How to Grow Your Small Business by Donald Miller

Author:Donald Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harpercollins Leadership
Published: 2023-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Give Your Customer a Plan—Brown

At this point in the story you’re inviting customers into, they know you have a solution to their problem. Often, though, this isn’t enough information to cause them to place an order.

As we discussed while talking about the StoryBrand Marketing Framework, the reason your customer is unlikely to place an order is because placing an order requires them to take a risk. They could lose their money. They could feel like a fool. They could find out the product or service doesn’t fit their needs like they thought it would. In short, placing an order involves changing their lives in some way, and most people resist change.

Let’s look a little closer at the moment of pause and concern a customer experiences in the buying journey. When a customer realizes you have a solution to their problem, they have to make a decision about whether or not to buy that solution, so, at this point, they might experience a bit of cognitive dissonance. This cognitive dissonance is going to feel like confusion or perhaps concern, but they won’t know exactly why.

Imagine the customer journey as a hike through the woods. At this point in the journey, the trail they are on suddenly descends into a rushing river. By giving the customer a plan, you effectively build a bridge from the customer’s problem to your solution. Again, this bridge can be built by including a three-step plan the customer can follow to buy your product and solve their problem.

For example: If our chef friend included a three-step plan in the story he invites customers into, it might go something like this:

“You know how most families don’t eat together anymore? And when they do, they don’t eat healthy. I’m an at-home chef. I come to your house and cook.

“If you ever want to try it, the process is simple. We have a quick thirty-minute meeting in which I find out what your family likes to eat, what food allergies exist, and so on. Then I come to your house and make dinner. That costs about $100. Then, if you want to make that a regular thing, we figure out when you’d like to fit me in with your family’s schedule.”

Did you catch the chef’s three-step plan? First, he has an intake meeting. Second, he comes over and cooks a meal. Third, he enters into a retainer agreement.

When we offer a three-step plan, our customer is much more likely to cross the bridge from their problem to our solution.

When the chef gave his customer a step-by-step plan, he did two things:

First, he reduced the sense of risk. The customer would likely have been interested in the service based on what the chef had already explained, but the customer would likely not have moved forward because of too many unknowns. How often would the chef be there? Would it feel awkward for him to take over the kitchen? Would the chef be able to cook around the family’s food allergies? How

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.