It has been said that sales is actually just solving problems for your customers. So if you are to make a living selling online, then you first need to know what problems need to be solved.
Now that you know exactly who you are working with, you need to find out what problems they have.
There are several “standard” problems that nearly everyone has:
- Make more money
- Save money
- Save time
- Improve relationships
- Guarantee safety / Prevent loss
You can always offer solutions to those problems. But the more specific you are, the more likely you are to attract your audience.
For this exercise, you want to fall back on one of the “standard” markeing tools – online discussion groups or forums. You probably already know where your target audience “hangs out” online. But if not, now is the time to do some research.
Visit these sites. Monitor the discussions for a week or two. And one of the things you will find are recurring themes – questions that keep coming up, time and again. These are the big problems that you want to solve for your market.
If you’re working with a group that doesn’t have an online forum you can find, then go to the magazines they read. Visit your local newstand or find the magazine sites online. Look through the covers for the past 12 months. You will see the same issues come up time and again. These are the problems you want to solve.
Make a list of these problems. They will be the basis for your blog posts, lead generators, and products.
And keep that list of sites handy! They will be the regular places where you interact with your audience as a source of traffic.
By the way, isn’t this easier the second time through? Remember how overwhelming this process felt the first time you did it? With all of your experience, everything is easier as you Start Over.
Great series – Starting Over! This is a very encouraging and accurate post.