The language we use is important

I believe every business has that one, carefully crafted message that has the power to shape the reality of your business. The right message will wake up the listener’s brain, communicate what makes you truly valuable, and lead your customer to want to buy from you.

There are lots of ways to talk about your business and communicate what you do and how you’re valuable to your clients and customers. But when we look “under the hood”, so to speak, there are only two things your customer needs to know before they will buy whatever you’re selling.

Get these two things right and you can create the pitch perfect way to talk about your business

First, the good news: one of these things you might be communicating right now. The bad news: I’m about 99% certain you are not communicating the other thing… and it’s the more important of the two.

Don’t scare your customer

Imagine you are teleported to a foreign country. Poof, you’re there. You don’t speak the language, you have no map, you don’t know where to go, and you don’t even understand where you are.

Take a moment to imagine that actually happening. How do you feel? My guess is it’s definitely disorienting and probably scary. Scratch that, it’s DEFINITELY scary. Not knowing where we are, both physically and in relation to one another, is one of the scariest conditions for people to encounter.

On a deep, psychological level this is exactly what your audience is experiencing when they are first introduced to your business. When they visit your website, or encounter your ad, see your social media post, or even meet you in person. The very first thing we are neurologically designed to do is to figure out where we “are” with you. This neurology is core to our survival, it’s hard wired in each of us, and it’s always operating when your customer evaluates your business. (You can learn more about this neurology at www.mindmagnetizer.com).

The first thing

What is the main outcome I get from working with you? That’s the first question you need to answer. Think of your outcome like having a location on a map. In more practical terms, your customer is looking for a specific outcome and the sooner you communicate what outcome you provide the sooner they can know if they landed in the right place with you. Don’t make your customer hunt for it or discover it on their own. Their brain is in the scary place and if they don’t know the outcome right away, then they’ll exit the scary place… which means they’ll exit the interaction with you.

Some of you may be doing this right now in your messaging. However, outcomes aren’t that simple. It’s often the case that what you deliver is not always the outcome you provide. Here’s an example, let’s say you sell drill bits. Do people really want a drill bit? No, what they want is a hole in their wall. You delivered a drill bit, but the outcome you provided is a hole.

I’ve seen far too many instances of businesses spending a lot of time talking about what they deliver and it is completely ineffective. Your potential clients want to know what outcome they get from working with you because this is what they are really buying from you. The clearer you are in communicating it, the more you capture their attention.

The second thing

The second big thing your customer is desperate to know is: do you believe the same thing I do?

Now that you’ve clearly let your client know where they are, now you need to let them know they are SAFE.

This is normally the subject of a full 1 hour presentation, but I’ll condense it down for you here. It all has to do with how our brain is wired for survival. Simply put, we feel safe around people who are like ourselves, or “like kind”. Anything that our survival neurology sees as not “like kind” is considered a potential threat to survival. Yes, literally.

We buy from businesses we see as like kind, and we reject businesses we see as not like kind. Because who wants to buy anything when our survival neurology is giving warning signs of impending doom?

The goal with your message is to signal to this neurology that you are safe (like kind). The fastest, most effective way to signal to someone that you are safe is to let them know what you believe.

If we share the same belief about things, we feel resonance, attraction, and just generally we like you. Beliefs are POWERFUL. Sharing your beliefs is the fastest way to create trust. In my observations about 85% of all content in any given conversation consists of two people hurling beliefs at each other. Beliefs are how we are designed to understand and organize our world.

When Apple Computer told their audience to “Think Different” they are communicating their belief. Everyone who shared the same belief about themselves, “Hey, I AM the kind of person who thinks different!” noticed and they become loyal customers of Apple products.

Bonus, the people who share your beliefs also happen to be your ideal clients!

Oh, and one more things about beliefs, they don’t have to be profound, they just have to be true. One of my clients makes cooking gadgets. Their belief, it turns out, has nothing to do with cooking. Their belief: “it’s fun to show off”. Like I said, beliefs don’t have to be profound. This translated into the message: “We make you the star of the dinner party.” Everybody who shares the same belief about showing off, getting attention, and being seen as the star sees this and wants to buy their cooking gadgets and not the competition’s. This proved true when their sales transformed from being flat for a year to 10% growth within 2 months of launching the new message.
Your job now is to help them figure you out as quickly as possible. The sooner you do this the sooner their system will calm down. There are two things you need to communicate to your audience that will instantly let them figure you out and even get them on your side so they’ll buy from you.