When communicating your value, it’s easy to get caught up in touting the features and benefits of our own products and services. However, a crucial shift in perspective can make all the difference in how your audience perceives your brand. Today, I want to share a quick but powerful exercise that can revolutionize the way you approach your sales and marketing efforts. It’s something I call the Highlighter Trick—a simple yet effective way to ensure your focus remains on what truly matters: Your Customers.
The Highlighter Trick: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here’s how it works:
- Grab Two Highlighters:
- Choose one color to represent when you’re talking about your company (let’s call this color yellow).
- Choose another color for when you’re talking about your customers (we’ll call this green).
- Print Out Key Pages from Your Website or Sales Materials:
- Alternatively, you can review them digitally if that’s easier. These pages might include your homepage, product descriptions, sales brochures, or even recent email campaigns.
- Highlight “Me” Talk:
- As you go through the copy, use the yellow highlighter to mark every section where you’re talking about your company—your products, your achievements, your features. This is the “me” talk, where the focus is inward on what your business does or how great your product is.
- Highlight Customer-Centric Language:
- Next, use the green highlighter to mark every section that talks about your customers—their needs, their challenges, the results they will see from your products and services, and the business value they will gain from working with you. This is where your messaging aligns with what your customer is looking for.
- Analyze the Balance:
- Once you’ve completed highlighting, take a step back and review the balance of colors. What do you see? If your experience is like most companies, you’ll probably notice a lot more yellow than green.
Why the Highlighter Trick Matters
This exercise is designed to help you visually and mentally assess just how often your marketing is “me-centric” versus “customer-centric.”
Let’s break down why this matters with a few examples:
- Website Copy: Imagine you’re a software company offering a project management tool. If your website’s homepage reads like this: “Our software is the best in the market with cutting-edge features like AI-driven analytics and seamless integration with your existing tools,” you might end up with a lot of yellow highlights. Now, consider a customer-centric approach: “Manage your projects effortlessly and meet deadlines with AI-driven insights that adapt to your team’s workflow.” This shifts the focus to what the customer will gain, addressing their needs directly. Here, you would likely see more green highlights.
- Sales Emails: Picture a sales email that says: “Our company has been in business for 20 years, and we’ve won numerous awards for our innovative solutions.” That’s more yellow. Alternatively, you could frame it like this: “For over 20 years, we’ve helped businesses like yours reduce costs and increase efficiency with award-winning solutions. Let’s explore how we can do the same for you.” This version speaks directly to the potential impact on the customer, increasing the green highlights.
- Pitch Decks: Consider a pitch deck that dedicates several slides to the history of your company, followed by a detailed breakdown of your product’s technical specifications. That’s a lot of yellow. What if instead, your pitch deck starts with the challenges your customer is facing and how your solution specifically addresses those issues? Maybe you include a case study that demonstrates real-world results for a similar company. Now you’re shifting towards green.
Why Customer-Centric Messaging Wins
The reason for focusing on customer-centric messaging is simple: Customers don’t care about how great we think we are—they care about how we can solve their problems. When your messaging zeroes in on the customer—what they need, their pain points, their goals—that’s when real engagement happens.
At ESG, we’ve embraced this approach because we know that the companies that succeed are the ones that understand their customers better than anyone else. When you shift your messaging to make the customer the hero of the story, you’re not just selling a product; you’re offering a solution that matters.
Challenge Yourself: Shift the Focus
So, here’s my challenge for you: Minimize the “me” talk and maximize the customer focus.
- Go back to your website, your sales emails, your pitch decks—take that highlighter with you—and start making small changes.
- Shift your focus from what you’re selling to what your customer is buying.
- Reframe your messaging to emphasize the value your customer will experience.
- Make your customers the hero of the story, not your product or service.
This small exercise can lead to big changes in how your audience perceives your brand. It might seem simple, but the results can be profound. So, give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.
