The "Sell Your Product" Lie That Kills Startup Growth
Chris Monk
I show businesses that are struggling to get enough paying customers how to get them using the most effective growth strategy in the world
Founders & startup marketers, you’ve been sold a lie about the best way to grow.
You’ve been led to believe that your product is the key to your success.
That you need to build a great product and then sell that product to potential customers.
But this is the least effective way to grow your startup.
Why?
Because it is out of alignment with the way that the human brain has evolved to make decisions & be persuaded.
How We Make Decisions
Our modern brains still make decisions based on rules of thumb that evolved in our ancestor’s brains.?
These rules of thumb (known today as cognitive biases) are tools that enabled our ancestors to quickly (and without spending much energy) make decisions that gave them the best chance of survival.
One of the most powerful of these cognitive biases, the one that has the biggest impact on our decision making, is called loss aversion (otherwise known as the fear of loss).
This bias means that losing something that we already have causes us twice as much pain as gaining something new causes us joy.
As a result, we are all so much more motivated to avoid losing something we already have than gaining something we don’t.
Why This Means Selling Your Product Is A Terrible Growth Strategy
By selling your product, you’re asking potential customers for money upfront.
And this triggers loss aversion in your potential customers.
As a result, its VERY difficult to convince them to buy your solution.
And, unfortunately, free trials and freemium offerings don’t overcome this issue.
Yes, they help sidestep loss aversion, but they only attract lots of freebie seekers that will rarely convert into paying customers.
Does this mean that selling a product never works?
Of course not, businesses have been growing like this forever. And I myself have spent most of my nearly two decade sales & marketing career doing the same.
But, it’s very tough. It’s the reason why 90% of startups fail.
To use an analogy its like trying to swim a mile against a strong current. Can it be done?
Yes.
But it’s very hard and most fail.
In fact, it’s so ineffective that you can have a great product and a raving fan base and still struggle to grow…
In 1997 Apple had exactly that - great products (like the Mac) and a passionate customer base.
But it was struggling to convince consumers to buy and, as a result, was on the brink of bankruptcy.
The reason - the only thing that it had been selling was its product.
This isn’t just theory or speculation - it’s what Steve Jobs himself believed.
And he was proved right.
He changed Apple’s marketing and launched a new campaign that would NOT sell Apple’s products.
Instead it would sell a brand-new belief system to potential customers - what I call a BLUNT belief.
Apple’s growth exploded.
Within 4 months, Apple had posted its first profits in 2 years and it continued to use this strategy to become the world’s most successful & profitable business.
Of course you aren’t Apple, but that doesn’t matter.?
This strategy has been used to by startups of all shapes & sizes in many different industries - from one man side projects like Bullet Journal to funded startups like HubSpot.
This strategy is so much more effective at persuading people to buy than selling a product - in fact its so damn effective that it took HubSpot to $29 million in annual recurring revenue (and built a passionate & happy customer base) with a product that the founder/CTO himself admits “sucked”.?
So what is a BLUNT belief and what makes it more effective than selling a product?
What Is A BLUNT Belief?
A BLUNT belief is a belief made up of 5 characteristics.
Why Is Selling A BLUNT Belief So Much More Effective Than Selling A Product At Creating Growth?
To put things very simply, there are only really two steps to convincing someone to buy your product/solution.
And, as Apple (and others that have used this strategy) found out, BLUNT beliefs do that so much more effectively.
Here's how.
Capturing Attention
The part of the brain that regulates what we pay attention to is called the Reticular Activating System or RAS for short.
The RAS acts like a doorman, deciding what information it lets into the nightclub of your conscious attention and what it denies access to.
Capturing someone’s attention means getting past their RAS and the most surefire way to do this is by presenting it with new, surprising or contrarian information. The RAS loves this and fast-tracks it into the brain’s conscious attention centre.
Marketing messages that talk about your product NOT new, surprising or contrarian. As a result, they often get ignored.
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BLUNT beliefs on the other hand are great at capturing attention because they are brand-new, surprising and contrarian (B in BLUNT)
When, back in 2008, HubSpot told small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) that doing advertising and other "interruption" marketing tactics no longer worked, this was contrarian and surprising information at the time.
As a result, it captured their attention.
Convincing Them To Buy From You
As already discussed, selling a product triggers loss aversion and makes it very difficult to convince one's potential customers to buy.
