by George Lane and Doug McIsaac

    This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

The Fundamental Trilogy, not surprisingly is comprised of three parts:

1. Do you know exactly what you’re selling?
2. Do you know precisely who you’re selling it to?
3. Do you give the people you’re selling to a damned good reason to buy what you’ve got?

If your competitors can’t answer these questions, you have a potential advantage.

Part one: Know exactly what you’re selling

At first glance this may seem silly. You already know what you’re selling, right?  Surprisingly, this is often not the case.  In actuality, you know your product or service too well and take too much for granted.

Fortunately, this is easy to fix with a little exercise:

- Imagine you’re explaining your product/service to a big spending but nit-picking customer, and they keep asking “But what else does it do?”
- Then ask yourself how your product does what it does. What goes into making your product/service?
- Now imagine that nit-picking customer again. And this time they want to know exactly what will happen when they become a customer. What are the exact steps between taking on a new customer and giving them their order?

Describe every last little thing about what you sell, even the bits that seem inconsequential to you.

Even on its own, knowing exactly what you sell - down to the smallest detail - gives you a massive competitive advantage. You can find things you do that your competitors either don’t do or don’t talk about, and can then use these overlooked points in your marketing and sales pitch.

This repositions you and guards against your prospects making like-for-like comparisons.

Part two: Determine who you’re selling to

Again, you already know this, right? Wrong. Many business owners think they know their customers but most of them can do much better.

Picture your typical customer and tell me are they:

- Businesspeople or consumers?
- Men or women?
- How old?
- Married or single?
- Rich or poor?
- Do they have children?
- Where are they? (Local, national, international)
- What kind of job do they have?
- What values/beliefs are important to them?
- Where do they hang out, online and offline?
- What problems do they usually have when they come to you?
- What are their hopes and desires?
- What do they fear the most?

If you could not quickly respond to these questions, go find the answers.  Why? Because the better you understand your customer, the easier it is to sell them what they want. The more comfortable your customers feel towards you, the more they’ll respond to your marketing, thereby generating more interest and sales.

Part three: Make it happen

Parts 1 and 2 of the trilogy involve what you sell and who you’re selling to.   Part 3 involves joining these previous parts together and making sales by addressing core human buying emotions. People buy things to fulfill one or more of these nine emotional needs:

1. Make Money 
2. Save Money 
3. Save Time/Effort 
4. Help the Family 
5. Feel Secure 
6. Impress Others 
7. Gain Pleasure 
8. Self Improvement 
9. Belong to a Group

For real life proof, watch a few TV commercials with this list in front of you and check off the needs they imply their product fulfills. When you do it for the first time, it’s like seeing The Matrix.)

The magic starts to happen when you weave all these relevant emotional needs into your marketing. How do you do this? Here are a couple of ideas:

- From part 1, look at your list of all the things your product/service does and how it does it. Next to each item, write down the emotional need (or needs) it helps your customer achieve.
- Next, remember all the things you know about your customer from part 2. How would you tell your typical customer that their core emotional needs can be fulfilled by what you sell?

Take your time on these two points. They are more potent than they first appear; use them with care.

If you make the link too obvious, you can appear crude and manipulative. The secret is to be a little subtle and imply you fulfill your customers’ emotional needs without embarrassing your prospect or making them uncomfortable.

Remember, almost no one wants to buy clothes from a store with a sign selling “fashionable trousers” but many people would be interested in “Fresh Frozen Lemonade” on a hot day.

It may take a couple of attempts to frame your message but if you can elegantly associate what your business does with your customers core buying emotions, the rest of your marketing and sales will effortlessly fall into place.

By utilizing the Fundamental Trilogy, marketing success is almost inevitable.

Online4Offline was formed by George Lane and Doug McIsaac, two award-winning marketers and social media experts.  Sign up for their $1 coaching special NOW! (It won’t last long).  Their aim is to give away great marketing & business building information many marketing “gurus” have been charging for far too long.  They can be reached at: www.online4offline.com .