Most of you came to this blog post from an email I sent you.
The email read as follows:
Subject Line: The Most Important Email
You'll Ever Read
Body:
I have an ultra-important message
to share with you.
Visit my blog to read it.
Dave
PS. It will only take about 3 minutes to read this.
And you'll benefit for a lifetime.
Visit my blog to read it.
So why is this the most important email (or blog post) you'll ever read?
Because it gives you a critical lesson in communications that is absolutely essential to your success as an entrepreneur.
The lesson is this: 1) be as simple/clear/concise as possible in all important communications, and 2) sell ONE thing at a time.
Let me explain.
1) Be as simple/clear/concise as possible
My email message was extremely concise. It said that I have an ultra-important message
to share with you and that you should visit my blog to find out what it is.
That's it.
2) Sell ONE thing at a time
My goal in the email was to "sell the click" or convince you simply to click on the link. I wasn't trying to get you to do anything else.
The results: Because I was clear and sold just one thing, you clicked on the link.
So let's apply these lessons to raising funding for your business.
The other day, one of my Crowdfunding clients sent me the email they were about to send to their friends to get them to donate.
The email was very long and gave tons of details about their company and why their friends should donate.
THIS WAS THE TOTALLY WRONG APPROACH!
To begin, the story about the nature of the company should have been no more than ONE LINE long. If you can't already sum up your venture in one line, than stop everything and figure out how to do it. Importantly, that one line doesn't have to provide every detail about what's unique about your business. Rather, it just has to give people the essence of your business.
Secondly, the goal of the email should have simply been to get their friends to click on a link to learn more. To go to a page with a video and a nicely laid out story on why they should donate.
The point is that you can't get many people to donate just from the email, but you can get many people to click. And then once they click, you give them the information they need to donate.
The same is true with angel investors and venture capitalists. No venture capitalist has EVER invested based on an email they received. So why would you ever send an email with the hopes that they will invest?
Rather, the initial email you send to investors should just be to gauge their interest. That's ALL you're selling in the email. Say here's what we're doing and include 5 interesting bullets about your company. And then say, "would you like to learn more?"
That's it. Sell one thing, which is "would you like to learn more?"
And then, if they say "yes," you're goal will be to sell them on investing the time to meet with you.
And then you're selling them on letting you present to the other VCs in their firm.
And then you're selling them on giving you their money with the best investment terms. And so on.
I'm very lucky. My son is a fifth grader. So I have built-in tester. If I tell him a message and he can't repeat it back to me as clearly as I told it to him, then my message is flawed.
And if I ask him to do a complex task and he does it wrong, it's because I tried to sell too many things at once, rather than selling him on doing just the first step.
Many of us have heard the acronym KISS, standing for "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Simplicity in communications is essential. While some people think complexity makes them sound smart, it confuses their messages so the recipients of those messages don't take the desired actions.
In fact, I rather sound like a moron, but convince others to do what I need them to do, than appear as a genius, but a genius that fails to accomplish his goals.
So to reiterate, if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you must communicate clearly and simply, and sell just one thing at a time. This is key when selling to everyone from investors, to customers, to partners, to your employees.
Three resources for you:
Readability Score: [1] this cool free tool allows you to see how easy your text is to read. You simply copy and paste your text into the box and click Submit.
FYI, according to this tool, my email was written at just a 2nd grade level. Meaning that even a 2nd grader would have understood exactly what I wanted them to do. This blog post was written at a 6.5 grade level (I have to work on getting that down so it's even easier to read my posts (the New York Times is written at a 6th grade level)).
Truth About Funding: [2] This guide shows you exactly how to raise all the money you need. Importantly, it walks you through 3 different approaches and exercises to create a hard-hitting concise pitch for your company.
Crowdfunding Formula: [3] This program shows you precisely how to raise money from Crowdfunding, the newest and probably the easiest way to raise money for your business. Crowdfunding allows you to leverage the communications techniques explained above.