How To Easily Communicate Complexity - Part 2

B2B tech salespeople and subject matter experts have to balance showcasing a solution's complexity (its depth and breadth) with being able to communicate about it simply. Here's the rub: if we’re simplistic, the buyer won't realise how much work and complexity is required behind the scenes to simplify their business processes. But, if our message is complicated and overly detailed, our buyer audience won’t pay attention and will walk away.

This is why communicating with buyers in B2B IT can be stressful. To help you, I’ve put together my top 20 tips to better educate, inform or persuade a buyer audience of the value of our solution or service without dumbing down our message.

Last week, I covered 10 of my top 20 tips to help us improve how we communicate with B2B buyers. These were:

1.??????Start with POW (Purpose, Outcome, Who)

2.??????Take a structured approach

3.??????Try the TEEL method

4.??????Write as simply as possible

5.??????Remove redundancies

6.??????Minimise Zombie nouns

7.??????Mostly use Active Voice

8.??????Use linking words

9.??????Mix it up with Indented lists

10.??Use headings with abandon

If you haven't read it yet, link to that article is at the bottom.

Today, I’ll cover tips 11 to 20, and these are:

11.??Break up big paragraphs

12.??Write shorter sentences

13.??Use stories to showcase value

14.??Bold or italicise text

15.??Correctly insert tables, diagrams & images

16.??Don't geek out too much

17.??Watch the fluff

18.??Apply the Rule of Three

19.??Stop justifying your margins!

20.??Be ruthless about editing your words

Let's take a look at each of these in more detail:

11.??????Break Up Big Paragraphs

Breaking up gigantic paragraphs into less intimidating pieces sounds obvious, but it’s common in B2B IT to see one paragraph take up half a page or an entire page. I feel for evaluators at the buyer getting through massive chunks of text.

If you, as the subject matter expert, are laying out a massive grid of complex ideas, it’s difficult for your audience to take it in even if you use simple, everyday language (let alone if your text is filled with impenetrable guff). So please cut back on big paragraphs. Give your ideas breathing room. This also gives readers space to chew through your multi-faceted concepts.

Rule of thumb: Depending on the length of your sentences, anything between three to five is a nice amount to include in one paragraph.

12.?????Write Shorter Sentences

I worry when my sentences start creeping into the 32 to 35-word count. I shouldn’t because I frequently see 60 to 100-word sentences when reviewing sales and technical material. If you want to communicate complexity easily, cut back your sentence lengths. I get that long sentences are helpful because they let us expound on complex thinking and ideas.

Frequently, however, long sentences do the opposite. Here’s a way to check if your long sentences should include a couple of full stops. Ask yourself, “Am I introducing too many competing ideas?” If so, put in a full stop. Or ask yourself, “Am I over-stating my main premise because I’m unsure of it?” If so, check your critical thinking and rewrite. You’ll notice that your 60-word sentence will naturally shorten to 35 words.

Rule of thumb: use a combination of short and long sentences to deliver a nice tempo and flow.

13.?????Use Stories To Showcase Value

Just because this is No. 13 doesn't mean it shouldn't be No. 1 or 2 but I've put it here because a lot of folks in B2B IT are uncomfortable using storytelling to explain technical concepts. So, I've sneaked it in. :-)

The thing is, most of your clients don't care about the level of sophistication and smarts required to develop or implement a solution. They just want to know how this is going to be of value to them, as in what's the business benefit. Of course, you can and should list the benefits but it's more powerful to demonstrate value by way of a story. And if it's a true story, even better.

For example, we had a solution lead start his technical presentation by recounting the true story of a friend getting the runaround from hospitals because systems were disjointed. This runaround was emotionally traumatising for the patient and his family. However, if the various hospitals and healthcare agencies had access to integrated information (that our solution could offer), how much better would the level of care be for patients, especially those going through palliative care?

After this short story, the solution lead introduced his team of technical experts to talk through the solution. Delivering a simple story first showing how our solution solved a big problem helped the presenter emotionally connect with the buying committee and prepped the audience to be receptive to listening to the technical presentation.

For more on storytelling, see link to an article on this topic at the bottom.

14.?????Bold or Italicise Text

Bolding and italicising text like the first few words in an indented list helps us draw readers into parts of the complex story we want to highlight.

It’s a simple technique but can alert readers to slow down and read in detail these bits of information before they continue on with rapidly skimming and scanning the rest of our text.

15.??????Correctly Insert Tables, Diagrams & Images

It’s wonderful that sellers and subject matter experts in B2B IT are comfortable using tables, diagrams, images and even video. But often, these visual aids are inserted without an introduction, confusing your reader.

When reviewing proposal responses, I often see a diagram or image dumped in the middle of a page, but the writer hasn’t mentioned it in the narrative. It seems like a small thing, but as the reader, it’s annoying trying to figure out where this diagram belongs. Your topic is complicated enough. Why complicate things more by inserting random diagrams you don’t call out in your narrative? (The bigger crime is when someone sees a cool or pretty diagram they absolutely know only has a tenuous relation to the narrative in their tender response but they chuck it in anyway. I see this a lot. Stop doing it!)

