What are you saying? Make it clear …

I’ve spent my life in marketing, sales, consulting, development, technology and finance. It’s been a good one. It’s also the reason why I roam around many different topics on this blog, and sometimes talk about more generic things than specific things. So, today’s blog is generic and not specific. It’s about marketing. Interestingly, something I wrote about extensively two years ago:

Hook, line and sinker: how to do marketing (part one of many)

As it’s August and everyone is on holiday, I’m going to deviate a little bit from my usual daily blogging and talk about two other things: How to do sales and marketing How to explain FinTech to your kids You may wonder how I can …

How do you find ‘the hook’?

I talked yesterday about how to do my layer cake for a hook, line and sinker marketing structure. It made me remember generating this approach so I dug out an old document that discussed how to generate a hook. The hook is meant to be …

But what’s the sinker?

So we’ve got our hook and lines set up. Now for the sinker! This was an approach I developed through working in various companies in marketing, sales and consulting roles. I call this bit the real cake (remember it’s a layer cake?). The hook is …

The reason I’m inspired today is this video:

It’s simplicity is this: spread the right message.

It takes me back to the old quote:

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

This was written by the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales, way back in the 1600s. It’s a great quote and a great philosophy.

The philosophy? Think hard about your message. Think hard about how it is conveyed. Think hard about the words. Spend time working out the words.

It really irritages me how many companies and start-ups I deal with who cloud their message with gobbley-gook. Often, it’s acronymns and consulting-speak. More often than not, it is to disguise the fact that they just could not be bothered to think about what they were communicating. Take these world’s worst mission statements: “It is our mission to continue to authoritatively provide access to diverse services to stay relevant in tomorrow's world.”

WTF? What does this mean? It is vacuous and empty, irrelevant and ridicultous, mad and crazy, and inspires no one other than a robot drone. Oh, maybe this is who it is targeted at?

This mission statement is created by the Mission Statement Generator. Thanks AI and ChatGPT. In fact, I then went to ChatGPT and asked it to generate a great mission statement for a FinTech. Here’s what it came up with:

“Empowering Financial Futures Through Innovative Technology: at [Fintech Company Name], our mission is to revolutionize the financial landscape by harnessing cutting-edge technology to create accessible, inclusive, and seamless financial solutions for individuals and businesses alike. We are committed to driving financial empowerment, promoting transparency, and fostering trust through our user-centric platforms. Through relentless innovation, collaborative partnerships, and a steadfast dedication to security, we aim to empower our users to achieve their financial aspirations, navigate complex markets with confidence, and embrace a future where finance knows no bounds.”

Brilliant!

So, you can go with the vacuous and irrelevant or spend days, months or even years thinking about the few words worth saying.

It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it …