BE HONEST, BE HEARD, BE SOLD
Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver
I don’t want to convince anyone, and one of the reasons why is that it can backfire. If you’re selling the solution for someone’s worst fear or selling an idea of a perfect future to someone, you still have an ethical and moral obligation to deliver. And most of what is sold is utopia. It’s just fiction. Most can never deliver on what they’re actually selling and they assume that people are fine with getting there halfway. But that’s not what people actually bought. They bought the promise.
I cannot sell something or navigate people into buying something from me just because I want their money. No, that’s not how I want to do business.
Finding Your Tribe
So the word that I keep coming back to is convincing. Do you really want to convince someone to buy something from you? Or do you want people to see and hear you and simply cannot wait to hire you because they like you and they agree with what you’re saying? This allows you to communicate in a way that is much clearer. You step away from the formulas, from the copywriting and that is so worth it, in terms of peace of mind and in terms of the clients that you get. Because if you sell based on fear, you get a lot of desperate clients, which can be very high maintenance.
You want to sell from a place of — this is what I’m looking for people, I desire to work with people who really get it, who I can laugh with, who I can make a little comment to and they get it, who have the same values as me, who are maybe also judged on the same things as me, etc. Find your tribe.
I am very clear on this because my personality is just as important as the business that I’m solving. Because let’s be honest, there are other people doing what I do — I’m a business consultant, it’s not new. There’s nothing new about that, but what distinguishes me is that I am an entrepreneur and I’ve been doing small business myself for years. It’s the focus that I use, it’s efficiency, it’s user experience, it’s customer experience. I want your customers to flow through your processes. I want your team to flow through these processes. Everything in your company is supposed to scream high-end, luxury, and efficiency. That is what I desire and what my clients desire and that is what I want to call in. I don’t need to put that on our sales page telling people: you have no clue, you’re scared, you’re always stressed, etc. I don’t like to work that way. I don’t want to convince anyone.
So, find your clients where they’re at, and if necessary, shift your focus: if you know that you won’t be able to deliver that, what can you deliver for sure? Be honest about it and talk to the people who are really at that level.
Marketing is all about helping people make the right choice, which essentially means buying the product or service that you sell.
And while I do agree to some part that sometimes people don’t know what they need and you sell them what you think they need, and you give them what they want, (I highly recommend “Influence” by Robert Cialdini, which is all about persuasion and the psychology behind why people say yes) after years and years in this industry, I’ve shifted my perspective quite a bit.
Finding Serenity in Your Business
If you look at most of the campaigns out there, you will notice that they can be grouped into three categories:
- The ones based on the perfect outcome — this is what your future will look like
- The ones based on fear — this is what your pain points are and this is what is missing
- The ones based on competition — get ahead of the curve
And while all of them are valid (I’m not saying that you should completely diss them at all) I’m inviting you to get into a phase that might not be for everyone. I think this depends largely on the market that you’re in, but there comes a time as you get a bit more mature, where you crave serenity and I think that’s where I’m at.
Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver
I don’t want to convince anyone, and one of the reasons why is that it can backfire. If you’re selling the solution for someone’s worst fear or selling an idea of a perfect future to someone, you still have an ethical and moral obligation to deliver. And most of what is sold is utopia. It’s just fiction. Most can never deliver on what they’re actually selling and they assume that people are fine with getting there halfway. But that’s not what people actually bought. They bought the promise.
I cannot sell something or navigate people into buying something from me just because I want their money. No, that’s not how I want to do business.
Finding Your Tribe
So the word that I keep coming back to is convincing. Do you really want to convince someone to buy something from you? Or do you want people to see and hear you and simply cannot wait to hire you because they like you and they agree with what you’re saying? This allows you to communicate in a way that is much clearer. You step away from the formulas, from the copywriting and that is so worth it, in terms of peace of mind and in terms of the clients that you get. Because if you sell based on fear, you get a lot of desperate clients, which can be very high maintenance.
You want to sell from a place of — this is what I’m looking for people, I desire to work with people who really get it, who I can laugh with, who I can make a little comment to and they get it, who have the same values as me, who are maybe also judged on the same things as me, etc. Find your tribe.
I am very clear on this because my personality is just as important as the business that I’m solving. Because let’s be honest, there are other people doing what I do — I’m a business consultant, it’s not new. There’s nothing new about that, but what distinguishes me is that I am an entrepreneur and I’ve been doing small business myself for years. It’s the focus that I use, it’s efficiency, it’s user experience, it’s customer experience. I want your customers to flow through your processes. I want your team to flow through these processes. Everything in your company is supposed to scream high-end, luxury, and efficiency. That is what I desire and what my clients desire and that is what I want to call in. I don’t need to put that on our sales page telling people: you have no clue, you’re scared, you’re always stressed, etc. I don’t like to work that way. I don’t want to convince anyone.
So, find your clients where they’re at, and if necessary, shift your focus: if you know that you won’t be able to deliver that, what can you deliver for sure? Be honest about it and talk to the people who are really at that level.
