People buy a way out of a problem, not a product

You will be able to describe any product in terms of the problem it removes and the change it makes for one specific buyer.

A buyer pays for a way out of a problem, and the product is only the route they take to get there. Understand that problem before you say anything about what you sell.

Think about how a purchase starts. Nobody wakes up wanting a product; they wake up with a problem. Often it is minor, and they may have lived with it for months. Once it gets annoying enough, or costs them enough, they begin searching for a way out. Every sale starts at that moment, inside the buyer's head and well before any seller appears.

Take three people moving to the same phone plan. One keeps going over on their bill and is tired of checking their data usage. Another has parents in Malaysia who can't get through to them on roaming. The third heard about a cheaper plan from a colleague and felt silly for paying more. The product is identical, but the problems differ, so a good seller would hold three different conversations with them.

The first idea of this course follows from that: a buyer is buying a way out of a problem. What matters to them is the gap between their situation now and the one they want, and what living with that gap costs them.

That cost is paid in four currencies of cost. Money is the obvious one: paying too much, losing income or missing out on a return. Time is the second, in hours lost to admin, travel or fixing things. Stress is the third, and it is often what finally makes someone act, since a nagging worry is harder to ignore than a line on a bank statement. The fourth is how the person is seen by a boss, a client, a partner or their family. People rarely admit to this one, yet it drives many decisions.

When buyers explain a decision, they tend to use logic: features, price and comparisons. What moves them underneath is how much the problem costs in those four currencies. A seller who sticks to features is answering a question the buyer has not really asked.

Work from this rule. If you can't put your buyer's problem into one sentence, in their own words, you aren't ready to talk about your product. Sellers who skip this end up giving everyone the same pitch, and because that pitch is built around the product instead of the person, it lands with almost no one.

A good problem sentence leaves the product out and still points you to what the first conversation should cover. A freelance designer's might describe a cafe owner who knows their menu and signage look tired and who is losing walk-in customers to the newer place down the street. An insurance adviser's might describe a new parent who has realised their family depends entirely on their income and who doesn't know what would happen if they fell ill. Neither mentions design work or a policy, yet each tells the seller where to begin.

The sentence also shows you who the product is not for. A cafe owner whose walk-in trade is growing doesn't have the designer's problem, and no amount of pitching will give it to them. Spotting this early spares you and the buyer a wasted meeting, and it makes you more believable to the people who do have the problem.

To build your own, choose a product or service you sell, or could sell, and a specific buyer for it. Write that buyer's problem as one sentence in the words they would use, without the product in it. Use the sentence to decide what your first conversation with them is about, and to recognise people who don't have the problem so you don't spend a meeting on them.

After a buyer notices a problem, they move through five stages, and what they need from a seller is different at each one. The next lesson covers those stages.

Give yourself about 10 minutes. Pick one product or service and write a single sentence for each of three different buyers that says what problem it removes for that person. Use the words they would use and leave the product name out of every sentence. You'll come back to these sentences in every module that follows.

Pick something you sell or could sell. For each of three different buyers, write one sentence naming the problem it removes for that person.

Course

• Sales foundations: how people decide to buy