As I listened to a new client talk about the intricacies of his company’s fund management solution I could tell this would be challenging writing assignment. I needed to take a complex topic and turn it into a white paper and other marketing materials.

Now the point in creating these materials is not to go into  exhaustive detail about the technology  and systems behind the solution but instead  find a compelling story about the solution that grabs decision makers and makes my client’s company the inevitable choice after reading the material.

So where to find that story? As usual it was locked away. Locked away in the clients’ expertise and knowledge. Often it takes a non-expert who has more distance from the topic to unlock the story.

Whether on the C-suite level  or on a manager level, clients know more about their business than any outside writer does. But they are often so close, so deep into the details, they can’t see the compelling story. Or they  let the story get bogged down in  details and side issues.

A good way to start writing for such a client is to first  read all the available material. And I certainly did that for my fund management project. But the real secret in unlocking the story is to talk to the expert(s). An interview with carefully planned questions is the best way to capture the elusive core of the story. Ideally the interview should be recorded with a transcript so you can go over it again and again.

The interview can be tricky and needs to be done right. Certainly come in with a  list of standard questions. For example: What do you think the prospect’s problem is? What makes your solution unique?

After listening closely and absorbing the material I find it beneficial to bounce some ideas off the client. Such as:

“As I hear it, the main story here is……… Does that sound right to you?”

Or,  ”so what we need to do here is convince the prospect that ………….Correct?”

This kind of feedback points the expert to the story itself and not the details.  And it gives the expert something to react to.  It leads him to clarify the most important issues.

Then always ask for  some success stories. You’re not looking for complete case histories (unless that is the task), but summaries that are part of the overall narrative.

Often the  expert gets animated here because he or she  is relating how the solution works in real life situations. In that animated state, the expert reveals key parts of the story. And that’s gold for the writer.

(photo: Johan Larsson   Flickr)

For b2b writing services, go here

According to a recent article in “Sales Machine,” B2B selling is not only harder than B2C it’s massively harder.  Here are some of the reasons according to the article:

REASON #1: The B2B buyer is vastly more sophisticated. For instance, because the Internet makes comparative pricing information publicly available, it is not at all unusual for a buyer in a B2B transaction to know more about the product category and the competition than the sales professionals who are trying to sell that type of product.

REASON #2: The stakes are much higher. B2B buyers and decision-maker are being paid – often quite high salaries — to understand what they’re buying and how it will be used. They can lose career points and get fired if they make a wrong decision, something that never happens when a consumer purchases a consumer product.

REASON #3: B2B selling requires more knowledge. It’s not enough just to understand a product and be able to present it coherently. B2B selling generally involves diagnosing a customer’s challenges and then coming up with a customized solution that may very well involve a long-term business partnership.

REASON #4: B2B selling demands better people skills. When consumers buy a product, typically there’s only one or two decision-makers involved (like a husband and wife). Corporate buying decisions can involve dozens of decision-maker, influences, stakeholders, and nay-sayers.

REASON #5: B2B selling involves more patience. While even “big-ticket” consumer sales (like homes and cars) can be completed in a day or a week (at most), many B2B deals involve weeks and months of intermittent activity, meetings, phone calls, back-and-forth documents, along with all the politics and persuasion that characterizes large bureaucracies.

Here’s the entire article http://bit.ly/dXhbQp

What do you think? Is it massively harder?