{"id":5731,"date":"2013-03-30T09:40:32","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T13:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/?p=5731"},"modified":"2020-01-21T18:54:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T22:54:28","slug":"when-knowing-too-much-is-a-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/2013\/03\/30\/when-knowing-too-much-is-a-bad-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"When Knowing Too Much is A Bad Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">Every entrepreneur should, and usually does, know every detail about their business. This is necessary to run a good business. However, when it comes time to communicate that information to your existing customers, potential customers, investors, etc. all this information becomes a problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s the ultimate example of TMI.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">So the first thing you need to do is get out of your head and into the head of the customer or audience you are going to be communicating with. \u00a0What do THEY want to know?\u00a0 The next thing is to keep the customer\u2019s point of view and look back into your head and sift through the mental inventory you see there\u00a0 and pull out only what you need.\u00a0 If this sounds difficult, that\u2019s because it is.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason why marketers exist.\u00a0 Not only can they go through your head and pull out what\u2019s important, they make the final product look really good, and thus, make you look good. Aruna Inalsingh discusses this in her blog<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.animarketingservice.com\/e-news\/2013\/03\/22\/the-importance-of-clear-executive-summaries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>http:\/\/www.animarketingservice.com\/e-news\/2013\/03\/22\/the-importance-of-clear-executive-summaries\/<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>. She uses executive summaries as an example. Executive summaries are a key piece of communications for any business, but the truth<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is you need clarity in every single piece of communications that goes out from your company. Aruna sums it up in a few key points.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">Taking this clarity idea a radical step forward, Carmine Gallo talks about ditching the elevator pitch altogether with some great alternatives. I particularly like the one-word pitch.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/carminegallo\/2013\/03\/26\/six-simple-and-irresistible-alternatives-to-the-elevator-pitch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/carminegallo\/2013\/03\/26\/six-simple-and-irresistible-alternatives-to-the-elevator-pitch\/<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">But I don\u2019t think it works in all situations (there was a period in my career where I wrote 2 word headlines on all my ads for about two years. I always won awards, but that\u2019s a very hard thing to do). \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">Evaluate your situation, your audience, and your own ability to communicate before you try these out. And it always helps to try out new ideas on a colleague or someone who doesn\u2019t know the assignment. If they get it, great, if not, it will be reflected all over their face.\u00a0 This is \u00a0great feedback.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;font-size: small\">If you can\u2019t create these communications items on your own, then seek outside help.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><strong><em>Sandra Holtzman teaches\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fitnyc.edu\/3064.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CEO 035: Licensing<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>She is the author of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.holtzmancom.com\/thought_book_title.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every entrepreneur should, and usually does, know every detail about their business. This is necessary to run a good business. However, when it comes time to communicate that information to your existing customers, potential customers, investors, etc. all this information becomes a problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"post-templates\/post-middle-column.php","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8577],"tags":[8582,23474,20372,8576,23523,23472,23524,38568],"class_list":["post-5731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-small-business","tag-business-tips","tag-communications","tag-customers","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-executive-summaries","tag-investors","tag-pitch","tag-small-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1v7EM-1ur","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/hottopicsinsider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}