You see, as you’ve probably heard time and time again, B2B buyers aren’t just buying your services for the fun of that. They’re paying you to solve a problem.

And it turns out the consultant who best communicates the problem, is usually the one who ends up getting picked.

If you focus on what you do, without first explaining why it matters to them, then prospects are going to end up overlooking you.

I actually wrote about picking a problem a while back, but since then I’ve refined how I help the consultants I work with do this, and came up with a neat little framework.

I want to walk you through that, and the step-by-step sequence I recommend.

So without further ado…

The ACHE framework

Did I spend way too long making the acronym apt for what the framework’s about? Yes. Yes I did.

Was it worth it? I’ll let you be the judge.

ACHE is an acronym for four different criteria that I believe you should aim to meet with the problem you end up choosing.

They are:

• Awareness

• Cost

• Hurry

• Exclusivity

Let me explain each in a bit more detail.

Awareness

Your ideal clients should be problem-aware by the time they reach you. It sounds obvious, but if they aren’t actually aware they have a problem, then they aren’t ready to look for and buy a solution.

You don’t go to the doctor for some headache tablets if you don’t have a headache.

Now what I will say is that you can educate them about the problem through your marketing efforts. This is where content becomes key. I often encourage my clients to basically obsess over the problem in their content so that:

a) people start to realise they have the problem, and
b) they associate you with that problem

Which makes you the default choice to solve it.

When you pick a problem, it’s important to pick one that people actually know they have. This is how you meet them where they are.

If, for example, you decided to focus on the problem of “I’m struggling to get new customers”, then clearly that would score highly on awareness. Most people will be facing that struggle.

Cost

To be clear, this isn’t the cost of solving the problem, it’s the cost of NOT solving it. In other words, what happens if they don’t solve this problem? What are the stakes?

If the answer is “nothing much will change”, then the problem probably isn’t worth solving. And so the prospect’s willingness to spend any money, time, or effort on solving it will be low.

Consider this problem: “My site is slow to load”. You could argue that the costs of not fixing this are pretty low. It might be slightly annoying to users, it might impact search rankings slightly. But it probably isn’t too damaging. It’s not a priority.

And so a consultant leading with that as the core problem isn’t going to be very successful.

If, instead, you went with “Customers visit my site but they don’t book a call”, then you’ve now introduced a cost of not solving it. It becomes a much stronger problem statement, despite not being miles away from the slow-loading problem.

How you frame the problem is super important.

Hurry

This goes hand-in-hand with the cost criteria. Except this time it’s about, well, time. The most valuable problems also tend to be the most urgent. Because if a problem doesn’t need to be urgently solved, then it’s not a priority. And so your client’s budget ends up getting spent elsewhere.

There are two main ways to increase the urgency of the problem.

The first is to move further up the order of solutions. What I mean by this is that there's usually a natural order of problems to solve. For example, somebody might have a conversion issue on their website. But they might also have a lack of traffic problem. And getting the traffic is a larger priority because it needs to happen first.

So the further towards the root problem you can go (as long as it’s within your remit and expertise) the more urgent it becomes.

The other way is to introduce some time-based stakes. This could be based on an actual shift that’s coming. For example, a change in legislation or consumer behaviour. It could also be done by clearly outlining how that cost from the previous criteria is happening now, not something that might happen.

An example of this would be “You’re attracting prospects with your LinkedIn content but your profile isn’t making them take the next step”. See how that ramps up the time-pressure? It’s something you need to fix now or else you’re wasting your time with content.

Exclusivity

This is essentially the extent to which you’re the only one solving this problem. Chances are there will always be other solutions out there, but the rarer they are the better for you. It means less competition and a higher probability of owning the problem.

The best way to do this is to get specific.

If you said your chosen problem was “I’m struggling to get leads” then you can see how pretty much any marketing or sales consultant could conceivably claim this as the problem the solve. It’s so generic.

But if you got super specific and became the person to go to when “your Substack is getting read but not sending traffic to your site” then you become one of the only consultants focused on that specific problem.

Obviously you can go too specific, and essentially box yourself in. There’s a balance to be found. But generally speaking most consultants go too vague and top-level, so it probably won’t hurt to go a layer or too deeper and more specific.

How to actually use the ACHE framework

Okay so here’s a recap of the framework:

How do you actually use it?

If I were you, I’d follow these steps:

1 - Mine your previous clients for problems

This first step of “problem mining” is how you make sure any possible problems are based in reality. You do this by trawling through case studies, projects, work, sales calls, content that resonated, and basically everything you’ve done.

And you start pulling out any problems that clients came to you with, or that you helped solve, or even that they’ve simply referenced or spoken about.

This gives you a long-list of potential problems.

2 - Trim down to a problem shortlist

Ideally you want to cut your long-list down to the main three or four problems that you might end up choosing to focus on.

Often a lot of the problems on this list will be similar and overlap. You can consolidate these together. Sometimes you’ll have problems that you don’t really solve anymore and so are less relevant to where your business is heading. You can remove these.

And some of them you might just get a gut feel about. If a problem doesn’t really spark any kind of motivation or passion in you, then it’s probably a non-starter. You have to be a little obsessed about the problem you pick. Just not in a super crazy way.

3 - Score each problem across the ACHE criteria

Here’s where my framework comes in. You should now have three or four frontrunners to pick from. So let’s compare them.

Take each problem at a time and score them out of 10 for each of the four ACHE criteria. This will give you a total out of 40.

At this point there might be a clear winner, or maybe a couple that stand out. You can now start playing around to see if you can either improve them or even validate them with some prospects or clients.

Eventually you can pick one. And you’re done!

BONUS: Try out my interactive ACHE scorer

You can just try to objectively score each problem using my framework. But it can be hard to do this without being biased or assuming. My job when I do this with clients is to be the voice of the buyer and try to provide a more objective perspective.

But if you’re doing this on your own, you could give my ACHE scorer tool a try. You stick in up to three of your problem statements and it will score each one for you.

You can try it here »

As always, thanks for reading. And happy problem picking.

Joe

PS. Don’t forget you can always request a free audit of your offer if you want my unbiased opinion on it. I don’t hold back though! Get it HERE.

Here it is:

The red dots show where the damage was concentrated on planes that made it back during the war. The initial reasoning was that you should reinforce the places marked by the red dots as they were clearly taking more damage.

Except one guy, whose name I can’t really remember or be bothered to look up (just google it jeez), realised that it would be more effective to reinforce the bits of the plane that had NO damage.

Because he reasoned that the planes that took damage there never made it back. And so actually they were the critical points.

I do like this story. It’s a great example of thinking outside the box and seeing things from a different perspective. And it’s a very useful analogy for my next point…

Okay cool. Planes are cool. But what’s this got to do with me?

Well imagine if instead of a plane you had your offer. And instead of red dots meaning damage, red dots meant “why someone bought from you”.

In other words, imagine you reached out to your clients and asked why they chose to work with you.

This is what I see a lot of consultants (and businesses) do. They don’t want to base any decisions on guesswork or assumptions and so they do some customer research. This is well-intentioned, and not entirely incorrect, but it’s also pretty ineffective.

Firstly, people are notoriously bad at explaining their decisions. They post-rationalise. They basically make stuff up. Not because they’re dicks but because they genuinely can’t cast their mind back and put themselves in the shoes of someone who hasn’t worked with you.

You’d be better off asking people who have just this second bought your offer. At least it’s immediate.

But there’s a bigger issue here.

Your logic is to ask: “Why do people buy from me?”

But a better question to ask is “Why did people NOT buy from me?”

Huh. That sounds stupid. Why should I care about them?

It depends I guess. If somebody doesn’t buy from you and isn’t your ideal client, then that’s fine. It’s actually the intended result.

But if a number of your ideal clients aren’t buying from you, then that should be ringing alarm bells. Because it suggests there’s an issue with your offer.

Now in some cases, if you’re lucky, you might be able to speak to some of these prospects who didn’t buy and try to uncover what stopped them. If I was a betting man I’d wager you’d hear things like:

“Oh I just don’t have the budget.”

“Ah well the timing isn’t quite right.”

“My partner said I can’t spend any more money because we’re going to Tenerife.”

Maybe that’s just the whole truth. And there’s not a great deal you can do about it. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a sign that your offer isn’t doing a good enough job.

Maybe they do have the budget but can’t see why they should spend it on you. Maybe the timing is right for solving the problem, but not for working with you to solve it. Maybe their partner doesn’t see how working with you can lead to multiple holidays to Tenerife.

But all of this misses the bigger point:

There’s likely a large number of prospects who you NEVER HEAR FROM.

