Category Archives for "Analysis"

0 How Many Conversions Do You Need?

Hopefully, you know what conversion is!  The word describes when someone responds to something on your website in the way you want them to, eg by making a purchase or signing up for something.  But it can just as easily apply to a decision made at an in-person meeting.  The question: How many conversions do you need? implies the number of sales you need to break even.

This question in the circuit questionnaire is about your business viability.  If you cannot meet this target, it means sooner or later your business will fail.  This is not about your aspirations but the practicalities of making your business work.

For the values-centred business, your business follows the same rules as everyone else’s.  Once you know you can meet your target, you have capacity to invest your income in your causes.

How to Make the Calculation

Conceptually, the calculation is not too difficult.  You divide the price you charge for your offer into the amount you need to live and pay for your business (your annual turnover).  However, these can be more complicated than they first appear.

Your Turnover

Your turnover or outgoings are the sum of your business overheads and costs plus your drawings.  The linked post explains them but here is a quick summary:

Don’t get hung up on detail here.  The main thing is to find an approximate figure.  You can refine it later as you get figures from your business practice.  Your outgoings will change as your business develops.  You may find that when you hit your target, your costs increase because your business activity has increased!  So, be generous in your calculation and careful about your actual expenditure!

Your Charges

If you have a single offer, this is simply how much you charge for it.  But take care.  Many business owners charge less than their advertised fees for various reasons.  For example, I charge on paper £1500 for one of my offers.  For various stated reasons though, I usually cut this by £200.  So, the fee is actually nearer £1300.

If you have a single offer, you simply divide its price into your total outgoings and this tells you how many sales you need over a year.

However, few business owners have a single offer.  I generally recommend having between 2 and 4 offers.  With two offers, you can offer a choice and this reduces prospects saying no.  More than 4 offers are likely to be confusing for you and your prospects.

There are a few options here.  You could use your highest priced offer and this will show you how many of these sales you need to make.  Some people argue you should aim to sell your highest offer because it is hard work finding clients and so you need to get the best returns you can when you find one.  The alternative view is you want to sell the best package for the client and they might not need your high-end package.

If you have many packages or sell a range of products or have a specialist market with individually tailored offers, perhaps the easiest approach is to calculate your average monthly income, divide it into your turnover and multiply the result by the average number of customers.  No approach is accurate but you don’t need absolute precision.

If you know on average how much a customer spends, it is the figure you need.

What To Do Next

When you complete the calculation you have the number of customers or purchases you need per year.  Divide by 12 to get the monthly number.  This is a useful figure because it gives you an idea of the challenge you face to find enough customers to break even.

There are broadly two ways you can respond to these figures.  If the number of customers are higher than you are already experiencing, you must either find more customers or increase your prices.

Price increases become easier as you become established.  If you have a positive reputation and find people are recommending you, this is the time for a price increase.  There are various strategies but it is far and away the most effective strategy towards business viability, so long as your marketing is effective.

It may be possible to increase customer numbers, as you become more experienced, review packages, adapt them to your customer’s needs and improve your marketing.

Perhaps the most important outcome is it shows you whether have a viable business.  Do not despair if the outcome shows you are not viable.  A minor change in direction may be all you need.  This may be where you need a coach to help you think through your next step.

Has this post been helpful?  Let me know what else you need to know about this topic.

0 What is Your Market Size?

Here is a paradox for the freelance.  Consider the question: what is the size of your market? You might think the larger the size, the better it is for you.  This is rarely true.

Mass and Niche Markets

Most of the advertising we see aims at a mass market.  Consider its content.  It promotes products that meet our basic needs.  So, you see adverts for food, clothes, cars and so on.  You don’t see mass market adverts for coaches or consultants.

Mass marketing focuses upon whatever is new.  The latest films or TV programmes have a mass market appeal.  Even a coach with a brilliant new approach, does not use mass marketing.

Cost is an important factor.  Granted, advertising online is available to niche businesses; it is not on the scale of hoardings, TV adverts, newspapers and magazines.  Such large-scale advertising is still out of reach for small business owners.

