This is a guest blog from Dean Waye, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Ghostwriter at ctowriter.com.
For Marketers, the CTO or Chief Technology Officer from your company can be a highly effective messenger to put in front of a prospective customer, a webinar audience, or a conference.
But they usually go into those situations without ever hearing the advice that marketing experts would give them. Let’s fix that right here.
Given the chance, here’s what six different marketing professionals would say to a CTO.
The CMO:
“The CEO is our evangelist. The CRO is our persuader. You’re the ambassador.
When you’re the featured speaker for presentations, speeches, and webinars, you have three jobs.
- Generate excitement for the company and our products.
- Persuade people to let our company move closer.
- And impress them by being impressive. That means being knowledgeable, but also comfortable with your role in front of strangers.
Our products will change. Or be copied. Or discontinued. But our CTO always needs to be impressive. You’re one of the things a customer ‘buys’ when they do business with us.”
The Copywriter:
“When you’re creating what you’ll say or show an audience, think about writing it all out as a script.
Even if you don’t read it out loud or read it at all, putting it all in one document helps a lot during your live event. Most people think writing a script adds time and effort to the process. But you’re already writing a script — you’re just storing it in the two worst places: as text on your slides and in your head (where it sounds fantastic to you).
Putting every word you’ll say in one document lets you see how your entire talk will play out. You’ll wonder why you never did it this way before.”
The Webinar Specialist:
“Webinars are 90% Spotify and 10% YouTube. You’re spending all your time working on slides that most of the audience will ignore as they check their email or work.
If you accept that, you can focus on making the small number of slides that matter and spend the rest of your time coming up with ways to explain them in language simple enough for everyone to understand.
Remember, a lot of your Chief Technology Officer audience learned English as a second language. And even if they didn’t, most of them are using your webinar as background radio. Spend your time reworking your explanations into more straightforward English instead of making busier slides, and everyone thinks you’re a genius.”
The Sales Enablement Manager:
“The first time you present to a prospective customer, there’s a proven structure for moving them to the next step in our sales process.
Answer these questions in order.
Then delete the questions and voila – your answers are your presentation.
- Why is this different?
- How do we know we can trust you?
- How do we know this is real?
- What’s in it for us?
- What’s kept us from getting what we want?
- How will this help us get what we want?
- Why now?
- How does it work?
- What’s the risk of doing nothing?
- What’s the next step?
What you’re doing is answering this question for them, and it’s the single biggest hurdle sales must overcome — ‘How do I know I won’t be blamed if I vouch for you folks?’
The Account-Based Marketing Manager:
“We know a lot about the companies you speak to.
If part of your talk is about issues that the company is facing and how our company helps, you’ll ‘win the room’ more often.
Ask us for a briefing before you decide what you’ll speak about. We can help.”
The Social Media Manager:
“Before you say a word in a meeting or to an audience, a lot of them are going to look you up on LinkedIn.
Are you ready for that?
If your LinkedIn profile reads like someone looking for their next job, you miss an opportunity to advocate for what the company does. A Chief Technology Officer’s profile should tell the company’s story.
Before you open your mouth, you can frame their impression of you if your LinkedIn profile focuses on our company and their problems.
That’s a fantastic opportunity and shouldn’t be wasted.”
Summary Advice for the Chief Technology Officer
A Chief Technology Officer who’s in control of their material and comfortable in front of an audience is a tremendous asset to any company. A small percentage of them are naturally good, but the rest can achieve just as much with some help, plus great content, and a little practice.
The most effective CTOs know their stuff AND are open to listening to and accepting assistance from marketing professionals and communications experts.
Dean Waye is the Chief CTO Ghostwriter at ctowriter.com. CTOs who want to win the room work with Dean to turn details into gripping content. Reach him at dean@ctowriter.com.
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