Buyers like to do their own research, self-serve, gather all the info they need before ever reaching out to a vendor. Which means a lot of potential clients are probably looking at your website, your LinkedIn profile, your content, etc and assessing whether you’re the right solution for them. WITHOUT. YOU. KNOWING.

I can’t emphasise this enough. These people are like ghosts. You’ll never know that you were being assessed (and promptly dismissed) by them.

If your pipeline is looking quiet, it might not be a lack of visibility, it might be a lack of interest.

That sucks, but it’s actually good news. Because you can fix that by fixing your offer. And if you still hear nothing, then maybe you need to ramp up your marketing efforts.

But the key to doing this is the mindset shift from:

“Why do people buy from me?” to “Why are people NOT buying from me?”

You have to try and put yourself in their ghostly shoes and see if you can figure out what’s going wrong. What’s not clear about your offer? Are you solving the right problem? Are you even targeting the right people?

If you can do that, then you can start making the right improvements.

And if that sounds tricky, that’s exactly why I help consultants do this. I can be the external pair of eyes for when you’re too close to your own stuff. I can champion those unseen prospects and see things from their point of view.

If you want me to do that, you can book a free audit and I’ll tell you just how buyable (or unbuyable) your offer is.

Otherwise, thanks for reading.

Until next time,
Joe

I mean, I’m just naturally a pretty sceptical guy, but I don’t think it takes a conspiracy nutjob to realise that there’s something at least a little fishy there.

It’s like someone knocking on your door saying “hey pal, there’s a strong wind coming and it’s probably going to blow your roof off, so you should pay us to reinforce it” and then you look down the road and the same roofing company are stood there with a massive fan blowing wind at people’s houses.

But hey, maybe I’m just a non-believer.

What I do believe is that AI is here to stay. Is it overhyped? Probably. Does that even matter when it comes to your consulting business? Possibly not. Here’s what I mean…

What AI can do doesn’t matter.
What people THINK it can do matters.

For example, whether sticking a stone egg into your vagina can or can’t give you more control over your hormones (it can’t) doesn’t matter. What matters is whether people think it can (they did) and that’s why Gwyneth Paltrow can literally forget movies she’s been in and actors she’s worked with. Because who cares when you’re selling stone vagina eggs for $65 a pop.

Now, clearly there’s at least a little more substance to AI. But the key thing to consider is the PERCEPTION of AI.

Because whilst you, a skilled expert in your field, might accurately surmise that AI can NOT replace you, that doesn’t actually matter if your target clients think it can. And this leads to a double frustration on your part.

First the financial hit when clients decide to DIY it with AI. And second the anger at how stupid they are for doing that in the first place.

So you see, even if you’re sceptical of AI taking over everyone’s jobs (like I am), that doesn’t actually matter. What matters is whether your prospects see it that way.

And unfortunately a lot of them don’t.

So what can you do?

The key lies in packaging your VALUE.
Not just packaging your services.

A lot of consultants I work with have usually tried to package up what they do. That’s great! But they often make the same mistake. They focus on what they do. They might take their services and put them in a box, give it a nice name, maybe even stick a price on there (woo price transparency!) and voila, you’ve got yourself a packaged-up offer.

Except you haven’t really.

Imagine you got a parcel delivered to you in a very plain boring cardboard box. A little confused, you open it to find a beautiful shiny smooth stone egg. But you know nothing of Goop. Of Gwyneth. Of vagina eggs. And so this feels like a very confusing thing to receive. You don’t see the point.

Now imagine you knew all about the value of vagina eggs and hormonal balance. And that cardboard box arrives. You rip it open to find the egg in all its glory. And it’s a matter of minutes before you’re sliding that up in there. (Is this the grossest sentence I’ve written in a newsletter? It might well be…)

My point is this: both of these packages are the same thing. But the way they’re framed is what makes one valuable compared to the other.

So it is with your offer.

Packaging up your services and focusing on WHAT YOU DO is a good start, for sure. But it’s not enough to make people interested. And not only that, but when you only talk about actions and deliverables, then you’re inviting a direct comparison with other ways of doing those things. Other ways such as… AI. That’s right. It’s all coming together now.

When you focus on what you do, prospects are more likely to compare you to AI.

“Oh you write blog posts? AI can do that.”

“Oh you design logos?” AI can do that.”

You see?

Which is why you need to package your value. In other words, focus on WHAT THEY GET, not what you do.

(Disclaimer: you need to do both ideally, but one is way more helpful when it comes to beating AI.)

You do that by focusing on the first two D’s of my Buyability Framework.

To make your offer more desired, you need to really hammer home the problem you’re solving for them, and the pains of not solving that problem.

To make your offer more different, you need to bring in your own IP or approach or perspective. Something that suggests you’re bringing a new way to the table.

And here’s why…

When someone is thinking about using AI, they’re already at the “solution-aware” stage. They know (or think they know) exactly what they need. And so they end up looking for the cheapest/fastest/easiest way of doing it.

And in that instance you have no chance against AI.

But if you focus further up the buyer journey - at the symptom-aware stage - then you’re talking to people who aren’t even sure what they need yet. And so they aren’t even thinking about how to do it with AI. They’re trying to figure out what the bloody hell they need.

That gives you a window of opportunity to get in ahead of AI, showcase your expertise, and become their go-to person for the problem you solve.

That’s how you survive the AI-pocalypse. Not by competing head to head against it, but by outflanking it and getting to people before it does.

Either that or crush it with a big hydraulic press, Terminator-style. Your choice.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

PS. If you’re still concerned about AI, why not book a power hour and discuss it with me. We can come up with a plan of action together.

Those two decisions are:

1 — Their ICP
2 — The problem they solve

IMO if you can make those two decisions, the rest of your offer starts to fall into place pretty nicely. The trouble is, these two decisions are usually the hardest to make. And today I want to talk about the first one: your ICP.

If I had a pound for every consultant who tells me they already know their ICP and it turns out they don’t, well I’d probably be writing this from my yacht.

So this is an important topic to read about, even if you’re currently rolling your eyes and thinking…

But Joe, I already know who my ICP is…

Because I’m here to tell you that chances are, unless you’re in the top 1% of consultants, you probably don’t.

Most people I speak to will tell me their ICP based purely on firmographics.

Things like:

• Industry

• Headcount

• Revenue

• Company size

• Location

And so you get consultants saying things like:

“I’m the SEO consultant for tech startups doing 1m plus revenue.”

“I’m the messaging strategist for dentists based in India.”

“I’m the events planning expert for construction companies with exactly 152 people.”

Now obviously I’m exaggerating here for effect. It’s called hyperbole. Go read a book, jeez. But my point is that this is not a useful ICP.

Because that SEO consultant might message two founders that fit the bill and discover that one is ready to go right away and the other doesn’t want SEO.

But they’re the same ICP? Shouldn’t both want SEO?

That messaging strategist might find that some dentists don’t even have a website, while others desperately need their help.

But they’re the same ICP? Shouldn’t they both need the same thing?

And that events planning expert, well to be honest they’re probably screwed.

But isn’t this just following the advice to niche down?

“Just niche down” might be one of the most-followed bad pieces of advice in the marketing world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a well-meaning phrase. And it’s not entirely incorrect. But it’s a massive oversimplification. Which means people blindly following it are going find themselves in a worse position.

Most people see “just niche down” and read it as “pick an industry to specialise in”. Which is how you end up with those kinds of awful ICP examples I gave above.

The reason is this: the easiest niche to choose is one you can instantly see or visualise. And those surface-level firmographics are easy to see. You can use them as filters on LinkedIn or Clay or whatever the hell the hot new martech tool is. They’re obvious. And obviously that’s why they don’t work.

It’s why I call these SHALLOW ATTRIBUTES.

They’re the fish that lurk just under the surface so you can easily see them and catch them. The problem is, if you can see them, so can everyone else. And so you end up fishing in the same pond as all the other consultants and service providers.

Oh, and the tastier fish? They’re hiding deeper down in the murky depths.

That’s one analogy anyway. Another one is this iceberg. Or ICP-berg if you will.

Okay, so those bottom attributes are better?

Yep! I call those the SUBMERGED ATTRIBUTES because I like to give things a name and this one sounds cool.

These are things like:

• Job role

• Situational context

• Buyer awareness

• Industry shifts

• Trigger events

• Company culture

• Company hierarchy

• Jobs to be done (JTBD)

(The ones in bold are arguably the most important ones to focus on when it comes to choosing your ICP and then framing your offer.)

There are two main reasons these submerged attributes are better…

A) They actually influence buyer behaviour

As I explained earlier, two prospects being in the same industry doesn’t mean both need your solution. But if you take two prospects with the same JTBD or the same trigger event or the same situational context, then chances are they both need your solution.

