Your Prospect’s Worldview
Your prospect’s worldview is how they perceive and understand the world around them. They are more likely to buy from you if your offer supports their worldview. So, the question becomes how does your offer support their worldview. This is essentially what marketing is about!
There are three ways to approach your prospects’ worldview. They are not equally helpful and so how you set about this task is worth serious consideration.
Change Your Prospect’s Worldview
Generally, this is not possible. Peoples’ worldviews are deeply entrenched and any attempt to change minds is likely to be viewed negatively.
What is a worldview? Let’s imagine you have a herbal remedy for a medical condition. Assume the remedy is effective and follows health and safety guidelines. Your website outlines the treatment and offers evidence of its effectiveness.
You have two prospects. One is a firm believer in conventional medicine. The other believes in alternative therapies. Neither worldview has anything to do with the effectiveness of the treatment. The treatment would be equally effective with both prospects.
The former is more likely to be swayed by hard evidence or testimonials from established conventional practitioners. The latter may be more interested in how the treatment works. You are perhaps more likely to sell to the latter.
I’m not saying it is impossible to sell to the former but in doing so you will not change their worldview. Indeed, any attempt to do so is likely to lose you the sale. Desperation or recommendation will get them to your website or doorstep. You may still have a job on to persuade them.
The latter may want to see the treatment as an alternative to conventional therapies. They may have concerns about big pharmaceutical companies and so be sceptical about hard evidence that emphasises the treatment is acceptable to established medical practice.
In effect you have two markets for the same product. To address one market may deter the other. The former might prefer a professional looking surgery and lots of white coats. The latter a more informal atmosphere.
Does this matter? So long as you have enough customers, it does not.
Change Your Own Worldview
I suspect this is almost as difficult as changing your prospects’ worldview! The issue here is your integrity. How convincing are you likely to be if you do not really believe in your offer? Someone committed to alternative therapies is unlikely to come across as genuine if they attempt the white-coated clinical image. And vice-versa.
If you are introducing something to the market, the chances are you will appeal to a small market of early innovators. There are likely to be similar offers on the market and so the issue is how to stand out from the others. So, target people who are most likely interested in your offer and speak to their worldview.
Once you have satisfied customers you will have evidence your approach works and so you can address a wider market. As your reputation improves your market will expand.
So, perhaps it is better to see marketing as several initiatives that start extreme and slowly develop to support a larger market.
I suspect this will not work for everyone and indeed, if you have a sizeable market and an extreme approach, you may lose customers if you try to move your image to the mainstream.
Find Your Tribe
So, the third strategy is to find your tribe. The idea here is, assuming it is a large enough market, you can seek out the people drawn to your worldview. So long as you can make enough money, you may find a small market of people who like what you are saying is all you need!
This may be good advice for most business start-ups. You need to get established and show how your approach delivers. You can then choose to focus on your tribe, because they like what you offer and can pay for it. Or else attempt to develop a wider market.
This can be done by attempting sell the same thing to a different market, with a different worldview. Or else you could use your reputation to design and market a related offer to a new market. This new market may have its own worldview and so form effectively a new business.
You can therefore, attempt to enter the mass market or select smaller markets and design offers that resonate with them. Some businesses offer a range of products or services that speak to different markets. Some may be markets designed to generate income and others may be opportunities to use business skills in non-business contexts, eg voluntary work or pro bono offers.
This means you must structure your business with care so that your portfolio of offers clearly addresses distinct markets.
If this post has been helpful, please let me know, especially if you would like to expand on any point.