How To Address A Letter To Hungary

i’m csaba faix, the manager responsible for the international communication of prezi. my job is that people all around the world should hear about prezi. i’d like to talk to you about why it is important to have a one-sentence message about what our product or service is good for, because this can help standing out among the thousands of other blossoming ideas.

How To Address A Letter To Hungary, i’d like to share a story with you, when last spring we started organizing the party for the fifth birthday of prezi, and we were talking with peter arvai who we should invite to this birthday party. i prepared a list with a lot of names like

jack dorsey, the founder of twitter, or former classmates of peter who also became successful enterpreneurs. and i told him how great it would be if these people came. peter looked at me and said that sure, it would be very good for us, but it would be important if we could write the letter in a way, why it would be good for the people who we invited, to be here. so we should not be looking at why is something good for us, but should see that whoever we want to address, what kind of an advantage he can have by going somewhere or using our product.

english people use the expression “elevator pitch”. it has no perfect hungarian translation, but the idea is that should you enter the elevator and meet the ceo of the company, or an investor, or anybody who you want to win to join your team, then until you get to the sixth or seventh floor, can you tell him why the product you’re working on is good and why it would be worth joining it. to be able to do this, you have to think many times over

what is the most important, the only message about your product, your idea. if you want to share too much at the same time, if you want to mention 4-5 benefits of the product, then you will fail almost for sure, because among the many small details there won’t be a single thing that would distinguish it from the others. it is very important to think about what the product is good for, what kind of a problem it solves, and be able to talk about this that the person you’re addressing

should feel that you are addressing him with this message, should understand what problem of his our idea would solve. when you’re working on an idea, then we feel many times that it is impossible to compress it into one sentence why the product is good, why the idea is good. let me show you an example where they could solve this very-very difficult task. this is a volvo commercial, featuring van damme. this commercial has 80 million views on youtube by now. the commercial explains that volvo developed a dynamic steering system,

that the trucks can use while driving in reverse, and they do not lose their lanes. they were able to translate this very complex technical solution into a simple message that was interesting for 80 million people.