This is not really a problem because there is a more profound reason small businesses don’t use broadcast advertising.

They have a niche market.  To address the whole population is redundant.  If your niche is in a particular locality, there is no point telling the world you are there.  The people in your niche need to know you are there and no-one else.

So, the challenge for most freelancers is to find the narrow group of people in their target market.  There are marketing approaches that work for these groups and not for the mass market.

How to Find Your Niche

You need to find your niche and almost certainly find this rather difficult.  Why?  It is hard to see how narrowing your market can increase your business.  It’s counter-intuitive to think you increase business by turning some people off.

But marketing is costly in time and money.  To waste time communicating with people who are not interested in your offer is not going to get you far.  If people approach you because you are known for your offer to them, this is far more efficient.  All you need is to work out how to turn their interest into commitment to working with you.

Let’s focus on narrowing your niche.  The big mistake people make is to think their niche is one-dimensional.  There is a lot you can do to design your packages to appeal to a narrow group of people.

Other Ways to Narrow Your Niche

Just as you make choices when designing your packages, you can also make choices about other things.

Specialisation and Prejudice

When you narrow your market, you are stating a preference not building a wall to keep out undesirables.  The decisions you make help you target your market.  It is not a failure if you draw some customers who don’t quite fit your market definition.

Indeed, these customers may be immensely valuable because they may point to a better definition of your market.  Prejudice would make you unable to see this new opportunity.

To specialise is to choose your preference because you believe it is for people most likely to take a serious interest in your offer.

Let’s say you want to specialise in delivering a service for women that could be equally valuable for men.  You have your reasons for this choice, let’s assume they are valid and don’t amount to discrimination.

First, note most men know some women, they may know women in your market.  You cannot afford to put men off because you need them to carry your message to your market.

Do all your packages need to be women only?  If you are a coach, you could deliver workshops to both men and women.  This would help all involved understand your offer and in partnership with someone who makes a similar offer to men, it could be a powerful marketing opportunity for many businesses.

If you are an expert in the particular issues women face in business, it makes sense to seek the market who can benefit.  Maybe outrage at the discrimination women face in working life is legitimate.  The challenge for the niche marketer is saying this with good grace.

Conclusion

To define your niche is a massive step forward because you can address them directly.  But do not make the mistake of thinking your niche is set in stone.  Be alert for those who approach you out of the blue.

They have heard your message and it appeals to them in some way.  Find out why.

Have you ever been surprised by who has responded to your marketing?

0 How to Make Safe Predictions about Market Preferences

Making predictions is never an exact science.  As you learn more about your market, you increase your understanding of market preferences.

Ask anyone from your market about a particular preference and you could get any answer from completely positive to completely negative.  In that sense, you cannot predict a person’s personal preferences.

However, there are advantages to knowing where on the spectrum of opinion most people in your market fall.  When you are marketing, you are setting out your stall.  You attract some people who are not in your market and possibly repel some who are.  The better you are at setting out your stall, the more likely you are to attract the right people.

Once you talk to a prospect, you can fine-tune your appeal and respond to their individual preferences.  This depends upon your sales technique.  You need to practice it and the only way to do that is to find prospects.

So, the aim of making safe predictions is to find preferences that attract the right people, reducing as far as you can false positives and negatives.

As you grow in understanding your market, you get better at this.  The first step is to know what to look for and the issues raised in this question are a starting place.  You will find some of what follows more or less relevant to your market.  The real challenge is finding issues not listed here that energise your market.  How?  Be present, spend time with your market with eyes and ears open.

Risk and Security

This is a big issue for financial advisors who have to ask about a saver’s attitude to risk.  I wonder how many people lose out because they don’t understand the question?  How many people ask to see high-risk opportunities?  How many who don’t, miss opportunities they would not otherwise encounter?  You see my point here?  This is not about finance necessarily.

The issue is the person who steps back from something they perceive as high risk might respond positively if they knew more.  So, your marketing challenge is to raise possibilities your market may not have considered, if it is risk averse.

