Why Clients Balk At Our Offers
And How The Motivating Problem Gets Them To Say Yes
And How The Motivating Problem Gets Them To Say Yes
Discover the negative element that gets your potential client’s attention.
When we offer our services to a potential client or product, the response can be a bit colder than we’d like. And we’ve all seen offers that made us take notice but are a bit sketchy. So how do we create an offer that gets attention without feeling, making us feel slimy?
How did a lantern and a barrel help a small ship escape from a larger and faster enemy vessel?
The year was 1800. The captain Thomas Cochrane. His ship, the HSM Speedy, was being overtaken by a larger enemy frigate. He knew it would pursue him into the night and capture his ship the next day. So after the sun went down, he turned off all the lamps aboard the ship. He then had a lantern placed on top of a barrel and let it float away. The enemy ship chased the lantern into the night, and the HMS Speedy escaped.
Cochrane’s approach to evading the enemy frigate required looking at the problem of survival from an entirely different angle. Similarly, when it comes to motivating clients to choose our offers, we often have to look from a different angle than most people use. We don’t promote our service by talking about the service or about the service's benefits. Instead, we find the client’s motivating problem and show how our service solves it.
What is the motivating problem?
The problem that keeps them up at night, that they complain about, that they worry about, that they have a nearly irresistible desire to solve. Like the HMS Speedy, when the problem is big enough, they’ll be open to any solution that has a reasonable chance of working.
Why do we need to find the client’s motivating problem?
Because once the client has their attention on this problem, nothing else matters. Imagine you’re out with friends having a good time. Then you step in something brown and squishy. It’s poo. Do you keep walking with that nasty stuff stuck to your shoe, or do you stop all the fun and scrape it off right away? Most people stop and scrape. Once we notice a problem, it’s as if we’ve stepped in poo. We’ll drop everything to fix the issue as soon as we can.
How do we find the client’s motivating problem?
We do that through a conversation roughly guided by four steps:
Ask a prospective client for the list of problems related to your product or service.
Ask which problem is the biggest.
Ask them to elaborate on the consequences of the highest-ranked problem.
Connect the problem to your solution, which solves the problem.
I had this kind of conversation with Neha, the owner of a social media consultancy. Her business was stalling due to her procrastination. She gave me a list of issues. Her biggest problem was staying motivated to get things done that were very important, not urgent, and that no one was requesting. Since these tasks weren’t getting done, there was potential to make sales to her audience that was rarely realized. The missed opportunities ran into the thousands of dollars every year.
So at this point, I had her most significant problem and its consequences.
I next had to figure out how her issue connects to a solution I provide
I have a program called the Follow Through Formula which sounded like exactly what she needed. But to craft a statement based on Neha’s words, I had to make clear that it was a solution to her most significant problem.
Here’s the message I created:
The Follow Through Formula helps business owners follow through on what they start even when there’s no urgency to drive them to act. They can get their projects done even when no one is asking for them.
After crafting this statement, I signed up a client who had similar issues. At the time, he said, “This is what I knew I needed for so long. I just never put it into words.” Neha’s problem helped me to create a message that motivated a client with similar needs.
But if we’re that specific about the problem, won’t clients who don’t have that issue be turned away?
Yes. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a sales message that could address all people effectively. The ones that try are usually quite boring, and so they miss a much wider mark. If you focus on one problem, the right people respond as if their name has been called in a crowded room. The rest may ignore you. But those that pay attention are fully engaged. Being specific is a risk, but a risk well worth taking.
So discovering your client’s problems, pinpoint the biggest issue, then craft language that shows how your product or service solves it. When you do, you’ll find that your message is a lantern in the night that guides your client to their desired destination.
Click here to join my newsletter.
I’ll also share with you three marketing mistakes most consultants and coaches make and their elegant solutions