FUD for Executives

​How much do you know about Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt?
 
FUD is a great acronym; not enough people know it. 
 
It stands for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.” We learned this one years ago while working for consultants in the defense, intel, and national-security spaces: "Let's lay a little FUD on the customer about the prospect of leaving the incumbent for a prime contractor who hasn’t done this before.” 
 
Isn’t it wonderful? FUD. It’s great. It’s useful. 
 
In this article, we’re going to discuss some ways to employ FUD to your advantage, to grow your business. We’ll also spotlight some instances in which you shouldn’t use FUD, based on a recent experience of ours. 
 
Creative FUD
 
FUD, properly employed—and in this case, we’re talking about a marketing/business-development usage—will subtly get under the prospect’s skin. It’s akin to FOMO—Fear of Missing Out—but it’s much more powerful. It plays upon their deepest fears. Your message, of course, is “Avoid FUD by working with us.” 
 
The title of this article is “FUD for Executives,” so let’s discuss that. As a consultant/business owner, you love to target execs. They’re decision-makers. They command the strategic initiatives. They own the purse-strings.
 
They’re also, generally, pretty confident people. You don’t rise to the apex of the organization by being timid or insecure. 
 
Yet they still have insecurities. They’re not psychopaths. Indeed, many successful execs are so good at what they do because they can balance gut-wrenching risk with reward; it’s part of the entrepreneurial mindset. They want to take that leap. 
 
(Yes, yes, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. There are lily-livered executives out there who rise by nepotism, and thrive on the status quo. Let ‘em. They’re not our target. They wouldn’t budge if a tectonic plate split right beneath their feet.) 
 
Our point, as far as executives go, when it comes to FUD, is to be subtle about it. These people are smart. You don’t have to tell them: “You’ll fail! The competition will eat your lunch if you don’t do this/buy our stuff!” That’s an instant turn-off. 
 
We’re currently working on a campaign for a startup, aimed at executives, which includes a component of FUD as part of its hook. We can’t get into the details here (they’re client confidential), but the messaging goes something like this: “Have you considered all aspects of your business’ [targeted] strategy? Would you feel comfortable if what you’re doing right now became known to your stakeholders, your shareholders, and the world?”
 
Oooh. That’ll make ‘em squirm. 
 
But again, don’t dwell on it. Move, quickly, to the high road. Talk up the to-be world you’re pitching to these execs; that’s what you’re selling, after all. 
 
To FUD or not to FUD
 
We recently worked on a client assignment in which the customer was wrongly characterized. 
 
Mind you, this is huge. This violates every iota of customer-back-ness that we preach, and practice, here at Copel Communications. 
 
In this instance, our client’s target customer was businesses that provide a luxury experience to their end-users. Our client, initially, and mistakenly, conflated the two: They assumed that their prospect wanted the same luxury experience that they intended to deliver to their own customers.
 
Nothing could be further from the truth. These prospects were shrewd businesspeople who wanted great service and value from their vendors—which is, effectively, what our client was. Offering them “luxury” would be off-putting. It would seem callously overpriced and tone-deaf. 
 
Indeed, this audience—the businesses that offer luxury to their customers—was ripe for a dosage of FUD. That’s because our client offered them something that would, among other things, keep them out of legal hot water. 
 
That’s a huge selling point. A great FUD opening. And we were able to effectively torpedo any vestiges of the “luxury” pitch to this audience with the following analogy: 
 
Years ago, we wrote materials for one of the most exclusive properties of one of the most exclusive hotel chains in the country. And we never wrote: “Stay at Luxury Hotel. You won’t get any bedbugs here, like you would elsewhere!”
 
Of course not. You don’t ever, ever employ FUD in a luxury context like that. Ergo, our business audience for our client was not a “luxury” audience. Using FUD on them (“Avoid legal hot water”) was wholly appropriate. 
 
So when do you use it?
 
FUD is context-sensitive. It depends on what your prospect is fearing (or uncertain or doubtful of), along with what you’re offering them—and how that tees up with their underlying dilemma. It needs to be teased out subtly, especially for higher-end (read: “exec”) audiences. You can certainly bash them over the head in, say, a hard-sell retail advertising environment, but that’s not what we’re focusing on here. 
 
Much of this arises from taking a customer-back approach in the first place. That is, starting with your target customer’s pain points, and working backward to the messaging (and even the solution) you’ll offer. 
 
Need help crafting a nice “FUDDY” message? Contact us... or you just might fall short of your goals, LOL! 

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