No One Cares…

…about your service or product.

“Gosh, that sounds harsh Craig.”

It sure does and today you’ll understand why it’s actually true.

If you get this, make it part of your foundational principles; I promise it will serve you well. It will also guarantee you avoid years of getting beat up in the market place.

Today’s core lesson is about what people really care about when they engage with you to possibly use your coaching service or buy a product from you.

This share is powerful and took years to work out and apply.

I hire coaches often. If you want to compress years into months or months into weeks hiring a coach is the way to go.

One day I found a high-end coach that looked very promising for what I wanted to do so I contacted him to setup an appointment. Money was not an issue; just wanted to get to work.

Setting up the appointment turned into such a song and dance. Back and forth with the assistant and it was by no means smooth.

Finally when I get on the phone with the coach (video chat), he goes right into “Let me walk you around my office.” He has a very expensive office in a high-end part of town.

He had no idea where my office is, who I am, what kind of people I work with, nothing. Maybe he was trying to take control by getting me to follow him but what he was doing was not cool. I’ll explain.

I was able to get him out of trying to impress me and get into what I wanted to work on, how I was going to pay a nice chunk of money up front and set a date for our first session.

That was painful but I gave him a chance and he turned out to be an awesome coach. I went on to help him with his marketing and we became good friends.

I wanted to give the guy a chance because I really love people. I knew what was going on and also knew I could direct the situation. I’m glad I did.

Here’s something interesting to think about, if this was someone else in my shoes, they may have not noticed what was going on. Instead they may have had an uneasy feeling and pushed it down. That feeling will stay with them until enrollment time. When the coach tries to move to enrollment, that feeling will come up and they’ll feel uncomfortable about moving forward. I’m guessing obviously but it’s a good guess based on having a 98% enrollment ratio.

I’m going to tell you what people really want (another educated guess):
First: They do not want what you have to offer. What they really want has nothing to do with you. Your offerings are just a vehicle to get what they really want which is a result. If it were up to them, they’d skip the vehicle and grab the result. Too bad life was not setup that way.

Second: They want to know you care. Caring means you understand them, their wants and needs.

Third: They want to know if what you have is the fastest and most efficient way to get to what they want.

That’s it!

Stick to that and you’ll do real well.

One of my secret wishes is to build a business under the ghost name “Mr. X” to insure the value that I deliver has nothing to do with me. I’m reminded of this domain name, “coachingwithcraig.com” It goes against what I believe in. I messed up. You will too. And we will do better next time.

Note to self: The more I can stay out of it, the better I will be able to serve.

Why would someone go on and on about their fancy office or famous clients like the coach in the above story?

Well there are many reasons and I’ll touch on a couple in hopes that you’ll avoid them.

First: Valuing significance too much. Unfortunately, when you are serving people in business, significance is not the best choice of needs to satisfy. Going with contribution every time will be your best bet. If you’ve studied Tony Robbins and his six human needs, you’ll get this right away.

Second: They do not feel confident enough in what they do so they try demonstrating value but it’s not effective.

Here’s something interesting that will serve you well. Let people discover you in the process of you serving them.

You would not believe some of the people I’ve worked with that wrote a book without a market, without researching who they wanted to serve, without caring if anyone will buy it. I get on the phone with them and they go on and on about this book then ask me, “Now what?” It’s too late is usually what I say. Then I gently explain this whole project has only been about one person, you. So it looks like you have your first and last customer because we can’t count family members or friends today. This usually gets a good laugh.

Now it’s time to tell you why I know this subject so well. I know it so well because it was a 70k cash lesson for me in my own life over a book I wrote. After that disaster I decided never to do that again.

Been on both sides of the fence and can tell you hands down without a doubt, no one cares about your service or product and they don’t even care about you until they know you care. Once they know that, solve their problems better and faster than your competition with your offerings. Nice and simple framework to follow.

Last note today, I have a friend here in Japan that taught me a great business lesson. Many years ago I asked him, why is it that Japanese business people call their customers GOD. He said many things but something he said had the biggest impact on me, “I do not just want to sell you lunch today. I want to sell your great grandchildren lunch too.”

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