The Journey to Impact: Watch Your Language
Are you working on an idea to impact a customer, audience, or market? (Since we have policy people in the audience whose “market” is the government, let’s define “market” as the audience you wish to adopt your idea.)
Whether you plan to start a company, license to a third party, or collaborate with the government or a corporation, when you’re pitching your idea to someone, listen to how you describe your idea and the market or customer it can or will serve. How you describe it tells you whether you’re pushing the idea or the market is pulling it, i.e., is there a need?
If you find yourself saying the following, this is you PUSHing your idea:
- What this can do is…
- The way this can work is…
- The reason this is better is…
- The assumption is…
- This will make it easier for…
- We figured out how to…
- This will benefit X because…
- Corporations in this market will want this because now they’ll be able to…
- We believe this will…
- This technology is superior because…
- We’ve reduced the cost of…
- We’ve simplified…
Successful ideas are adopted when there is a need, a market PULL. That “market” can be a consumer, government employee, person in a corporation, etc. Remember, PEOPLE adopt your idea, not branches of government, or “all people with an iPhone,” or all pharma companies, or all doctors.
People Over Ideas is the catchphrase.
Listen to how you’re describing the benefits of your idea. Are you telling us how it will benefit others OR are you saying “a certain specified, target persona [that you’ve interviewed and listened to their needs] has this need because…” and “this product addresses that need because the value is…”
Saying it another way, when you are talking about your idea, are you 1) talking on behalf of yourself OR 2) the customer, market, adopter of the idea? If the latter, THEN you’re on to something; you’re expressing a market PULL. Otherwise, you’re PUSHing your idea. As the NSF tells us, the single greatest reason for ideas to fail is nobody needs them.
OK, one last way to watch your language. Are you starting your sentences with an “I” or “we”? Or are you starting with the voice of the person who’s going to adopt your idea?
Your language gives away whether you still have work to do to identify that first target customer, adopter, and their needs.
Listen to yourself explain or pitch your idea.
Rana K. Gupta formerly served as director of faculty entrepreneurship at Boston University. He helped BU researchers bring technology and other research breakthroughs to the marketplace to increase their impact through programs and workshops, one-on-one consulting with faculty, educational resources, and community building among BU innovators.