When I visit with clients about marketing: what to say, what to do, when to do it, how it all gets done, etc. I always encourage them to educate their clients. I believe that marketing is the ongoing education of your clients. By continually educating them on things that matter to them and how you and your company relate, they will acquire a real appreciation for you. The challenge is, most companies don’t do this. I’ve seen my share of PowerPoint presentations (heck, we’ve even built them!) that go on and on about all the services a client company offers but there is rarely any educating going on. It’s usually just a massive feature dump and a 20 minute commercial called ME ME ME ME. Now, if we can get our talented little design hands on the presentation, we may not be able to talk the client out of the ME content, but at least we can make it look great!! (Now, that was a little ME commercial, wasn’t it? Sorry!)

Let’s keep going.

It could be that companies don’t like to educate their clients because the whole thought turns them off. Maybe they get transported back into their 8th class where Mrs. Green is endlessly nagging them. Who knows. What I have figured out from this is I’m going to start using a different word. I’ve noticed that people in general do not like the word EDUCATE or LEARN. In fact, it’s one of those show-stoppers. You include that word in your copy and magically, your reader disappears.

I’ve been trying to find just the right word to use. At first I really liked “surprise.” After all, if you are imparting information that is news to another, it could be a surprise. But, it turns out that being surprised in business is really not that popular. So I have a new word. I’m now going to replace EDUCATE with EMPOWER.

What if our sole purpose as marketers was to empower our clients? What would that mean? What would that look like? Feel like? Sound like? Well, I don’t have answers to all those questions (yet) but I do know one way to empower another is to expand their world. Here’s an example of what I’m thinking…

Let’s suppose you are a catering company. Been in business around 10 years or so. You decide it’s time for you to start offering organic items on your menu. You schedule appointments with your top clients to let them know.

Scenario A — Typical Presentation
You meet with Mary, the executive administrative assistant, at the large oil company. You bring her a sample of one of your new organic items. While she’s trying to figure out how to eat the bean sprout without it going up her nose, you start your presentation. You pull out the new menu and show her the new items, you ask about any upcoming events and remind her that you are already booking up for the holiday season. You talk about the last event and chit chat about upcoming plans for the weekend. You ask her if she likes the new item. You wrap up. She thanks you and says she’s glad to know about the new items. You say you’ll stay in touch.

Scenario B — Empowering Presentation

You call Mary, the executive administrative assistant, at the large oil company and let her know you’ve got some very important information you’d like to share about the health of the company’s employees and that you’d like to meet with her and the head of HR. You promise you’ll only take up 30 minutes and that you’ll also bring some goodies. She’s intrigued by your approach so she sets the meeting and says she’ll try to get the head of HR there too. You send over a fax two days before the meeting with the agenda for the meeting and you reiterate the focus of the meeting — “10 Most Important Reasons Your Employees Are Not Feeling As Good As They Could And How This Affects Productivity” Again you promise only to take 30 minutes and thank her in advance for getting the HR Director to attend. You call the day before to confirm once again.

You arrive a few minutes early with goodies and a flip chart in hand (okay, maybe you ask to have the chart there or bring an assistant). You don’t need a PowerPoint presentation because you know your “stuff” so well all you need is the flip chart — And this is really only for effect and to hold attention. You thank Mary (and hopefully the HR Director) for coming. You start your presentation. (You wait until after the presentation to hand over the goodies. You want them focused on you for now.)

You start by sharing some interesting information:

“Did you know that there have been 70,000 new chemicals introduced into our lives since 1940. And no one really knows what the effects really are of all of these chemicals. We do know that many of us our actually malnourished (no matter how much we eat) because of these chemicals and the way food is processed — it strips out all the nutrients and enzymes.”

“In 1940 one pound of spinach contained about 158 mgm of iron. In 1967 this fell to 27.7 mgm and today, it’s less than 2.2 mgm.

“Your body requires over two million red blood cells every second. If it can’t get the red blood cells it needs from the food you eat, it will find other ways… It will breakdown the protein enzymes from the organs and muscles of your body to make red blood cells. This of course will weaken your entire system.

“Now of course the best way to help your body is by giving it the proper nutrients. And, the best nutrients should come from the food we eat. The problem is, most of the food we eat has no nutrients. This is slowly taking it’s toll on our bodies and our productivity.”

Then you would go on to discuss organic foods and how they contain the needed nutrients and can help restore health and productivity.

Once you’ve finished sharing the importance of healthy food you talk about the ingredients you use in your organic line. You get as specific as you can about the nutrients each food type brings to the body. Then you give them the samples you brought with you. You ask questions like: “Is Big Oil Company looking for ways to improve the health and well being of its employees? Is the company looking for ways to be more environmentally conscious? Are employees starting to talk more and more about the environment and their part in it?”

You then share your new organic menu that is more of a story book than a menu. This books has all your new items and a story on each — where you get the ingredients: how the vegetables are grown and cared for naturally; how the chickens are allowed to live a happy healthy life roaming free on a big open space; how the cows are allowed to live happy dignified (no steroids) lives eating natural (no chemicals) grass; why your body will respond positively to these ingredients, etc.

Now, at the end of this presentation, do you think Mary and the head of HR will see you and your company differently? Will they go back and tell the stories about spinach and red blood cells to their friends and family? Have you expanded their view on food? Have you empowered them with knowledge they did not have before?

Yes. Yes you have.

Is it a lot of work to put a presentation like this together?

Yes. Yes it is. But, once you do, you’ll have it and you can begin to share it with all your clients and train your whole staff to give the presentation too — even if they never get in front of a client, you’ll get their buy-in and you’ll empower them as well.

I guess it’s all a matter of how you want to be perceived. How you want your clients to think of you. And, how much bang you get for your buck/time. The best thing would be to test it out. Line up 10 presentations and do 5 the old way and 5 the new way. Monitor the results and see if this type of effort will be worth it for future presentations. The worst thing would be to assume you already know the outcome without testing it.

Please share your thoughts on empowering clients with us — okay?