People are vulnerable, they’re fragile, and they break easily. When somebody is out in the world capitalising on the desperation of other people to sell their products or services, they are not doing those people a service; they are a vampire. The people engaging in such practices are not benefiting those people and they’re not helping them. They are causing them further pain. It is likely people doing that very thing that has made them desperate in the first place.
Desperation is easy to capture, it is easy to sell to, but it is difficult to solve. Certainly with your product or your service at least. Desperation, outside of the basic human needs for food and water, and shelter, is created by uncertainty, miscommunication, and emotional distress. Your course, shake, juice, pill, potion, or lotion is not the cure for those things.
You cannot sell something that they do not want or need
The cure for those things begins with reassurance, connection, and communication. The cure for all of those things is not something that can or should be sold, they’re not magic. They are trying to sell a solution that people don’t need. It is not helping the people who are stuck and feeling desperate. It is certainly not solving their desperation or the root cause of their feelings of desperation.
These people are just capitalising on it for their own monetary gain. That, my friend, is devious, deceptive, and is downright dishonourable. People that engage in such behaviour ought to be ashamed and, in my opinion, shouldn’t be allowed to run a business. It is irresponsible and dangerous.
Act with compassion and empathy, leave the customers desperation out of it
As a person who provides a solution, you are supposed to care deeply about the people who suffer from the problem that you solve, you care deeply about those people. You don’t capitalise on their desperation, you reassure them, you help them, and you allow them to get into the mental space required to make sensible and logical decisions about whether they should buy your product or service.
If you use the desperation that they feel to make that sale happen, then you should not be allowed to sell to that person, that person should not be allowed to be put in a position where they’re having to make a decision as to whether they buy or not, because that person is not in that right mind. Not even close. You are not helping them, you are furthering that desperation, you are furthering the depths of that pain. In short, you are the problem, not the solution.
There are many horrific examples in the health and wellness space
It is something I see a great deal of in the health and wellness industry. People jumping on the desperation of people who are drastically overweight and in need of help to lose weight and change their lifestyle. People selling juices, shakes, pills, and potions. All in the name of weight loss. Those products, for the most part, don’t do a goddamn thing. Let alone the wonders the sellers say they can do.
For those people that are suffering from that problem, ie, being overweight, their problem isn’t really that they’re overweight, that is just a symptom of their real issue. It’s the state of mind that they exist in that has made them forego their own health in favour of comfort. The comfort of familiarity and the comfort of familiar discomfort. If you want to help someone lose weight and help them change their mindset, help them change their outlook on life, help them be happier so that they can then make the required decisions to be healthier.
Help your clients create positive change instead of feeding on their deperation
If you’re not doing that, leave those people alone. You are not in any position to help them, because you don’t really care about them. You just care about your bottom line. When you actually care, when you genuinely give a shit about people, your bottom line will benefit. But that compassion has to come first, that consideration has to come first.
You cannot, and should not, sell a person a juice, shake, pill, or potion on the promise that it will solve the desperation because that desperation doesn’t come as a result of being overweight. Being overweight is a symptom of their desperation. Don’t sell a lie. Instead, reassure them and help them make better decisions. Help them to be happier so they can then be in the right mental space to be healthy and make healthy choices.
Capitalising on desperation is commonly found in the coaching space too
The tactic of latching onto a person’s desperation is super common in the coaching industry too. If you are a business coach and you specialise in helping people who aren’t getting any leads to get more leads, your 123 system, your check box formula, your $997 course isn’t the solution to their desperation. It isn’t the solution to their problem, their problem is mindset. Their problem is understanding, their problem is way deeper than just not knowing how to get the sales that they need.
If they were in the right mental space, they had the required knowledge, and the motivation to put that knowledge into action then they would have no problem generating leads and selling.
Helping people fix their mindset makes most problems and desperation evaporate
That’s not to say it would be easy, but they will have the tools that they need already to be able to make those sales and generate those leads. Your course isn’t going to solve that problem for them, because their problem is the same as the weight loss issue in that it is a mindset issue.
Your course teaching them your exact system is of no benefit to them. It certainly is not their saviour, the second coming of Jesus, or whatever bullshit spin you put on it. And it most definitely will not change their life
As a coach, your job is not what you think it is
As a business coach, your job isn’t really to teach people about business. It isn’t really to make people successful, because you can’t do that. That person that you’re dealing with, that client that you’re dealing with, more than likely has enough business knowledge to get by. If they don’t then there will be specific gaps in that knowledge that need to be filled. Knowledge gaps can never be filled by a course because the course doesn’t know what those gaps are.
Your job as a business coach is not to give them that system, it is to help them get in the right state of mind to be open to learning. It is to provide them with the knowledge that they need, knowledge that you will only find out what they need by talking with them, understanding them, engaging with them, and observing them. Those gaps in their knowledge can then be filled. But again, you can’t fill them. You can only show that person that the knowledge is there and support them while they take it all in.
Hey, coach… leave that course alone
Until you change the client’s mindset around the issues in life, you can’t help them. So stop latching onto people’s desperation, because that never helps anybody. People are already desperate enough. They do not need people increasing that desperation, they do not need to do a $997 course to find out that they cannot execute the instructions that you have given them, because they lack the required mindset. They don’t need that. Nobody needs that.
Desperation is easy to sell, but it’s difficult to solve.
Mindset matters
Helping someone change their mindset, to adjust to a better way of thinking and being, is no small feat. In fact, it is an incredible thing to do for someone. It is something I have written about before, which you can find here https://mybizacademy.co.uk/why-a-fixed-mindset-will-kill-you-and-a-growth-mindset-will-set-you-free
Mindset is a topic of immeasurable depth. There have been countless studies done, papers written, books written, and more. There is an interesting book written by Carol S. Dweck on the subject. If you get a moment, give it a read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322
Carol Dweck is a psychologist and one of the leading minds in the field of mindset and its associated studies. The book itself is beautifully written and will be beneficial to anyone who reads it.