionate about their business simplify everything you just told me into a sentence.”
The only difference between me and my talkative new friend is that I have a script to follow. My script keeps me from rambling on about every aspect of my business that nobody else cares to hear.
Brand Scripts Tell A Story
Here’s how you avoid becoming that guy. Follow these prompts and you’ll have a nice foundation for your website, marketing, presentations, and company culture. This script naturally progresses you through the creation of a story. You identify your main character (customer), the conflict (customer pain or desire), and the resolution (how you solve their problem). Add in some author credibility (differentiator) and you provide a compelling reason for people to read your story.
Go ahead and complete the following script.
Our Customer Is…
They Desire…
We Help Them By…
The One Thing That Makes Us Different Is…
Keep your answers short. Every company should be able to answer these questions without a paragraph for each point. If you can’t repeat your script by heart, keep simplifying until you can rattle these points off without reading.
Here’s what the Special Sauce company script looks like.
Our Customer Is…
Entrepreneurs starting new companies, or established companies stuck at a plateau.
They Desire…
Clarity on who to target, what to say, and where to focus marketing efforts to grow.
We Help Them By…
Building a product, brand, website, and marketing system that generates revenue from the right buyers.
The One Thing That Makes Us Different Is…
We bake demand into the DNA of their business by addressing their product, brand, website, and marketing.
Now we just need to simplify this down to a single sentence everyone on our team can remember.
Whip Out The Brand One-Liner
The final step is simplifying this script down to what I call a Brand One-Liner. Working with companies to create their Brand One-Liner is a fun part of my job. It’s great to see people’s faces light up when it all comes together and they know they’ve nailed their brand message.
All you have to do is fill in the blanks.
We help ________ do ________ .
Go back to my party response and you’ll see that I provided a variation of my Brand One-Liner based on the situation. Here’s what my standard one-liner looks like:
“We help companies grow by attracting and converting the right buyers.”
This little one-liner is a powerful piece of communication. You can use this in your social media profiles, at parties, in a sales pitch, and on your website.
The beauty of making it one simple sentence is that you’ve distilled your full brand script into a statement your team can remember (even if they have a sweet buzz at a party).
Everyone from your receptionist to CEO will be consistently repeating the same message with the same language.
Consistency builds recognition. Recognition builds a brand.
Grab this brand script template and it’ll help you walk through the script and one-liner process.
