The old saw about learning more from your students than they do from you is likely true.

Last night I guest-taught a class of small business owners (or soon-to-be-small-biz-owners) about “The Messaging Platform” — the statement that provides a foundation for all of an organization’s marketing messages.

The idea is simple; these small business owners have devoted considerable time to researching their target markets, customers and competitors.

It’s time for them to market.

But what are they going to say?

Focus on the Message

Small business users often seize on unimportant or undifferentiated messages — or worse, market a different message every day.

My solution is the messaging platform.

It’s how I get clients focused on a message (and keep them on it). It’s a good example of the kind of service I like to offer my clients as a value added copywriter – the concept of which I prattle on endlessly about here on my blog.

The messaging platform is a great tool for small businesses, and these entrepreneurs were hungry for the information.

So I explained the concepts, outlined the five characteristics of the successful messaging platform (Unique, Real, Provocative, Consistent and Benefit-Oriented), and showed them a few case studies from my own practice.

For the final exercise, we broke the class into groups of four, gave them information about me, and let them develop my messaging platform.

The results were startling. This group learned fast.

Teaching & Learning

Of course, I learned more than they did. The simple act of creating the presentation dramatically improved my understanding of my own messaging process.

It forced me to transform my largely “in-brain” messaging process into something understandable by my students (and ultimately my clients).

Next week I teach the “Internet Marketing Overview” — a subject I couldn’t cover if I had a solid week of classes.

Still, I expect to learn a lot.

[tags]teaching, marketing, messaging, value added copywriter[/tags]