Find A Problem, Sell the Solution

Remember when you would visit the pediatrician as a child? You would sit on the table, and the doctor would inevitably point to a chart of smiley faces to gauge your pain. Ranging from no pain to excruciating pain, the doctor would use this to determine whether you really broke your arm or if you were just holding out for the lollipop at the end of the visit.

Image via Trinity Health

The same goes for developing a business strategy and developing a brand for your business, but it can get a bit more complicated than a sprained wrist. If you can identify the pain points of your customers and develop a solution, you have a solid business plan, but the question remains: how do you identify your customer’s pain points?

Depending on the market, your customers are going to have several different problems ranging from mild discomfort to intense pain. Beyond that, they will also all have very different reasons for those pains. The important part here is that you don’t need to focus on the varying reasons; you simply need to identify a major pain point in the market.

Identifying pain points can be difficult, but a great way to understand your target audience is to do some level of market research. Perhaps that means you’re in the same demographic and you know what you would like in a product or a service. Perhaps that means developing some type of survey or feedback source to give you more insight. Regardless of the method, it’s important to hear from your audience in some way to develop an understanding of their perspective.

Image via Hinge Marketing

Once you identify the problem, that’s when you start developing your solution. This is what you offer to your customers to solve or alleviate their pain points, making your business of use to them. While this sounds easy in theory, this process will take time and thought.

Something to come to terms with as a business owner is understanding that not everyone needs the service or good you’re selling. In fact, no one needs it. If you’re strategic in the way you develop your business model and how you attack the pain points in the market, you’ll be successful in building your business’s brand and ability to serve your target audience.