Organisations are often risk averse.  Health and safety legislation, for example, aims to keep the organisation safe.  There is a lot to commend this approach until it becomes a reason not to act.  I’m not saying strategies should risk safety but safety costs need to be included in planning.  “It’s worth making these costly improvements because it will mean we can do so much more.”

Quality and Value

Let’s think of this in four quadrants:

Novelty or Proven

Some people like to be ahead of the crowd, pace setters who are always the first try new technologies or approaches.  Others will invest in something that has a proven track record.

This is why new businesses can find it difficult to get established.  The people who are willing to try something new are thin on the ground.  Breaking through to the bigger established market is hard work.

The technology adoption curve shows how this works in practice.  You will see, if you follow the link, moving from early adopters to early maturity is difficult.  This is the challenge if you are introducing something new to the market.

On the other hand, the challenge is different if you are marketing some established approach, such as life, personal or business coaching.  Here the issue is how to distinguish your business from others, without giving the impression it is something entirely new.

Individual or Mass-Market

Coaches and consultants offer an individual service. Most adopt an approach to coaching they choose so that the package they offer is a proven method.  But essentially the service is individual and this is why they are able to charge high fees.

They can offer workshops to groups of people for a lower fee.  They may offer the same content but with less personal service.

This distinction holds in any market.  Supermarkets get by with little individual service.  Most people know what they need and can find it without help.  Contrast that with a behind the counter service, where everything is individually found, measured and wrapped.

Mass-production cuts costs and increases choice.  Most coaches offer limited options at a high price.  If their offer is not right for a prospect, they will refer them on.  There are loads of books about coaching for those who do not favour the individual market.

Design or Functionality

This is of course a false dichotomy.  If something lacks functionality it lacks design.  You would think few people would buy something pretty that doesn’t work!

For example, website design.  Many people still think of websites as works of art.  They do not understand the functionality a website can offer them.  A site that looks good and does not convert is an ornament.

Some sites look dreadful but they convert.  Maybe they were slung together without any thought to design and for some reason worked.

On the other hand, think of something like Apple products where design and functionality work together.  If you can do that it’s a big advantage.  If not, make sure it does what it needs to do.

What other preferences do you find your market has?

0 More Target Market Demographics

Last time, I discussed market demographics and covered the first three characteristic demographics, primarily the involuntary ones: sex, age and location. Today here are four more characteristics, which might be described as voluntary.  Voluntary because they are to some degree choices made by your market.

Seven Demographics, 4 – 7

Common Interests

Common interests are interests shared by your clients.  Stamp collecting is an interest some people have.  It is unlikely to be relevant unless you are offering something directly interesting to stamp collectors.

There may be interests your target clients are likely to have in common.  For example, are sportspeople interested in diet?  If not, perhaps they should be and you may wish to use marketing to convince them of that.

So, a common interest is not something everyone in your target market necessarily knows about.  There may be value in raising awareness of an issue, like diet for sports people.

This may be the main value of common interests; identifying issues that should interest your target market.  This could be a move from level 0 to 1 on the awareness ladder.  But it could equally feature between levels 2 and 3, where sports people are seeking solutions to low energy and have not considered diet.

Sports people are likely to be aware of diet.  So, if your offer is diet related, sports people may share a common interest.  Running a Facebook advert, you could target it to people with a declared interest in sport.

Start with your offer and ask the question: what is likely to interest my potential clients?

Career

I’ve given this next section the heading career because it is worth considering not only the type of job your prospects do but how they perceive it relates to their career.  Some people may see their role as primary, they are managers with aspirations to more senior posts.  Alternatively, they may be specialists seeking opportunities to build on their experience.

Sometimes the issue for people in work is some problem they encounter and so need help.  A problem can be short-term and immediate or long-term and chronic.  If it is a common problem, you can offer to help solve or manage it.

