A year ago I was on a discovery/strategy call with a client to discuss creating lead magnets (PDFs, eBooks, Videos, etc.).
I asked him what his company can provide that is valuable for their clients. He replied “nothing”. He added that our business is not really an informational business. These PDFs, eBooks won’t really work for our industry. That’s why nobody does it.
His company builds custom high technology, luxury looking mobile structures used for roadshows – big enough to fit a car inside along with beautiful couches, interior design, and lighting.
He added – “These are high-value products and the sales process happens differently.” By differently he meant – cold outreach, continuous follow-up, multiple meetings that might result in a sale after a few months.
The only other channel was the *drum-roll* evergreen ‘word… of… mouth…’
Digging deeper, I found that most of the business was word-of-mouth. The sales process was hard and long. (t.w.s.s.) But that one sale still leads to generating more word-of-mouth business in the future.
So I asked him what happened in these meetings and sales outreach, I was especially interested in the word-of-mouth folks. “What do you talk about?” – I asked.
He spoke – “Well, Raj… everything! They have no clue about what they want exactly. They just come to us with a vague idea because someone in their business circle did something that worked well. So now we want the same thing. They do know they want a mobile showroom that is slick and feels luxury and high-end. That’s about it”
Talking more, he spoke about what goes into the pre-preparation of a unit, and how decisions are made. I found the entire thing really interesting. But also, if I was a potential client I would love to have this information!
So that is exactly what we did. We made a lead generation landing page + PDF whose title started like this “9 things brands forget when….”. I know. Its cliche. Even he was skeptical.
Truth be told, I was scared. I’m always – when delivering, as I do want it to generate results.
A few days later, leads started to flow in. Of course, part of the magic was that the blog was already receiving traffic to a few blog articles about this specific product that was never utilized.
The blog posts had no offers, lead magnets, etc. Not even a strong call-to-action.
Plus, I love reading email replies about how much these people loved the PDF. Which according to him, wasn’t valuable information. But not in the eyes of potential leads.
This isn’t about how I was right and my client was wrong. Rather about show you that we all have blind spots like this.
I love finding gaps like this in the world every day. Our perceptions give us a blind spot about what is valuable for others Vs what is valuable for us.
And hey, I am NOT exempt from this bias. Today morning I received an email from Thrive themes about their latest YouTube video titled – Create Content that Sells Using The Post Product Fit Method.
I kid you not, at the 19th second of the video I was like – “Of course! why do you need an 8-minute video to explain this obvious thing?”
I smiled to myself, looked at the comments and likes. Obviously, it was helpful to a lot of people. I thought about what could be their process (at Thrive Themes) to uncover such gaps and to have such empathy for their users.
I knew the answer too – “Listen more without judgment”. But it is so hard to do in practice. Ugh!
And I blogged about it. Thoughts?