In other words, these submerged attributes are a much more accurate indicator of whether somebody is in the market for your offer.

B) They don’t needlessly narrow your market

If you pick an industry and go all-in, then you’re obviously limited to that industry. In that example I shared, that poor messaging strategist is now doomed to work with dentists in India their whole career. Or will have to do some painful repositioning work in the future.

But if you pick a JTBD as your focus, then that might exist across industries, across company sizes, across locations. You’re focusing but without needlessly narrowing. Of course, after you pick some submerged attributes, you can still use shallow ones to pad out your ICP if you actually want that focus. But you aren’t constrained by it in the same way.

Okay, so how do I actually use this?

When it comes to picking your ICP, here’s the stages I’d go through…

1 - Look at your best work

List out all of the clients and projects where you believe you did the best work, where you were paid well for it, and where everyone was happiest.

Now instead of looking for similarities in terms of shallow attributes, look deeper. What did these best-fit clients have in common in terms of JTBD, or the reasons for coming to you, or their awareness of what you actually do?

Then pull these commonalities out and you’ve started crafting your ICP.

2 - Formalise your choice

At this point you might have several characteristics flying around. You need to choose 2 or 3. And at least one of them should be one of the ones I bolded in the list above.

This gives you the core ICP.

3 - Add any extra layers

At this point, if you want to, you can bring in some of the shallow attributes to help you segment your marketing. But this is optional, and only if you want to help focus your messaging and offer.

Here’s a shallow ICP vs submerged ICP to show you the difference:

Shallow = “I work with tech startups doing 1m plus annual revenue.”

Submerged = “I work with tech startups who have just raised series A and are now looking to refresh their brand.”

As always, thanks for reading!

Oh, and I’ve just launched a power hour offer. You can book a 1-hour session with me and we’ll try to solve your biggest offer obstacles together. We could even try to nail down your ICP! You can book that here.

Thanks,
Joe

Well Bugs, it turns out a whole lot is up with the doc. The offer doc, that is.

One of the most important steps I go through with clients on my Buyability Blueprint program is validation. It’s where we take v1 of the offer we’ve built together and get it front of actual clients and prospects to see what they think.

This is important because it:

a) tells us what’s clear and unclear about their offer

b) tells us which bits of messaging resonates or doesn’t

c) tells us if anyone actually wants this thing

But it feels like overkill to design a proper website or landing page for these purposes. And not everyone will agree to an actual call. So it’s tricky to get feedback. It’s also harder to iterate and tweak things as that feedback comes in.

Enter the OFFER DOC.

A simple google doc (other platforms are available) where you outline the offer in a way that lets people instantly understand what it is, why they need it, and how it works.

In other words, the offer becomes the doc. The offer IS the doc.

Okay sounds cool, how does it work?

After writing these offer docs for dozens of clients, I’ve learnt the most effective way of communicating them. Ultimately, the offer doc is making an argument in favour of your offer. And like any good argument it needs a solid structure. It needs to flow logically from one point to the next.

The main sections covered in the offer doc are:

→ Hero
→ Symptoms
→ Problem
→ Solution
→ Process
→ Proof
→ FAQ
→ CTA

Maybe that sounds like a lot but each one is designed to propel the prospect to the next one.

Let’s break down each section at a time…

The HERO section

Despite being the first section somebody reads, it’s usually the last section I write. Why? Because this is a crystal-clear summation of your messaging. Your offer in a couple of sentences. So not only is it the most important bit to get right, but it’s also massively influenced by what comes after.

In the header, you want to either confront the main problem you solve or outline the main outcome you deliver. That choice really depends on who you’re talking to, what motivates them more, and which is more interesting to talk about.

Underneath that header is a couple of sentences that essentially lay out the crux of your offer. The pain you relieve, the main gist of the offer. So that even if they read nothing else they at least have a general idea of what this is.

That’s why it’s best to write this bit last. Because once you write the other sections you’ll know the most important things to include up here.

The SYMPTOMS section

A lot of consultants make the mistake of jumping straight in at the deep end and talking about their offer. But doing that misses arguably the most important part: how your offer is framed.

What I mean by that is out of the 3 D’s of buyability (desired, different, decisive) two of those are focused more on how you set up the offer to show people need it, than they are the offer itself.

If you can’t first convince someone they need what you’re offering, then the specifics of that offer are dead on arrival.

So we start the framing process by talking about the symptoms. In other words, what are your target clients currently experiencing that you’re going to fix for them? This means they’ll instantly recognise themselves as being in the exact situation you’re here to help them with.

Which leads nicely to…

The PROBLEM section

… then you can introduce the underlying problem. Explain exactly why they’re experiencing those symptoms. That’s how you take ownership of their situation. By putting words to it. By explaining how they got into this mess.

But don’t blame them! That’s just going to make them defensive. Instead, blame the old way of solving this problem. That might be another service provider. It might be outdated advice. It might be that DIY isn’t cutting it anymore. The idea is to make out that what used to work might no longer be working. It’s not their fault, it’s just what happens.

This also has the added advantage of covering off the second D (different). Because you’re now directly contrasting your solution with this old solution.

Which leads nicely to…

The SOLUTION section

… where you can now explain how you’re going to solve this pesky problem once and for all. Because now you’ve earned the right to talk about you and your offer. You’ve framed it nicely by explaining the symptoms and problem, so now you can introduce your solution.

You need to do two things in this section. Firstly, you need to actually make sure you explain what you’re proposing to do. Don’t be too clever about this. Just say it as it is. If you’re going to optimise their landing page, then say that.

Secondly, you need to contrast this solution with the default solution. In the previous section you should have explained the limitation of the old way and how that’s actually making the problem worse. Now you can show how your solution overcomes those limitations and provides the actual relief from the problem.

Which leads nicely to…

The PROCESS section

… in which you can finally get all of the technical details of your offer off your chest. Because I know you’ve been dying to.

This could also be called an APPROACH section or HOW IT WORKS. Basically, it’s laying out exactly what to expect from your offer. A step-by-step breakdown of your process, the selling points of your approach, the deliverables they get, the timeline, what kind of engagement (sprint, program, retainer, etc) this actually is.

All of the details a prospect will need to know go into this section.

And it culminates in what I like to call an OFFER BOX because I apparently lack an imagination. It’s a portioned off box that literally sums up the offer. Give it a name. Add a sentence to sum it up. Add a list of what’s included. And then show the price. Simple.

Which leads nicely to…

The PROOF section

… where you can follow up the details and price with some evidence that you can actually deliver. This is important because there might well be a bit of sticker shock once you show your price. And so some well-placed testimonials or results here can help alleviate that.

Make sure any testimonials are directly linked to the problem you solve and not just generic crap like “Joe did a good job.”

And try to make sure the testimonials are from people like your target clients. There’s no use telling a big tech client you can solve their problem if the only other time you’ve solved it is for a local pet food brand.

And then we come to the penultimate section…

The FAQ section

… which is actually really important. The FAQ is one of the most read sections of a landing page, and with good reason, because it’s often where you can instantly get the answers you need.

Think about any objections or concerns or details you’ve missed so far, and stick them in here. It means you can just answer their questions without having to be too slick or clever with your words.

Before we end up at…

The CTA section

… which was inevitable really. This is where you reiterate the problem you solve and/or the main outcome you help them achieve. And then clearly explain the next steps they take if they’re interested. Maybe they book a call. Maybe they fill in an application form. Maybe they just pay. Whatever it is, make that clear and provide a link so they can do it.

And we’re done.

Hold on, isn’t this like a landing page layout?

It is. By design. Because this offer doc is essentially a work-in-progress landing page. And once you’ve tested, tweaked, and validated it, you can then transplant the messaging across onto your site as an actual landing page if you’d prefer. (And I recommend you do.)

Oh, and before you go… I have a bonus gift for you.

It’s a google doc that has the template I just walked through there for you to use. It also has an example offer doc for my own offer so you can see how it all comes together.

You can grab it using the button below…

GET THE TEMPLATE

Enjoy!

Today I want to talk about pricing and transparency. More specifically I want to talk about pricing transparency.

I know, I know. Yawnfest right?

But whilst this email will focus on pricing transparency, it does also get at a deeper issue around a startling lack of transparency when it comes to how consultants sell their services.

Because here’s the headline news for this email:

69% of buyers cited “lack of transparent pricing” as the most frustrating thing about B2B buying. (Source)

Ouch.

That means there’s a serious disconnect going on between how people want to buy, and how people are selling to them.

This buyer-seller divide is at the core of my buyability philosophy. It’s a big problem. Because it means consultants like you are being given outdated advice. And “hide your prices” might be one of the most damaging myths out there.

But all the sales bros tell me I should save my pricing for the call.

