Who do you Want to be a Hero to?

Marketing and sales are all about offering solutions to your target market's wants, needs, desires, and fears. You want to enter into the conversation they are already having in their own head. And enter that conversation with a solution that will in some way make their life better.

Imagine a woman who sits up in bed in the middle of the night and can’t sleep. She walks down to the kitchen, where she pulls out a pint of ice cream and sits down at the kitchen table. Her husband, who wakes up (go with me here, no matter how hard this is to picture) and is worried about her, heads down to the kitchen and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table. 

She begins to tell her husband about all of her stresses – heavy workload at her job, running the kids to all of their school and sports activities, unable to schedule and keep straight of all the families’ commitments, and a house can’t ever seem to get clean. And she wants to lose ten pounds, all the while feeding the stress with vanilla bean ice cream.

Now, let’s assume there is a third chair at that kitchen table. And you have the opportunity to sit down at that table. Would you do it? Do you want to do it? Would you console the over-stressed woman? Or do you want to offer solutions that could help her save time, gain more self-confidence, and take care of her family’s health? How engaged are you in wanting to help? And what home and kitchen do you want to sit at and help? The affluent neighborhoods or the trailer park, or somewhere in between. Where do you want to serve and be helpful?

In a sentence…. Who do you want to be a hero to?

If you know the answer to this question, and ideally why you want to help this “person,” then you will be much more connected and engaged, always looking for the next solution for your ideal client. And your marketing will have a much clearer message to your target market. Even better, what if you are your ideal target client? Not only are you coming up with solutions for yourself, but you can also deploy the very best of your personal solutions as business solutions for others.

That is how I developed Wash and Fold Laundry. I wanted to free up some of my wife’s time. It solved her challenge, and now we are doing right at 10,000 pounds of wash and fold laundry for our clients each week—the same thing with patio cushions. We did not have a good solution to clean patio cushions, and one of our daughters spilled some food and juice on an outdoor cushion. I took it to work, and it turned out really well! Now we pick up, clean, water-repel, store, and deliver thousands of patio cushions each spring and fall.

What if you don’t want to be a hero to someone? Then probably, you are too engulfed in your own challenges with time, money, and health to spend time contributing to others. And I suggest you get some structure around those areas of life, so you can contribute to others by developing your relationships, your purpose, and your passions. It will clear up any question about who you are serving. And once you get that dialed in, you will start falling in love with your clients, always pushing yourself and your team to find the next solution for your clients.