All products (and it really doesn’t matter what the product is) are designed to do one thing and one thing only. And that is to make people feel better. They do so with simplicity, they solve a problem.
So when you take your product to market and you are considering your marketing message, you need to figure out a few things.
It starts with how to solve a problem
First of all, you need to figure out who actually suffers from the problem that your product solves.
Then, out of that group of people, you need to figure out which of those people are motivated enough to resolve that problem.
Basically, a problem only becomes a problem when it makes someone feel a certain way. If it doesn’t make you feel a certain way, it’s not really a problem. It may not be ideal, but it’s not a problem.
Pain makes the problem worth solving, your solution has to make someone feel better
When you take your product to market, the people that you need to target are not just people that experience the problem but people that experience pain as a result of that problem. A pain that is great enough for them to want to resolve it.
We all experience problems in our lives that we ignore, that we are happy to live with. And, we experience problems that we are not happy to live with. Problems which we want to be resolved. Pains that make us want to feel better.
So those problems, those problems that we’re not happy to live with, those are the ones that we buy products for, or we buy services. We don’t buy products or services for problem’s that we’re not bothered about solving.
Every product, at least every successful product or service, follows this same progression.
Netflix, you might think, doesn’t solve a problem.
That it doesn’t solve anybody’s pain. But that’s not true. Entertainment, in general, and not just Netflix, solves a big problem.
Boredom.
Boredom, for some people, is something that they can live with. However, the vast majority of people cannot live with boredom. They need something to break up the monotony of everyday life. And that’s where entertainment fills the void. That’s where Netflix comes in.
They don’t try to sell to everybody. They sell to people that are prone to boredom and are frustrated by boredom. They’ve designed a product that alleviates said boredom. And it does so in a way that’s convenient.
Mobile phones (cell phones for those of you across the pond) solve a problem
If you look into the world of technology, the phone you’re using right now. It solves a problem. It solves many problems, in fact, but it solves one overall.
The concept of connectivity.
We all feel like we need to be connected to our friends, to our family. And so we feel like we need to be able to reach them. Not necessarily to phone them or text them, after all, we use social media to check up on them and so on.
It’s not even the fact that we can do those things that matter. It’s the fact that we have the option. The phone that you have in your hand gives you a connection to the rest of the world.
It prevents you from feeling isolated. I don’t care who you are, isolation is painful.
Even this blog you are reading right now relieves a pain
This very blog that you have come to, to read this article to solve the problem, it helps alleviate someone’s pain. The problem it solves is that there is a lot of nonsense in the world about business.
And this particular blog is designed to separate fact from fiction to give you a clear cut, no-nonsense guide to starting a business, running a business, and maintaining a business without all the fluff and the nonsense that you see in the world.
The pain of that problem is overwhelm and frustration. All the absolute nonsense in the world that you see online, all the courses, the books, and whatever, they create a state of overwhelm.
A state of information overload, useless information overload. And this blog is set up to avoid all of that nonsense. So that you get the information you need. And nothing more. Nothing. No, come buy my course. No, come buy my 10 step magic programme, none of that crap.
So the pain that this blog deals with is frustration and overwhelm, and that is something that is quite prevalent in the business world.
My own products and services exist to make you feel better
My coaching programmes are set up to do pretty much the same thing. I have a few different ones for people at various stages. I have one set up for people that are just starting and the pain that that deals with is the Fear and the overwhelm that comes with not knowing what to do.
It is designed to help people master the basics so, as I said, the pain that deals with is fear and overwhelm. That’s what that particular product deals with and resolves.
I have another programme set up for people that are financially successful, that have a team but are struggling to step out of the business and let the team handle things. The problem that those people face is the bottleneck that they create in their own business. The pain that they experience, which is the important part, the pain that they experience Is the anxiety that comes with the unknown. Of not knowing what will happen when they step back. That is what that product resolves.
I recently bought myself a GoPro to solve a problem
I do a fair amount of recording video when I’m out and about. Previously, I was using my phone because my phone has an excellent camera. However, an issue that I faced, a problem that I faced, was:
one) I didn’t want to break my phone. I need my phone, it’s an iPhone, it’s made out of glass, and it’s not very robust. I didn’t want to be waving it around and holding it. So I was concerned that I might damage my phone.