Hopes and dreams are perhaps career orientated.  Many people come to a point in their working life, where they consider moving on to something else.  They may be seeking a new job or to freelance.  They may be a parent who has taken time out to care for small children and want to return to work.  Use these insights to narrow your market and focus on specific issues.

And of course, many people experience frustrations in their working life.  This may be general dissatisfaction with their working life to specific issues in the workplace they are unable to resolve unaided.  Some people wish to stay in their current position and overcome some frustration, others want to find a way out.

Culture

Ethnicity may be relevant where businesses appeal to people of a particular culture; it is not necessarily a problem.  People will self-select.  I am aware of many shops close by where I live that serve particular ethnic groups.  It works for them.

Perhaps the main drawback for such businesses is they may limit their market unnecessarily.  A shop that sell fashions that appeal primarily to people of one particular ethnicity may have found a specialist market.

However, cafes and restaurants are another matter and an ethnic based appeal might cut both ways.  It can bring something new into the marketplace that would not be available otherwise but it can be effectively exclusive.  Some businesses find this is a problem and others seem happy for it to be so.

Language and Religion

Language is another way businesses can be exclusive.  Staff who speak languages spoken locally, are an obvious advantage.  Their role is little different from staff in any shop, who explain and educate their customers.

I have eaten in restaurants where there is no English spoken.  My main problem is explaining I’m vegetarian.  What actually appears on your plate can be something of a lottery.  The question for the business is, how can they survive with mostly customers who speak their language?

It is worth asking if your offer is likely to appeal to people with particular religious affiliations.  If so, you may need to be sensitive to their expectations.  Certainly, most shops, including the chains, sell halal food in a Muslim area.  They do this because it sells not just the halal food but everything else these customers buy.

Divisions between religious groups can be overemphasised.  Generally, religious people find common ground.  Many Muslim parents prefer Christian schools to state schools because Christians can be more sensitive to their requirements as fellow religious.

Education

Education is not about discriminating against people who are more or less educated.  It is about considering what people with specialist education may need.  If you sell to people with education, you don’t ask to see evidence of their ability, you set out your stall and see who turns up!

Similarly, your market may be people who have had an experience and so have a consequential interest in your offer.  People who buy need not all share the experience but if a significant proportion of your customers have had it, then this is another opportunity to target your market.

Habits are perhaps little understood.  I suppose cigarettes and alcohol are examples of bad habits.  They are obvious examples of sales opportunities to supply the habit or sell ways to overcome it.  However, not all habits are bad and some are simply routines.  I walk certain routes and I’m less likely to go out of my way to make a purchase.

Finally, life story may be a factor.  These would be people with some common thread to their life story, eg living as a carer, long-term illness or immigration.

Can you think of other factors to consider when you describe your market?

1 Your Target Market Demographics

Any business-owner must find and get to know their target market.  In the last two posts, I explained how to assess your target market’s awareness of their problem and how to move them to consider solutions.  In a future post, I shall discuss their worldview.  This time my topic is your market demographics; mostly uncontroversial facts about your target market.

Awareness, worldview and demographics are three dimensions you can use to describe your market.  Later in this sequence, I shall discuss how to create an Avatar you can use to target your marketing copy.  This is not something you make public but use it to inform your writing or speaking, so it feels warmer to those you wish to contact.

What Are Demographics?

Selecting which characteristics to measure is a judgement.  Your measurements may be accurate but you have still decided to measure that particular thing.

The circuit questionnaire goes beyond the usual list of sex, age and race.  Perhaps some are not strictly demographics.  They are all characteristics your market would declare to be true about themselves.  You can find them and tailor your marketing to them.

Your copy will always be for people with particular characteristics.  Being able to describe them in these terms helps make them more real to you.  These are the people you help, so you need to know and understand them.  A personalised message done well, means your copy may appeal to people outside your target market.  If they are potential customers, this is not a problem.

Do be careful about what you publish.  You may be aiming to work with a particular group but this should inform your copy, not rule out those who, attracted by your copy, do not fall within your ideal.  Remember there are laws about discrimination and so it is important your copy is inclusive.

