CHAPTER 3 Create Your Defining Statement Seven Rules, Four Tips, and Three Tests Creating a great defining statement can be challenging. If you take some time to review the rules, tips, and tests, the process will be made easier. For many the difficulty comes in wanting a final statement that says everything and will attract anyone anytime anywhere. A little-known trap we can fall into is the perfection trap. You might want to dot every i and cross every t before you venture out into the marketplace. I hear it all the time, and I understand what you might be feeling. You want the perfect website, the perfect brochure, the perfect set of collateral materials, or the perfect way to introduce yourself. If you fall into one of these traps, remember what I call a chiropractic adjustment for your head or heart: Done is better than perfect. This isn't letting you off the hook in terms of doing your work. It should guide you in getting yourself out there or tying a ribbon around a tool before it is built to perfection. In fact, it may never be perfect, and that is okay. Caution: You do not have to meet all seven rules, four tips and three tests. I like to live in a world of two or more right answers. Let's get you to a good-to-very-good defining statement. Then test and tinker with it. In time and with usage, you will come to own it. Done is better than perfect. The Seven Rules 1. Use eighth-grade language. 2. Use conversational language. 3. Use attraction-based language. 4. Use language that is dream-focused versus pain-driven. 5. Use language that contains what you do and who you do it for. 6. Use a dual-focus or two-part defining statement. 7. Use language that can be repeated. Eighth-Grade Language When you use language to impress another person, it will usually backfire and not make a good impression. If a prospect does not understand a word you are using, he or she may not have the interest or take the time to ask you to explain. Major newspapers are typically written at a sixth-grade reading level. When in doubt, a dictionary or a thesaurus can help you with alternate words to use and ways to simplify phrases. Many computer systems have a built-in readability tool, similar to spell check or word count. The Gunning Fog index or Flesch-Kincaid readability tool will give you an accurate readability score. You can use this tool to score your defining statement, paragraph, and story. You can also use it when you write a blog post, newsletter issue, or article. The Gunning Fog Index and Flesch-Kincaid tool are defined as readability tests designed to show how easy or difficult a text is to read. Both give the number of years of education that your reader hypothetically needs to understand the paragraph or text. The formulas imply that short sentences written in plain English achieve a better score than long sentences written in complicated language. Conversational Language If you will not say it, forget it. This is not the time to hire a copywriter to come up with compelling and creative copy for a physical marketing tool (although hiring a great editor may help you make it more conversational). Your defining statement is not a wow statement. It is a simple answer to a simple question. No one should be impressed by your defining statement, unless they are impressed by the fact that you have a simple, succinct answer that is clear and conversational. It will need no explanation. The Language of Attraction Your defining statement must attract people to you. If it doesn't, go back to the drawing board and keep working with it. Think about the problems, challenges, issues, and obstacles your perfect-fit prospects have and need to overcome. As you focus in on these day-to-day needs, then look to the sky and identify the 30,000-foot outcomes. Think of an outcome as a three-to-five-word phrase, e.g., start a business or grow your business. Dream Focused Similar to using the language of attraction, imagine the dreams of your prospect. Eight out of ten people who have a job have the dream to start their own business. The dream may be even a part-time or sideline business, but the dream is alive. While the number continually grows, and we may not even have an accurate count, if you own a part-time or full-time business, in most cases, when you put your head on your pillow at night your dream is to grow it. You can take a pain approach and position yourself as a problem solver or needs satisfier. Though this approach works, it can lead to a prospect pitting you against your competition and driving a proposal process. Experience has shown me that prospects are more likely to invest in the outcomes you can provide versus paying to solve a problem or satisfy a need. Position what prospects need in a way they want it. In time you will have more prospects than you know what to do with. Example: Problem: No business plan Need: A business plan Want: To start a business To grow the business Find money for the business Accelerate his or her success Now, use these examples to brainstorm and list the problems, needs and wants of your prospect. I could go to the marketplace and say, "I help business owners develop a business plan." At that moment, I am focusing on what a prospect needs versus what my prospect wants. In time, the want always wins! What You Do and Who You Do It For Your defining statement will serve you better if you add who to what you do. What you do will take the form of the outcomes you provide. By getting specific about who you are looking for and including them in your statement, it will direct your marketing efforts and help you create an aim in the marketplace. In the creation process, you may choose to use a generic or umbrella term to describe a group of prospects. As you progress or if you are clear about a specific target market, you can begin to slant your defining statement to that target market. Examples of umbrella or generic terms* include: Business owners Entrepreneurs People Organizations Professionals *Note: We used a generic term in the developing of the subtitle for this book and wrote it in the form of an embedded compliment, i.e., smart professionals. Position what prospects need in a way they want it. Here are three examples of how I might slant my defining statement: I work with people who want to start a consulting business and with consultants who want to grow their practices. I work with people who want to open a restaurant and with owners who want to grow or expand the number of their restaurant locations. I work with people who want to enter the field of real estate and with realtors who want to grow their business. Dual-Focus or Two-Part Defining Statement Here you have a choice to make, and a rule to break. In my early days of teaching and sharing ideas on how to create a defining statement, my standard recommendation or rule number six was to make it a two-part or dual-focus defining statement. Over time and as thousands of smart professionals created a defining statement, some chose to break this rule. It was OK for them, and it would be for you. In fact, you have a number of formats to choose from, including: WHO (Market) WHAT (Outcome) Single Single Single Double Single Triple Double Single Double Double Double Triple Triple Single Triple Double Triple Triple (Not recommended) It almost sounds like you are going through the drive through at Wendy's. As I shared before, I live in a world of two or more right answers and here is where that is put to the test. Here are examples of each of the formats. Since you are going to see examples at the end of this module of other types of professionals, the easiest way for me to share these examples is through my lens. Single Market-Single Outcome: I work with people who want to start a business. Single Market-Double Outcome: I work with business owners who want to create extreme focus and grow their business. Single Market-Triple Outcome: I work with consultants who want to create extreme focus, accelerate their results, and grow their business. Double Market-Single Outcome: I work with...
