3 Best Messaging Frameworks for Small Businesses and When to Use Them

Friday Funnel Focus by EPOCH Sales Management Solutions

How clearly and succinctly does your company tell its story to gain the attention of your ideal prospects?

Let’s borrow a picture that Chet Holmes presented in his book, The Ultimate Sales Machine”.

“Imagine that I could put you on stage in a giant stadium where the entire audience is composed of your most perfect prospects, giving you the opportunity to present to them all at once.”

Right before you (or any one of your salespeople) was randomly selected with no notice to speak to the crowd, the audience was given these instructions.

“You had to come, but you don’t have to stay. If this person (you or the randomly selected salesperson) talks about something  that is of no interest to you, you can simply get up and leave.”

Are you (and each of your salespeople) ready right now? Could you walk out on that stage and present to every one of them and do it perfectly? What will you say to keep virtually everyone in their seats?

Why do so many companies fail at delivering their story?

In Donald Miller’s book “Building a StoryBrand”, he shares two mistakes companies make in the mind of Mike McHargue.  Mike shared these two mistakes companies make after fifteen years of using science-based methodologies to help companies figure out how their customers think.

• They fail to focus on the aspects of their offer that will help people survive and thrive.
• They cause their customers to burn too many calories in an effort to understand their offer.

Mike Weinberg says this about why salespeople fail to attract new customers in his book, “New Sales Simplified”.

• Beyond being self-focused, they’re long-winded and their message is often confusing.

3 Best Messaging Frameworks for Small Businesses

We believe that Donald Miller, Mike Weinberg and Chet Holmes provided us with three of the best messaging frameworks to use. While any of these frameworks will help you build good messaging for sales and marketing. Each framework has a specific place where it shines the most. Together they build messaging that is great.

• Donald Miller’s Marketing Made Simple/ Building A StoryBrand framework is best suited for your marketing messaging.
• Chet Holmes’ Stadium Pitch/ Core Story Concept is best suited for Strategic Selling Messaging.
• Mike Weinber’s Company Sales Story/Power Statement concept is best suited for tactical selling.

When to use them?

In Chet Holmes book, “The Ultimate Sales Machine” he shares the following diagram to represent the marketplace.

Chet wrote his book in 2007 and the percentages may or may not have shifted in 15 years.  However, based on my personal experiences and the experiences of my clients, the concept in this diagram is just as true today as it was in 2007. So, how do we apply this to our messaging framework?

• If you are starting a new business, we recommend that you start with Donald Miller’s Marketing Made Simple/ Building a StoryBrand Framework first.

Donald Miller’s framework provides you with a great framework as you build out your website and marketing materials.  This is a great guide for one-to-many messaging.  It also provides good information to use when selling.

• If you have been in business for a while or you completed your Marketing Made Simple/Building a StoryBrand framework as a new business, we recommend that you next work on Mike Weinberg’s Company Sales Story. 

Since we believe that Mike Weinberg’s framework is the best framework for tactical selling, we encourage you to win as much business as possible as quickly as possible in that top 10% of Chet Holmes Triangle.  You may still capture some business from one of those lower 30% blocks, but Mike’s messaging helps you move prospects from interested to evaluating to action the best and that is where most of the top 10% reside.  (Note: If your new business is a new concept that most of your ideal prospects don’t know they need, you might want to use Chet Holmes’ Core Story concept first for its strategic selling value.)

• At this point, if you have not updated your marketing messaging with the Donald Miller framework, do it now.

The combination of Mike Weinberg’s Company Sales Story and Donald Miller’s Marketing Made Simple framework helps you win the highest percentage of business available to you today.

• Next, build a strategic selling strategy with the help of Chet Holmes’ Core Story Concept and attack those lower 30% blocks.

Chet’s Stadium Pitch/Core Story process is an education-based sales messaging strategy to wow your prospects to think about things they had not thought about and come to realize that they need a product or service like yours.

You may be thinking, I don’t have time to build out three different messaging frameworks.  We get it and we are not asking you to build out all three at once.  Work them according to your priority.  Each framework will help you improve your messaging. In fact, once you get through all three, go back to the beginning and update them based on what you learned along the way.  Together these three frameworks will provide you with great messaging for you and your team.

Want to explore the process further, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

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While growing Small Businesses and Building Great Sales Teams is hard, the process to do this is simple. But, simple does not mean easy. 

Want to explore the process further, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

In the meantime, get our guide to the 3 Part Formula to a Healthy Sales Pipeline