Wrong question. Wrong people.

Have you ever heard of survivor bias? You might have done. There was an image of a plane with red dots that did the rounds a few months back. And probably is being constantly used as example of how to think differently.

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