“If you could snap your fingers and suddenly all your ideal prospects knew one single thing about what you do, what would it be?”
Every week, at least one or two of my clients will jump on a call with me and be peppered with a series of questions they’ve never heard, thought about, or answered before.
For them, it’s probably a bit strange, though they all claim to have a great time. They laugh, they stare blankly at the ceiling, they say things like, “Wow, I’ve never been asked that before” in a way that suggests no one else would ever think to.
For me, it’s the most important part of my work.
A few months ago, at the end of a session with a client, I asked the question up above.
We’d already talked through the easy stuff, the obvious stuff. The stuff I needed to know about the organization but still sat somewhat at the surface.
So I threw it out there, as an “easy one” to wrap up our chat with.
My client’s answer became the backbone of our copywriting and positioning work with them.
In fact, just the other day we heard from a popular influencer in their space that this positioning anchor feels more real, more accurate, and more important than everyone else’s in the sector.
See, our client named the single biggest reason people don’t reach out to them, and turned it around into the single strongest claim of why they should.
Basically, instead of telling prospects to contact them, we were able to demonstrate to them that there was no reason not to.
But we only got there because of that question.
Because narrowing down our value into one single concept requires us to make a choice about what we prioritize.
When you ask yourself, “What’s important?” you’ll always come up with more than one answer.
But if you ask yourself, “What’s the only thing that matters?” you’ll notice the thing that matters most. Even if what matters most is something you hadn’t even recognized as important at all before.
The instinct to “and” our marketing, to create more ways to connect with our prospects and help them is so natural, and strategic. We want to be able to do more things, so we can work with more people.
Instead of narrowing, we broaden.
And instead of focusing, we diffuse.
Until our value becomes so blurry nobody can quite make it out from a distance.
Because that’s all marketing is: Demonstrating value at a distance.
So when we add too many options or offers or promotional messages, we think we’re being helpful but we’re actually being hidden. We’re cloaking ourselves in a type of camouflage. We blend into the background.
Which had been happening to my client. Their incredible organization was blending in with everyone else’s, with the background noise of their industry.
But by figuring out the one thing everyone needed to know, we were able to identify the one thing they needed to say.
Which allowed their prospects to see the many ways their organization could help.
I call these “Novel Token Sessions,” and they’re my way of creating new and novel snippets, phrases, and demonstrations of value that have never been expressed before. Because my clients have never been asked these questions before.
So if you need to know what to say, here’s a question you might want to answer:
“If you could snap your fingers and suddenly all your ideal prospects knew one single thing about what you do, what would it be?”
Kelford Inc. is the marketing team that’s never at a loss for words. If you’re struggling with what to say and where to say it to attract ideal clients, we’ll show you the way.