If your offer is for one sex or one ethnic group, for example, make sure you can justify it and that you conform to the law.  Get legal advice if you are in doubt.

Seven Demographics, 1 to 3

Remember, your answers to the questions in the Circuit Questionnaire will inform your thinking about your market.  Think carefully before you publish your answers to these questions.  An explicit statement may alienate some of your market.

Gender

Some products and services are designed for one sex and so it can be legitimate to target that sex.  Usually, however, your offer is attractive to both sexes and it is not in your interests to discriminate.

Consider your prejudices, in the sense that if you expect your clients to be one sex, you may unconsciously discriminate against the other.  Your avatar could be made to be like the sex you think least likely to be interested.

Your aim is to build an avatar you can address with warmth and so appeals to anyone reading or hearing your copy.  You could write copy, as if to a real person, beginning “Dear Jane …”.  If you remove these words from the beginning, the copy would not necessarily give away its written with a woman in mind and so could appeal to men too.

Finally, you may need to be aware that we no longer live in a world with a binary split between men and women.  You may need to consider sexuality and transsexuality as well as people who live to some degree between the two traditional sexes.

For most businesses this is not important because an avatar of either sex can produce copy that appeals to everyone.  It is important if your product appeals to one of these specialised groups.

Localised or Global

Many businesses that market locally, may have a global market if they operate online.  Similarly, some global businesses find there is a local dimension to their market.

For coaches and consultants, it’s usually worth targeting your local market from the start.  If you have no reputation, you may find your first clients are local because they can meet you and so decide they trust you.

Mostly, though coaches find they are working with a mix of local and online clients.

There are businesses that draw most or all their customers from a particular locality.  Shop-front businesses find this, even if they have a specialist dimension to their work, that draws interest from outside  their area, they are likely to draw most customers from their local neighbourhood.

Age Range

Age can make a big difference to the way you think about your market.  Older people have more experience and perhaps more wisdom.  On the other hand the generation that grew up before the Internet is perhaps less able to compete online.

Younger people may have more energy, work harder and are perhaps more idealistic.

Some of these may be prejudices and my message is be aware of your prejudices and don’t assume they are wrong!  Even 10 years can make a massive difference.

I’ll cover the rest of these characteristics next time.

How do you find the characteristics I’ve covered so far help define your marketing?

0 The Scale of Your Prospects’ Shift in Thinking

Once you know your target market’s level of awareness, the next question is: how do you move them up the awareness ladder?  What is the scale of your prospect’s shift in thinking?

This question suggests a point I’ve made several times before.  Marketing is primarily education!  If you are going to move prospects up the awareness ladder, you must offer them information.  At early stages, you may explain the problem and its various solutions.  At later levels, the focus will be on your own offer.

In general, the lower you are on the awareness ladder, the more work you must do to move people to the next level.  So, if people are aware of solutions (level 2) they are more likely to listen to your solution than someone at level 1, who is not actively seeking a solution.

However, higher levels can be more difficult.  For example, it may be harder to get to level 3 if a competitor at level 2 dominates the market.

So, let’s look at two costs associated with moving prospects: information and time.

Information Needs

The more explanation you need to offer, the greater the costs of your marketing and you will have more difficulty retaining your prospects’ attention. You will need different amounts of information and different approaches at each level.

It is possible to use one approach throughout.  For example, a sales funnel on a website moves prospects from their current level to level 5.  You must bring them in at the right level; too low you will lose their attention and too high you will confuse them.  Sometimes you can do it on a single page, while some funnels put each level on a different page.

Others find they need something more complex.  Here’s an example:

1. A workshop open to a range of likely prospects, where you describe the problem and explain common solutions. Perhaps a taster of how you approach solving the problem.  (Levels 0-2)
2. A brochure (printed or online) that describes your method and provides more information. Includes an invitation to book a 1 to 1.  (Levels 2-4)
3. A 1 to 1 meeting where you aim to close the deal (levels 4-5)

Altogether, you may have passed on an immense amount of information over these 3 stages.  It is likely, if you set something up like this, only a small proportion of your clients will experience all of it.  Some will hop on board at higher levels and you need to be aware of when and how that happens.

