The Dream Outcome
TL;DR
There are 4 key components to communicating your value effectively, we are focusing on the Dream Outcome in this post.
Communicating you understand your customers’ Dream Outcome is not only your “entry ticket” to gain credibility with your customers, it’s one of the reasons you can charge a premium for your service.
The more desirable the Dream Outcome is to your customer, the more you can charge for your products and services.
Communicating the value you bring to your target customers is essential to getting new ones. The best marketers are hyper focused on the value they bring… Let's take a look at a great example.
Geico - “15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance”
Geico knows who their target audience is, people who want to spend less on their car insurance, and they communicate the value of their offering EXTREMELY clearly.
It's simple math (and an even simpler thought) for a prospective Geico client, “Is 15 minutes of my time worth saving 15% or more on my car insurance?”
This is the goal for every company. Create an offer your ideal client would be foolish not to accept.
There are 4 components to demonstrating value (shout out to Alex Hermosi for this framework):
Dream Outcome (DO)
Increase perceived likelihood to achieve DO
Reduce time to achieve DO
Reduce effort & sacrifice to achieve DO
Today we will cover the 1st part of value, the Dream Outcome… and its first for a reason, it's the most important.
Do you understand where your customer wants to go?
People buy products and services because they want something to change. They have a vision of their future self they want to achieve.
Peddlers of weight loss products have understood this forever and are masters at showing people how they can achieve the body of their dreams (a.k.a their Dream Outcome).
B2B marketers need to take a lesson here… our customers also have a Dream Outcome that we are uniquely skilled to help them achieve, and we NEED to know what it is.
To do that, it’s key here is to understand your role in your customers' story and this may shock you but, you are not the most important character in your customers story.
You are not the hero!
You are merely the guide who will help the hero (your customer) reach the future they desire.
This is one reason why we teach people to write out a simple and straightforward “I help” statement (learn what that is here). Mine is, “I help B2B companies generate as many leads as they want by implementing their own in-house lead gen engine”
Notice the Dream Outcome I have in there, “generate as many leads as they want”. This is what our clients want. Through testing we found this is something that really resonates with our ideal customers.
And this is what you need to figure out too.
Why is a Dream Outcome so important?
Human brains are constantly trying to predict the future and are very satisfied when their predictions are correct. This is true when you are ordering a burger from 5 Guys you expect it to taste amazing (it always is), it's true when you jump into a new relationship and expect your bond to grow stronger, and it's true when you start a new business relationship and expect to achieve a certain result.
If you can’t help predict the brighter future your customers want to achieve, why would they trust you to get them there?
On the flip side, if you communicate that you understand exactly where they want to go and you are uniquely capable of getting them there, you are EXTREMELY valuable.
And this is why understanding your customer's Dream Outcome is so important. It's not only your “entry ticket” to gain credibility with your customers, it’s one of the reasons you can charge a premium for your products or services.
Let’s take a simple example…
If you run a small marketing agency that helps local roofers get more customers, you could say your clients Dream Outcome is to “acquire more customers”. Although this is technically true, it doesn’t really get to the heart of the destination your roofing customers want to achieve.
Roofing companies need consistent job requests coming through the door. The more quotes and bids they write the more business they will close.
What if instead you used the Dream Outcome of “100 new roofing job requests through your website per month, every month”. That is something your potential roofing clients can envision. A future they can sink their teeth into. It's a destination that's highly desirable.
And the more desirable the destination, the more you can charge for your products and services.
If you walk away with anything, it should be this…
Your clients want a transformation. This is the move from their status-quo to the destination they reach after they work with you. It's crucial to remember that customers only buy things because they don’t like where they are now and are willing to pay someone to help them reach where they want to be.
So make sure you understand where your customers want to go and communicate that you get it.
Once you have a proven Dream Outcome you know resonates with your ideal customer, you are one step closer to pulling in leads faster than you can handle.
This is just Part #1 of our “Communicating Value” series. Be sure to check out the other three parts to ensure you are communicating as much value as you can to your customers.
FAQ’s
What is a Dream Outcome?
The destination or future state your customers want to reach that you are uniquely capable to help them achieve.