The Danger in Assumptions: What to Do When You Want People to Care About What You Do

There was once a little old married couple who walked into a fast-food restaurant.

The man walked up to the counter, ordered the food, paid, and took the tray to the table where his wife sat.

A hamburger, a small bag of fries, and a drink were on the tray.

Carefully the old man cut the hamburger in two and divided the fries into two neat piles. He sipped the drink and passed it to his wife, who took a sip and gave it back.

A young man at a nearby table had watched the elderly couple and felt sorry for them. He offered to buy them another meal, but the older man politely declined, saying they were used to sharing everything.

The old man began to eat his food, but his wife sat still, not eating. The young man continued to watch the couple. He still felt he should be offering to help.

As the old man finished eating, the old lady had still not started on her food…and the young man couldn’t take it anymore; he had to intervene! He looked at the elderly woman and asked in a sympathetic tone, "Ma’am, why aren't you eating?"

The old lady looked up and said politely, "I'm waiting for the teeth..."

Stories are critical for those of us in marketing, not only because they capture customer attention in a way comparative messaging cannot, but also because when we structure them correctly, they help us expose dangerous assumptions that the market is collectively making about customers.

Is your business selling the benefit of more food to a customer experiencing a tooth problem? Perhaps your message isn’t resonating because your marketing is missing the actual pain points your audience is experiencing.

Demand Is Created, Not Inherited

“Assumptions are made, and most assumptions are wrong.” – Albert Einstein

Most marketing fails. It fails because it is based on the faulty assumption that demand in the market is static. As a result of this assumption, we begin our marketing message by unconsciously accepting the problem definition set forward by incumbents in the space.

Essentially, we tell customers, “We’re going to give you the same outcome as everyone else, just a little better.”

There are a few problems with this approach:

1. Few people pay attention to incremental changes. Hello, skyrocketing customer acquisition costs. ?
2. The cost and risk of switching leave most of the “good customers” in your space opting for the comfort of the incumbent – if the change is small, why go through the headache of a new provider?
3. Marketing as a comparison always benefits the incumbent (“we’re better than x company” is free advertising for x company).

We think we’re “disrupting” the market when really all we’re doing is reminding most customers why they like doing things the old way…

And the customers we do win are the brand-agnostic tire-kickers who will leave you the second a new player comes along.

The Key: Your Story IS NOT About You

Another pernicious assumption in most organizations is that we know the customer.

The leaders who struggle the most are often those with all the answers because “they are” or “they were” the customer…

There is value in having been there and done that, but it’s not a sufficient marketing strategy...

It may be a reason for the customer to let you in the door, but it can also lead you to create a self-adoring company built on internally obsessed narratives.

You can recognize these companies when:

• Every pitch opens with the product or our origin story.
• Every conversation begins and ends with how we made this thing.
• Every piece of external communication focuses on why this idea is worth the time and effort our team puts into it.

But what about the customer? What about the problems they are trying to solve? What makes this priority one for them?

We often skip over “the why” because we’re more excited about “the how.”

Don’t.

It is probably not evident to your customers that they need to solve this problem; it may not be apparent that you are doing anything valuable for them. You have to tell them a compelling story about why this is mission-critical for them.

You need to tell this story because, at the end of the day, there is only one kind of marketing – a compelling narrative constructed to help your customer solve a problem they face – the rest is just advertising for a premature going-out-of-business sale. ?

Step Back and Tell the Whole Story

Talking about how you’re able to help your customer win is not wrong, most companies just place it in the wrong position. Instead of racing forward to talk about how your thing is different and how it will change everything, step back and consider the larger narrative from your customer’s perspective…

They are struggling with something, they may not even know what it is, but they know it’s there. Thousands of companies come to them with “positioning” that says they are better – is this the fix to their problems? Who knows?

We need to begin by advertising the problem first. Here is the structure I have found helpful in developing this type of narrative:

1. You used to do things this way because it worked.
2. The world has undeniably changed (give the shift a name that is easy to share).
3. Because of this change, your old way (name this too) of doing things has become obsolete.
4. Here is the new way for your business to win; here’s what it looks like to win.
5. The companies that don’t do this will struggle, and here’s how.
6. This is how our product will help you avoid losing and win!

Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.

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