Get to Aha! by Andy Cunningham

Author:Andy Cunningham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2017-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

From Message Architecture to Market Resonance

Okay, you’ve got executive buy-in. The message architecture is built. The narrative is compelling. It is time to infect first the company and then the market with the positioning virus. The goal here is to move from message architecture to market resonance.

Regardless of how many employees work at your company, each and every one of them should be an evangelist for your story. So first things first: train them.

I find that this training is best done in small groups—in person, if possible, and with a small set of slides that reinforces the message. The best person to do the training is someone who is senior, credible, and a good communicator. The key here is to use these sessions as opportunities to inspire the workforce to carry the message forward. I usually start the sessions by asking the group members if they’ve ever found themselves on an airplane having to answer such questions as “Where do you work?” and “What does your company do?” We’ve all been there, and many of us, especially in technology, end up spitting out a whole lot of words that don’t seem to mean anything. I tell them that the new company narrative will change all that and that they have a role to play in evangelizing the new narrative. The company needs their help.

I then read them the narrative that we created. I know that reading is anathema to a seasoned presenter, but for this particular purpose I find it to be effective. It’s the company’s new story, and using the proper tone of voice and word inflection is critical to its communication. As is the presentation itself, which is why in addition to illustrating the narrative through slides, I face the audience and work hard to be animated.

Here is the narrative we created for BlackBerry, which is also the script I read to each and every department of the company:

Once upon a time, BlackBerry was a giant in the land of smartphones. Most people who needed or wanted one had a BlackBerry. We invented much of what the smartphone is today, and we built one of the world’s most globally recognized brands. We were the market leaders, and we ruled the roost. But more than that, we developed a strong emotional connection with our customers that persists even today. They love us.

But the market changed. Apple introduced the iPhone. Google brought Android to market. Suddenly, competition was everywhere and moving fast. We weren’t fast enough. We lost our grip and fell behind. We watched our market share drop significantly and our relevance diminish over time. But all the while we continued to innovate in connected security and mobility, and we began to focus that innovation on software rather than hardware.

That’s when our board brought in a new CEO. John Chen joined us as our leader in 2013 after a very successful stint turning around Sybase. He recognized our legacy and believed that BlackBerry could be a leader again, but

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