“If You Can’t Explain It Simply, You Don’t Understand It Well Enough” I love this quote by Albert Einstein. In my opinion, it points to the number one problem I see in businesses I meet all day, every day. Business owners can’t simplify expressing who they help and how they help enough to explain it to others because of one scary fact–they’re not sure themselves! What would it be like if even a 4 year old could easily understand what it is you did for a living?
What’s The Problem?
One day, you have an idea that you can start a business and help people. You know you know stuff and you know that people will pay to learn that stuff from you. What you DON’T know is how to focus on specifically what you’ll help them with first. Furthermore, there are so many people you can help, you haven’t figured out who to target first. The worst news of all is that you don’t know how to figure it out.
Confused Minds Don’t Buy
When people kindly ask you what you do for a living, you feel like taking a deep breath before answering because it’s a long and complicated answer. You’re a complex person. You’ve got decades of training and experience in such diverse ways to help people, how can people expect you to just summarize your value like that? Unfortunately the end result of all this complexity is that you confuse people. And, no–confused minds don’t buy and they don’t refer you to anyone who might buy.
Simplicity the Elusive
My client Elisa (not her real name) came to me saying that she was an Intimacy Coach. When she first told me about her business, I had no clue who she helped (divorcees, students, single gay men, business owners etc.) or what kind of transformation she brought about in her coaching (sexual healing, relationship healing, corporate team building etc.) So we worked together to determine what her fastest niche to growth would be and checked our assumptions every step of the way with her potential target clients to make sure we weren’t dreaming in Technicolor.
It all worked out great! Now Elisa gets referrals all the time from post partum Moms who need to reconnect with their spouses.
When you talk about your business in terms of categories people already recognise and understand, you keep people’s attention. When you talk about your business like you’re explaining it to a 4 year old, you get more clients.
How can YOU simplify explaining your business?
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