There is a great pub near our office that serves beautifully prepared, home cooked food. The menu tells us that the ingredients are of the highest quality, individually selected and locally sourced.

But doesn’t every menu in every pub say that?

Identifying what matters and stating it clearly is a great start for any business. But the real art is in proving it. This pub’s solution is shown above and in addition to giving the data (i.e. the distance), it also carries a number of important embedded key messages:

• It’s neatly hand written rather than scrawled or typed
• Somebody took time and care to create it
• It’s personal, giving the real name of the supplier in a couple of cases
• It’s ordered geographically so was carefully planned with an attention to detail

This tells us lots about the kind of business they are running here. It also conveys precisely what matters about these suppliers – that they are real people based less than 30 miles away.

Always think in terms of proof points. Comparatively speaking, words are cheap.