Customers, prospects, people looking to relieve their pain really don’t care about your vision, commitment to excellence, great customer service or strategic mission statement. So why do companies insist on making these the centre of their content universe… online and off?
Ditto with product features – except to the extent these meet your prospect’s precise needs. And even then you still need to tell them how these features are going to solve their problems. As the saying goes, you must “sell the sizzle, not the steak.”
Customers and prospects care about themselves, not you. They care about getting rid of their problems and when they get to your site or marketing material they are looking for real answers to their very real questions – “How can you help me?” “What’s in it for me?”
What gives you the edge is telling them how you’re able to help them… by granting their wishes and desires, solving their problems and removing their frustrations. For example, how will your product or service:
- Make them more admired?
- Help them look good to their boss or team?
- Get them that bonus, raise or promotion?
- Save them time?
- Save them money?
- Reduce risk for them?
- Protect their company’s reputation?
- Help them sleep at night?
- Deliver on their promises?
When I interviewed a client’s client for an assignment recently, one of the questions I asked them was why they used their particular service provider. Their response was this…
“when (name of company) is on the job it means one less thing for me to worry about. It means I can sleep at night. You can’t put a price on that.”
Here’s a challenge. Go over your marketing and product info. Does it plainly answer the question “What’s in it for me?” If not you could be losing prospects, because that’s the only question they really care about.
Instead of expecting them to work it out from your list of product features, (they won’t) change your focus and put yourself in their shoes. Then, whatever you’re offering, describe what’s in it for them.
In other words, provide the answer to their most important question.
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