My first month in sales I was tasked with writing a letter to a prospect that I had met at a conference. Not an email- a letter. (Despite the photo-shopped picture above we’re talking about 1992) Since I had just graduated from Brown with a degree in history, this was the first task in sales that I felt I was more than qualified to complete. So you can imagine my indignation when the letter was returned to me by my sales manager covered in red pen. “WHO CARES” was scrawled across the top. Between phone calls (and a few faxed proposals- it was a primitive time) I went into my boss’s office that afternoon and got a crash course in sales writing- which I think is still largely applies for emails and amazingly, writing a blog.
Below is an introduction to Garth’s World, written in the format that my sales manager gave me for communicating in writing to business people.
- Bullet points are your friend. Be brief. I know any moments that you spend checking out a blog are stolen moments from your work day, so I’ll keep it short.
- Bold at least a few words that you really want the person to read. Don’t make the reader search for what you are trying to get across.
- If you use a word that your customer doesn’t know the meaning of, you’re the stupid one. I’ll save the magniloquent stuff for my Mensa meetings.
- Write what you know. I get to observe the Jigsaw Members as they struggle to get their message to customers above the noise. There are plenty of other blowhards that can break down the Yahoo offer or which Facebook widget mashup tool is the most popular.
- Be positive. This may be a challenge. Salespeople love to rant and rave when they aren’t in front of the customer. And some things just suck- like rental email lists.
This blog is for the members of Jigsaw, who are primarily salespeople, but are also recruiters, marketers, lead generators and small business people that are striving to be heard by people outside their own company. I spend all day interacting with the Jigsaw membership and this is my attempt to package up what I have heard and communicate to you some of knowledge that I have gleaned for your perusal.
If I can manage to stick to these few rules, let’s hope that none of you will comment in big red letters: “WHO CARES?!”
So, with that as an introduction to my blog, on to the next post....
