Let’s assume you desperately want to knock off some weight. And you’re serious enough to get onto a structured eating system.
Let’s also assume, you were presented with two diets
Diet 1 consists of:
Chocolate.
Cake. Maybe even chocolate cake.
Pasta with Cheese. Some butter chicken.
Vegetables.
Fruit.
Diet 2 consists of:
Vegetables.
More vegetables.
Fruit.
More fruit.
The occasional cake or chocolate
Don’t tell me which one you’ve chosen
I already know.
But hang on a second. You said you needed to lose weight, right? So you know darned well, that Diet No.2 is the one to choose.
So why on earth are you eyeing Diet No.1?
Because you know what you need. But it’s not what you want. You want to eat. You want to drink. You want to enjoy yourself, not watch in envy as others around have a rollicking time, while you’re on another silly boiled veggie diet.
And that’s where Weight Watchers comes in
To quote their website: Eat all the foods you love on the Flex Plan… -Enjoy the full range of food options, while making better choices with the POINTS system. -Choose any food, as long as you control how much you eat. -Easily handle any food challenge, even when choices are limited.
Notice what they just sold you?
Not what you need. But what you want. The people that go to Weight Watchers aren’t veggie eaters.
Not by a long shot.
The customers at Weight Watchers lurrrve their food. They adore their wine. They want their ice-creams and their chocolate. And Weight Watchers gives them what they want–namely the ability to eat what they want–as long as they stick to the eating plan.
It’s the same reason why teenagers buy anti-pimple cream
It isn’t because of the rich, wonderful perfume. Teens give a damn about the perfume. What they want is to have flawless skin–so they can get a date.
So look at the anti-pimple cream ad on TV
What’s it talking about? It’s talking about the darned texture of the cream. It’s talking about the fragrance. It’s talking about the new packaging. Oh c’mon give me–and all those teenagers out there a break.
They don’t care about the whiz bang features of your cream.
They don’t care about your background or your company heritage. They don’t care about your la-dee-dah packaging.
They just want the date, get it? The date. Nothing but the date. And only the date. So sell them the date, will ya?
Businesses make this mistake every thirty five seconds 
They try and sell software.
They try and sell marketing strategies.
They try and sell copywriting services.
They try and sell better websites.
But does the customer really want any of the above?
Like hell they do. If someone on the next block–or even the next planet, was able to promise your customer money, freedom and respect, your customers would all be exiting through la salida,
mucho rapidemente! Yes, without so much as sniffing your strategies, software, websites or whatever it is you’re selling.
I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say…
Because it will get you more customers–and hence more
profits than ever before.
Ask your customer what they want. Then give them what they want. Word for word.
Don’t get all misty-eyed with the product or the service you’re selling. It ain’t going to help you sell better. Or more. Or more often.
And here’s what you need to do.
Do some research
No, not some $85,000 research. Just speak to your customers. Ask them what they want most for their business.
Possibly even make a list of possible things your customers could want, and then get them to rate what’s most important on the list. Then collate the list. And put the things that your customers reeeeeeally want, at the top of the list.
Weight Watchers is teaching you a lesson…
But are you listening? Weight Watchers knows fully well what the customer needs. But they sell what the customer wants. Because eventually by tapping into the wants, Weight Watchers
is able to give the customers what they really need–namely weight reduction and overall fitness. Not to speak of improved eating habits.
But Weight Watchers knows that the motivation can only come from eating the yummy stuff–and almost never from munching boring broccoli.
The secret is always in the want.
As in: I want my MTV. I want my IPod. And all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth! And all I really want is my Porsche!
The Porsche ad that sums up the Want Factor with one question.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Molly Gordon // May 19, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Amen.
And… Where I notice that I get hung up around selling what my customers want, and where 99.9% of my clients get hung up before they even begin, has to do with the sumption part of attversumption.
We’ve all seen get-rich-quick schemes that do a terrific job of selling the customer what they want. Most of these schemes either do not deliver what is promised or (more often, IMHO) they promise and deliver indiscriminately – they market and sell to anyone who can be convinced to buy rather than a target market that is likely to benefit from consumption.
It’s the absence of a meaningfully targeted market and a commitment to consumption for mutual benefit that sends chills up the spines of my clients when they think about selling their customers what they want. Because there have been few prominent examples to the contrary, my clients assume that selling their customers what they want is equivalent to making phony promises.
Thanks to your attversumption distinction, it is possible to analyze and resolve the dilemma. Get-rich-quick strategies stop at conversion. What distinguishes the kind of business you have and I have, Sean, and the kind of businesses our clients want, is active interest in and responsibility for consumption.
Yes, consumption is a pre-requisite for repeated purchases. But there’s more to it than the dollars and cents. Consumption is where the relationship happens. It’s where what we promise and deliver takes root and flowers in the customer’s life. Consumption generates more than repeat sales; it generates more life, more creativity, more connection for each buyer and among the community of buyers.
There’s a second barrier to selling what the customer wants (at least for my audience), and that is fear that the customer will become demanding and dependent. Weight Watchers is brilliant here, too, for they place the responsibility and accountability squarely in the hands of the buying community. Weight Watchers sells the system, and it supports the buyer in implementation.
One of the things that impressed me most about the recent Website Strategy Masterclass was how much you invested in designing a process that supported participants to consume (understand and apply) and that necessitated that we be responsible for our own work and for helping each other.
So, yes, let’s sell our customers what they want. And to feel great about doing that, let’s:
- be clear about WHO will get what they want from what we sell, resisting the temptation to sell the everybody who might conceivably buy;
- profile that target audience carefully so we know who we are talking to;
- send consistent, authentic messages to that audience so they can recognize themselves and buy wisely.
2 Sean D'Souza // May 22, 2007 at 8:18 am
And the factor that wants are never mentioned is important. That customers will always bring up their needs, but expect their wants to be dealt with.
The key is finding that want. And then creating the ‘consumption’ model around that want. It’s like me wanting an ‘idli sambhar’ and you providing one, every day, provided I ate at least part of the idlis, when you give it to me.
3 Sean D'Souza // May 22, 2007 at 8:21 am
And talking about idlis…here’s a picture of one dish I ate for about two years non-stop for lunch time.
My need was: lunch that was nutritious and tasty.
My want was: uncomplex decision.
Here’s a photo:
http://static.flickr.com/39/79867164_6bac62fe58.jpg
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