They sure do. But that’s because they’re thinking about this from the seller’s perspective. And that can only get you so far. What you need to do is think about this from the buyer’s perspective.

Sellers seem to think that when a buyer lands on a site and sees no mention of pricing that they’ll think something like:

“Ooh no pricing. How sexy and mysterious. I love how they’re playing hard to get. I want them to marry me.”

But the reality is that a buyer will see no pricing and think:

“Hmm no pricing. It might be too expensive for me. Or maybe they’ll try to squeeze as much money from me as they can. Sounds awkward.”

And in a lot of cases that buyer is going to leave without ever reaching out to you. Especially if other potential vendors ARE communicating their pricing. Did somebody say competitive advantage?

This is the opportunity cost of hiding your pricing that a lot of consultants don’t recognise. Because it’s invisible. You don’t see the potential clients who land on your site, don’t see pricing, and then leave as a result. And because you can’t see them you assume it’s not happening.

But in my experience it absolutely is happening. A silent majority of prospects are never reaching out because you’re hiding your pricing.

But I can’t publish my pricing because prospects won’t get the value until they speak to me.

If that’s the case, then you’re essentially gatekeeping your brilliance. A lot of consultants do this. They hide their expertise away in the hopes that someone will book a call and then they can bamboozle them with ideas and strategy and genius.

But what ends up happening is nobody books a call. Or if they do, that bamboozling only serves to confuse them further. You come across like a mad person.

So what if instead of saving all those great ideas for the call, you put them out there in the form of content? What if you started showing your expertise for all to see?

Well if you did that I think you’d find way more people willing to get on a call with you. And then rather than an opportunity for you to desperately convince them you’re a genius, that call can be used to actually listen to their situation and decide if you’re a good fit to help them.

It’s absolutely true that transparent pricing only works if you can clearly communicate the value and justify that price. But that’s not a reason to hide your pricing. It’s an excuse. Because if you aren’t able to clearly communicate the value, then you need to figure out how to.

That’s why I always insist that my clients include a clear “problem section” on their site or landing page. That’s the section where you really ramp up the pains your prospects are facing and show why that price you’ve stated is worth it.

But I can’t publish my pricing because my offer changes from client to client.

Again, this is an excuse, not a reason. Because your offer shouldn’t be changing from client to client. At least not massively.

If there’s such a big difference each time then you’re basically building a new business every time you find a prospect. And that’s just adding unnecessary work and stress to your table.

This email isn’t about the multiple reasons for having a standardised offer so I won’t go into it here. But one of those reasons is that it enables you to actually publish your pricing.

Now look, in the event that you’ve almost standardised but there’s still a bit of leeway with deliverables or process, then here’s what you do instead…

You give a range. Something like “Pricing ranges from £5,000 to £8,000 depending on project complexity.”

Make sure you actually give a reason behind the range. Otherwise you just leave them guessing.

Alternatively, you can have a “Starting from £5,000” price. Again, be clear on why it might end up costing more.

Ultimately though, the tighter you package up what you do, the easier it is to communicate the value, scope, and therefore pricing.

But I can’t publish my pricing because I have multiple target clients.

Okay I want to be very clear on this… Every target client profile you have is essentially adding another business for you to market and sell to.

For large businesses with a dedicated marketing team and multiple sales reps that’s fine. Encouraged, even. But for consultants - who let’s face it are already spread too thin anyway - this is a surefire way of failing.

It’s like trying to run in two directions at once. You just end up exactly where you started except you’re also tired.

So I beg you to focus in on one core ICP. I BEG YOU.

That being said, if you do have multiple target clients (or there’s a bit of a spectrum - on size for example) then it might be tough to have one fixed price. In which case, I recommend using the range or starting prices that I explained in the section above.

The guys at Fletch do this well - clearly explaining the different pricing tiers aimed at different sizes of client.

So what you’re saying is everyone SHOULD publish pricing, but you have to EARN the right?

Actually yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Transparent pricing is the gold standard. I genuinely believe every business should have some form of clear pricing for anyone to see.

But to do that you have to get some other things right.

You have to clearly show the value of what you’re selling so that the price becomes justified in your buyer’s eyes.

You have to have standardised your offer as much as possible so that any changes are so minor that they barely impact the price.

And you have to focus on one clear target client so that budget is pretty much consistent across each prospect and the price therefore makes sense.

Here’s a handy flowchart to help you figure all this stuff out:

As always thanks for reading! If you have any pricing questions then I’m all ears.

Until next time,
Joe

But some blocks are bad. And those are the kind I want to talk about today.

One of the underlying reasons for creating my buyability framework like I did was because after years of working with agencies I found three main reasons that attracting and convincing clients was an uphill battle.

And as it happens each of the three layers of buyability is designed to overcome each of those three buyer blockers.

But first…

Here’s why it makes more sense to think in terms of buyer blockers…

Most sales advice is seller-centric. That makes sense because more often it’s easier to focus on yourself and what you can do to fix a situation.

But it also misses the point. The point being: you aren’t buying your offer.

And so if you aren’t seeing things from your buyer’s perspective, then you’re probably withholding crucial information or detail from them without even realising. You’re probably putting them off before you even become acutely aware of their existence.

In short, a seller-centric approach is bad for business.

Which is why buyability exists. Because it helps to shift perspective and start seeing things from the buyer’s point of view. Because that buyer-centric approach is what takes you from sales slog to go-to expert.

And when you look at your offer from your buyer’s perspective, you’ll realise they have three major objections they need to get past.

(There are obviously some more minor, more specific objections as well but that’s not the point of this newsletter.)

Okay okay, so what are these three objections?

It might make more sense for me to pose them as questions. Questions that left unanswered severely decrease the chances of them ever reaching out to you.

The questions - or buyer blockers - are:

1 - Do I actually NEED this?
2 - Why should I CHOOSE this?
3 - Is there enough DETAIL to say yes?

And the more astute amongst you might realise that those three things map very nicely to the three layers of buyability…

1 - Do I actually NEED this? —> Desired
2 - Why should I CHOOSE this? —> Different
3 - Is there enough DETAIL to say yes? —> Decisive

It’s almost like I’ve thought this through.

Let’s take it one a time…

1 - Do I actually NEED this?

This is usually the first hurdle to leap over. If a buyer can’t even see why they need your solution, then they’re never going to buy it. They won’t even care to learn more.

And yet one of the most common issues I see with agency and consultant sites is jumping straight in with the service-slapping. Giving a long list of different services and offers as if that’s all they need to do to convince a buyer to get in touch.

But let’s look at it through the buyer’s perspective.

A buyer is only looking for a solution if they need something solving.

That sounds obvious but a lot of people overlook this. Nobody is buying SEO because they just love SEO so much. They’re buying it because they aren’t getting enough traffic. Nobody is buying project management because they’re nerdy about Asana. They’re buying it because they’re drowning in to-do lists and tasks.

In other words, as much as you care about your solutions, your buyers care more about their problems.

So if you want your offer to be desired - and overcome this blocker - you need to show them exactly why it’s needed.

Which means starting with the symptoms and pains your buyer is feeling. This builds rapport, gets them nodding along in agreement, and shows you understand their situation.

Then introduce the underlying problem that you’ve diagnosed (and that your solution will fix). This is how you start to convince them that you’re the expert here. But more importantly, it helps them realise they need this problem solving. And they need it solving NOW.

They go from “hmm well maybe we could use some SEO help” to “if we don’t get SEO help then we may as well pack in the whole business”.

2 - Why should I CHOOSE this?

Now that your buyer knows that they desperately need your solution, there’s still another obstacle.

Because now they’re solution-aware but not necessarily vendor-aware. In other words they know they need SEO, but they don’t know who they should choose to do it. After all, most solutions aren’t the ONLY solution to that problem.

For example, they might think they can do SEO themselves in-house. They might think they could just hire a marketer to do it in-house. They might think AI can do it. They might know they want an agency but don’t know which one to pick.

There are often dozens of potential options they can take.

Your job is to contrast the default way of solving their problem with your way of solving their problem.

Imagine the buyer is at a fork in the road and they don’t know which fork to take. You have to show why one fork isn’t going to get them where they need to go, and why the other fork (your fork) will.

This is how you get past the table-stakes differentiation claims like “we care more” or “we focus on results” or “we’re nice people I promise”.

3 - Is there enough DETAIL to say yes?

Okay so your buyer now a) knows they need to solve this problem and b) would really prefer you to solve it for them. So that’s it then, right?

Wrong.

Because there’s still inherent risk attached to going with your solution.

Remember the whole “nobody gets fired for hiring IBM” thing? Well even if IBM isn’t the default choice anymore, there’s still going to be a safer option for your buyer. Maybe it’s doing nothing and burying their head in the sand. Maybe it’s just going with the same old approach because “hey it must work for everyone else”.