Time Needs

You can see an elaborate approach, like the one above, is likely to take a lot of time.  This is one of the issues coaches have to face.  They usually find they must offer an introductory coaching session.  Maybe coaches with a good reputation can charge for these sessions but most coaches don’t and can underestimate the amount of time it takes.

People selling products may find they need less 1 to 1 time but may still find moving prospects from levels 3 – 5 takes a big chunk out of their working day.

So, the issue for any business is how to schedule their marketing efforts.  A coach might, for example, set aside 1 – 2 days per week for marketing and the rest for coaching.  Note this limits your coaching service’s capacity but without marketing, the coach has lots of time when they are not earning!

This brings us back to knowing your target market.  If you do, your marketing will be better targeted and you will get more in return for your effort.

How do you manage your marketing time?

0 Your Target Market’s Level of Awareness

This is my first post about the fifth and final element in the Circuit Questionnaire: your market or markets.  This element starts by asking about your target market’s level of awareness.  Surely, you need to know what your target market is before you can answer this question?

Your Target Market

We shall go into this in more depth later but it cannot be said often enough, this is perhaps the most important question you need to answer: what is your target market?

Obviously, you cannot answer questions about your target market until you have identified it.  Identifying your target market strongly implies reducing the size of your theoretical market.  What do I mean by that?

Most people set out by aiming to market their business or cause to everyone.  It seems, at first glance, this is the best way forward; tell everyone about your offer.  However, the fact is only a small number of people are your prospective customers and it makes much more sense to talk to them!

The people who have the problem your offer solves, who are interested in your cause, are much more likely to listen if they hear you addressing them.

Level of Awareness

Your target market will have a level of awareness, as defined by the awareness ladder.  Ideally, you speak to them at that level of awareness. So, if they know they have the problem, you do not need to persuade them they have the problem!  If they know there are solutions, you need to show them yours.

Find out the level of awareness they are at and take up the narrative from there.  Your aim is to move them to the next level.

Awareness of Their Problem

People aware of their problem are at level 1 or 2 of the awareness ladder.  At level 1, they live with the problem because they are not aware there are solutions.  They may endure the pain or work around the problem.  Work arounds are often not the most cost-effective ways to manage a problem.

At level 2, the prospect will have discovered solutions to the problem and they are deciding which solution to adopt.  This is a transient state because soon they will opt for a solution, will it be yours?

Awareness of Your Proposition

This is level 3 of the awareness ladder and if prospects are aware of your proposition, they are likely to approach you to enquire about your service.  At this stage, you aim to move them to level 4, where they are aware of the details of you and your proposition.

So, to find your target market, you need to ask who is likely to be interested in your proposition.  In general, the further down the awareness ladder you go, the more people there are who could be prospects but they will be harder to move.

You will need less time and money to move people who are higher up the ladder but they can be far and few.  This is why most businesses use several marketing approaches, depending on where their prospects are on the awareness ladder.  It is possible to move to level 5 (sale) online but many coaches, for example, find that at level 3 they are more effective moving from their website to a face-to-face meeting (live or Skype).

We’ll look at this in more detail next time.

How do you use levels of awareness, when you approach prospects?

0 What Are the Causes of Your Customers Problem?

The causes of your customers problem may not always be what you or your customer expects them to be.  If you can name causes your customer has not considered, they are likely to be impressed.  Do this as part of your marketing and they are more likely to sign up.  Do this when they are a client and delight them with a new insight into their business.

This is the final question in the Problem Element of the Circuit Questionnaire.  Follow the link to the page, which gathers together all the posts in this sequence.

Why Finding the Causes of your Customers Problem is Important

So, what exactly is a cause?  In this sense, a cause is some circumstance responsible for the problem the customer experiences.  The biggest difficulty everyone experiences, is identifying the cause of a problem they face.

