Have you ever thought of using your potential customers’ pain to your advantage? By this, I don’t mean you should torture your leads into submission! Rather, if you focus on their pain – and tell them how you can take it away – you will suddenly become their best friend.

Think about the last time you had toothache. It’s a killer isn’t it? You can’t concentrate on anything but the throbbing pain and you’d give anything to be free of it. You book in to the dentist, they sort it out and they’re your hero.

Now consider how this applies to your marketing message.

When booking your dentist appointment, were you particularly bothered about finding out how long they’d been a dentist, or what university they went to? Or did you just want to know they could take your pain away?

Your biggest selling point will always be how you can solve a problem, improve a situation, make someone’s life easier – or in other words, remove a pain.

DON’T make this your ending strapline. Why would you want to bury your problem-solving prowess in a load of facts about you that, whilst they might add to your credibility and be really important to share, will not make people pick up the phone and ask for your help?

Look again at the information you give out to potential customers. Look at the introductory paragraph of your website’s home page, or your brochure. Now look at it through a potential customer’s eyes. What does your first line focus on? Are you telling them you’ve been in business for 20 years? That you’re the number one in your field?  Or are you telling them what you can do for them – save them time or stress, or help make them more profitable?

It’s all great information, but you should prioritise your main sales message.  If a customer can’t see immediately what’s in it for them to employ your services, you’ve already lost them.

Tell customers straight away how you can take their pain away and marketing suddenly becomes less painful!

Once you’ve got your marketing message right, the rest should fall into place.

Follow my six steps to marketing success here.

There’s also more in-depth guidance on refining your marketing in my book, Getting Down to Business.