It Took More Than Charm to Win This Guy Over
I moved to San Diego for the summer before my senior year of college. I thought I might want to settle out there after graduation and had a place to stay. So, I stuffed my Honda Civic to the gills and blazed across the country in 3 days to get the party started.
My priority upon arrival was to get a J.O.B.
Through high-school and college I waited tables, so I hit the pavement to find decent-looking restaurants in parts of town I wanted to hang out in. I filled in and dropped off applications, trying not to stress about how long it would take to actually get that cash flowing in.
Just around the corner from the amazing Balboa Park, my friend and I were walking down the street and there was a small, delicious-smelling pizza and pasta joint with it's doors open and a manager-type sitting outside.
I stopped in my tracks and got right into it with the dude.
I asked if they needed a server and told them about my successful pizza-selling track record working in a similar restaurant back home. I also made sure to let him know how charming and affable I am.
His response was not particularly enthusiastic. "I have enough servers right now. This one lady might be leaving, but I can't say right now...blah blah blah."
By this point the conversation had moved inside. The food looked good, he seemed nice enough, the Hillcrest neighborhood knows how to tip...so, I took the paper application anyway.
As I turned to find a place to sit and fill it out, I saw the point-of-sale computer their servers used to send their orders into the kitchen.
EUREKA!
It was the same, albeit terrible, software my restaurant at home used. I was like, "Hey man, I know this system already. You don't have to teach me anything."
He smiled and said, "Ok, I probably need to fire that other lady anyway. Why don't you start at lunch tomorrow."
The right message—one that was differentiated from every other college student walking in the door looking for a gig that summer—was the deciding factor. It tipped him over the edge from a 'it's not worth dealing with the pain right now' to a 'yes.' From inaction to action.
Translate this experience into B2B consultant speak and my copy might read: "You need a reliable waitstaff solution to optimize operational efficiencies and increase customer engagement."
Because that feels like what we're supposed to say.
But if we talk to our customer with his language, we'd be successful with: "Stop wasting time training people on your dumb software. Hire Erin and make dinner rush hour seem like happy hour."
The revised language holds to the three ground rules for connecting with your audience that we're going to cover in next week's Brand Jam. They are:
Your audience is always asking: "What's in it for me?"
Concrete language is compelling.
You can't say everything at once.
