The Desert of Arizona
Rain 48 Degrees
Every Monday morning, my son, True, wakes up and runs to the window in time to see the trash truck come by at around 6:30 AM.
This morning, he was plenty early; waking up at around 4:40 AM. He really looks forward to this. And when that truck pulls up in front of the house, his eyes are glued to the front window.
It’s obvious that he gets a great feeling from watching that truck. He knows it’s coming, he expects it, and when it shows up, he is there waiting.
This sounds a lot like how the whole Platform dynamic works. Just like the trash truck, you “show-up” on a regular schedule. Your prospective clients begin to expect you. Pretty soon, you’ve earned a solid position in their lives.
Eventually, they would miss you if you didn’t show up. And that, according to folks like Seth Godin, is the proof you’re doing something that matters.
There are enormous benefits to both sides when you achieve this.
But most service providers show up as unwanted pests. This is the term Dan Kennedy gives to them and I think it’s pretty accurate. Most service providers show up in the life of a prospect in a way that makes it obvious they WANT something.
From there, they make repeated attempts to get what they want. They want to get hired. So over time, they make their case for why that should happen.
You don’t want to do this. Let the other guys be the unwanted pests. You want to be the welcomed guests (another DK term).
First of all, you get yourself invited. When a prospective client requests to subscribe to your Platform, that’s a totally different feeling than you shoving it in their face. Sometimes (especially if your Platform is a print publication), there’s no problem with just “showing up.” But if your Platform is electronic, the perception is different. You want to be invited.
From there, you demonstrate your way to the sale. Demonstration isn’t about “look at what I can do, look, look, look!” That’s a very needy form of demonstration. The demonstration I find effective is actually more TEACHING through demonstration. You are providing real value to your prospective clients by demonstrating how you solve certain problems. You are showing them, not just telling them.
When you do that, there’s often a story involved. Stories are interesting. Stories allow you to “say things” without saying them directly. Stories allow you to focus on a very few core principles over and over without getting boring.
With enough demonstrations, eventually a prospective client is going to point to one of them and say, “I want THAT!”
And that’s when they pick up the phone and say… “I know I want to work with you, let’s figure out how…”