But more often than not, the final hurdle is simply this: there are still too many unknowns.

If your buyer doesn’t know all the details, then they’re less likely to reach out. That’s just a fact. Especially in today’s era of self-serve buyer journeys. Maybe ten years ago buyers were more willing to book a call and chat to you about how you can help. But those days are ending fast. A new generation of buyers is here and they will absolutely NOT want to do that.

Today’s buyers want as much information as humanly possible ahead of making any decision to talk to you.

Let me repeat that because it’s important…

Your buyer wants all the information BEFORE they speak to you.

I’m talking about the process, the deliverables, what’s included, what’s not included, how much time it takes, how much time they need to spend, and of course the big one: how much will this cost?

The more of this stuff you can communicate, the more likely they are to go ahead and chat to you. And not just that but chat to you with that all-important purchase decision practically made already.

Cool I get it. I need to address those buyer blockers or it’s game over.

Basically yeah.

Here’s a neat little visual summary for you:

Remember - if you have any questions about the stuff in this newsletter I’m all ears. Just reply to this email and I’ll get back to you.

Thanks,
Joe

PS. I’m launching a new content series on LinkedIn where I publicly ROAST people’s offers. In exchange, any roastees have a chance of winning a 1:1 session with me. If you’re interested in being publicly humiliated then let me know.

Suddenly, the man jumped up, grabbed the laptop, and darted out the door.

Sat smugly at home an hour later, the company called him up and asked if he could return the laptop.

“$500 and it’s yours,” he replied with a devilish grin I imagine looked a little like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

Regardless of whether that actually happened, I think we can all see the lesson there… Namely, that if you want somebody to buy something from you, you have to make sure they actually need it.

In the interview room, the employer didn’t “need” the laptop. It was already there in their possession. And so any attempt to sell it to them would be met with resistance. But by engineering a scenario in which the employed actually did need the laptop, it became a whole lot easier to sell.

Cool story bro. What’s that got to do with me?

I’ve spent over five years working with agencies and consultants on positioning, messaging, and now their offer creation. Which means I’ve seen a LOT of agency websites. Way over 100 in fact.

And the common mistake that virtually all of them make?

They dive straight into explaining what they do. They just provide this long laundry list of services and offers and products and it all goes over a buyer’s head. Because what they haven’t done is what they guy in that story implicitly knew they should:

They haven’t engineered the need.

Now, I’m not for one minute suggesting that you should steal something from a potential client in order to sell it back to them. Not only is that wildly impractical but it also probably ends in you going to court.

Bringing a whole new meaning to “courting a client”.

But what you can do is clearly outline the context around your offer. It’s one thing to neatly package up what you do so it’s easier to buy. It’s a whole other thing to explain why potential clients actually need it.

Hm I see. How do I provide that context?

Well luckily I have a framework for that…

There are two main things to notice about this framework:

1 - There are two sets of needs, a functional one and an emotional one. (I’ll get to that later.)

2 - There is a clear four-step sequence that starts with the buyer and joins the dots towards what they actually need.

I’ll say it again because it’s important: STARTS WITH THE BUYER.

Most agencies and consultants approach this kind of work by reverse-engineering what they already offer. And that doesn’t work. I mean sure there’s an outside chance that you already accidentally built your offer around a specific set of needs. But more likely you built the offer because you wanted to sell a certain service.

So this exercise relies on you being clear on who you’re best suited to help. If you don’t know that yet, then I’d recommend going and figuring that out first.

But once you do know that, you need to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself:

What symptoms are they facing?

If you were to jump straight into the diagnosis of a problem, you’d probably confuse and lose your buyers. Because they aren’t the subject-matter experts. You are. And so while it might be obvious to you that your target clients have a certain problem, it’s not always obvious to them.

In the diagram above I’ve included an example for my own consulting business. If I jumped straight to the problem and said “your offer’s hard to buy” then maybe some people would get it. But a lot probably wouldn’t. Because they hadn’t yet realised that was their problem.

Instead, it makes more sense to start with the symptoms. These are things that your buyer is actually facing and trying to deal with. Good symptoms are tangible, they’re measurable, or they can be acutely felt.

They’re also specific. It might be true that a symptom is “we’re not growing fast enough” but that could be caused by any number of things. Instead you should look a level deeper at specific obstacles that they’re facing.

Then you can ask yourself:

What’s the root problem?

Much like a doctor uses symptoms to diagnose an illness, your job is to take those symptoms and show potential buyers how those symptoms are actually causes by an underlying problem.

You outline the symptoms first to build rapport and show you understand their situation. It also acts as a good way of filtering out bad-fit clients. If they don’t have the symptoms they aren’t ready to buy your solution.

This root problem should then become your total obsession. I’ve written before about picking a problem and how it’s arguably the most important decision to make when it comes to packaging up and creating your offer.

And once you pick your problem, ask yourself:

What’s the actual need?

And so we reach the end goal… establishing the need.

Now logically speaking, once a buyer understands and acknowledges the problem, it stands to reason that their need is to solve that problem.

But that feels a little too simplistic in my opinion.

And so when I do this with clients, I encourage them to reframe the need as: “What does your buyer need to do or have in order to solve that problem?”

In my example, the problem is “the offer is hard to buy” and so what they need is “an offer that practically sells itself”.

If I can convince the buyer that’s what they need, then (and ONLY then) I can start to explain exactly how I can help them fulfil that need.

Right, but what about the two different needs?

Okay, so when you’re an agency or consultant chances are you’re selling a B2B offer. And a B2B offer is interesting because it’s aimed at two different target clients: the company and the individual at that company.

Now in some cases they’re the same. For example, I work with solo consultants. So they’re both the company and the individual. But it still helps to separate them as an business entity and person for reason I’ll outline now.

Businesses have functional needs

A business, by definition, can’t feel anything. The people in the business can, but the business itself is really just a legal entity. It’s a concept.

But businesses do have needs. Above all, they need to grow (or at least survive). And beneath that is a load of specific needs all geared around ultimately helping them grow.

Things like:

• Improving their conversion rate

• Reducing time spent on internal tasks

• Ranking higher on search

You get the idea.

Agencies and consultants are usually pretty good at talking about these needs. But this is just the surface layer. Because underneath the business needs is a person.

And…

People have emotional needs

This is patently obvious when you actually think about it. Like of course people have emotional needs. But most agencies and consultants ignore the emotional needs of the buyer. And that’s a shame because they’re often the real, hidden driver of purchase decisions.

To refer back to my example above, the businesses I work with usually have trouble convincing clients to sign the dotted line and work with them. The underlying problem is that their offer isn’t buyable. And so they need an offer that sells itself. This is all totally functional.

I could just focus on that, and it might work relatively well. But instead I tap into the emotional need of the founder of those businesses: That they HATE selling.

They do it because they have to, not because they want to. And what they really need on an emotional and human level is to remove themselves from a sales process they hate doing.

This is far more powerful.

But there’s something else to consider:

The two needs are connected

As you can see from the diagram all the way up there (if you can be bothered scrolling) there’s a through-line between the functional need and emotional need.

Solving the functional need will help solve the emotional need. And vice-versa.

This is an important thing to realise because far too often these two needs are treated as separate things. And that’s why makes buyers uncertain.

Because they either just see the business case but aren’t emotionally invested. Or they’re emotionally invested but can’t justify the business case.

Your job is to show buyers how those two things are actually connected. That working with you is going to satisfy BOTH the functional and emotional needs. Because if you can do that then you’re speaking to them on a personal level and a rational, logical level.

Both needs are needed to make that purchase decision a no-brainer.

Phew okay. You’ve reached the end. Hopefully you’ve learnt a few things:

1 - That jumping straight into what you do isn’t useful if buyers lack the context.

2 - That the context is provided by starting with symptoms, diagnosing the problem, and then establishing the needs.

3 - That you need to establish both a functional and emotional need (and link those two needs together).

Thanks for reading,
Joe

PS. If you “need” (hehe) an extra pair of eyes on your current offer, then why not request a free audit. I’ll send over a quick video with some thoughts and feedback.

GET AN AUDIT

That’s often a key debate that agency owners and consultants come to me with. Interestingly, those two types of businesses come to me from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Agency owners are often more likely to be doers. They sell a service focused on execution and delivery. And they come to me concerned that they’re selling a commodity and that AI is going to make delivery obsolete.

Consultants are more likely to be thinkers. They sell a service focused on strategy and ideas. And they come to me concerned that nobody wants to buy “just thinking” and that AI is going to make strategy obsolete.

My solution is this: Don’t pick one or the other. Do both if you can.

