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You Know What Your Company Does. Can You Explain It in 30 Seconds?

[CUT TO: Screen in front of the room]

JASON [Talking about how uControl monitors homes via phone lines, cell phone connections, and over the Internet] We use the word redundant too much. I think we got a little comfortable using technical terms because we had so many early adopters we were selling to, and it was fine to say redundant. But when we get past those early adopters and into the mass market, we could get burned. So I'm trying to stay out of that as much as I can. But I have not gotten to that euphoria of, this is the perfect way to describe what we do.

[CUT TO:]

ANDY Every single company could say something like that. Our comfort area, particularly in the technology world, is to fall back to the jargon. You don't need to look for another word for redundant, you need to find another way to talk about it. That's where storytelling comes in. There was a great story you had, about this guy that switched his phone service to Vonage and had an alarm system, and three months later discovered that it hadn't been monitoring his home the whole time since his system didn't work over VoIP.

You can talk about redundancy in the form of a story about it. That's what people are going to remember. You don't have to say the word redundant.

Last week, I asked all your guys this question. I said, "Okay, you want to make a clean sweep. What is the one thing you guys do?" Here's what they said.

[CUT TO: Screen in front of the room]

WADE COHN [director of software engineering] I think the biggest would be peace of mind. If someone cut my phone line, I'm still safe because I've got other modes of communication.

JIM KITCHEN It boils down to peace of mind. I get all the data I need about what's going on in my house. I know what to expect.

[CUT TO:]

ANDY UControl gives me peace of mind because I always know. This is something we really think should go in front, in the first 10 seconds.

DAVE [Pops a slide up on the screen with phrases] We have been talking about these snippets of language.

ANDY What do you guys do? [Reads from the screen] We bring home security out of the closet and put it on the Web and on your wireless phone, so you can monitor and manage everything about your alarm system from anywhere in the world. We give you the peace of mind to know that your family, your kids, your home are safe and secure all the time.

DAVE What does uControl do? [Reads from screen] This is an industry that hasn't changed in 30 years. Seventy percent of the homes that have alarm systems don't even use them; they are too hard to use. So what do we do? We make the alarm system smarter. We make them better.

[DAVE and ANDY look at JIM expectantly. ANDY grabs his notebook and prepares to take notes.]

JIM [Speaks slowly] I like that concept for many of our audiences. This explains how we are trying to change an industry. As we talk to consumers, that works. But right now, we're focused on winning deals with big cable providers. We've got to hook them in the first 30 seconds with what we do differently from the three or four competitors that we always run up against.

And we've got a couple of real differentiators. We can work with any alarm system, even one that's already installed in the house. We can use anybody's keypads, anybody's sensors. And we're their infrastructure, which allows all of that to work. That's typically how I explain it. But if there is a better, more concise way…

JASON To the cable company, when they use us, it looks like every other deployment of a service that they do. It hooks in with their infrastructure, their cable modem. We give them a familiar feeling for an unfamiliar service that they are about to deploy.

DAVE I like that: "familiar feeling; unfamiliar service."

JIM So I think the first sentence can be, "Hey, we are going to help you bring home security out of the closet. Right now, it's locked in the closet, but you can bring it out and put it on the Web. And the way we do it is very important. We are going to bring a familiar feeling to a very unfamiliar security service."

DAVE What did you say your other key differentiators were?

JIM There are a few of them and I'm not sure if any of them are as important as us being open and agnostic. It's the theme of openness that, I think, is most important.

ANDY I guarantee you'll get a smile or a chuckle when you say: Bring home security out of the closet and onto the Web.

DAVE It's memorable.

ANDY It's not only memorable; it delivers your message. Not just fun for fun's sake. It's strong. We like it.

DAVE Well, we've talked a lot. The next step is to think about it, digest it, chew it. Then, we'll come back and film you again, and say let's change this and tweak this. After that it's really up to you guys to internalize it. You guys have done some work and it shows. You're already far along for a pretty young company. You've got a pretty tight message now. Let's just get it focused.

JASON [chuckling] "Out of the closet."

JIM [laughing] It's not going to be hard to remember it, that's for sure.

JASON It couldn't be more perfect, I promise you. It's the company culture in a bubble.

JIM It encapsulates the openness and free thought at our company. I mean, here is a guy who spent 21 years in the home security industry and couldn't even tell the people he worked with that he was gay. The industry is so close-minded, he was afraid he'd lose his job.

DAVE It's a metaphor for your company.

JIM It's fun.

[JIM shuts his laptop and looks at the messages that have piled up on his flashing BlackBerry. JASON chats with ANDY and DAVE about rolling the new pitch out to the company. ANDY says that he'll be back soon to film the team practicing their new elevator speech.]

[FADE OUT]

Alison Stein Wellner is an Inc. contributing editor.