There are three steps to defining the message and then a very simple Formula to apply it.

1) We must write out the best success stories of someone using our solutions we can think. Include these five components:

a) What were the challenges facing our customer?

b) How did we address those challenges?

c) What were the results?

d) What did the customer tell us were the benefits of those results?

e) Can we use any of the names attached to these stories?

2) Using our success stories as a starting point, list:

a) All of challenges we believe our solution addressed for our current customers.

b) All of benefits (not features) that our solution provided for our current customers.

3) Determine the most powerful approach from either the challenge or the benefit approach specific to the audience we’ll be calling and apply it as follows:

“The reason I was specifically calling you today was that we’ve recently had a lot of success (insert most powerful approach from No. Two or Three above) and I’d like to stop by your office and share with you how we were able to accomplish that.”