Making the abstract tangible for your sales pitch

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iQuila is a fascinating, groundbreaking company. In essence, they have created a connection across the internet that’s as simple, secure and robust as two directly connected computers in the same room.

In technical-speak, it’s Layer 2 over Layer 3. Technology that neither Google nor Microsoft are able to replicate.

They’re scaling quickly in the corporate network world. And of course they are. Compared to VPN, it’s cheaper, it’s faster - it actually stays connected! Technical IT departments love it. Jaw-dropping love it.

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Selling to non-technical people

But the opportunity for iQuila goes beyond corporate networks: autonomous vehicles, IoT...it could even transform aerospace black box recordings.

Despite the opportunity, the technology is abstract. Unless you’re technical, it’s not easily tangible.

• Selling to technical teams? Not a problem.
  
• Trying to convince c-level executives to Introduce you to technical teams? Very difficult.
  

There were 3 key things we addressed when building a new sales narrative for iQuila’s continuing expansion.

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What action do you want someone to take?

This is key. What do you want someone to do once they’ve seen your first bit of sales material? In one scenario, a 1 page summary over email.

For iQuila, they needed to progress from ‘email comms’ with non-technical c-level, through to ‘securing a meeting’ with senior technical people.

Key here: iQuila are not trying to close a sale with their 1 pager.

Therefore, that 1-pager only includes the information required to secure that meeting. This is a very important point. It’s where most ‘first contact’ materials go wrong.

Key Takeaway: Rather than cramming every last detail into that 1-pager, you create a concise, digestible summary with a specific action in mind.

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Know when to sell features and when to sell benefits.

The second thing we did was shift the focus of the sales material.

We are all told ‘sell benefits and not features!’ This is true in most scenarios. However, when you’re selling an upgrade path to technical people, selling features is very important. One feature may have several benefits that the buyer can decode. You can do a lot more ‘selling’ by listing features to technical people.

But for non-technical people, you must sell the benefits first. Not doing so is the most common mistake we see when proven technologies are applied to new markets.

Key Question: what is the true value of those features to the customer’s business as a whole? What’s the real benefit to that organisation?

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‘Layer 2 over Layer 3’

Overcoming technical-speak. There is so much information packed into ‘Layer 2 over Layer 3’. It’s no exaggeration that the jaws of technical-folk will drop; closely followed by “impossible”.

Key Takeaway: find a way to concisely move an abstract idea into a tangible ‘thing’ - and quickly for the reader.

Our approach was to simply turn this into a real-world example that attempted to pack as much information as the aforementioned.

“We’ve created a connection across any internet carrier that’s as simple, secure and robust as directly connected devices in the same room”.

It was a lot of fun working on this one. If you want to see some of the final output, or discuss your business, drop us a line.