Indeed, it is often true identifying the cause is 90% of the solution to a problem.  Once there is clarity about the cause, the solution to the problem can be obvious.  So, it is worth spending time digging into the problem, really understanding what it is.

If the problem is not understood, it is easy to waste a lot of time dealing with the effects of the problem.  This is sometimes described as a sticking plaster approach to a problem.  Dealing with effects can be costly and the costs become regular because the underlying cause is not identified.

Whilst it is true in theory, dealing with the cause of a problem will result in improved performance; the cause can be a daunting prospect or integral to a lot of other issues, beneficial to some extent.  So, solving the immediate problem may generate further problems down the road.

Stimulating New Ideas Through New Causes

So, let’s try to be positive and approach this as an exercise in stimulating new ideas.   A client is likely to seek help because they are stuck.  They have tried everything and the problem will not go away.  Usually this is because the problem is deeply entrenched in organisational culture.  If there is no organisation, it is likely to be some psychological reason for the business owner.

Ask the owner to describe the problem.  Try to draw a diagram together and then interrogate it.  Try to understand how the client and their organisation understands the problem.  Ask questions like:

Note you are working together to build a picture of the problem.  There is nothing judgemental in any of this and you are not seeking a solution or the cause at this stage.

Once you have the facts before you, you can begin to explore causes.  What would happen if you changed this?  You are trying to find the cause, not a solution.  Causes can be deeply bound up in organisational culture and this can be notoriously difficult to change because so much of it is habit.

Aim to Stimulate New Ideas

Let’s try an easy problem: “my website doesn’t work”.  In real life, the problem is likely to be more specific but this is just an illustration.  If there is a technical solution, this is easy to resolve but what happens if technically the website works?

Does the customer understand how it works?  Again easy to resolve if the answer is “no”.   But if “yes”, what next?  What if the reason it doesn’t work is elsewhere?  Maybe the website does not meet the organisation’s needs?  Why would that be?  Perhaps it does meet their needs but no-one will take responsibility for it.  Why would that be?

You can see the question moves from technical solutions to deeper questions about organisational culture.  If you are usually approached by clients with intractable problems, then you are more likely to encounter this type of market, at its wits end, unable to find a rational solution because they have lost sight of the cause of the problem.

The Root Cause

Most problems that are not straightforward, cannot be resolved by reference to an instruction book.  What might start as an apparently simple problem may be the gateway to far greater issues.

Finding the root cause may be painful but it can lead to the rapid resolution of a problem and possibly several other apparently unconnected problems.  If something is having a negative effect in one area, the chances are it will in others.  This is one reason so many website designers disappoint, because they are not aware of the reasons why their work so often does not seem successful.  An online solution may be capable of great things but not if the organisation deploying it is not.

If the client trusts you and you can find the space to dig into the problem, it is usually possible to find the root cause.  Once your client sees and understands the root cause, then perhaps you will together find a way to tackle it.  They may need support while they do this, from someone who is not embedded in organisational culture.  If you can’t help them, help them find someone who can.

Can you tell a story of the unearthing of a root cause?

0 Making and Testing Assumptions

Remember the problem in the circuit questionnaire is your clients’ problem.  Your clients make assumptions about it and so shall you!

Your Clients’ Assumptions

Expect your clients to be familiar with the problem and so likely to make assumptions about it.  You will have critical distance and so may be able to help the client name the assumptions they make.

Your clients pay you to challenge their assumptions.  Your role is not to change their mind but to suggest alternative approaches to their problem.  Their task is to consider your questions and consider changing their understanding of their problem in the light of them.

Don’t forget, 90% of problem solving is identifying the right problem.  Once you know what the problem is, you and your client are much more likely to find a solution that works.

Your Assumptions

Your problem is you promote your business as a solution to a particular type of problem.  Then you attract clients who believe they have the same problem.  What happens if you take them on and then discover their problem is an entirely different one?

This is one reason to be familiar with alternative solutions.  Focus on getting the problem clear.  When you have done this, you have completed most of the work.  It is even possible with new clarity, the client will find their own solution.  “Oh, now I see I’ve been approaching this entirely the wrong way!”