In fact, I’ve spoken before about my prediction that the lines between agencies and consultants have become increasingly blurred, and will ultimately disappear altogether in the next 5 years or so.

Now that doesn’t mean you HAVE to do both.

Clients will still pay for doing if you can clearly tie the doing to a painful problem and show that the quality is immensely better than what AI can produce.

Clients will still pay for thinking if you can clearly tie the thinking to a painful problem and show that the quality is immensely better than what AI can produce.

But the real magic lies in combining them together.

And it’s as easy as A C E.

What the hell is ACE?

Usually a playing card. Or an elite fighter pilot. Or a famous video game attorney. (Did anyone else love Phoenix Wright or just me?)

But in this case it’s an acronym:

A-udit
C-onsulting
E-xecution

In other words, it’s a simple flow you can apply to your business to construct something I call an OFFER FUNNEL.

An offer funnel is a series of offers designed to build trust and expand the scope of what you can do in a way that doesn’t just instantly confuse the hell out of your prospects.

You see, a lot of agencies and consultants try to sell all three of these things at once. Because they think more line items equals more value.

The result is a laundry list of different services, different offers, and different packages that ends up confusing prospects and makes you harder to buy from.

But if you can clearly break down your offer (or offers) into these three delivery types, then it makes it clearer for both you and your potential clients to understand.

Let’s take each in turn…

The AUDIT offer…

This is fairly self-explanatory but this is an offer focused on discovery and insight. It’s about looking under the hood of your client’s business, figuring out where they’ve gone wrong, and suggesting some ways of improving it.

It stands to reason, therefore, that this would be the first thing you provide.

You do have a choice here as to whether you charge for this or not. For example, in my offer funnel, I give away 10-minute video audits for free.

This isn’t because it’s not valuable, but because it’s a way of building trust without any large commitment from myself or my client.

Some things to consider:

• If you give this away for free, be careful not to give away the actual solution as well. Make suggestions sure, but keep the “how” for the consulting offer.

• If you charge for this, make sure you’re actually providing real value. A cursory glance at their google ads dashboard might be fine for a freebie, but not for a paid offer.

• If possible, build a face-to-face relationship, either with a call or a video.

The CONSULTING offer…

This is where you provide the actual solution - the “how” - to the problem you’ve promised to help solve. It’ll usually take the form of strategy workshops, team training sessions, or coaching programs. That sort of thing. If your focus is more on the execution side, then this might be where you devise the creative strategy behind those assets and deliverables.

For consultants, this is their bread and butter, their core offer. For agencies, this might be more of a precursor to the main event of delivery and creation.

The big issue I see a lot with agencies is they end up giving this stuff away as part of a pitch or just out of sheer desperation. DON’T DO THIS. Know your value.

Some things to consider:

• Thinking is invisible and intangible, so you have to be super duper clear on what your clients are actually getting here. Spell it out.

• You might add some delivery to this offer as a way to increase the value and tangibility. For example, instead of a strategy deck, you might write their homepage.

The EXECUTION offer…

This comes after you figure out the “how” with the consulting offer. And it’s where you actually deliver assets of some kind for your client. That might be web copy, content, visuals, ad campaigns, websites, logos. Anything that makes sense to offer as part of the solution to the painful problem.

Agencies will already be used to selling this stuff, but for consultants this might be difficult if you don’t feel you have the skillset. To which the answer is… get better, use AI, or bring in a trusted partner to help with delivery.

Some things to consider:

• Within reason the execution can be anything related to the problem you’re solving. But be careful not to just dump a load of possible assets out there. Be intentional with what you deliver.

• If you’ve done the audit and consulting offers, then the trust should be sky-high, meaning you can charge what these assets are actually worth and not just be stuck in a race to the bottom with pricing.

But let’s not forget the most important thing… bringing all your offers together.

There’s no use having these three different types of offer if they all feel separate and distinct from one another. It’s supposed to feel like a cohesive ecosystem of offers, with one leading to the next.

So here are three techniques to bring them all together and make your offer funnel as cohesive and easy to buy as possible…

1 — Focus on a specific problem

I’ve written before about making sure you pick the right problem to solve for your clients. It’s arguably the most important thing to consider when making your offer more buyable.

It’s also a really useful way of tying together your multiple offers.

Consider an agency with the following offer funnel:

Audit - We’ll take a detailed look at your current marketing strategy.

Consulting - We’ll come up with a marketing strategy.

Execution - We’ll do your marketing.

Sure, these are all marketing focused, but they’re so broad that you might as well just say “we do stuff”.

But if that agency became clear on the problem they solve, say “Your content isn’t helping with AI search results” then the offer funnel becomes way more specific and way more coherent:

Audit - We’ll assess your content and where you appear in AI search.

Consulting - We’ll help you create an AI-first content strategy.

Execution - We’ll write the AI-first content for you.

This is way more buyable because each of the offers in the funnel are focused on solving the same specific problem. It makes total sense to move from one to the next.

2 — Leave cliffhangers at the end

Another neat little way of ensuring clients move from one offer to the next is to leave what I call cliffhangers. In the same way a TV cliffhanger leaves the audience wanting more and making sure they tune in to the next episode, an offer cliffhanger keeps your clients wanting more.

You do this by teasing the next offer at the end of the previous one.

At the end of the audit, you might leave some potential strategy options and then make it clear that you can help them choose and develop one as part of your consulting offer.

At the end of the consulting offer, you might provide a list of assets they’ll need to execute on the strategy. You can then work through that list and figure out which they’re going to do, which they’ll need a supplier for, and most importantly which you can help deliver for them. (I do this.)

You’d be amazed how many times someone complains to me that nobody is buying more things from them and it transpires they haven’t actually told the client that they can do more things.

3 — Join them up

Whilst the easiest way to communicate your offers is to keep them separate, there are instances where you might want to join them together. I wouldn’t advise on combining all three together but you might do one of the two options…

Audit + Consulting — You might put together a consulting program where the first step is the audit and then the rest of the program is the consulting part. This is a good way of making sure you’re getting paid for the discovery part of the process.

Consulting + Execution — If your focus is on delivery of assets, then you might kick things off with some strategy work to make sure those assets are right. This is a good way of adding value to what would otherwise be seen as just some delivery work.

So now it’s over to you - time to create your offer funnel.

Hopefully you’ll find the ACE model useful for mapping out your offer funnel and making what you do easier to buy.

If you want an extra pair of eyes on yours feel free to send it over and I’ll take a look.

Thanks,
Joe

You see, it turns out that a lot of agencies and consultants are focused on the wrong thing. They’re trying to sell aspiration. But the reality is we should be selling risk reduction.

And that’s a more important distinction than you might think…

But first, let’s talk about Simon Sinek.

I have a bone to pick with Simon Sinek. His “Start With Why” mantra is undoubtedly a great idea. It’s well-packaged, it’s catchy, it’s simple.

But it’s also not the whole truth.

If you take his idea at face value (and most do) then you’d be forgiven for believing the key to success lies in doing a deep dive into why you started your business and then shouting that from the rooftops like some sort of street preacher.

Only, that doesn’t really work. At least not for a high-ticket, high-consideration B2B service offer.

The harsh truth is that pretty much every B2B buyer is selfish. They’re in it for themselves. And so they should be. They’re the ones potentially making the purchase after all. It has to work for them. It has to work for their organisation.

And so your mission statement - your why - might sound nice on paper but it doesn’t do anything for your buyers.

Unless you clearly explain why they should care.

Perhaps a more accurate (though admittedly less catchy) mantra should be:

”Start with why I should care.”

But this cult obsession with Sinek’s philosophy has led a lot of agencies and consultants down the wrong path.

They focus on their “why”, their manifesto, and so their websites say crap like:

“Reimagining business.”

“We don’t do ads, we do brand amplification.”

“We want to revolutionise innovation itself.”

Even worse are when agencies start spouting on about the founder’s origin story like they’re some sort of messiah. NOBODY CARES.

But isn’t emotion a key driver of decision-making?

Yes and no.

It’s absolutely true that emotions play a big role in our decisions. Yes, even for B2B purchases. But there’s also an element of logical, rational process that goes into most B2B buying journeys.

Unlike a spontaneous Kinder Bueno purchase at my local shop, I’m unlikely to just splurge my hard-earned cash on a new agency without doing some due diligence. I’m still going to compare to other options, explore other avenues, and make sure the agency in question can actually help me.

Ultimately, there’s more money involved (usually), there are more people involved, and there’s more to lose.

Which brings me to my point…

Agencies and consultants are focusing on the wrong emotion.

They’re aiming for aspiration, when they should really be aiming for risk reduction.