So, always introduce the image or table in the narrative somewhere near where it will be placed and ensure that if it’s a diagram, you provide a brief description directly under it.

PS: Unlike sales proposals and tenders that use images and diagrams to explain complex ideas and processes, images like the ones I insert into my LinkedIn articles don't need to be introduced in the narrative. They're inserted to break up the text and reaffirm the heading and topic.

16.??????Don’t Geek Out Too Much

There’s nothing wrong with using tech-speak, as it lets people know you’re a subject matter expert. Just don’t overdo it, especially with audiences unfamiliar with specialist terms. Your geek-speak will end up being another form of undefined jargon and will likely put off or offend the people you need to impress with your expertise.

And it's actually possible to completely do away with tech speak when communicating with non-technical people without dumbing down your message. Be inspired by 'Thing Explainer' by Randall Munro. It's a fantastic book that provides "a series of brilliantly - and simply - annotated blueprints" that explain complicated stuff using simple words. For example, 'computer building' instead of data centre and 'hand computer' instead of smartphone.

Check out this Wired article for a full-scale image of the hand computer. I'm not saying you have to go full-blown Randall Munroe but take a leaf out of his book to explain complexity using simple words (which is also Tip No. 4: Write as simply as possible, in last week's article, 'How To Easily Communicate Complexity - Part 1').

17.??????Watch the fluff

Explaining technology simply doesn’t mean you revert to fluffy language. Hopefully, I won’t get into trouble saying this, but many technical people in B2B IT accuse sellers and marketers of using fluff. I’m not disputing this, but I also read a lot of fluff from technical subject matter experts.

We’re all fluff buffs, and we need to get better at putting in the effort to adequately explain something complex instead of throwing a fluff ball at audiences, like, “it’s a matter of hyper-convergence”. Huh? The best way to explain complexity is to use simple, everyday words and avoid fluffy (often jargon) words and phrases like:?

We make sweeping statements like, “we can help with your digital transformation”, which can mean all sorts of things, depending on the customer and the technology we’re talking about. Throwaway fluffy lines make complexity seem like an easy thing. It’s not. So, while we don’t want to be overly technical with a non-technical audience, we need to get better at explaining what we mean by digital transformation in the context of our audience and their situation.

18.??????Apply The Rule Of Three

People that have worked with me know that I love the Rule of Three (I call it The Power of Three) because it’s an effective tool to communicate complexity easily.

The Rule of Three in writing is when you stick to providing three of something, for example, break up a feature into three parts, provide three benefits of your technical solution, show three options for a service, etc.

The Rule of Three allows you to unpack a complex theory or idea easily, and it can also help you win over high-level thinkers (like the C-suite). We all naturally use The Rule of Three, so start using it deliberately and more often because:

1.??????Humans like patterns, and you only need three to create a pattern

2.??????The Rule of Three encourages conciseness, so it makes your message memorable

3.??????The Rule of Three is famously used by world leaders, storytellers and sales gurus

The Rule of Three is used in other disciplines and industries. Check out this wiki page.

19.??????Stop Justifying Your Margins!

Okay, this one doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I think it is. I’m talking about the old-school habit of justifying margins inside RFP and tender responses.

It's no coincidence that lawyers prefer using justified margins. Is it because they don’t want you to read their text word for word? And it's no coincidence that LinkedIn doesn't allow you (from what I can tell) to justify your text either because readability suffers if you do.

We might be solving complicated problems for buyers using complex solutions, but we’re in the business of clearly communicating our solution. So, anything that makes it easy for readers to digest our stuff is the way to go.

20.??????Be Ruthless About Editing Your Words

It’s hard writing stuff down. It’s hard to grapple with ideas in our head and then intelligently express them in written form. I’m a professional writer, and it’s a challenge for me. This is why I usually proofread and edit my writing at least five to seven times, sometimes more. If you want to be crisp and on topic - cut, cull and finesse multiple times. If you take the time to edit what you’ve written, you’ll notice that your complex ideas form more concretely, and your writing flows more freely.

Conclusion

No matter how complex the solution or technical concept, there is a way to communicate it easily. But. It's not easy to do! It takes effort like any good thing. My point is that like ballet dancers that effortlessly pirouette and leap into the air (even though behind the scenes, they practise for hours and are often in excruciating pain), our words should be easy on the eye, even if we struggle to put them together.

So, I hope the 20 tips I provide in How To Easily Communicate Complexity Part 1 and Part 2 help you get through the long, dark and lonely nights fighting, writing, and rewriting your words.

Related Articles

How To Easily Communicate Complexity - Part 1

Stop Writing Sales Proposals Like It's 1985!

The Six Basic Elements of Storytelling

Take A Knife To What You Write If You Want To Better Influence & Lead

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