Page 200 - The Apple Experience

Zuckerberg had succeeded in concisely framing the narrative. Steve Jobs, who
gave Zuckerberg business advice, would have been proud.

In Apple Store Oxford Circus. Always amazed at how the staff are so expert,
friendly, and charming. —Breffni W.

The Message Map

I could spend the rest of this chapter giving you more examples of effective

scripts, but it won’t do you much good unless you can implement the

technique for yourself. So here goes. I’m about to introduce you to a powerful

and effective communications technique that will help you create your own

script and to share the script with your team and your customers. It’s called
the message map: a one-page visual depiction of your story.

The message map is stunningly effective. One client of mine—a global

wireless brand—laminated its final message map and would simply pass it

across the table to potential customers in face-to-face conversations. I nearly

passed out when I heard it, because the message map is meant to be kept

internal and to be used to create presentations, ads, and marketing material.

But my clients reassured me when they said, “It worked fine. In fact, it

helped us win several multimillion-dollar accounts!” Following are the steps

you need to create your own message map:

1. Create a Twitter-friendly headline. You should be able to describe your service or
product in 140 characters or less. Before Twitter there were the Google guys,

Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They intuitively understood the importance of this

exercise. When Brin and Page were looking for funding, they pitched Google to
investors at Sequoia Capital. One investor told me that the investors “got it” in

one sentence: “Google provides access to the world’s information in one click”
(sixty-two characters). The description was so persuasive that the investors now