Hmm, risk sounds a bit stuffy and boring though. And we’re creative and interesting.

That attitude there is exactly what holds most agencies and consultants back.

Because the fact you’re creating and interesting is EXACTLY why buyers see you as a risk. Because they don’t always understand your creativity. Because a lot of B2B buyers are in an environment where interesting = risky.

Like I said earlier, there are three reasons a B2B buyer wants to minimise risk:

1. There’s more money involved. These are often big purchases.

2. There are more people involved. These are often group decisions.

3. There’s more to lose. Their reputation. The company’s results.

When people used to say “Nobody gets fired for hiring IBM” the point they were making is that your job is safe as long as you go with the safe, established solution.

But chances are your agency is NOT the safe, established solution. You’re probably the new entrant, the smaller fish, the riskier bet. Which means you’re facing an uphill battle to convince buyers to part with their money.

Because people might get fired for hiring you.

And so to be absolutely clear: yes there is emotion involved in B2B buying. But that emotion isn’t aspirational… it’s fear.

Okay okay, so I need to show buyers that we aren’t a risky choice?

Correct.

And here’s how you can do it. (Spoiler: it’s about buyability.)

Firstly, here are the three pillars of buyability:

• DESIRABLE — Is the value clear?

• DIFFERENT — Is it the obvious choice?

• DECISIVE — Is all the info there?

Now it just so happens that this model was designed (in part) to help agencies and consultants reduce the perceived risk of their offer.

And so the key to making your offer less risky is to make sure each of these pillars is covered when you create and communicate your offer.

Let’s take each in turn…

Make it desirable.

This is all about making the value of your offer so clear that your buyer a) understands why they need it and b) really fucking wants it.

To do that, you need to:

• Deliver clear outcomes — otherwise they won’t see any value.

• Solve a specific problem — otherwise they aren’t feeling the pain.

• Speak to an urgent pain — otherwise they’ll keep putting it off.

• Address one specific buyer — otherwise nobody owns the deal.

• Outline a simple process — otherwise they don’t know what they get.

Do those things and your buyers will be way more motivated to get this deal signed and over the line.

Make it different.

This is all about making it clear that you’re the only real option when it comes to solving the problem.

To do that, you need to:

• Show off your ownable IP — otherwise you sound the same as the others.

• Contrast with the old way — otherwise they won’t get the context.

• Innovate on delivery model — otherwise you’re doing the same kind of thing.

• Be clear on what you replace — otherwise they can’t see where you fit.

• Emphasise your superpower — otherwise they won’t see your unique value.

Do those things and your buyers will be more certain that you’re the best option to go with compared to the others.

Make it decisive.

This is all about equipping the buyer with all the details they need to make the purchase decision. And the more you do this upfront the better.

To do that, you need to:

• Be transparent with pricing — otherwise they won’t know how much to budget.

• Clearly define the scope — otherwise they won’t know what they get.

• Set out the timeline — otherwise they don’t know what to expect.

• Help the buyer sell internally — otherwise they’ll hit roadblocks.

• Have defined next steps — otherwise they’ll be uncertain about proceeding.

Do those things and your buyers will be confident that they know everything they need to know (and are ready to sell internally if they need to).

Here’s a handy infographic to summarise:

That’s all from me today. The key takeaway is this:

“Becoming more buyable means reducing the risk.”

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Psst. Hey. Hey you. Yes you. How about you see just how buyable your offer is with my free AI offer analysis tool?

ANALYSE MY OFFER

In my time working with dozens of agencies and consultants do you know what the most successful all have in common?

A complete and total obsession with a particular problem.

When you go on their site you’ll pretty much instantly be confronted with a problem statement that outlines the exact obstacle they remove.

And I’d argue that problem section is the single most important section on your site. Because choosing the right problem means buyers will instantly recognise themselves in what you’re saying. They’ll see that you solve the exact thing they’re struggling with.

If you can do that early on in your marketing and sales assets then you’re already ahead of 99% of service providers.

Because most do NOT do this.

Most go straight into the sales pitch. They list out their services and solutions and trademarked processes and approaches. They talk about their philosophy and team and experience and awards and all that crap.

What they don’t do is give buyers an actual reason to care about any of that stuff.

I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, I’m saying it can’t possibly matter unless you give them the context of the problem first.

By anchoring your offer around the problem it solves, you’re signposting to your ideal clients that they’ve come to the right place and that you know exactly what they’re dealing with.

(Alternatively, it also filters out bad-fit clients who don’t have that problem.)

But choosing the right problem is where a lot of agencies go wrong.

So here’s a simple framework with three criteria that you should try to meet with your chosen problem…

Cool, let’s see the framework then.

Sure, here you go…

As you can see, there are three key characteristics that the most valuable problems share:

URGENT: Is the problem time-sensitive in some way so that buyers need to make a decision quickly?

“You have leaks in your onboarding journey” = NOT URGENT

“The changing compliance laws mean your cookie use is illegal” = URGENT

Now granted, not every problem can have a looming deadline like a legal change or something exciting like that. In which case it’s important you can at least make an argument for why the problem should be solved sooner rather than later. How will things be made worse if they don’t solve it soon?

PAINFUL: Is the problem actually hurting the business in a meaningful way?

“Your content is only being seen by a few people” = NOT PAINFUL

“You’re losing every pitch to competitors” = PAINFUL

This one should be common sense, but it’s surprisingly easy to focus on a problem that just isn’t that painful. More of a headache than a broken leg. If there isn’t a business-critical problem, then you have to at least ramp up the pains of a less intense problem.

SPECIFIC: Is the problem something that an individual at the company can take ownership of and get solved?

“Your business isn’t growing like it should” = NOT SPECIFIC

“Your website isn’t showing up in AI search results” = SPECIFIC

It’s easy to go generic with a problem, after all that’s how you can hedge your bets and go after multiple client profiles and offer all kinds of services. It’s why full-service agencies struggle with this whole problem-finding exercise. But if one person doesn’t own a problem, then nobody does. And nobody isn’t able to buy your offer.

So to pick the right problem, you need a problem that is URGENT, PAINFUL, and SPECIFIC.

Hmm okay, but how do we actually figure out what the potential problems are?

There’s actually a deceptively simple way of doing this.

It’s an exercise I often do during client immersion that I use to come up with potential problems for them to choose. But you can totally do this exercise for your own business too.

Here’s what you’re going to do…

1. Make a list of all of the projects you’ve done over the past 6-12 months.

2. For each project figure out which problem (or problems) you solved.

3. You now have a new list of problems that you’ve literally been solving in recent months.

4. Score each of these problems out of 10 for the three characteristics of URGENT, PAINFUL, and SPECIFIC.

5. Now you can compare the value of each of these problems and identify some frontrunners that score highly across all three.

Told you it was simple.

If you do this exercise and you can’t find any good problems (which is unlikely because that’s basically never happened with a client before) then the alternative is to take a lesser-scoring problem and improve it.

For example, let’s say the best problem on your list was:

“Your company isn’t showing up in AI results and suggestions.”

Now this would score pretty highly on SPECIFIC, average on PAINFUL, and low on URGENT.

Not too bad, but we could make it better. What if we gave some extra context?

“Tomorrow’s customers will shop through AI, but your company isn’t showing up in AI results and suggestions.”

Now with that added context we’ve upped the URGENT score. We’re saying that there’s going to be a shift in consumer behaviour that they need to be ready for. They can’t just put this off.

And finally we can join the dots:

“Tomorrow’s customers will shop through AI, but your company isn’t showing up in AI results and suggestions, so they’re going to end up choosing your competitors instead.”

Now we’ve linked the problem to a clear pain point and upped the PAINFUL score.

Sure it could use some wordsmithing to make it more compelling for potential clients, but the underlying problem is now URGENT, PAINFUL, and SPECIFIC.

So over to you… have a go at this exercise and use the framework to figure out whether you’re solving a problem worth paying for.

And feel free to run your problem by me for some extra feedback.

Until next time,
Joe

They both love silos.

Ba-dum-tish.

No but seriously, pretty much every company I’ve ever worked with has prided themselves on their org chart.

It’s usually stuck up on the wall in a nice ornate frame, large and imposing. Because nothing says “we’re a big grown-up company” like a complicated hierarchy.

And look, in all fairness, I do think there’s a valid reason to have departments. And I’m also aware that departments can (and do) work together very closely. But there’s one cross-departmental divide that’s never made sense to me.

The one between marketing and sales.

Because this is more than a divide. More than a “we live in different offices” vibe. No, more often than not, it’s a full-on hatred of one another. Sales loves to blame marketing for the lack of leads. Marketing loves to blame sales for the lack of conversion.

