And so…what do you do?

The prob­lem

Most peo­ple iden­tify them­selves by a label when they are asked what they do or even when they think of them­selves in terms of their work. So you might iden­tify your­self as an artist or, I might think of myself as a pho­tog­ra­pher, well as you see, stick­ing a label on us doesn’t really help us attract qual­i­fied buy­ers. It also doesn’t help us develop and use a finely focused vision of who we really serve and what we really do. We just con­tinue skip­ping around in la-la land whistling a happy tune, unaware that we are going in circles.

What we really need is another tool in our kit that we can pull out when we need it. Well, that tool is the Who and What or the Who and Do What. The tool is not an ele­va­tor speech, YUK, nor is it a sales pitch. Instead, it is a way of  know­ing who really wants our work what they look like etc. and what it is about our stuff that makes them want it or what prob­lem  we solve. Basi­cally, it tight­ens down the focus of our Per­fect cus­tomer pro­file and our offer so we can know it instantly and more impor­tantly have it become part of the core of our busi­ness. Know­ing these two impor­tant things helps us:

Stay focused on our intents and in turn helps the right prospects find us.


Know how bet­ter mar­ket and mer­chan­dise our work.

And there’s the label problem…

So what’s the big deal with call­ing your­self an artist or me call­ing myself a pho­tog­ra­pher? Isn’t that what we are? Well yes and no. There are three major prob­lems with labels.

First

A label puts the atten­tion on you and what you do and takes it away from your buy­ers, because you aren’t just an artist and I’m not just a pho­tog­ra­pher. As a result we are left with describ­ing our­selves in terms of our process which more often than not leaves who­ever is try­ing to fol­low us with a blank glassy eyed stare.  You in turn are left won­der­ing what just hap­pened to you mes­sage. What did just hap­pen was you lost that poten­tial buyer because she could tell you were more engrossed in describ­ing your process than you were in get­ting to know her.

The other thing that tends to hap­pen more often than not is the label gets mis­in­ter­preted. So sud­denly you find you’re self being asked if you do car­i­ca­tures caus­ing to delve into a major dis­course about how you are a painter not an enter­tainer for birth­day par­ties, all this just leads you fur­ther down the rab­bit hole of talk­ing about yourself.

Sec­ond

A label can get you all tongue tied because you know you are more than just that label and yet when you are asked what you do go off on a litany of process descrip­tions. Even worse, you can suf­fer from a severe onset of brain fart and start talk­ing in tongues which is not help­ful to either you or her. So again, she walks way, not know­ing what exactly you do and more impor­tantly if you are the secret to solv­ing her problems.

Third

This one is pretty impor­tant in that it can really  limit you and your busi­ness in being able to respond quickly to mar­ket changes…like now. If you are known as an artist or as a painter it will be harder for you to repo­si­tion your­self, because, you are known only that way. So if I were to describe myself as a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher I would have to pretty much re-invent myself in order to move into another mar­ket or style.

Now, it is impor­tant to under­stand that you are not the only one hav­ing dif­fi­culty with this and, chang­ing it will not nec­es­sar­ily hap­pen over night. That is were the know­ing how to use the Who and What comes in handy because, when suc­cess­fully used it will not only cure a headache, upset stom­ach,  etc. It will also help you increase sales, know bet­ter how to dis­play your work and in gen­eral make your life a lot more enjoyable.

Who is the Who?

Guess what, unless you’re a some kind of super hero, you can’t help every­one and even more if you try to be every­thing to all, you’ll end up being a lit­tle bit to a few…that’s not real sat­is­fy­ing for any­body. And it really doesn’t help the right peo­ple find you or you to know how to let them know you’re avail­able. So you need to FOCUS and that is what know­ing who your mar­ket is does for you. It is basi­cally break­ing down all those char­ac­ter­is­tics of your per­fect buyer and apply­ing them to a group of people.

