The Word That Became a Verb: Writing a Message That Sticks
Quick recap of where we are. We found a market (post one), we got specific about who it’s for (post two), and now we have to say something that actually lands. So let me tell you about FedEx, because they teach this lesson better than any textbook.
Back in the early days, FedEx had a problem we all have. Their ads bragged about themselves. Look at all our planes! Our trucks! Our sorting hubs! We can get a package across the country in a day! And it landed with a thud. Why? Because nobody cares about your planes. If I put you in a room and made you point at what was wrong with that ad, you’d nail it in a second. It’s all about them, not about me.
Then they ran a line that changed the company forever. “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” Read that again. There isn’t a single word about FedEx in it. It’s about you, sweating over a contract that has to reach Boston tomorrow or the deal falls apart. It names your exact fear and slaps a guarantee on it. That message worked so well that “FedEx” became a verb, right up there with Google and Kleenex. People say they’ll “FedEx” a package even when they’re using UPS. That is what a great message does.
So how do you build your own? Underneath every good one is a simple skeleton I call a messaging hierarchy. There’s the who (your ideal customer, who you already sorted out last post), the what (how exactly you fix their problem), and the why (the reason to believe you, which for FedEx was that overnight promise).
From there you can sharpen it three ways. You can sell the better tomorrow (“save 50% versus what you do now”). You can go straight at a rival (“our coverage beats theirs”). Or you can get gloriously narrow, like a dry cleaner who promises your suit will be hanging on your apartment door by the time you get home from work. That last one leaves plenty of people out, and that’s exactly the point.
Now here’s what most folks miss. Your customer has loud problems and quiet ones. The loud ones are easy. It’s cheaper, it’s faster, it needs fewer staff. Say those, of course. But the quiet worries are often what actually sink the sale, and nobody says them out loud. “I don’t want to learn some whole new system.” “I can’t stand pushy salespeople.” “Do not come at me during my busy season, I’m drowning.” Answer those too and you’ll win deals your competitors lose without ever knowing why.
And what if you’re brand new with no track record? You borrow credibility, in stages. At the start it’s just you, your background, the reason you of all people can be trusted with this. Then it’s your first happy customers vouching for you, so give those early ones a deal and collect their names. Then, over time, it’s the wider world, you speaking on a panel or teaching a webinar like the one these posts came from. Bit by bit, “trust me” turns into “trust them,” and eventually “everybody already knows.”
One last gift. The people who fall for your product often aren’t the ones who signed the check. Do great work for a company and the finance manager isn’t the only happy one. The whole office starts telling their friends about you over dinner. That little army of fans is the cheapest marketing you will ever get.
So now you’ve got a market, a customer, and a message that sticks. There’s just one problem left. A brilliant message shouted into an empty room sells nothing. In the final post we go find your customers where they actually hang out, and turn all of this into sales that repeat.