People Buy Transformation

People don’t buy products or services, or features or benefits. They buy transformation. They buy results.

 

So, in general, humans are pretty selfish, aren’t we? We just love to talk about ourselves, and this is what we often do in our businesses too. Our messaging in business is often centered around ourselves (around the business). For example, we often have headlines and messages saying things like “We are the best!” – “We’ve been in business for 100 years and have the most experience!” – “Our products and services are the highest quality, best in class!”…

Yes, that’s cool. It’s cool to be the best, it’s cool that you’ve been around for a long time. It’s nice that you have the highest quality products and services. These things aren’t bad. In fact, it’s good because you do need to establish trust and credibility. If you’re not cool, if your product sucks, or if you’re completely new, then people may not have the best experience or may have a harder time trying to buy from you for the first time (or several times).

But again, inherently, people are selfish and often only really care about themselves. See, I love to talk about myself. You probably love to talk about yourself too. And frankly, especially as strangers to one another, I don’t really care about you and you probably don’t care about me either (generalizing here… I really do try to care for people, even strangers). What we DO care about though, what you care about, is that you have a problem, need, or want (desire) and that it gets met or solved. And that’s why you’re out searching or shopping for whatever it is that you’re searching for: to solve a problem, need, or desire.

In fact, our human brains are actually wired this way. Our brains are constantly trying to keep us alive, so it’s always evaluating everything for our survival: “Will this thing help me? Will it kill me?”.

Again, people don’t buy products and services, or features and benefits. People buy transformation. They have some sort of Before State (a problem, need, or desire) and are looking for something to help get them to their desired After State that will satisfy their need or desire, or solve their problem. So in business, people don’t really care about you or your business, all they care about is that you have a solution that will help transform them from their Before State to their desired After State.

So what we should be doing in our businesses, is changing our messaging (on our website, in our marketing material and creatives) so that it speaks to the (selfish) person – speaking to them in a way that basically says, “Hey listen, we know you have this problem/need/desire. We have a product that will help you with that and this is what it’s going to do for you, it’s going to change your life, it’s going to _____ (insert desired After State here).”

Good messaging, for example a website headline, has 3 parts to it: It describes the problem that your ideal client has (their Before State), it introduces the solution that will solve their problem (the transformation), and it paints a picture of the end result (their desired After State). When people read that then, they can relate to it and are more likely to buy from you. They can identify that they have that problem, which hooks them into reading more because you not only relate to their problem, but you have told them of a solution and have even painted a picture of the (hopefully good) end result they will have if they purchase your product/service.

So all of this to say, I encourage you to think differently when you market your business. Think less about how awesome your product or service is, and how amazing your business is, and think more about the journey that your prospects and customers are on. Think more about their problems, pains, needs and desires, and the transformation that they need or want – because really, that’s what they are buying. Speak to that and the result they will have and you’ll likely see more conversions.