Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Your website is currently selling features, not benefits (even in your "benefits" page of your website). If people/businesses are aware of the benefits of what you're selling, it's easier. But to make your business "sexier", you need to identify the key problems that your target market will pay to solve and position yourself as their best choice.

Dear njg,

Here’s a little exercise for you.

Pick a client. Any client. Got that? Now, place your feet firmly in the boots of that client.

Lace those boots up. Cinch them up, good and tight. Now, walk around in them. Over rocks. Through minefields. Around obstacles. And out into the outback, where there’s mile upon mile of bugger all. Comfy? Hot? Something lumpy near your little toe? Insole not sitting quite right? Pinching around the ankle?

Those are you client’s pain points.

Give those points names by asking existing clients what irks them, what ticks them off, and what it is they need. And that’s “need”, mind, not want.

I might “want” a brand new Porsche 911, but I’d be dead in a week and my wife doesn’t need that. Neither do I. Your clients are not throwing handfuls of paper up into the wild blue skies; they are ankle deep in records that they need off their desks and out of their office.

Pronto. Chop, chop!

How can you make this happen? What magic wand do you
have that you can wave over your client’s problem and make it
disappear, or turn into something pleasant, manageable, or easy?

If I’m your client, don’t drown me in features (you’re currently beating people over the head with features). Features are not sexy. Features are dull, dull, dullidy-dull.

If I'm your client, don’t bore me. Woo me. Seduce me. Lighten my burden. Then, and only then, will I begin thinking you’re sexy.

I hope this helps.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer,
Wilmington, DE, USA