Sep 22, 2008
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When selling anything to someone you have to know what they are going through. What I mean is if you are trying to sell a piece of furniture to someone then you have to know more than why did they come looking at furniture. This is where you have to know a customers 3 P’s.
The 3 P’s will give you a good assessment of where the customer is at in their buying decision:
1. Pain
2. Predicament
3. Problem
These are the things you must identify in any person. Remember people buy things to solve their problems. So you have to understand their problem. In order to sell something you have to target the individuals pain. For example they are tired of being fat, tired of being broke, sick of driving an old car.
Once you identify their pain then that is what you must keep in their remembrance. So when it comes to selling things you have to diagnose the customers pain first. Then you can play doctor and diagnose how your product or service can heal their pain.
So when it comes to identifying your customers 3 P’s on your website you must target these emotions of pain, predicament, and problem. So in your web copy you will have to bring these to light. The reason you must first identify these is because nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
A doctor must diagnose the problem before writing a prescription, right. The same goes for selling things to people. Most people will start to go after how great their product or service is and how everyone needs it to better their lives. People always always always want their problem or pain solved and if you do not paint a picture of the problems your product solves then you are prescribing a solution to no problem.
In other words you have to let people know you understand their pain, predicament, and problem and that you wish to be of help. Think about it, if you knew your customers problems or even helped them recognize their problems then the first part is done. They realize they have a problem.
This is the first step in selling: helping the customer know they have a problem. Now when it comes to web copy you can do this in a relatively short time. A few sentences will do.
For example if you are selling sleeping pills you will write like this:
Are you tired but can’t sleep?
Tired of staring at the ceiling all night?
Constantly tossing and turning?
Always have that groggy feeling in the morning?
We understand and know that tossing and turning all night is not the way to spend a night. We want to help you feel awake and refreshed in the morning so you can be more productive.
Do you see how that identifies the predicament? First you tell them some of the things they know like tossing and feeling groggy. Then I made them feel like I know what that is like plus I threw in that our product will help them be more productive. That is the solution as a result of the diagnosis and prescription.
So remember to always first identify the 3 P’s and you will then be fine.