What’s My Line, an early television show, continues to hold the longest running game show record, winning 3 Emmy Awards for “Best Quiz or Audience Participation Show.” The show had a excellent understanding of what it was and what it represented – this surely contributing to its success.

Your business success depends on your line. Can you describe your business focus and purpose clearly and memorably? Are you using jargon or plain, but compelling, words? If you find yourself stumbling when asked what you do, consider revising your business description – or elevator speech.

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What’s My Line, an early television show, continues to hold the longest running game show record, winning 3 Emmy Awards for “Best Quiz or Audience Participation Show.” The show had a excellent understanding of what it was and what it represented – this surely contributing to its success.

Your business success depends on your line. Can you describe your business focus and purpose clearly and memorably? Are you using jargon or plain, but compelling, words? If you find yourself stumbling when asked what you do, consider revising your business description – or elevator speech.

• Begin by writing a clear statement (don’t worry about length just now) describing your business and your uniqueness. How are you different from your competitors?
• Set this aside for a day. Now reread the description, removing all the industry-speak descriptive words, leaving only specific words with clear meaning. Rephrase the jargon so it tells your prospective customer exactly what you will do for her.
• The Benefits. Why should I hire you? Tell me, clearly and concisely, what you will do for me and how I will benefit from hiring you, not your competitor. Don’t just list your products or services.
• Write a problem statement. Identify the problem your business solves for a customer. Describe the problem, fully and in simple words.
• Shorten the description again. This time, make the attempt to get your description to one or two easily-memorized sentences that show you accurately understand your customer’s needs – and can solve their problems. A window cleaning service solves a dual problem for a customer who wants clean windows but who may lack the physical ability and tools to clean windows herself.
• Test your line on others. You’ll know when you’ve got the best description by their reactions.

Consider expanding your line. Tweak it a bit for tradeshows, business meetings, social get togethers and for your peers and competitors – and especially for your social networking sites.

Gayley Knight is a guest blogger for Great Minds Interactive, LLC. She is Founder/Principal of Business Her Way (a social media management company). Delighting in opening the technology world for your company, Gayley draws on her extensive network and personal business experience to simplify your online world. Showing you best social business practices and simple tech tools designed to increase your business visibility brings social media into perspective, saving you time and money. You can contact her directly at http://www.businessherway.net or via email at gayley@mothergeek.com.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 12:00 AM by greatmin and is filed under Wendy Troupe's Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.