As consultants, it’s easy to get caught in the curse of knowledge.
This can sometimes get in the way of a clear message.
Here’s a simple tool to help: it’s called the WHO framework. It can help you narrow down your message to your niche. It looks like this:
W: Who do you help with your service? Is it engineers, executives in healthcare, CFO, lawyers? The more specific you get, the better.
H: What “headache” do you help your customers overcome? That is, what do you alleviate, reduce, simplify or clarify? Too many marketers tell you to focus on pain or gain. A clearer approach is to address both with solution-oriented language.
O: What “obstacle” do you help overcome? What is the problem that you help your prospects with? This is an intentionally simple question that is often skipped because we assume – which is never good.
Here’s some examples:
Example 1:
W: Helping fractional CFOs in IT
H: find
O: their next placement 6 months in advance.
Example 2:
W: Empowering executive teams with clear M&A strategies to
H: reduce
O: execution risk and drive growth.
Example 3:
W: Enabling start ups with
H: breakthrough
O: go-to-market strategies to ensure a clear path to growth
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to clarify your message.
Good stuff!