But all the while the truth is it’s both their faults. Ultimately, both marketing and sales are primarily concerned with increasing revenue. And if that’s not happening, then both their necks should be on the line.

Now, in agencies, that divide is often a lot less pronounced. Up to a certain point, the agency owner will often be the sole marketer and salesperson. They may hire some kind of executional help but for the most part it rests on their shoulders. The “new business” term is essentially designed to bridge that marketing/sales divide.

But we could do better.

Because if we flip this round and look at it from a buyer’s perspective, there are really two stages for their relationship with an agency.

1 → Before they become a client.
2 → After they become a client.

As you can see from his diagram, everything your agency does can be split into these two buckets. And for the purposes of this essay I want to draw your attention to the left-hand circle.

This is where marketing and sales live. Their whole reason for existence is to help the buyer move across to the right-hand circle.

But the key thing to note is this:

From the buyer’s perspective, marketing and sales is the exact same thing. They don’t care about funnels or how you’ve split your CRM into neat little stages.

And so it’s safe to say that the separation of the two makes no sense from the buyer’s point of view.

But you’re probably thinking…

Okay sure, but we need to split them internally!

Do you though?

Like I know people get weirdly obsessed with job titles and all that shit but do you actually need to split them up?

What is splitting them up going to solve? Other than having an extra couple of branches on that big shiny org chart monolith, how does it actually help you?

It’s true that when you dig deeper there are slightly different objectives between marketing and sales. Because naturally they’re dealing with different stages of the buyer journey. But I’d argue that onboarding and offboarding are two different stages of the client relationship - and I’m guessing you don’t have an “onboarding department”.

That internal split usually does more harm than good.

Because it suggests different goals, different metrics, different responsibilities. And that’s how things (often the buyer themselves) fall through the cracks. It’s why teams end up blaming each other instead of taking responsibility themselves.

(As a side note, it’s also why marketing is now relegated to a nice-to-have department. Because it’s lost touch with the actual revenue generation that it’s supposed to be responsible for.)

Look I get it. It’s way easier for marketers to blame their lack of performance on the “closers”. And it’s way nicer for salespeople to blame their lack of performance on “bad-fit leads”. But neither of those things actually helps the business to grow.

The blame game helps nobody.

But all of this is actually pretty irrelevant, because here’s the final nail in the coffin…

If selling is now about buyer enablement, then it becomes the same thing as marketing.

Okay bear with me here. Put that pitchfork down for just a moment.

I’m always throwing out stats to back up what I say about buyer behaviour and preferences changing.

And one I keep on coming back to is this:

61% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience. (Source)

Just let that sink in. The majority of your buyers would rather self-serve their way through the buying journey.

See how that statement is at odds with literally every piece of sales advice?

This is the great seller-buyer divide I spoke about here:

Most sales advice revolves around:

→ reaching out to people
→ building relationships
→ improving your pitch
→ getting people on a call

But all of those things are inherently not rep-free. In fact they’re very much rep-full.

In other words, all that sales advice (that maybe once upon a time was useful) now goes AGAINST how most buyers want to actually buy.

Now let’s list out what they want instead:

→ transparent pricing and scope
→ examples of work and case studies
→ content that explains the problem
→ self-diagnostic tools and quizzes

This is the stuff I’m talking about when I talk about buyer enablement and buyability. It’s the provision of all the information a buyer needs to make that purchase decision.

You need to give them every little thing they need to know BEFORE they speak to you or a salesperson. Before. Not during. Not after. Before.

Hang on a minute though.

Let’s just take another look at that list. Because it looks to me like there’s something a little weird about it.

Hmm. It seems to me like all that stuff I just said was the new way of selling is actually part of marketing’s remit right now.

If marketing does their job well, they tap into the buyer’s demand, give them a load of useful information, and lead them towards the purchase decision. Usually that’s when sales shows up to “always be closing” or “sealing the deal”. But the point is the majority of the work should now be done before that ever happens.

It’s about building trust and getting the buyer 90% of the way to making that decision before they ever reach out (and please note that THEY reach out to YOU, not the other way round).

Wow, so are you saying that selling is dead and salespeople should just give up?

No.

And this brings me full circle to the point of this essay… that marketing and sales should be two parts of the same whole. And that instead of arbitrarily splitting them up, we should combine them.

Call it the “revenue department” or “new business team” or “money-making legends” if you want. The name doesn’t really matter. (Though I do like Buyer Enablement.)

What matters is that they’re united behind the same goal of helping the buyer understand what you’re offering, why they need it, and how they can buy it.

It means salespeople can start adapting to some of the marketing stuff. And it means marketing can start acting more like they’re actually a revenue-driving function.

And remember, this isn’t just my random opinion. It’s literally based on how today’s buyers want to buy. It’s based on seeing hundreds of agencies struggling with sales because they was this massive misalignment. And ultimately it’s based on a bit of common sense.

So it looks like you’re going to have to tear up that precious org chart. Sorry, not sorry.

Phew you made it to the end. Good work. Hopefully you found this valuable. If you did please do share it around with others. Oh, and if you’re wondering just how buyable your agency’s offer is then why not give the self-assessment a try.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Be More Buyable. If you’re reading this you’re witnessing history. Kinda.

Anyway, I want to kick things off with a slightly weird observation that actually provided the aha moment behind Buyability.

I’m going to jump in at the deep end and call out the elephant in the room…

People hate salespeople.

There. I said it.

And seeing as most agency owners are the de facto salespeople for their agencies (at least to start with) then logic dictates people hate you too.

Okay, maybe this is a little unfair. Because the nuance is: they don’t hate the salesperson, they hate being sold to.

Which is a crucial difference. More hate the game than hate the player.

Let’s back this up with some eye-popping stats:

• 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience. (Source)

• In 2021, 87% of buyers wanted to self-serve part or all of the buying journey. Today, it's virtually 100%. (Source)

• Buyers hate being sold to. They don't want to be contacted out of the blue, rushed into making a decision, or interrogated about their business goals. (Source)

So yeah… it’s pretty clear that B2B buyers do NOT want to be sold to. In fact, they actively try to avoid it. Ouch.

But if you’re still skeptical then ask yourself this:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy being sold to?

Here’s my answer: a solid, resounding 1. One. O.N.E.

All those irrelevant cold pitches in my DMs? Yuck.

Those people that start asking questions as if to disguise the fact they’re going to pitch me? Double yuck.

People at networking events who corner me and start droning on about their random services in the hope that I might by some miraculous circumstance be interested in buying. Triple yuck. And I’m heading straight for the bar.

Now, I reckon you’re probably similar to me. Maybe not as low as a 1, but probably below 5. Unless you just love the attention.

But given I see people moaning about being sold to all the time, it’s safe to assume most of us would rather it never happen.

But isn’t that a little confusing? Because…

We then insist on doing the EXACT thing we don’t like.

Like what’s all that about?

We all moan about getting random DMs, getting pitch-slapped, having pricing info withheld until we book a call, being forced through long-winded sales funnels.

And then we see advice telling us to do exactly those things and we just follow along like sheep, not stopping for even a second to question whether we really should be doing those things.

You know, those things we all hate.

And now with AI we can do even more of All Those Hated Sales Tactics™ at a larger scale than ever before.

Which is really great news if your aim is to piss off more of your potential buyers.

And this is that weird observation that I teased before. That uncomfortable tension between what sellers do and what buyers want.

It’s the Great Seller-Buyer Divide.

And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking…

Fine if I can’t sell then how on earth am I supposed to make any actual money or grow my agency, smartarse?

Which leads me to the other side of the divide.

Because as much as people hate being sold to, they actually love buying stuff.

If I have a pressing, painful problem and find a clear and compelling solution, then I will happily exchange my hard-earned money to buy it. I’ll bite their hands off to get that solution.

And it’s not because I’m a shopping addict (though I might be) - it’s because I don’t want to struggle with problems.

So, if people are happy to buy but hate being sold to, what lever can you possibly pull as an agency owner / reluctant salesperson?

Simple: You should focus on being more buyable. On being easier to buy.

And in practice that means aligning how you sell with how people want to buy.

• 87% of B2B buyers find independent research more efficient than conversations with salespeople. (Source)

• In 81% of cases, the buyer has chosen a preferred vendor before talking to sellers. (Source)

• 73% of B2B buyers actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. (Source)

These stats show you the new approach to sales. The buyer-centric approach.

It’s about being:

Desired — Solving a compelling problem with a clear solution.
Different — Showing how you approach the problem in a new way.
Decisive — Giving all the info around process, timeline, and price upfront.

This is why I came up with Buyability. It’s what I’m betting big on. It’s how agencies can bridge that Great Seller-Buyer Divide. How they can sell more without selling out.

Thanks for reading,
Joe