Reader,

Your marketing should describe your prospects pain is such excruciating detail they’ll trust you inherently.

It should make them think…

“If they know the problem better than me, and can articulate it better than me, there’s now way they can’t fix it”.

Fuck your fancy elevator pitch. Their pain is the pitch.

For the last decade I’ve been banging this drum. Often I’m met with a sea of nodding heads.

Rarely am I met with objection.

However, the vast majority still get this painfully wrong despite their eager agreement.

I see marketing experts — who should know better— proudly plaster their sales pages with sentences such as…

“You feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and stuck in your business.”

Then pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

It sucks.

Beige.
Bland.
Vanilla.

Instead…

…You must join the conversation already happening inside their prospects head.

“You’re chained to your laptop at 10 p.m., reluctantly answering bargain-hunting client emails, redoing work you already paid staff to do, whilst simultaneously refreshing your banking app - praying Fridays payroll doesn’t bounce”.

Is miles better than the former example.

Here’s three more good/bad contrasts to really nail this between your eyes.

Bad:
​“You feel unfit and want to lose weight.”Good:
​“You get out of breath walking up one flight of stairs, unbutton your jeans when you sit down, and your wife’s just told you she has a ‘headache’ for the fifth time this month.”

Bad:
​“You are worried hackers might steal your data.”
​Good:
​“That employee you’ve been meaning to fire clicks a fake ‘invoice’ link, and suddenly every file on your server is locked, your team is staring at a ransom note, and your clients are asking why they cannot access their data whilst filing charge-backs with their banks.”

Bad:
​“You worry your contracts are not watertight and clients might not pay you on time.”
​Good:
​“You sign the client’s contract then spend the rest of the job in a freezing site cabin arguing over unpaid variations, fending off frosty emails from the QS slashing your valuation, waiting 60–90 days for the ‘next payment run,’ all while suppliers chase you for money, and your lads are walking off site to key your car as their wages haven’t hit—again.”

So stuff your ‘we help ‘target market’ achieve ‘outcome’ up your arse and write like a grown up.

Use your target markets real life, experienced pain as your pitch.

As a result, you might sign more clients, who pay more, stay longer, and actually do as you ask.

Use at your peril.

Stay painful,
​—CWB

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