When you’re an expert on a topic – such as your own business – it’s often difficult to explain the topic clearly to a non-expert – like your sales prospect. SDR messaging is often so full of jargon that its impact is totally lost on the reader.

This is a trap known as “the curse of knowledge.” The curse of knowledge occurs when you assume that the person you’re talking to has as much background information as you do. For instance, we recently worked with a client who shared the following information about a project:

“Automation of app deployments directly to infrastructure with all network and policy kept as code and able to redeploy itself in entirety in seconds, if need be, not to mention visibility, insight, analytics and faster MTTR / RCA. Platform supports mainframes, VMs, and Kubernetes. Extensibility allows for deep app mapping in move to cloud.”

To an IT professional, this information is gold!

To the rest of us… it’s gibberish.

When your SDR messaging goes over their head? Your email goes straight into the trash.

Every SDR expert must overcome the curse of knowledge.

#1 – What Do You Do?

Before our copywriters try to tackle SDR messaging for a new client, we use the phrase, “explain it to me like I’m five” to help us understand what they do.

If you’re talking to a five-year-old, you have to strip away all the technical details. Get rid of every bit of jargon, and get to the essentials.

Some examples:

• For a full-service marketing agency: “We get people to buy your stuff.”
• For an SDR company: “We find people who want to buy things from you.”
• For an IT consulting company: “We help companies do big computer projects.”
• For a shipping company: “We mail things without breaking them.” 

Think of this step as the what of what you do.

#2 – How Do You Do It?

Of course, your sales prospects aren’t actually five, so to construct your SDR messaging, you will need to add back in the key details. 

Examples:

• “By creating memorable branding”
• “Through targeted email campaigns”
• “By analyzing the data collected about your website visitors”
• “By mapping Oracle applications”

At this point, you need to think again about your target audience. How much background knowledge do they have about what you do? If you’re targeting the Chief Technology Officer of businesses, then you can talk about mapping Oracle applications. If you’re writing to a member of the company who is less technical, then stay away from jargon and continue explaining in layperson’s terms.

#3 – Why Do You Do It?

Now, think about why you do what you do. What problem do you solve for your customers? This is what your prospects really care about, and what should be at the heart of your SDR messaging.

Examples:

• “So you can get a better ROI on your ad spend”
• “So you don’t have to do the legwork of finding sales prospects”
• “So your IT platform doesn’t crash all the time”
• “So you have higher customer satisfaction”

#4 – Put It All Together

Now, see if you can string those three ideas together into one sentence:

• “We find people who want to buy things from you through targeted email campaigns so you don’t have to do the legwork of finding sales prospects.”
• “We work with companies to do big IT projects like mapping Oracle applications so your IT platform doesn’t crash all the time.”

A bit clumsy? Sure. Exactly how you’d like to say in your sales pitch? Not necessarily.

But once you’ve completed this step, you should have the bare bones of your messaging.

And most importantly, you won’t confuse them into deleting your email!

Not sure if your messaging is on point yet? If your company wants to start winning at SDR, drop us a line!