How to stand out in a crowd of 40,000 people

With 40,000 people and 160 sessions, Microsoft Inspire will offer you countless opportunities to connect. The question is – how are you going to make sure that you and your team stand out?

This following process will help you consider, and frame, your unique value proposition so that when you find yourself in the elevator with the contact you’ve been trying to court for the past year, what you say will stick.

1. Define your perfect customer.

Who are the customers that you’d love to have more of and what is it that makes them perfect for your business? Are they in a specific vertical or industry? Are they of a particular size or do they all face a common business problem?

2. Clarify what your business helps these customers to achieve.

With your perfect customers in mind, establish what the business outcome is that you deliver. Perhaps it’s increased workforce and operational efficiency or greater security and accelerated growth. It’s important to remember this is distinctly focused on the business outcome that you deliver - we’ll get to what it is that you do.

3. Establish what you do that is truly unique.

There will be a reason that your customers choose you over the competition and it’s something that you need to capitalise (and be clear) on. Perhaps it’s your process, a unique methodology, or the skills and talents of your team.

4. Be clear on your purpose.

We’re all motivated by a different driving force – for some it’s a passion for problem solving, for others it’s about making a material difference. In communicating our purpose, it provides us with the opportunity to create buy-in and enthusiasm about our proposition.

5. Gather the evidence.

It’s one thing to say it, quite another to have done it and be able to prove it. Take the time to identify three key pieces of supporting evidence that validate your business proposition. These can be case studies, testimonials, sector or technological experience, or the unique skills of your staff.

Take the time to identify three key pieces of supporting evidence that validate your business proposition.

Can you say it in a sentence?

In determining the above, you can craft a short, sharp elevator pitch using the sentence structure below:

We help [perfect customer] to achieve [outcome] by uniquely [what you do], because we believe [why you do it] and [here’s the evidence].

In the spirit of sharing – here’s what you might hear me say if we were to bump into each other at Inspire:

“We help owners, investors and leaders of IT companies achieve their ambitions via our unique IP and experience, because we believe in making an incredible difference and have done so for over 5,000 CEOs globally.”

Stand up and stand out

Once you’ve written your pitch down, you need to stand up and test it out with staff and friendly clients. If you’re feeling brave, pass it by us we’ll happily invest 30 minutes to give you some feedback. Once you hit the ground in Las Vegas your pitch will be well rehearsed and come naturally so, wherever you happen to make your next connection, and however many other people they might meet, you’ll be the one that stands out.

An incredible year

Microsoft Inspire 2018 has the potential to spark incredible new thinking, incredible connections and incredible opportunities to win in FY19. Want to connect with incredibleresults while you’re there? We’ll be proudly hosting the Australian Pre-Day as well as a drop-in clinic in the Australian Lounge, but if you’d rather not leave our meeting to chance, get in touch.