So…your Who is made up of:

demo­graphic or sta­tis­ti­cal info like age,gender etc.

psy­cho­graphic info like the val­ues and opin­ions that cause them to self identify.

Basi­cally  your who is the  folks who would walk blocks to buy your work through snow,sleet, rain or heat.

Other things you need to know about iden­ti­fy­ing your Who folks, is that peo­ple glob­ally,  tend to be attracted to things, causes„ issues etc. based pri­mar­ily on how much they iden­tify with those things, causes or issues. This is gen­er­ally not a prob­lem, because you are also likely to be drawn to those folks who closely iden­tify with the things impor­tant to you. You may not have a com­plete match and, there will likely be some over­lap, which will go along way to build­ing trust. Addi­tion­ally, you build trust by shar­ing ter­mi­nol­ogy and lan­guage char­ac­ter­is­tics that help you hear what the folks mak­ing up your Who are saying.

Finally, the very act of nam­ing the group of folks who iden­tify most with you and your stuff makes a bazil­lion times eas­ier for them to iden­tify with you because they see that you authen­ti­cally rep­re­sent them.

Then there’s the What

Now you know and can name the group of folks who most iden­tify with your work and what it rep­re­sents. Now you  need to take a look at exactly what the what is!!!!  Con­trary to pop­u­lar wis­dom you don’t just make orange pots, or purty paintings…somewhere in the zap­ping neu­rons of your brain you have a fun­da­men­tal dri­ving con­cept, or thing you want those orange pots or purty paint­ings to do. Unbe­knownst to you con­sciously you are mak­ing those things in response to some prob­lem you see, some issue that is impor­tant to you.

The what is all about get­ting down and defin­ing that prob­lem or issue your work is aimed at resolv­ing. This is impor­tant, because, as we have learned ear­lier, peo­ple care most about find­ing solu­tions. So know­ing the prob­lems and issues faced by those who want your work helps you make your solu­tion more vis­i­ble. And it goes even fur­ther, because when you rec­og­nize their prob­lems you are also telling them they and their needs are important.

The prob­lem is more impor­tant than the solu­tion because poten­tial buy­ers will pretty much always see you in rela­tion to their prob­lems and how close you come to being the one who solves their prob­lem. Because only when they see that you are the answer to solv­ing their prob­lem will they stop win­dow shop­ping and move into buy­ing mode.

The Les­son and the point

Let’s look at both now in terms of how they help you and your business.

The most impor­tant thing to take from this is that when folks are out hunt­ing for solu­tions to their prob­lem of the day, the only thing they are focused on is the prob­lem and its solu­tion. Every­thing they see is, seen in rela­tion to that prob­lem. So they don’t have time or patience to trans­late your wood fired tech­nique into their solu­tion nor can they trans­late your solu­tion, as in “I make the best wood fired pots in the uni­verse”, unless that solu­tion obvi­ously solves their par­tic­u­lar problem.

On the other hand  you will stand out to them because you know their prob­lem inti­mately, and they know you can eas­ily solve their prob­lem because you under­stand it.

The other point of learn­ing here, is that your Who and What helps folks who are already true believ­ers in your abil­ity to solve their prob­lems have a way to let oth­ers with sim­i­lar prob­lems know you are The One who can suc­cess­fully solve their prob­lem. So unless some­one is expressly look­ing for the best wood fired pots in the uni­verse they won’t see you as a solu­tion. How­ever, if that per­son is look­ing for unique table ware and par­tic­u­larly cream & sugar serv­ing pieces and you offer just such items, which hap­pen to be wood fired, you will be far more vis­i­ble to her.

In the end your Who and What may be like one of these:

• I help young cou­ples who want unique locally hand­made table­ware that will help make their enter­tain­ing and din­ing expe­ri­ence fun.
  
• I help peo­ple who want unique locally hand­made table­ware that will help make their enter­tain­ing and din­ing expe­ri­ence fun.