Rotten Apples
Dan Schultz
Agribusiness Psychotherapist | Keeper of the Language | Closing The Category Gap In Agriculture
A man and his wife had an apple tree in their backyard. Every year they waited excitedly for their apples to ripen for harvest, and each year they were disappointed when they discovered that their apples were covered in brown bruises and spots.
After several seasons the wife finally said to her husband, "What is the point of having this huge apple tree in our backyard if we can never eat any of the apples? Can't you get out there and do something about it?"
The man agreed, telling his wife not to worry; they'd have apples she could eat in that tree.
A week later, his wife was standing at the window looking at the apple tree when she saw her husband in the yard, walking toward the tree with an industrial-grade staple gun, a ladder, and two bushels of apples.
She could hardly believe her eyes as he climbed the ladder, knocked off all the diseased apples, and stapled shiny, red apples onto every tree branch.
When the man returned inside, his wife was furious, "You didn't solve the problem at all," she scolded. "You should have pruned the tree."
The Problem With Most Messaging
Most messaging projects are worthless because they begin with the assumption that it's all about the messaging - all about "getting the word out."
Essentially, we're asking, how can I trick people into buying what we're already selling today? How can I move more product without putting anything on the line - without making a meaningful promise? How can I be responsible for growth without taking responsibility for my message?
Instead of asking, "what can I get from you?" we need to ask, "what change can I make for you?"
Until you know what you stand for, it is very hard to get people to stand with you.
Stop Hiding Behind Your Minimally Viable Message
Most companies in agtech today are hiding in one of two ways.
"No wonder it didn't work out. It was so hard to do."
Netflix always intended to be a streaming business, but the technology wasn't there yet when the company launched. So they started by moving the market from Blockbuster stores to DVDs by mail, then introduced streaming when the technology was ubiquitous and could be supported.
It pays to be specific about the change you want to make for your customer. Start by leaping a hurdle both of you can achieve together. You can always build on success and continue to sell customers up your value ladder, but it's impossible to change anything when you've gone out of business.
2. Other companies have a product that they want to justify selling. So they "do messaging" by throwing a bag of buzzwords and technobabble in a blender to see what comes out the other end.
领英推荐
The goal here seems to be proving that you're smarter than everyone else without saying anything meaningful to anyone. Here's an example I just came across the other day in agtech: "(redacted) is an agtech company focused on building a multi-crop platform that enhances yield and profit by unlocking new value through transformative applications across targeted thinning, protectant, and nutrient delivery and laser applications at the millimeter level."
Seriously??I have no idea what that company does...and I get the feeling that they don't know either.
What we need - what your customers are looking for - is clarity. Clarity about their problem, clarity about where your solution will take them, and clarity about why you're different than the competition.
"How are you different?"
It's a simple but loaded question because it implies that there is a real choice to be made. You are not just the same as everyone else. You are an agent of change, working hard to deliver your customer a new outcome. It puts you on the hook to build something that matters, to keep a real promise that makes a meaningful difference in the lives of a specific group of people.
So it's not entirely shocking that when you ask most companies the question, "how are you different?" their knee-jerk response is to begin to give you an elevator pitch about how they are "better" in some way.
"We're faster, smarter, bigger, cheaper, etc., than the competition."
The problem is almost always a lack of a point of view; these companies are missing a unique frame on their customer's problem, a new lens that makes the company's solution the only viable answer to the customer's challenge.
These companies have no 'why." And because they have no "why," they have a terrible idea of the from-to they're taking their customers on.
Then they try to "do messaging," and shockingly, it doesn't work.
Because there is no messaging that can emerge from the absence of a perspective that will move buyers to purchase.
Truly great messaging flows from the unique point of view you have on the problem facing your customers and is tethered to how you solve that problem.
When we say we “need messaging,” we tend to promote damaging activity inside of our organizations…just like the husband in the rotten apple tree, we focus on the words and how creative we can sound without focusing on the customer or the problem we’re solving for them.
The “just fix our messaging” mindset is why GE spent more than $100 million per year promoting “imagination at work” for years and why Lexus promotes their forgettable and meaningless “experience amazing" tagline. These are the definition of empty marketing slogans. They could be for anybody.
But the future belongs to companies with a point of view - the organizations that define the problem and design the solution are best positioned to dominate the space.
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.
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