How Do You Move A Stuck Car Forward?

I just started reading Jonah Berger’s new book The Catalyst and wanted to share a concept that really resonated with me.

Because it’s a concept that can make all of us better marketers.

The concept goes something like this…

True or false?

If you got into a car and wanted to move forward the first thing you’d do is press the accelerator (assuming it’s already on). 

Chances are you said “true”!

But what happens if the car doesn’t move forward like it should?

Would you just keep pressing the accelerator harder and harder hoping that magically the car will start doing what you want it to do?

The answer is most likely no.

You would start looking for things that are preventing the car from moving forward.

Maybe the car is still in park (I have done that quite a few times) or maybe the emergency brake is active (guilty on this one as well). 

So you release the emergency brake or put the car in drive and you're off to the races!

What you needed wasn’t more force (doing the same thing and expecting different results), but instead removing something that was holding the car back and preventing it from going the direction you want it to go.

Now we can apply this concept of removing roadblocks to marketing and business in general.

Day in and day out we spend nearly every waking moment thinking about ways we can get people to buy our products.

And we typically try to accomplish this with tactics aimed at pushing that person to do what we want them to do (aka buy our product). 

But the truth is that we as human beings hate being told what to do and hate being sold even more. 

If you could get someone to do something simply by bombarding them with facts and information then nobody would smoke, text while driving or eat tide pods. 

Avoid the trap of thinking that you can make people buy your product simply by repeatedly telling them all the amazing things it does and advertising lots of impressive facts and figures. 

The same thing happens with all those ads that just sell, sell, sell.

So how do you get around this? 

By understanding what the major roadblocks are for your prospects and strategically removing them with your marketing.

What would prevent someone from pulling out their credit card and excitedly buying your product? 

Spend some time with your team seriously thinking about the above question and coming up with as big of a list as possible.

This is one of the reasons why I am such a huge fan of running quizzes at the top of the funnel.

A carefully crafted quiz creates an environment where prospective buyers happily share valuable insights with a business.

Think about asking questions that will shed light on what your target customer's “emergency brake” is.

As you develop your “Buyer Roadblock List” start mapping each item with messaging, content and/or creative that can remove it from the board. 

Create content and ads that provide entertainment, education and value.

Create groups, forums and communities that aren’t focused on selling, but instead focused on listening and empowering.

In conclusion, marketing that tries to forcefully push people through major roadblocks is unlikely to get the results you want. Instead we should all strive to create marketing campaigns that remove these roadblocks and help people come to the conclusion that they need your product on their own.