How to Sell What Your Customers Really Want

One of my all-time favorite marketing sayings is:

“Nobody ever buys a drill because they wanted a drill. They buy a drill because they wanted a hole.”

This came up in my recent interview on the Freelancer Show.

Resume coach (and up-and-coming email marketer) Jennifer caught the interview and says:

I just finished listening to the podcast, and a big THANK YOU. Not only am I writing my email course right now, but thanks for using my Resume business as an example!! Ha!

I agree, that is one of the best podcasts I’ve listened to in quite a while.

So I think my biggest takeaway was where you pointed out that your audience doesn’t really WANT your product, but they want something that your product can help with. This reframes the agitation part of the emails I’m writing. In my case, you were exactly right, they don’t WANT a resume, but they do want a new job they like. Let’s talk about how you’re stuck at a crappy job unless you get the attention of a hiring manager…

Exactly.

Figuring out what your customers REALLY want makes it much easier to connect with them in a meaningful way.

Both by talking about their true *underlying* goals and dreams…

And all the things that they really hate about their current situation (ESPECIALLY the things they don’t want to admit out loud).

There are layers to this too.

And you can keep drilling down (heh) deeper and deeper…

Because when it comes down to it, nobody really wants a *hole* either.

They want a way to hang that family portrait over their mantle.

In Jennifer’s case layer 1 might be:

They don’t want a resume, they want a great job.

Then at the next level it becomes:

They don’t really want a job, they want the FREEDOM and FULFILLMENT that comes with the right job…

And they don’t really want freedom or fulfillment, they want…

The deeper you go, the better you understand your audience’s story.

And the better you understand their story, the easier it is to show them that you and you alone can help them write the fairytale ending they’ve always dreamed of.

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