A BLUNT belief on the other hand, doesn't require a prospective customer to buy the solution to believe in (and implement) the belief in their lives.
As a result, loss aversion isn't triggered.
But, if they don't need to buy your product to implement the belief in their lives, how does this convince them to buy from you?
Here's how.
Convincing Them To Believe
First, it convinces the prospective customer to ditch their existing belief about the best way to achieve their desirable outcome with the BLUNT belief.
It's able to do this because it ties into an element of unfamiliarity in the lives of the target audience.
That could be changing circumstances - for example, in HubSpot’s case it was the introduction of the internet.?
HubSpot told SMBs that the internet was changing the way that people sought out and bought products. This is why, it said, that advertising and other interruption tactics no longer worked.
SMBs could see that this was true and it put them in a changing world - one that was different from the world in which advertising and tactics like it worked.
This leverages a cognitive bias called the action bias.
The action bias means that, in changing and unfamiliar circumstances, we prioritise taking action rather than sticking with the status quo.
This therefore drives the potential customers to adopt the BLUNT belief and ditch their existing one (taking action rather than sticking with what they already know).
This is further aided by the fact that they don't need to buy the product to adopt the belief - the barrier that would normally stop them (loss aversion) isn't triggered and they wholeheartedly adopt the new belief system.
To continue the HubSpot example, SMBs adopted the belief of inbound marketing en masse because they didn't need to buy HubSpot's internet marketing solution to implement the belief in their lives.
Convincing Them To Buy From You
Once the prospective customer adopts the new belief, it’s only a matter of time before they seek out products that will help them further implement this belief.
But why?
If they don’t need to buy your product to implement the belief, why would they buy your product?
Because of consumerism.
For better or for worse, we live in a consumerist society.
As a result, we all have a bias towards buying products to help us engage more effectively in the activities that we do as long as we feel like it's our decision to buy them (and we aren't being forced to).
Let's say for example you've decided to take up trail running. This is an activity that can be done without much equipment. A pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of running shoes - all things you probably already have lying around the house.
In other words, you don't need to buy any additional products to do and enjoy trail running.
Yet, invariably, as you continue to do trail running, you will end up buying new products for this hobby - new shoes, new trail running-specific clothing, maybe a CamelBak for water, a GPS watch, and more.
None of these are necessary to do or enjoy trail running, but are instead optional tools that will help you enjoy and engage in this activity more effectively.
The fact that they are optional makes it very likely we'll convince ourselves that we need them because our loss aversion isn't triggered.
As long as our loss aversion isn’t triggered, then our socially conditioned consumerism comes out.
And this is exactly what happens with a BLUNT belief.
As discussed, thanks to the fact that the target audience doesn’t need to buy the product to believe in or implement the belief, there is no loss aversion triggered. And so, believers convince themselves that they need a product to help them implement it.
And, of course, thanks to the fact that the belief leads back to what makes your product unique (Leading in BLUNT), the only product that they can buy is yours.
Note that this is a crucial element of selling a BLUNT belief that many businesses forget - the belief has to lead back to your solution and only yours.
In fact, HubSpot made the same mistake before it found success and it caused it to lose revenue and customers to competitors.
In 2007, HubSpot was selling the belief that SMBs should do internet marketing.
But, this belief was the same belief that all of its competitors were selling too.
As a result, SMBs could adopt the belief that they should do internet marketing and buy an internet marketing solution from any one of the many internet marketing software companies.
HubSpot's revenue in 2007 was a mere $255,000. Nothing to be sniffed at, but not much for a funded startup in a fast growing new category.
In 2008, by creating and selling the BLUNT belief of inbound marketing, a belief that led back to what made its internet marketing solution unique, its growth took off - it made $2.2 million in 2008 and turned it into the billion dollar giant it is today.
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About Chris
Chris has spent nearly two decades (and counting) marketing and selling products, services and software, both on and offline, in multiple countries around the world.
He has worked with businesses of all sizes – from startups to companies like Microsoft, Google, SAP, Oracle, Groupon and others, and has also created, marketed and ran multi-million dollar industry conferences in many different industries and countries around the world.
Chris is also, an accomplished writer, having written for numerous publications including The Times, one of the United Kingdom’s most well known newspapers.
Chris helps startups find breakthrough growth using?The BLUNT Method.