Kathryn Binkley:

Today, I've got a question for you. What do you sell? I bet you have several things that you sell and maybe even a few more that you want to sell. But I also bet you're not selling what you think you are. I'll explain later. But first, we recently created a list of daily chores and expectations for our kids. Now you might say, what's an expectation? Well, that's the stuff that they're supposed to do anyway, but they don't because they don't want to. So in addition to helping out around the house with a few chores, we listed the things that they are expected to do, including things like brushing their teeth. Again, why would we even have to write this down? Well, because brushing teeth just isn't something that My 2 kids wanna do, at least not for now.

Kathryn Binkley:

I mean, my 10 year old son couldn't care less about smelling bad. He's definitely not trying to impress any girls. That's for sure. That just grosses him out to even think about it. But I'm sure that's all gonna change when he goes on his 1st date, and it'll be a different story. Now why do I share this? Well, here's a question for you. What do you think Crest is selling? I have a tube right in front of me. And as I'm looking at it, I'm looking at the ingredients, and I'm just curious.

Kathryn Binkley:

Do you think that they're selling the active ingredient, sodium fluoride? Do you think that they're selling this 6.2 ounce tube of paste? I mean, there are a lot of things listed on this 1 tube of toothpaste. But Crest isn't selling toothpaste. They're selling fresh breath and a clean mouth. It says right on the tube, kills millions of bad breath germs, And it talks about the minty, fresh, striped paste. So, again, Crest is selling fresh breath and a clean mouth. And When I went to their website because I wanted to check out their marketing messaging, they talk about how you can breathe confidently. It's so easy to get this wrong in your marketing messaging. It's so easy to create one-sided messaging.

Kathryn Binkley:

That means that you're talking all about you, but your audience doesn't care about you. What do they wanna know? They wanna know what's in it for me. That's the question that they're asking. And what they're really buying is better versions of themselves. They're buying the transformation that you can provide. It's the difference between you saying, Here's what my program can do, or here's what you can do with my program. It sounds similar, but it's so, so different. We're talking about the difference between features and benefits.

Kathryn Binkley:

Features answer the question, what is it? Benefits Answer the question, what does it do? Now a couple episodes ago, I talked all about figuring out what you really want. But now we need to flip that around, and you need to know what your target audience really wants. What does your dream client desire the most? What does your dream client consider to be their biggest challenge or pain point? You've gotta know these answers inside and out in order for your marketing to truly be compelling. If you want them to take action, you first have to get their attention, and you're gonna do that by communicating benefits. So let's again talk about the difference between features and benefits. Features are what it is, benefits, are what it does. Another way to remember the difference is to think about how features tell and benefits sell. So you wanna sell them what they want and then give them what they need.

Kathryn Binkley:

And I don't mean that in a manipulative way. Let's just use the toothpaste example. We need that tube of sodium fluoride to brush our teeth with, but that's not what we want. We want Fresh breath, we want a clean mouth, we want white teeth. So they're gonna sell us what we want and give us what we need to accomplish that. So how do you figure out your features? How do you figure out what you should actually be saying in your marketing messaging? Well, let's start with the features because that's easy. That's what we're used to talking about. So go ahead and list your features.

Kathryn Binkley:

That's the first step. List out everything that you're offering. What does your program include? What are all of the details about your product that someone may need to know. Then go back through each of the features and write down what they do. What does each feature do? What does That mean to your audience? Go ahead and expand on that. Take it to that next step. Then I want you to answer the question, what is the desired transformation that each can provide? This helps you get down not just to benefits, but to the benefits of the benefits. And one way to do that is to add so that to the end of each benefit.

Kathryn Binkley:

So when you come up with an initial benefit, you'll then add so that and add another one. This helps you dive deeper and get to the root or the real benefits that your audience care about versus some surface level benefits because you've gotta be aware of any fake benefits. You need to ask yourself, Do they actually pass the 2 AM test? Now what is the 2 AM test? What is your audience up at night at 2 AM, 3 AM thinking about? I guarantee that none of us are up at night worried about a little bit of extra buildup on our teeth or wondering how we can better protect against cavities. It's just not likely. Most of us are not gonna be thinking about that at 3 AM. But we may wake up in the middle of the night worried about what other people are gonna think about our breath, if we've had problems with bad breath. Right? That's something that really does bother us and that we want to fix. We don't want anyone to catch a whiff of our bad breath.

Kathryn Binkley:

And this ties right in with the next point. So after you think about the desired transformation that each feature can provide, then you wanna think about how that connects to their emotions. So if you have bad breath and someone else is smelling it, all of a sudden, all of these emotions start to come up. You start to worry about what other people are thinking and how you're perceived, and all of this starts to impact how you're feeling. One thing that you need to know is that people buy from emotion and then justify with logic. So leading with the benefits And how that connects to emotions will be so powerful. And then, yes, they're still going to need the details about the features to help them justify the purchase, but that's not going to be what actually grabs their attention up front. That's not going to be what stops them in their tracks and makes them take action.

Kathryn Binkley:

So how do you connect the benefits to emotion? Well, there are a few ways, And I'm gonna start with the most compelling and work my way down. The most compelling is going to be focusing on present pain. What hurts now? What are they struggling with now, and how do they feel about it? After that is future pain, the fear of hurting later if something isn't fixed. Next is present pleasure, what will make them happy right now, And then future pleasure, something that they can't wait for, they're looking forward to. Last and least compelling is curiosity and interest. This is where they feel that something is interesting and say, tell me more. Now people run faster from pain than they do towards pleasure, So you want to start with pain. If there's present pain, that's what you should focus on.

Kathryn Binkley:

That's what you need your messaging to be centered around. If there isn't present pain, then move down the list to future pain and then present pleasure and then future pleasure and then curiosity and interest. Start at the top, and if possible, expose the pain. Amplify the pain as much as possible. And that means Not only talk about how they're struggling now, but what's gonna happen if they do nothing about it. You really want them to Feel into that. What's gonna happen? Then, and only then, share the solution that you provide. Now what is that solution? Earlier when I asked what you're selling, you may have thought you're selling a service, a program, a membership, a product, maybe a course, a book, coaching, or something else.

Kathryn Binkley:

But how would you answer that same question now? This is a game changer, literally. This is the key to selling more. When you know this answer, You're going to stop your dream clients in their tracks. You're going to grab their attention. They're gonna become more interested and want to hear more. That's gonna build desire, and then they're going to be compelled to act. That may mean taking a next step. That may mean purchasing, but they're going to be compelled to take action.

Kathryn Binkley:

So what are you really selling? I'd love to know because I bet it is different than what you started out thinking you're selling. It's almost bedtime here when I'm recording this, and I need to go check on my kids and make sure that they've brushed their teeth. Until next time.