White Paper - Hide the Sales Angle but make the Sale

Hey, notice the upper left corner? Happy to say I got cudos from E-zine.

Glad you could make it to our next lunchbox lesson. I know, the title seems contradictory, but that is exactly what you will have to do if you are dealing with the corporate world. So how does that work? Easy…you write a white paper.

Okay, I’m sensing the furrowed eyebrows and the question mark expressions.

According to Wikipedia, a white paper is “an authoritative report. The white paper is used to educate customers, collect leads for a company or help people make decisions”. So, isn’t that a sales paper, you may ask. No. It is not. A sale often tends to be hard, fast and to the point. A white paper, on the other hand is sophisticated, informative and artistically persuasive. If well written, it is used for reference and has a long life. It brings a solution to a problem. It is the ideal strategy to sales and marketing -an opportunity maker.

So, how do we sell without talking sales? Content - pure and simple content. Let’s look at that content. It has to be educational, relevant, and focused. You have to prioritize the readers needs, (a perfect attention getter). This way everyone understands that there is a challenging problem that needs to be solved, but you are not accusing the client of incompetence or making any other insult. Once you have their attention give them an elegant, well-researched solution to their problem. It doesn’t matter if you sell a technical product or a service, the approach is the same-(1) keep the tone friendly, conversational, (2) know your customer and your product; (3) and persuasively craft your paper. Also, publicize it well, and the readers will flock. In one fell swoop you have generated sales leads, educated customers and instituted thought leadership.

Be willing to commit to an investment in research and writing time. Make sure there is something unique about your product or service and give the client information that they do not have. It gives you necessary credibility. Additionally, it is mandatory to be interesting enough to grab their attention in the first paragraph.

Michael A. Stelzner, who I call the Guru of white papers, has a fantastic, free monthly newsletter that will give you priceless tips on crafting a “can’t lose” white paper. http://www.stelzner.com/newsletter/index.html

Okay, so how do we put this thing together? Well, it goes in this order.

1. Introduction
2. High Level Solution
3. Solution Details
4. Business Benefits
5. Summary

This site, http://www.klariti.com/white-papers/How-to-design-White-Papers.shtml provides a very simple, detailed, clear explanation that defines the above steps. Log on. It will make you a pro.

So, last but not least, here is info for my visual learners - templates, glorious templates. You know my motto by now, “When ‘know-how’ fails you, grab a template”.

If you have this ultra curious mind and want to know more, put that Google search engine to work with the words “white paper”. The typical white paper can range from one page to many. Take a look.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb742431.aspx

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/

http://www.stelzner.com/PDF/Motorola-Push2Talk.pdf

There is also a free e-mail course that is very helpful, and is written by Perry Marshall.

http://perrymarshall.com/whitepapers/

I find the best way to keep on the cutting edge is to take courses from those who have been there, done that and know how to succeed. Study and brush-up is a little time consuming, but think of it this way, if you make the time, you’ll make the money.

White papers are here to stay. If you have to write one and don’t know how, this article will point you in the right direction. You don’t have to be a research pro, just type in the keywords, point, and click. Some of the information retrieved will be over your head, but just keep looking because someone out there was in the same boat that you are in right now. They struggled through it, succeeded, and have written step- by- step guides to help you to do the same.

Hope this has been helpful. 

The next article is a shocker, titled "Death by Peanut", but it has a happy ending. So, if you’re up for tears and cheers, look out for the next article.

‘Til next time…