Two) Image stabilisation. I am a person who suffers from what they call a benign tremor. So basically, I shake for no apparent reason. It’s not damaging in any way, it just is. But that means if I hold a camera, I can’t hold it still. On top of that, I also walk with a crutch because I had a stroke and as a result, I have weakness on one side. That too adds an extra dimension to the shake and the rattling of the camera. So that meant that the videos themselves were not that clear because the camera was moving around all the time.
The pain a product relieves is unique to the individual customer
The GoPro happens to have excellent stabilisation built-in. It also happens to be quite robust. As well as being a good quality camera on top of that.
The pain in all of that for me was actually an embarrassment. It’s embarrassing that my video is shaky. Not that anyone would ever say anything, but it was embarrassing to me. Especially because I know why they’re shaky. That in itself is something I am quite sensitive about.
The actual pain associated with that problem was embarrassment. So now I can record videos when I’m walking along that are nice and stable, super clear, and generally quite good videos. I have been relatively embarrassment free, which is well worth the 300 and something pounds I paid for the GoPro. It did really solve that pain for me.
I walk with a crutch, lets examine the pain that the crutch resolves
The crutch that I use when I walk is a product that solves a problem for me. The problem itself is the weakness I have on my right side. And the crunch doesn’t actually solve that problem. However, a symptom of that problem is I fall over a lot. When I fall over, I hurt myself. So the crutch prevents me from falling over and hurting myself.
So I guess it solves a problem created by a problem. The pain in that situation was partly the physical pain that I experienced as a result of falling over and partly the stress caused by the time that I have to spend recovering from falling over. And there was also the embarrassment of actually falling over in the first place. Having that crutch dealt with, or deals with, all manner of pain in my life. It is a product that I literally could not be without. As a result, that product is indispensable in my life.
Those were some examples of products that solve a problem from planet Mike
Those are some examples from my own life, my own world, of products, the problems they solve, and the pain the products resolve.
If you are struggling to identify what problem and what pain your product will solve then take a look around you at the products you use in your life. Really examine why you use those products.
Look deeply at what it does for you
What problem does it solve? And, what pain does that problem create that motivates you to actually solve the problem? If you can do that with products that you’ve bought and that you use then you can apply that same logic to the product that you’re trying to sell.
It is not especially complicated. You just need to think more deeply about what it is you’re trying to sell. Look beyond the surface level problem, look at the pain that motivates a person to want to resolve that problem.
That information, that data, will help you market that product and solve a problem
It’ll help you sell that product to the right people. People that will actually utilise that product properly. They will feel the full benefits of that product. The people that will genuinely feel you have helped by applying your solution to their problem.
As I said at the beginning of this post, we all experience problems day in and day out that we have very little interest in resolving but, we have a few problems in life that we absolutely do want to resolve. This is because they cause us pain in some way.
Identify what the pain is, and that right there will make the product almost sell itself. Almost. Identify the pain to figure out what motivates the person to want to actually solve that problem.
Your customers come from a subset of people that are suffering from the problem
There will be many people that experienced that problem and only a small selection of those people will be motivated to do anything about it. Those are the people that you need to market to. They are the people that need to hear your message and will identify with it.
When you can Identify that pain, you can talk about how your product or your service, your solution, will resolve that pain and make them feel better. Then, and only then, will those people want to buy your products or services.
Use your ideal customer profile as a starting point to figure out how your product will solve a problem
Knowing how someone will feel when they experience the problem requires you to put yourself in their shoes. This is something your ideal customer profile will help with, specifically the psychographic data.
Understanding a person’s desires and insecurities makes it a cakewalk to understand how they would feel when faced with the problem that you solve. An ideal customer profile is an indispensable document. If you don’t already have one created then check out a post that I wrote on that very topic. You can find that here https://mybizacademy.co.uk/ideal-customer-profile-understanding-and-implementing
As I mentioned in that post, if you read that and still struggle to put the document together then you can send me a message via my company website and we can get you booked in for a 1 to 1 session in which we can build that document. You can send me a message via the contact page of my company website, which can be found here https://mikethebizguy.co.uk/Contact