Time to read: 2 minutes
I was having a coffee yesterday with a client named Jason.
Jason's up to some cool stuff within two different fields: furniture retailing and data/business automation.
I'm in the middle of helping him launch something big within the retailing space right now and he made a comment on something I said to him during a critique on his pitch deck.
"I kept thinking back to what you said: to really spell everything out. I realise that's my problem - I assume too much. I assume they'll understand why something is good because it's obvious to me."
We're All Susceptible
And it's a pretty common problem which we can all fall into if we're not careful.
This is especially true of business owners and experts.
Our foundational level of knowledge is so much greater than our customer's, but because we're dealing with it daily, we begin to think they know the same things we do.
We can call this the "curse of knowledge".
It's a 'curse' because we forget to explain why things are good or bad, thinking the person we're communicating with already knows these reasons.
Which is what Jason did in his initial pitch deck.
Many of the slides had raw demographic information on them.
He assumed his ideal audience of furniture retailers would see this data and go on to make the same (good) conclusions he did.
But here's what would likely happen instead:
- If someone has some knowledge on the topic, they'll use it to form their own conclusions, good or bad.
- And if they have little to no knowledge on the topic, they'll simply skip the information and draw no conclusion at all.
Either way, you've wasted a selling point by assuming.
Remember This - FAB
So, to help Jason fix his pitch deck and avoid future "sales killing" moments of assumption, I told him to remember this:
F eature
A dvantage
B enefit
... or "FAB".
It's simple to remember and easy to use.
Here's an example I used with him at the coffee shop.
Pointing to my document holder, I said:
- it's genuine calf-skin leather - a feature;
- so it's hard-wearing and waterproof - an advantage;
- which also means my documents stay safe and I'll likely be using it in 10-15 years - a benefit.
This FAB framework provides a simple and conversational way to get your selling points across while also removing the chance of making assumptions.
Check your own marketing and make sure you're not making similar assumptions, because they can creep in pretty easily!
