The secret to selling on easy-mode
Don't sell features. Don't even sell benefits. Sell this instead.
The default for most of us marketers selling products is to list features.
But then you get the advice that - you shouldn’t sell features, you should sell benefits instead.
Today I want to remind you that there is a level deeper. In fact it’s the bedrock reason to why we buy anything at all.
We buy emotional outcomes.
Let me paint the picture of what this really looks like.
I spent 6 weeks interviewing early customers of my product. Why? Because I could not fathom why people were spending so much of their hard earned money on something I had made.
For me, it felt like a risk not knowing why people were buying. And I figured that if I knew why, it would give me a way to sell it on purpose - instead of what felt like an accident.
So day after day, proverbially shaking my customer’s shoulders over Zoom, I asked three questions:
“What made you buy?”
“OK … but what was the REAL reason you bought?”
“How did you feel after you used it?”
This is a variant of the “Five Why” tactic, a way of uncovering the root cause of a problem. The same thing works with the mind of your customers - you’ve just gotta ask it in a way that doesn’t make you sound like an annoying toddler.
Anyway, after weeks of interviewing - the real reason came to light.
People weren’t buying a deck of cards.
They weren’t buying the workshop techniques inside it.
They weren’t even buying the outcomes those techniques would give them.
They were buying confidence.
The mere act of holding our product, and the potential inside it - made people feel confident - at a time they were suffering from Impostor Syndrome or feeling stuck or lost. Even professionals with decades of experience were telling me the product simply made them feel better about what they were already doing. Like it gave them permission!
After uncovering this killer insight - I changed all my marketing messaging to focus on this angle of confidence: “Career confidence in a box”.
It was like finding the right key for a lock. And turning it opened a faucet of sales. It went from feeling like I was pushing a boulder uphill, to watching one roll downhill at breakneck speed.
To find and sell to the people who need what you’ve got - you need to excavate the truth from those who have already taken a leap of faith with your product.
Ultimately, this is marketing. It’s connecting the dots and doing it on purpose.
When I tell this story - I tend to hear the objection of something like “yeh but Amazon don’t use emotion to sell”
No, they don’t. They have a very commodified offering that they dominate. It is an essential service for millions of people who need no convincing of its benefits. And the emotional outcome is implicit: peace of mind.
“Don’t worry, we can just get it tomorrow from Amazon”
Take Ferrari. The features of a Ferrari are whatever. It does the whole getting from A to B. But what people are really spending quarter of a million on, is the emotional outcome. An elevation or maintaining of status (with a dash of thrill if you actually take it out on track). Nothing more, nothing less.
Anyway, I hope this was maybe useful. I would implore you to look at what you’re selling and find the core emotion behind why people are parting with their money.
You could guess, but you’ll always sleep better at night knowing the truth. So speak to your customers. Find the truth. Tell the truth.