So, remember you are a guide.  Of course you need some knowledge of the problem but don’t assume your approach is always the best.  You may need to make a referral but the chances are with clarity about the nature of the problem, you can together adapt your solution to solve the problem.

Don’t underestimate your client.  The chances are they are capable of finding their own solution but in a challenging situation, need support.  They may believe there is a lot at stake and so seek reassurance their approach is the right one.  They want a second opinion; reassurance they have not missed some vital clue.

How to Test Assumptions

This is one reason being stuck can be a good place.  Nothing works.  Your client came to you because they had tried everything they know.  You have gone over their reasoning and suggested a few things.  They try them and they don’t work.

Maybe there’s an assumption you’re both making.  You have two pairs of eyes on the problem.  Go over everything in detail.  Is this true?  What assumptions are we making here?  What other perspectives could we view this from?

Every time you comb over the information, you see more detail.  You both need to allow your subconscious minds to work on it.  Once you’re familiar, take a break.  Sleep on it or go for a walk.

Then return to your data and look for inspiration.  Answers rarely arrive fully worked out.  You might have a small clue that draws your attention to some aspect of the problem.  Trust your instincts, review that area.  An insight from one of you may trigger an idea in the other.

Note the key to this is familiarity with the problem.  So, keep returning to it and with each failure, remember you are learning more.

Finally, use contacts to challenge your assumptions.  If you have a personal coach, they may be able to help.  If not, sharing the problem with others may help (but remember confidentiality).  A last resort may be seeking a specialist.  But most problems can be resolved with application, don’t assume a specialist will have any more luck with the problem.

Your client should be the number 1 expert and with your support, most times they will find a solution.

Are you aware of examples where clarifying the problem has led to a solution?

0 Seeking and Using Alternative Solutions

Most problems have more than one solution.  You can offer several solutions to a problem or you may have a single approach that works for some clients and not others.  Either way it helps to show you are aware of alternative solutions.  And what do you do when nothing works?

This question is step 2 of the Awareness Ladder and here it is important to show prospects you are aware of alternative solutions.  In your publicity, you can discuss alternatives and use them to move your prospects to consideration of your solution, step 3.  For certain prospects, your solution will be the best.

How to Explain Alternative Solutions

There are several ways you can move someone from alternatives to considering your solution.

How Well Known are the Alternative Solutions?

If you are scraping around, seeking arcane approaches to your prospects’ problem, just possibly you don’t need to fill a lot of space explaining about the alternatives.

If there are alternatives, your prospects need to know why they should consider your solution.  For example, many organisations seeking a website will consider a website designer.  Very often they know little about website design and choose perhaps the cheapest.

They need to know the risks when making that choice.  They may be lucky but often a £500 website is a waste of money.  Indeed larger sums of money can be wasted because the prospect is not aware of likely pitfalls or other options.

You could ask and answer questions your prospects are likely to ask or have not thought of asking.  This is an educational approach, you are not simply debunking alternative solutions but helping the prospect understand what they really need.

Some solutions, perhaps including yours, may not be well-known and raise issues  your prospects have not considered.

On Being Stuck

Sometimes no approach, including your own, will work.  Being stuck is not a bad place to be but it needs patience on your part and your client’s.  Maybe you have overlooked some issue that negates your approach. Or maybe you are on the verge of a new insight!

So, your client has tried everything, including your suggestions.  You’ve reviewed everything they tried and as far as you can see they have tried everything with diligence.

The most important thing is patience.  You have two brains working on the problem and one of you is likely to have an insight.

But perhaps not today.  You may need to take a break and allow your subconscious to work on the problem.  Take a break but keep in touch.  If you have a germ of an idea (once referred to as a maggot!) share it!  Communicate insights, however trivial they may seem to be.  You don’t know what might trigger a breakthrough in your mind or the other person’s.

So, celebrate being stuck!  Welcome the opportunity to venture into unexplored territory.

Have you a story of being stuck and making a breakthrough?