Starting with Why

Too many sales & marketing messages, unfortunately, talk about “what” and “how”.  And at the front of the sales process, that’s a shame.

You’re proud of what you’ve built, which is great.  You have six new features in the latest version, awesome.  But if you lead your pitch with a description of what you’re selling, or how it works, you’re skipping the most important part of the conversation.

Why the customer cares.

When you write about why, you’re addressing your customer’s world.  You’re speaking their language, feeling their pain, building credibility by associating with the challenges they face.  Those challenges, that pain, is what drives demand for your product or service.  It’s why people buy.

If your prospect doesn’t have that need, or you haven’t established or created that need, selling the prospect on what you have and how it works isn’t going to help.  You’ve done nothing to build value, and given the prospect no context for which to understand why they need to talk to you in the first place.

In the end, it all comes down to why.  Yes, you may eventually get to a product demo and operational training of how to get started.

But the top of the funnel is all about why.