How do you look like an expert in your field?
It appears that DecisionQuest answered that question correctly, years ago.
A leading legal consulting firm, DecisionQuest conducted an exhaustive research project, seeking to answer a question to which most lawyers believed they already knew the answer: How does a juror decide which expert to believe? Which expert is perceived as "more expert"?
The answer matters to every service business, because "apparent expertise" affects your success in attracting and retaining clients. So you must ask, How can you appear more expert than your competitors?
Attorneys assumed they knew the answer; most had built their entire careers on it. It's credentials: get admitted to the "best" school, make law review, land a clerkship with a federal judge, and then watch the world beat a path to your credentials.
After a few years in practice, however, many attorneys begin to wonder. Was my assumption right? And if it was, where are all the clients?
DecisionQuest found the answer.
When their researchers asked jurors which of two experts appeared to be the more expert, jurors did not choose the witness with the superior credentials. Credentials had no net effect. But if not credentials, what did suggest expertise?
Clarity. Jurors consistently said that the clearer expert appeared more authoritative. Clarity is expertise.
Two recent events raised this "clarity is expertise" issue for me again. The first came as I was inspecting a web site. This firm does work similar to mine, but apparently with far more sophistication. They offer "seamless integration" of "implementable repeatable methodologies" designed to promote "enterprise revenue acceleration." Whew! You can almost feel the breeze from the dollar bills rushing in!
Fortunately, I walked into the living room and noticed the March issue of The Atlantic. It seemed to be beckoning to be read, so I obliged. I skimmed quickly to page 50, where a headline stopped me: "Strunk and White's Revenge," it read. A passionate fan of that pair's classic book The Elements of Style, I had to read on -- and there I found it, and perhaps the reason the magazine was calling me then: reassurance.
The story reported that Stanford researchers asked 71 undergraduates to evaluate different writing samples. The researchers had systematically altered the language in these samples to create "moderately complex" and "highly complex" versions of each, creating the most complex version by replacing every noun, verb and adjective with the longest possible synonym.
Did the more complex versions sound more sophisticated to the students? Not at all. As the complexity of the sample increased, the students' estimations of the author's intelligence declined.
Clarity is expertise. And simplicity -- expressing yourself in the fewest possible words and syllables -- is a key to clarity.
If you welcome their findings, by the way, you probably will love the title to their paper summarizing their research: "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."
Keep it simple, keep it short.
(A related note on the The Atlantic's title. For years it called itself The Atlantic Monthly. Six syllables -- two syllables too many to imprint well. And to make their new name appear even shorter, the word "The" is so small that a reader tends to notice only the word "Atlantic.")
Excerpts from Harry and Christine Clifford Beckwith's new book, You: A Field Guide to Selling Yourself (Warner Books September 2006).
Changes Robes
Five years ago, Dairy Queen introduced a new brand called "DQ Grill & Chill." These stores offer a larger menu and a more contemporary design than Dairy Queens. As Minnesotans, the company founders also knew the difficulty of coaxing people into an ice cream store on days that are icier than a Blizzard (although interestingly, they opened their first Grill & Chill in mild-to-hot Chattanooga, Tennessee).
Will the rebranding work?
That leads us to an often-overlooked issue. Many clients assume that a branding initiative will focus on look and feel, and almost certainly result in a new logo. But the force behind every brand -- especially a restaurant chain's -- is the face-to-face experience: is it clean, fast and friendly?
You must start branding initiatives on your front lines, and change your promise only if you've altered the experience. Otherwise, customers go into your new Wendy's/Arby's/Burger King, and discover that the only thing you've really changed is your signs and slogan.
Dairy Queen will prosper in its new clothes if people feel good about their experience at a Grill & Chill. (We hope they do. DQ's founders, the Mootys, are terrific people, and for decades before I met them, I insisted that the world's most delicious hamburgers were made in Seaside, Oregon -- at the tiny Dairy Queen on the south edge of town.)
The Lighter Side
America's best magazine: The Atlantic. The New Yorker is now one-sixth Vanity Fair, which is five-sixths too much.
Most interesting email of the month: "Are you available in May to speak in Lithuania?"
Worst Oscar winner ever: This year's Best Song. Worse than Chopsticks.
New York appearance: July 9. Send me a note and I'll see if I can get you a special invitation.
To glimpse one of our interesting recent projects -- naming, branding and marketing a practice in London -- go to www.umbrellasmiles.com. And best wishes to our ambitious young client, Dr. Justin Glaister, who reached across the Atlantic to find us.
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Harry Beckwith is the best-selling author of Selling
the Invisible, which has been named one of the top
ten business books of all time, with over 675,000
copies sold in 14 translations. He is also author of
The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, which
have sold over 275,000 copies in 13 translations. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association convention, and has |
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made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is
cited regularly in national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis with his wife Christine Clifford Beckwith. He is the father of six children. |
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E-mail questions and comments for Harry Beckwith to invisble@bitstream.net.