Your Name Here
Steve Lance
What you (or your chatbot copilot) write is your personal brand statement. Good business writing is simple, clear and direct. Discover the value a writing coach can add to your career.
What’s the best new business presentation you ever heard of? My co-author, Jeff Woll, had a favorite: Back in the day, 奥美 was pitching Merrill Lynch. The Ogilvy team gathered every ad they could find from Merrill – as well as any and all of Merrill’s competitors. The day before the pitch, they gathered in the conference room and cut the logo out of every ad and pinned all the ads to the wall. When the Merrill people came in, after the introductions the Ogilvy crew gave them clipboards and told them to go around and pick their own ads out of the pack. Jeff said there was no reason to continue the pitch; they’d won the business right there.
Do it yourself. Gather all your competitors’ marketing materials (as well as your own), cut out all the logos and pin it all up on your conference wall. Then challenge your team or, better yet, your CEO, to pick out the ones that are yours.
If anyone else can say the same things you’re saying, what is going to differentiate you and make your brand meaningful and distinctive to your customers? Generic sell - even in an engaging piece of commercial advertising - will sell your competition or nothing at all.
Seth Godin ?? wrote about it years ago in The Purple Cow. It’s even more valid today.