The people you are talking to are on an island. They are miserable on this island. There is nothing to do, but they don’t know about any other islands so they don’t do anything.
They accept being miserable because what else is there?
One day they receive a message in a bottle from you. It tells them about the island. It has everything. You tell them what they can do there and how their life can be.
But you can’t take them there. There are too many. You can show them how to get there, but they have to build the boat. They happily build the boat because they aspire for something more.
When you’re selling them on the island, you can imagine how they will feel and you find ways to inject those feelings into your descriptions but you give them enough room to imagine it themselves.
I was stuck on an island just like this. I can’t tell you how many times I cried at night looking at the Moon hoping that it would talk back to me.
The loneliness is what haunts me. You don’t realize how important that annoying neighbor is in your life until you’re without them for 37 weeks.
And don’t get me started on the food. How would you like your coconuts served today?
It’s bad enough that fish swims by the same rock at the same time every single day and you can’t catch it, but you also have to deal with the animals stealing your food when you aren’t looking.
One day I had enough and decided to build a boat. I didn’t have any plans with the boat and I didn’t care where it took me as long as it took me away from this island.
It took me a while to build the boat but I was motivated so it didn’t feel like that long. Anything to get off that island.
Then finally, the boat was done. I hopped on it and took off. I wish I could tell you that journey was easy. It wasn’t.
There was even a second or two I wondered if this was worth it. But then I remembered that feeling I had every single day waking up on that island.
Floating in the middle of the ocean was better than that.
I figured I didn’t have much longer and then that’s when I saw a piece of green.
Trees.
The opportunity being shown here is escaping from the pain they currently feel. We could continue with the letter and talk about how wonderful the island is, but more importantly, there are other people there.
What opportunities can you bring to the table for your Customer?
Pain & Pleasure
As you can see in the letter above, opportunity doesn’t always have to be about gaining pleasure. It can also be escaping pain.
What is your Customer sick of? The more you can replay their day in your head, the better your messaging will be over time.
Great, another guru on Twitter told you to pick a niche when the last you checked, their niche was simply “money”.
Little observations like this get your Customer to nod their head and by doing so get them on your side. Now you two share the same worldview.
Keep a notebook or digital library of all the frustrations and small joys you come across in your line of work. If you want to attract the people that align with you, then talk about those joys and frustrations and you’ll find the people with similar feelings coming to you.
Aspirational
Not too long ago, social media was flooded with images of people on private planes and exotic locations. It’s quite possible that it’s still flooded with that stuff and the algo doesn’t show me, but there was a time when you couldn’t escape it.
And the people posting these images were making money selling whatever. You’d look at them and wonder how that was even possible. Who would fall for this stuff?
The truth is that nobody really falls for it as there is nothing to fall for. Some people see a life that they desire and so they purchase the offer. What I’m doing here is no different.
I’m telling you that you can build a business that builds Happy Citizens and makes you feel good. That’s my private plane and exotic vacation.
Why did this tweet get so much engagement? Let’s ignore the size of the audience Justin has because not all of his tweets get this much love.
One of the reasons it received this much attention is that it is aspirational.
I WANT a business that does $105,000 a month.
Painting a picture of what their life can be like associates you with that result. You might not like the idea of selling yourself or talking about your success, but your story is aspirational.
How can your customers know what they can become if you don’t talk about your own transformation?
Next Lesson: The Pain >>>>>