It never ceases to amaze me how many small businesses don’t clearly communicate what they offer to their customers. Then they’re surprised that their customer “just don’t get it”, some even moan that their customers “are too stupid”. More often than not however the fault lies with them and their communication.
I hate to admit it, but it’s a lesson I learnt the hard way, you see when my brother and I started our first business we got a “branding expert” to help us create our image. Sadly he was no more of an expert than we were and the resulting image was wrong on so many levels. As an example consider our business cards (old contact details blanked out because they are wrong):
We thought it looked great and created a nice professional image. The trouble is, people thought our tagline “business software solutions” was the name of the company rather than Crickett Software Limited. It didn’t work as a tagline either as it’s far to vague, partly our fault as we were trying to offer a broad range of services rather than focusing on a niche. The result was that we got passed over for the web development work we really wanted and approached for software development work that we didn’t want (large scale bespoke software systems).
Plus come on “Managing Director” how 1980s was that! As a technology firm it should have been CEO or Web Guru at least! 
So next time you’re putting together any communication for your business don’t think about what it means to you, think about what it says to your customer otherwise you just might end up like the poor chap in the cartoon…
This post is an entry in the Word Sell Writing Contest.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
John, thanks for your contribution. The fewer the words, the harder it is to come up with the winning combination. I’ve always found taglines especially challenging because there is so much that needs to be conveyed.
They always look so easy to do, yet they aren’t especially if you’re trying to be all things to all people. Lesson learned!
[...] John Crickett saw a page from his own marketing past which he shared in a valuable lesson. [...]
John,
Thanks for sharing your personal experience. It’s too bad you had to learn that lesson the hard way; but so often that’s the case, isn’t it?
Congratulations on your win!
Jeanne
Jeanne,
Thanks. We learnt a lot of lessons the hard way, but without doing so I wouldn’t have as much to blog about, so it’s all been worth it.