Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

Who is the target audience? Where? What do you want to communicate to them? What makes you different from, and better than, others in the same business? Why might someone hire you (instead of the alternatives)?

Before you do anything else, revisit all the text on your Website.

Print out all the copy on large sheets of paper and pin those sheets to the walls of your conference room. Next, get all your staff together in that same room, all at the same time. And I mean everyone: from interns and cleaners, right through to your CEO and the the chairman (or chairwoman) of your board (if you've got either).

Then have every member of your team pick a page of copy and ask them to read it out loud.

Here are the important parts:

1. LISTEN TO THE FLOW,

and

2. Ask yourself if what you're hearing sounds:

1. Believable?
2. Genuine?
3. Sincere?
4. Human?
5. Trustworthy?

Would you speak like this if you were chatting with your parents or with your grandmother?

Does what you're hearing sound insincere, overly managerial, or like outright nonsense that no one in their right mind would believe?

If your Web copy sounds in any way "off", replace it with something that DOES sound sincere, believable, and trustworthy.

All that MBA-style, boardroom-BS hype?

Few people understand it.

Few people believe it.

Few people trust it.

Ditch it.

The only people who want to read, listen to, or believe this kind of material are CEOs, CMOs, and CFOs.

Until you've created an on-site identity and an onsite story that clearly and truthfully states:

1. who you are,
2. what the backgrounds and motives of your main partners are,
3. what you do,
4. why you're doing what you're doing,
5. and who you do it for—

a tag line won't help you.