I want to show you how you can create incredible, desirable offers for your customers, even if you’re selling boring and complex marketing funnels and automation.
Let’s start with the transformation that people are going to accomplish, in order to reach their better future. You’ll need a niche, in this example I’ll use author/speakers who are releasing a course to their current email list.
At the moment, they’re in a negative state. They don’t know what to do and how to get to a desired end result. The end result, is successful course product launched to their email list with lots of happy customers. What’s your niche’s happy, better, brighter future? This is where we’ll want to do some creative writing. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, customers will buy marketing funnels from you for very illogical and emotional reasons. People buy emotions and futures. We’re selling futures, not features. Benefits are better futures. Your customer doesn’t really care how you do something, they care about what they get out of it. Remember WIIFM? (what’s in it for me?) that’s all the customer is interested in. Deep down, they’re not even too concerned about what you do for their business. They care about how you’ll affect their life.
When we advertise gyms and diets, do we show pictures of gym equipment, vegetables and sweaty towels? No of course we don’t. We show slim, healthy and fit people with massive smiles. We show them laughing and having fun with family. We show and sell the end result and transformation. What does one of your customers look like when they’ve got everything they can from you? If you knock it out of the park, how does their morning look? How do other people see them? How do they see themselves? What’s the positive, better future of themselves doing, saying, seeing, feeling and experiencing? Weak futures are where we say “in the future, my customer has more leads and sales” or “in the future, my customer has a marketing automation system”. Strong futures say “in the future, my customers wake up and have a lay in, knowing that they don’t have to rush off to work. They can spend a little more time with their spouse and kids. When they walk into the office, they don’t check their emails, instead, they look at their Stripe account and see more sales for their course even though last night, instead of working on sales campaigns and closing customers, they went for dinner with a friend.”
Strong futures make strong sales. The clearer we can make that future and the more enthusiasm we show for helping people get to that future, the easier we’ll find selling. Even complex marketing systems and boring automation process can have massive emotional benefits to customers.
Let’s write out a series of better, brighter futures that your customer wants and would find desirable. This is the transformation that we’re selling and the start of creating a scalable repeatable process. We want to get really detailed and bordering on creative writing. We want to build a desirable image in our mind of a customer who has totally transformed and is now living a happier, better life.
In the future, after working with me, my customers have…
This is the easy question. What does the customer have after working with you. Do they have a sales process? Email automation? Do they have more leads or sales? Do they have better conversion rates?
This is a weak question, but it’s a good place to start. Most funnel businesses will just answer these questions and then stop. You can look at the results or deliverables that they want or what you give. For example, with our niche of author/speakers who are releasing a course to their current email list, they’ll have a successful course launch. Or more course sales or more customers on their email list. Write out as many things as you can think for what a customer will have, after they work with you.
In the future, after working with me, my customers feel…
This is where we start getting stronger futures that we can sell. How do your customers feel after working with you and what do they feel positively about? This isn’t just about the product or service remember. It’s not about how they feel about working with you. This is about their life and day and business. This is asking them how they feel about their experiences or how their life is better.
For example, they could feel relieved that they don’t have to chase customers for invoices. They could feel excited to launch a new product. They could feel confident about their business. They feel proud to spend time with their kids in the morning. They feel confident in their team and what they’re building.
Sales is a transference of enthusiasm. That’s as complex as it needs to get. The more enthusiastic you are, and the easier you make it for the customer to be enthusiastic, the more likely they are to buy. If you tell them of a future that they want and desire, you need to be enthusiastic about that future. Enthusiasm is an emotion, so be emotional! Describe the feelings and emotions that customers will experience after working with you.
A note on positive emotion. For the start of our process, I’d like you to focus on positive emotion. In the future, we want our customers to experience positive emotions such as joy, excitement, confidence and calm. However, you can use negative emotions when you’re comfortable with the message that you are sending. For example, I could say “they feel confident that their product is getting the best possible platform” or “they’re delighted that they can pay themselves a salary, go on holiday and feel confident that business will work while they’re away.” But I could also say “they feel frustrated with the amount of leads coming in” or “become overwhelmed with the number of large clients asking to work with them.” Use negative emotions like this sparingly. First, they don’t last as long as positive emotions. The negativity is clearly a hidden positive (like the bad interview advice about framing a strength as a weakness). The customer will understand it, but they’ll quickly interpret the message and it’ll lose it’s impact. Secondly, people might understand the message and the humor in a negative-emotion, but they want positive futures. Use with caution.
What does your customer’s average day look like when they work with you?
