Everything in our bones wants this to not be true.
We want the good guy to win.
We want the truth to prevail.
We want the most qualified to always rise to the top.
But that’s not how life works.
And maybe that’s not bad. Hear me out:
As humans, we’re wired to seek novelty.
Show me a group of guys wearing business suits with one goth girl, I know who people will look at.
Show me a group of goth girls and one dude in a business suit. I know who people will look at, too.
For thousands of years, when we assessed that something new wasn’t a threat, we got curious. Something new could mean opportunity.
The most important question you must answer to grow sales fast
There’s a saying I heard recently about personal branding, but that also applies to all marketing: “Different is better than better.”
To grow sales in any market, but especially a crowded market, we must answer this question:
How is this different?
Without a good answer, people have no reason to buy.
If the product is exactly the same as 10 others and sells at exactly the same price, customers have no reason to prefer one over the other.
How to make (the same) product different
We have a few tools to make our product — any product — appear different:
- Price (higher or lower)
- Distribution (where it’s sold)
- Who it’s for (men, women, golfers, goth girls)
- Features
- Social proof (reviews, influencers, history, celebrities)
The more of those tools you use to build the case that your product is the only product that can do what you say it does, the more likely people are to buy from you — and pay you a higher price.
If you can’t answer the question “How is this different?”, more traffic won’t solve your problems. Get to work figuring out how to make your product better (best) or, at least, make it appear better (without lying about what it is or can do).
Sales will come easier, cheaper, and faster.
—Matt
P.S. Next week I’m doing a LIVE workshop on how we create a sales page for our $60M+ business using AI. Positioning, what we’ve discussed here, is part of what we’ll work on for you. Click here to get the details and grab your seat.