The Desert of Arizona
15 Minutes Before Sunrise 40 Degrees
OK, now that we’re through the one day a year we’re supposed to tell people we love them (ha!), let’s dig deeper into this little phenomenon about why showing someone HOW to do something often kills attraction towards you.
For the sake of this little demonstration, I’m assuming ONE thing about your goal. What I’m assuming is that your goal is to get hired or have a prospect buy a product or service you sell.
OK, so I’ve said this before, but just to make sure we’re on the same page:
You would think that by showing your prospects how to do what you do, they’d be attracted to you. My experience is that often times, the opposite happens. And the higher your fees go and the more sophisticated your clients become, the worse this effect gets.
The question to dig into today is, “Why does this happen?”
The better you understand, the better your decisions will be.
So let’s take a quick trip inside the mind of your prospect. Most likely, if the prospect is experiencing some sort of pain (that’s a relative word, probably no one is bleeding here), then their brain is fired up painting a picture of their future WITHOUT that pain.
It’s a beautiful picture. And it’s because of THAT picture that people buy. So they go on a search for a solution to make that future real.
They chance upon you, a service provider willing to show them how to solve their problem.
At first, they are excited to find you… so excited they ask about getting your help right away. But you suggest patience. You want to show them how to solve their problem.
So you patiently walk through each step of the process. You are careful to point out all of the nuanced decisions you are making at every point in the journey. You carefully explain everything and the reasons you have for the actions you take.
By the time you get done, you look up at your prospect’s face and see her eyes glazed over.
You thought you were helping. I know that’s what I often thought.
But when I really sat down to flesh this out, I believe the exact opposite is happening:
Because the prospect’s mind perceives your “help” differently. With each new secret you show her “how” to do, her mind has yet another piece of information to process between where she’s at NOW and where she wants to go.
Pretty soon, the distance between these two points seems like a whole lot of work. Even though you might be the one to do that work, it still seems like an awful lot of trouble. At any rate, the shine has worn off the picture she had in her mind of that future event.
Attraction is now dead. Congratulations. Your “help” has now succeeded in delaying a solution to her problem. Woo-hoo!
I could wake up every day of my life and send you messages teaching you how to write sales copy. That would “help” you. That would also “show you” what I know.
But that would kill attraction. As bizarre as it sounds, it doesn’t seem to make people want to “hire you.” What does?
A much simpler and clearer argument that is 100% focused on that “future” picture of success your prospect has in her brain.
That’s what we focus on. We talk about being there. We talk about how we’ve taken others there. We talk about the benefits of achieving that.
Sure, there’s a little bit of “how-to” sprinkled in every now and again. But we’re trying to help people here, not bury them in what we know. So too much meat and people begin to choke.
Finally, we help that prospect make a decision on the appropriate vehicle to take her to that “future” destination.
Often times, that vehicle will be you, your product or service.