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

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.

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.