Show notes
Until you get crystal clear on your basic messaging, who you serve and how you serve them, you'll find yourself attracting either no clients at all or the wrong clients, and your customer acquisition efforts will take a whole lot longer.
David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about the idea of getting clear on your basic messaging. Welcome back, Chris. That's my basic message.
Chris: I like that basic message. You'd think that most business owners and salespeople would already be clear on at least their basic messaging, but that is not always the case, is it?
David: No, it's surprising how often it's not the case. Very often people think in terms of just their products and services instead of the needs they fill and the problems they solve. And as we discussed in a previous podcast, there's a big difference between product buyers and solution buyers.
David: And there are always a lot more people who are willing to pay for solutions. So the better we get at crafting our messaging so that it's directed to the things they really want and need in their lives and in their businesses, the better off they're going to be in terms of getting what they need and the better off we're going to be in terms of being able to provide the solutions they need.
Chris: What do you think the biggest problems are in terms of people developing what their messaging is going to be?
Schedule a Strategy Session
Click Here
David: I think a really big problem is that much of it is "me focused." It's all about me and my business and what I do and how I do things, and it's not enough about them. It's not enough about the prospects and clients that we're actually trying to appeal to. So if I had to rank them in order, I would say that's first too much me-centric communication.
Chris: Yep.
Product-Focused vs. Solution-Focused Messaging
David: A second thing I would say is that it's product-focused instead of solutions focused, which is what we were just talking about a moment ago. When we're talking about the product itself or the service itself, then we're not focused on what it is that they're trying to accomplish. And before we can ever get to the solution, we need to sort of stir up the problem side of it a bit.
So when we're talking to them about what they're looking to accomplish and what it means in their business or what it means in their life to accomplish this, that's what really gets them focused on the idea that they need it. And so when we leave out this component; talking to them about the issues they're facing before we recommend our solution, then we're missing out because they're thinking of it in terms of something that might be okay to have, but they're not thinking of it in terms of something that they really desperately need.
Once again, that comes from focusing too much on our product and not enough on them and what they're looking for.
Chris: Give people an example of what that looks like and a little more detail in terms of stirring up that need.
David: Well, it’s depending on what it is that's being sold. If I start talking to you about sales training, for example, “Hey, we sell sales training, we help train salespeople and we're really good at sales training.” People think I don't necessarily need that. Why do I need that?
But if we're talking to them about, “Hey, listen, how much are your salespeople costing you when they're out in the field and they're not doing the job that you've paid them to do? Have you had situations where you've got salespeople and they're out there approaching the wrong people and saying the wrong things? They're not closing sales and they're leaving long gaps in between communications? They're creating a situation where they give your business a black-eye because don't do what needs to be done in terms of communication? They fail to present what you're able to do and the way you're able to do it or the way that you want that to happen?”
That's an example of creating a scenario where they look at it and say, “Oh wow. Yeah.” Either that is happening, in which case I might be able to see the need for sales training or they say, “No, that's not happening. All my people are great.” In which case they're not really qualified.
Chris: And that's okay too. But you know, I think that that's really important in terms of getting to, what's the story that you can help them to be aware of? It's not doom and gloom. It's more about, Hey, these are the types of common things that I see from where I sit with the people that buy my products.
They want to have their people be more effective or they want them to be communicating more often as salespeople. Those sorts of things really help to frame up and get the person who probably, especially if you're on an initial call is probably resistant anyway, and now what you've done is you've completely shifted the focus from me with the product to sell, to you and the need, right?
David: Yes. And it goes for whatever product it is that someone is selling. You know, if I'm a realtor and my job is to develop real estate clients, then talking to them about all the properties that I have right off the bat probably isn't a good approach.
It might be better to talk to them about, “Hey, listen, have you ever had a situation where you approached a realtor and they were trying to figure out what you needed and they just couldn't get a handle on what you're looking for and you wasted lots of time and burned lots of weekends looking at places that just didn't meet your needs at all?”
You know, that type of thing. You're creating a scenario where they can say, "Oh yeah, I have had that situation." And then you talk about how you are different. This is how we position ourselves differently.
Painting Mental Pictures with Your Messaging
So no matter what you're selling, you need to have a clear idea about some of the issues this prospect might be facing. Can I paint a picture of that for them? Can I paint a negative picture of potentially doing business somewhere else first? Then can I paint a positive picture of what happens when they're doing business with you? That's sort of an ideal scenario in terms of messaging: to be able to create that contrast between what they're likely to experience elsewhere and what they're likely to experience with you.
Chris: Okay, so I'm going to have you do that again because it's important. You think about the pieces of advice that we give on this and we talked about you know, how to get to the decision maker in the last podcast. This is huge starting with issues that the prospect may have. Right? And go through that process one more time just for good measure.
David: Okay. Well, it's simply thinking it through from their perspective. What types of obstacles might they run into? What type of situations might have them feeling infuriated? We do a lot of business in the promotional products industry and the print industry. Many printers and promotional products people find that their clients might have had experiences before where things didn't happen exactly the way they want them to.
Maybe they didn't get the ideas they needed. Perhaps the stuff wasn't delivered on time. Or maybe it wasn't printed the way they wanted it. All these types of things.
So when you're interacting with a new prospect for the first time, you may be able to paint those pictures and say, “Hey, have you had much experience dealing with companies like ours? Because a lot of the reason that we get the business we get is that we are able to overcome a lot of the problems that other companies face. For example, if you ever had a midnight madness sale and the product you ordered arrived the day after that, then you know that's problematic, right?"
So you can look at the situation, ask them questions, and maybe they haven't had that exact experience. Maybe they say, “Well, no, the person that I've had has been pretty good…” But you might be able to find some issues they've had along the way and then counter-program yourself essentially and say, okay, well we're designed to be able to avoid those types of issues."
Chris: It really handles the whole me-focused concern that we talked about earlier in terms of the biggest problems that people have with their messaging. It totally shifts from me as the salesperson to you and then being able to provide a solution to that. I don't… Why is it David, that so many salespeople are so product oriented versus buyer oriented?
David: Well, it's probably easier because if we understand our products and services, we just want to talk about them. If I sell air conditioners, I want to talk to you about how big it is and how much air it's going to blow and the BTUs and all that kind of stuff because that's how I'm trained, but we need to think about it from the standpoint of the person who wants to buy it. They don't care about any of that stuff.
You know, there's a lot of talk and sales about features and benefits. I know we've touched on this in previous podcasts and so the feature is that it's X number of BTUs and this is the size, so it fits into these different areas. The benefit will be that it fits into smaller areas. The feature is that it's this particular size, the feature is that it's this many BTUs and the benefit is that it cools your house fast or whatever it is.
So there are features and benefits. People largely don't care about features. They do like benefits a little bit more. But beyond features and benefits, we really get into the area of experiences and emotions.