Streamline your business description

One Sentence pitch : describing your business in a nutshell

Back in April I spoke at local networking group, the Lakeland Businesswomen’s Network (LBN). I really enjoy sharing my knowledge and helping businesses to grow and develop. After receiving some really wonderful feedback from the members I thought it would be a good idea to put a blog together here for those that might be interested in streamlining the way in which they describe their business.

So, let’s start with thinking about when you might need to describe your business. Well at the LBN I talked about a one sentence pitch as prelude to a speed networking event and in this case speed was of the essence, BUT describing your business in a nutshell can be useful for any networking. Keeping your description short and concise allows potential customers to see what they are getting, and these descriptions are also ideal for using on social media or business cards. With this in mind let’s go through a few steps to help you to understand your business better, understand who your customer is and how to reach them.

Identify your audience

Do you know who your audience is? Understanding your target market will make it easier to reach them. Sit down and take a minute to think about your customers, who are they? Do you mainly deal with other businesses or are they individuals? Can you describe them? Perhaps your business mainly targets women of 25-55 who enjoy the outdoors, for example. Do you have an idea about what their other interests are, and based on all this what are they looking for?

Now, take a little time to refine your audience, pick out the most important and relevant parts of your descriptions. Can you breakdown your ideal customer into a few words?

What is their problem?

So often I see businesses selling external solutions when in fact people are looking to buy solutions to internal problems. So let’s think about that; sit down and list all the problems your ideal customer may have. For example, your customer may be full of ideas on how to market their business but may not have the computer skills in which to get these ideas out there. Have a think about their external and internal problems (for example external may be lack of equipment, internal may be lack of confidence).

It’s time to refine again; what is their key problem? What do they really need solving?

Ok, so we have looked at defining WHO your customer is and WHAT their problem is so what happens next? How does this help to describe YOUR business to THEM?

You are the solution

Everyone wants a quick solution to their problems. Getting your business description on point allows you to direct your solution to a customer quickly and easily. Almost like a ‘it does what it says on the tin’ approach. As consumers we all want to see what we are getting, we want to be able to put trust in others. But how do you become the solution? Start by listing your services and what you offer. Now think beyond that – what do you actually do? For example, I could say: I am a graphic designer. I design logos, websites, and leaflets. But what I really am is a communications expert, I understand people and their behavior patterns and how to amplify my clients voice to reach them. So, with that in mind what desires do you fulfill for your customer, which of your solutions will help them?

Let’s take a last moment to refine this, have another look at your solutions, which solution will best reach your audience?

With these processes complete my business description looks like this: Lil Creative Studio, championing purpose led businesses to make a difference with creative design. What does yours look like?

I hope these simple steps have helped you think more about what you offer as business, and have enabled you to put together a streamlined description of your business. Hopefully this will allow you to describe your business with confidence and to reach the customers that you want.

In June I will be back at the LBN with a follow up workshop on this topic, as always you don’t have to be a member of the group to join, guests are very welcome. You can find more details on this event right here (link). We will recap what we learnt at the April meeting so don’t worry if you didn’t attend that one.

For more branding, design and web tips, advice and examples you can follow Lil Creative Studio over on the social channels; Instagram and LinkedIn. For more #designtips see all the other blogs right here.

#designtip – your business is always evolving and changing. Review this process every 12-18 months to make sure you are still presenting the right message.

Photo credit: Vladislav Klapin on Unsplash

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