“Ding dong,” chimed the doorbell, so I ran to open the door. I was shocked to see a vampire, witch, and football player all standing on my doorstep. Creepy music blared in the background, with muffled screams audible under the sounds of creaking doors, howling wolves, and the song “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett.
“Trick or treat!” came the cry from the costumed children.
I threw some candy in their bags, and off they went.
This is a cycle that is repeated time and time again on Halloween. Wouldn’t it be nice if getting business was that simple? Imagine if we could waltz into a prospects office and say the “magic phrase” and they would hand over the business like candy. Unfortunately in the real world competing effectively involves more than simply asking for the business. In fact the more we chase customers around, the further they seem to retreat. Yet what if there were a way to “attract” customers without chasing them?
It is for this reason that we have developed our “14 rules of attraction.” Last week we sent out a brief overview that listed all 14 rules. This week we will examine one of them in more detail.
Rule number 3, The problem is more important than the solution.
Too often marketers make broad assumptions when communicating their message to clients. This happens in both the selling interaction (face-to-face and on the phone) as well as the marketing interaction (with ads, brochures and web sites.) This is a natural tendency since as marketers we know far more about our products and services than our customers. In many cases we may know what the customer needs more than they do themselves. The danger, however, is that customers don’t care about the benefits and solutions that our company offers. Let me repeat that: CUSTOMERS DON’T CARE ABOUT OUR BENEFITS AND SOLUTIONS!
I can imagine people everywhere are reading this right now saying that I’m crazy. Traditional sales and marketing methods teach that we should elaborate on our features and benefits, and prospects will see how they can be helped by our solutions, and they will logically decide to buy. This assumption is the root of why most sales and marketing attempts fall on deaf ears. First off people today make buying decisions more emotionally than ever before. Our prospects and customers care FAR more about their problems than they ever will about our solutions!
It is important that we speak to our prospects and customers in terms of their problems! By doing so, they become comfortable with our solutions, not based on logic, but based on their emotional reaction to the fact that we actually have taken the time to understand their problems. The solutions we offer then become the natural choice to help solve those problems.
This is why it is important that we focus on the problem, instead of on the solution. How do we do this? We have developed a four step method for creating a problem mindset, that you can use to speak intelligently with your prospects and customers about their problems.
Step one:
Identify the major problems your prospects and customers are facing. Put yourself in their shoes. Brainstorm with your colleagues. Even better, ask some of your existing clientele what THEIR problems are. Chances are there are many prospects just like them.
Step two:
Figure out what exclusive or unique solutions to these problems you offer. Why is what you do different enough from your competitors to make it the only solution to the problems you’ve identified? How can you use this knowledge to develop marketing language that speaks in terms of the problems that you have identified?
Step three:
Analyze the problems and your solutions to find what you can do that reverses the risk of using your company to solve their problems. Reducing their risk will be your ace in the hole when it comes to presenting a solution once you have made your prospects realize that you understand their problems.
Step four:
Find some evidence you can offer that shows that your exclusive solution actually works. Once you have shown a prospect that you understand their problem, that you have an exclusive solution, and that there is little to no risk in using your solution, your evidence will build credibility for all of the claims you’ve made. Use testimonials, examples, demonstrations- any form of evidence you can to back up all of your claims.
Whether you are talking to prospects in the selling role or preparing marketing material that will be used to create attraction, I encourage you to go out and find some problems that your prospects are facing. Focus on these problems when you prepare your message. This is as close as a marketer can come to saying “Trick or Treat” in the business world.
Special news to our Southern California Readers!
Listen for the Small Business Tip of the Day on 97.1 FM KLSX, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the 8 O’clock hour of the Conway and Steckler show. If you’re out of the listening area, we will soon be posting these segments on our website for everyone to enjoy. And if any of you are planning on attending the FM Talk Financial Fest on November 13th, please stop by and say hi to Matt and Myself. Have a great week! I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com
Mark Deo