If the first five to ten seconds of a pitch, video, trade show interaction, web scan, or slide deck are the most impactful for any new customer, it makes sense that those first impressions are where organizations and B2B marketers should spend the majority of their time. Where they should work to describe a customer pain point or problem in the most simple and authentic way possible, and open a narrative about why customers will benefit from the solution provided.

Often I see engineering teams or product managers take the lead instead and the result can be a dense and highly technical customer experience that is as alienating as it is bewildering.

Marketing Communications is something I care a lot about and the first rule is that audience acquisition and retention getting someone's attention is the most important thing. At 3M I was taught a five step process for effective communication: radical simplification, deep empathy, talking at eye level, displaying candor, and embracing personality. In practice however, the ability to communicate effectively first involves asking dumb questions until the complex becomes simple.

The marketer's goal isn't to dumb-down content or offend fellow G2G (geek to geek) speakers, but to create a brand voice at the Zero Moment of Truth that is approachable enough for anyone to understand.

Sometimes I might ask a product marketer or CTO how they explain it to their grandmother or partner, or challenge them to cut a page down to a 140 characters in a hero or highlight box. I might ask them to read something aloud or explain terms instead of using jargon. Maybe I just try explaining the whole thing back to them. If it's the responsibility of any marketer to put the customer first, sometimes it helps if the marketer is also the dumbest person in the room.

My customer for this project was an AI driven business for wireless providers capable of analyzing spectrum data and identifying the source and location of interference. The team was brilliant, the platform was designed to save customers billions, and the title slide of their 25-page intro deck was the only one that made any sense. In fact, the first sentence of this paragraph took me over an hour to get nailed down, simply because I didn't have anyone to answer my dumb questions.

I created the four intro slides below using a custom icon set to increase the comprehension of non-big data or machine-learning professionals like me by at least 500%. Writing simply is about putting an audience first to better meet their needs, but I also think if I can help them feel capable and smart that these attributes will benefit the brand.

Unfortunately, most of the client work I do is both indecipherable and confidential, but this is a small example of distilling a complex value story into a very simple message.