Branding for Economic Odds, Part 3: A Focus on Problems
Okay yes. No one wants to be the kind of person who focuses on problems all the time. HOWEVER! It’s entirely forgiven when you’re thinking about your clients problems and how to solve them. Why is this important?
Because clients don’t want to hear about you.
I’m sorry, they just don’t.
Every client, everywhere, has problems they need solved, and that’s why they’re shopping. Think about it. Imagine you’re feeling lackluster, uninspired and also hungry…this is a problem. A wonderful recipe, new restaurant concept, or pre-packaged snack might just be the key. But what if you also have food sensitivities or preferences? Then not just any recipe, restaurant or snack will do. The perfect item might be impossible to find. It may not have even been invented yet. Another problem. If you can find it, it might be difficult to make, in the wrong city, or be out of your price range. More problems, and more opportunities for innovation and solutions.
Clients need to feel understood, before they can understand how much you can help them.
So how do we get to a place of understanding our clients?
Let’s start with what makes them delightful. Every client out there is great at something. They have skills, and value, and creativity, and smarts. They may be nutrition experts or physical fitness folks. They may be doctors, they may have big hearts, they may be fantastic and getting others to open up to them in a therapy session. Your first task is to honor those things.
When you know what you clients are good at, you can start to understand what their life is like, and how you can partner with them.
So how do you know what your clients are good at? Some of it you’ll simply know, from working with them. Some of it, you can ask. It’s always ok to ask clients to talk about themselves. And you can always do market research to find answers. Fielding a study doesn’t have to be hard, slow or expensive, I promise.
Their greatness is always balanced by problems.
Your business is built to solve those problems for your clients.
All problems are nuanced and layered. When talking to clients, you can feature The Big Problem or a smaller piece of problem. Let’s go back to our foodie from the beginning of this post. You could talk to them about:
Their concern that any food worth eating will be too expensive.
Their inability to access said food because of location.
Their sadness that most foods that meet their criteria are boring/tasteless.
Their worry that they don’t have the skills to make great food on their own.
Their uncertainty around how to shop for the correct ingredients.
…and the list goes on and on.
When you catch potential clients’ attention through empathy—really understanding their pain points—they start to open up to solutions.
Because it’s not enough to just empathize, we have to offer solutions. Like this:
Concerned that any food worth eating will be too expensive?
Showcase price and explain how you’re able to offer it (operations, ingredient sourcing, package size, etc.)
Unable to access said food because of location?
Offer a direct-to-home delivery option.
Sad that most foods that meet your criteria is boring/tasteless?
Use reviews or taste-testing to prove flavor appeal.
Worried that you don’t have the skills to make great food on your own?
Offer video tutorials and/or one-on-one chef coaching.
Uncertain about how to shop for the correct ingredients.
Give them free shopping guides, lists and store recommendations.
When we start with problems, we find solutions. Your services should align with both a problem AND your ability to solve it. That’s where your entrepreneurial genius lives.
Here are three exercises that will get you thinking about what types of problems and solutions drive your business.
Action item 1: write a love letter to your clients.
Take out a piece of paper, or a spreadsheet, or similar. Write down all the things you admire about your clients. Why do you love working with them? What do you find admirable? Encouraging? Inspiring? Next, think about your entire client community, and write down the awesome traits they all have in common. This grounds you in the humanity of your customers. They’re not just problems. They are real people WITH problems.
Action item 2: make a list of their problems.
Now that you’ve acknowledged their value, list out their challenges. Any challenge will do. What do you know about their everyday suffering, and the items that keep them up at night. Write it all down. Keep writing until you think you’ve run out of ideas, then write ten more. Now go back through and list and highlight the problems that YOU can fix.
Action item 3: list out possible solutions.
Each of those highlit problems aligns with a business solution that you either DO offer or CAN offer. Write about those. Make two lists: the first is services you already have in your biz model. The second is services you’ll work to develop.
EXTRA CREDIT: research.
Your instincts and experience are good starting places for these exercises. But these lists can be even more smart and valuable with the addition of market research! You can hire a pro, or field some casual studies on your own. More input is always helpful here.
You’ve just started your strategy for communicating with your clients. When you take them through your problem-solution framework, they not only feel seen and understood…but they will start to trust that you may be the place to come for those solutions.
Up next: using these problem-solution frameworks in your marketing materials.
Spoiler alert, we’re gonna keep it simple.
***
This series is excerpted from the interactive speech I gave at The Quorum 2020 National Coming Out Day Conference titled “Overcoming Economic Odds: The Importance of Branding, Diversity and Showing Up”. If you’re interested in hosting a talk like this, shoot over a note!
