The Confidence Bucket

If I'm a prospect and I don't know you, I need to come away thinking: my boss is going to want to talk to these guys. This is a company, or a product, we should learn more about.

For that, I need a certain amount of confidence that I'm right. If I don't think I'm right, I'm not going to recommend you to my boss, the buying committee or the board.

I don't come in with any confidence. There needs to be a bucket full of it by the time I leave, and you, the vendor, have to provide all of it in the beginning. As I work through the buyer journey I'll show up with more and more of my own. But at the start I have none.

So this is a request. Do not hedge. Don't be vague. Don't prevaricate. Don't use words like enabling, helping and transformational, all that soft language I can't pin down.

By the end of that one second, five seconds or eight minutes I spend on your messaging as a first-time prospect, if the bucket isn't full, I'll recommend the three companies whose buckets I'm confident about. You won't make me confident by pulling away from me. Move toward me and let me know you understand my problem.

Provide all the confidence at the very top of the funnel and don't rely on the prospect to bring any of it. They'll develop it later.