Another Email About the Tax Brochure from “Jazz Guy” at Work, by Jeffrey Palms

From the top:

Hey, this is Dorian from the tax department — we met last Thursday at the BEPS conference downstairs (I was the one whose silk shirt Pierre commented was “thunderous”)? We spoke briefly about getting some help from you marketing guys on our new Tax Bullet product? I just wanted to skit scat some follow-ups on that, since you asked for more info.

The bebop is like this: This product is basically a service where we take over a company’s tax reporting obligations on national, European, and worldwide levels. Our competitors have similar products but none with the interface capabilities of ours, which works on smartphone and tablet in addition to dreary old straight-eighths desktop. Check it out: You click on each of your AuMs to view the regulations under whose scope they fall? But then you rough up to the F sharp, yeah, like an alto in heat—and can check which data points we’ve already modulated onto which reporting form. Yes — you feel it? But there’s so much more. We’ve also customized your KPIs so they melt into the tenor of each reporting law, and it’s all dashboarded for you, no sight-reading required.

Man, if I can lay it straight to you: It’s cool.

We call it the Tax Bullet because it’s allegro, my man. Key of B flat, jester of the jazz kingdom, we’re talking about a client experience that’s smoky and smooth, a program that gets dirty with your FATCA computations and just slides bone on your ESMA reporting, like a chick trombonist. Man, and you know what chick trombonists are like!

Essentially, you have a big client — let’s take J.P. Morgan, right. These guys are running an entire Gershwin orch of functions: investments, lending, you name it. Suddenly the EU changes the key sig, man, by passing a new circular requiring a key investor information document. That means this two-hundred-strong orchestra has to shag it down a half key, all together, all in tune, like. The EU, man, they’re like dogs when it comes to lettin’ the market go — all script, no finesse. But that’s the dive, man, that’s the dive we’re working with. Thing is, we can help those cats over at J.P. retune every one of those violinists they got — get ’em dancing on dimes, if you dig.

But then you’ve got a small client — let’s take Mom and Pop Lenders, okay. They’ve got a ragtime joint, ten fingers to the Joplin, going the distance all by their lonesome. They need help too, because the same bark from the EU’s gonna scare their ghost notes right off, and what happens then? The left hand don’t walk, that’s what. Rhythm falls out of the pocket, and that bee-jive of melody becomes as de-buzzed as a Wisconsin marching band.

The Tax Bullet? Equally revolutionary for both clients.

Yes. It is. It grooves hard, my man, it turns that EU bark into a sonorous feline masterpiece of competitive edge, that’s what we offer our clients, that’s our corporate strategy and our human difference-makers in one lick for you, that’s what this brochure you gotta write needs to get across. We need the title to ring with syncopation, we need the text to grind out like blues, sex, and funk, man. We need you to breathe, empty your spit valve, and improvate. Oh yeah, that’s innovate and improvise. You groove me? The executive committee can’t wait to hear your jams on this, my cat.

Could you send it to us as a PDF? We will leave our comments using the comment tool.

The ex-comm wants it by next Thursday close of biz, but if you could riff me something by Thursday morning I’d be yours forever—that way I’ll be able to grab a small-town solo, just a 12-bar, yeah, to make sure it’s tight before we send it to the leopards upstairs.

So, let me know if you’re cool for the coda or if you need me to take it from the top again.

Oh—and for a “marketing edge”: try to frame your language round a sports theme, yeah? That’s what the combo over here voted on just now. Sports. Like, “the quarterback throws a tax bullet,” though I gotta admit I have no clue what that means. Big thanks, my cat!

Jeffrey Palms is a writer who lives in Luxembourg. Find him on Twitter here.

Another Email About the Tax Brochure from “Jazz Guy” […]