When your customer wakes up, what do they feel? What’s the first thing they do? After working with you, what would the best possible morning be for that customer? For me, when I took on my business coach, my morning were filled with potential. I found getting up in the morning easier because I couldn’t wait to start work. I also woke up easier because I was sleeping better. Your customers have a day-to-day that they wish was different. Most people want something else from the 24 hours we have per day. They want to do other things, see other things, be with other people, travel, eat, listen, play and learn. This is a more literal future that you’re creating. We’re writing out the better, happier version of their day.
What does breakfast look like? What does their morning commute look like and how has it changed? What is their working day like and how is it better? What kinds of meetings, calls and opportunities are they seeing now? What does their inbox look like now? Draw a timeline of 6am to 10pm and walk through each step of their day, pointing out events that happen and how great they are for the customer.
How does the customer see themselves after working with you?
Status is a huge part of the buying process and when we remove all the sales talk, copy, benefits and features, what people are really buying is a better future version of themselves. Our internal status is typically the strongest vision we have of ourselves and is often what motivates us to make a change and buy something. So after someone has worked with you, what would they say about themselves? How is their own self image improved or changed? Do they see themselves as a more confident business owner? Are they now a better husband and father? Do they call themselves a successful business owner and full time Mum? If you can understand that status transformation that someone wants to have, you’ll find it much easier to sell marketing services. And make no mistake, your marketing funnels are absolutely capable of bringing that change to people.
What is a core, moral belief that they feel is good and that they’ve contributed to?
We are defined by our beliefs. Even to the point of taking our beliefs for granted. We act them out every minute of the day and make all our decisions based around what we believe. This “belief definition” is so strong, that almost every product on the planet has a moral argument either for or against it. And people, connect to those beliefs before they connect to the product. We search for things that bolster and define our beliefs, rather than search for products and change our beliefs around them. If you strongly believe that electric cars are the future and save the planet, you’re more likely to buy an electric car. If you believe that your current financial status doesn’t allow you to buy a brand new electric car, you’ll settle for a second hand car. Our moral, “good versus evil” beliefs are what define all the actions we take and it’s something you need to deliver if you want to create truly transformational products. For example, I believe that if you are good at sales you’re a morally better person. It’s important for business owners to be both good at sales and love selling to their audience. Therefor I create products that help people become good at sales and enjoy selling. The moral belief that my audience subscribes to, is also that they should sell and be good at selling.
What are they afraid of if they don’t do something? Or if they get it wrong?
Finally, I want to look at what they’re afraid of if they don’t change. This is the consequence of not transforming. It’s the customer’s inner fears and worries that drive them to take action today. If their beliefs, desires and wants are why people buy, their fears are when they buy. Their fears determine how quickly they’ll take action. Think about the negative consequences that someone will face if they don’t transform. Or, what happens if they try to transform and fail? What happens if they get it wrong? These internal fears are an important part of your final transformation. The fear could be that they miss out of the best years of their child’s early life. Or it could be that they’ll never be financially successful. Maybe they’re afraid of letting their parents down or their employees. The fear is the “enemy”. It’s the protagonist in their transformation and often the catalyst for desiring transformation in the first place. It might be that their fear is staying in the same place i.e. no change. Or it might be that they’re afraid of something happening in the future.
Once you have you multiple future descriptions, you have your transformation. This is the end of the journey and the end result that your customer is looking for. What we’ve described is what customers are buying. It now a case of putting all those notes into a final transformation. For example, with our authors releasing a course, take the below:
After working with us, our customers wake up and don’t check their emails. They head out to go to the gym and come back to have breakfast with their family. They feel excited to start the day and get to the office, knowing that they’ll be working on important big picture stuff, rather than admin and fighting fires. Our customers arrive at their office and start with writing the next part of their next book, before taking some time away from their desk to enjoy a proper lunch. Each day they see more course sales come in, delivered and processed without them chasing customers. By the end of the day, they’ve collected more leads, who they’re sure will convert into customers in good time. They can see their personal brand growing, and more people looking to work with them. Over time, they attract high paid speaking opportunities and product partnerships. They were afraid of launching their course to crickets, that no one would buy and they’d be seen as a failure. Previously they’d tried to launch a course and it didn’t work. This time, they’ve exceeded their initial launch target and now have an automated system to deliver and sell courses to clients, without taking up their time. Now, they can just focus on promoting the course, building an audience and growing their brand. Finally, they can leave the office earlier than they used to and pick up their partner. Tonight they’re going to the theatre and they’ll have dinner beforehand. Comfortable and confident that they’ve done the best job possible and that tomorrow will bring more sales and leads.
If that future looks desirable, that’s because it is. That’s what we’re selling. Regardless of the tools, processes, systems, platforms and tactics we employ, we’re selling a transformation. These are all benefits. This is the transformation and the better future that we’re building for customers.
