Clever Taglines – The Dirty Secret

Before I work with clients I ask them a series of questions designed to help me understand their business, and how well they understand it themselves. One of the most frequent stumpers is “What’s your unique positioning?”

Typical responses:

“Well, let’s see…we really focus on the client’s needs.”

“Oh, you know, I’ve been doing this for years and…”

“I’m a really good listener. I get right to the client’s problems.”

“We have XYZ process – a proprietary system that targets a company’s weak areas blah blah blah.”

These comments represent about 80% of the answers I get. And there’s nothing terribly wrong with them, except they’re dreadfully dull and generic. After all, who doesn’t focus on client’s needs?

The good news is it may not matter much. I think Unique Positioning Statements are over-rated, because prospects can rarely match the tagline to the business name anyway.

Clever taglines have NEVER caused me to choose one vendor over another. Domino’s Pizza used to promise to deliver hot pizza within 30 minutes or it was free. Great tagline, but far more important to me was the easy phone number…1-800-Dominos. Convenience trumps clever.

Bottom Line: Don’t sweat over clever headlines, mottos or even positioning. The much greater challenge is to prove your worth.