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How Problems Can Make You Rich
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Look around you. Find a common problem. Find a solution to that problem. What do you have? A chance to get rich!
What am I talking about? This: It is much easier to sell a solution to a problem than to sell a benefit to a person who is already comfortable.
To the marketer, the comfortable person is the most unmovable object in the world. Ah ... but someone who has a nasty itch ... he'll pay to get scratched, and fast!
If you're thinking about going into business, find a problem and create a solution for that problem. If that solution can be easily bottled, bagged, shipped, manufactured, or whatever, you've got a hit on your hands.
Not just any problem will do. Yes a lot of people are depressed. That's a problem. But philosophers and medical scientists have been searching for centuries for a solution to depression. It's not likely you'll find it, and it'll take a pharmaceutical giant to come up with the next Prozac.
No, you need to pick a problem that has quick and immediate business application, and which does not require $10 million in R&D to make a reality. So how do you find one?
In a word: networking. Most business folks use networking to promote themselves and sniff out new opportunities. But as you know, in each problem lies an opportunity. So netoworking can be used both to find opportunities -- and problems that can be turned into opportunities.
You can discover problems needing solutions by asking questions of other bussiness owners and listening carefully to what they say. You can spot problems by attending trade shows, professional association meetings, clubs and seminars. Don't forget your own customers. They have problems. Ask them!
Look at what's hot today -- problem solving businesses and services of all kinds. Quit smoking devices and seminars; weight loss books, clinics and methods; hair loss formulas; credit card debt solutions; phone bill reduction plans.
You don't have to start a whole new bussiness or invent an entirely new product. Perhaps you're pushing your current product for it's positive benefits. That's okay, but You may want to reposition your message to show how your product eliminates a negative. Doing so can spure a whole new surge in sales.
Don't expect to find a perfect problem/solution marketing situation over night. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of problems have been around a long time and they may nver be solved. Some problems can be solved, but there may be no way to market the solution easily. How do you package a sunny day!
Digging for problems means that you need to understand people. You need to listen to people. You must be sensitive enough to be able to put yourself in their shoes so that you can really see how their lives can be made better.
Always remember, people don't care about your company. They care about their own problems. When you keep this in mind, marketing becomes almost magically easier. When you focus on the problem of your prospect, you focus on them.
The best marketing is customer oriented marketing.
A killer marketing plan mentions the problem and describes clearly how how the product or service is the solution. When you are putting together your marketing plan, discuss problem-spotting, problem-discussing and problem-solutions with your sales team. Have them share individual problems they have noticed, then have everyone come up with solutions.
When I read books on marketing or attend marketing seminars, the emphasis almost always seems to be on selling benefits, selling features, selling convenience, selling excitement ... but what so often is forgotten is solutions to problems.
Selling specific solutions to specific problems gives your marketing a very tight focus. You never know for sure which benefit, or what kind of excitement will trip the trigger of a prospect. But if you know for a fact that they have a problem, it's a guarantee that they will want your product -- and pay to get it -- if it will only get offer them a solution.
Thus, problem solving should be built in to all of your advertising, your direct response mail materials, your sales presentations -- perhaps even in your mission statement. Have all your sales staff chanting like a mantra: "solve the problem ... solve the problem ... solve the problem ..."
Very often you'll be solving problems for customers they don't even know they have! When you do that, you become more than an ordinary business in the mind of your customer -- you become a miracle worker.
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