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The 97  ›  Client acquisition

The Reason Why: Your Wonder Marketing Drug

The point

In marketing, the wonder drug is the reason why. Knowing why is addictive: clients want to know why you do what you do, why they should trust you, secretly begging to be led.

Jay Abraham · Redondo Beach 2023 — Day 1, Session 3: Perry Marshall Quadrants Cued to 47:25 2 min 7 sec loading…

Why it matters

There is one remedy in marketing that works on nearly every client, in nearly every business, with few side effects, and almost nobody uses it deliberately. It is the reason why. Give a client the reason and they lead themselves to the conclusion. Withhold it and you are left arguing about features and price, which is an argument you will eventually lose.

Let me give you the cleanest proof I have. A company was sitting on thirty million dollars at cost of unsold investment-grade gemstones that a bare discount price list would not move. Then they sent a letter that told the whole truth — what they had paid, why they were losing money, why the price was what it was. It sold everything except the irradiated blue topaz. Same inventory, same market, same list. Only the letter changed.

The discipline is a set of questions, and their range is the point. What is the reason why I should pay attention. What is the reason why I should buy this rather than another. What is the reason why this one, this way, now. And it does not stop at the buyer — what is the reason why the team should do it differently, collaborate, try another approach, want to be trained.

Then you sharpen it into one line only you can say. That is your unique selling proposition: the reason why, compressed until no competitor could honestly claim it. Once you have it, it goes everywhere a client meets you.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Assuming the reason is obvious because it is obvious to you. You have lived inside that decision for years. The client meets it cold, and what feels to you like explaining the obvious reads to them as the first straight answer anybody has given.

The test: Ask somebody outside the business why you do this work, and why they should trust you. If they cannot answer both from your own materials, you never gave the reason.

Where it shows up — 8 worked examples

WhoWhat happened
The hotel towel-reuse researchersA sign saying most previous guests in that very room had reused their towels beat the appeal to virtue, at zero added cost.
L'AxelleNamed the customer's true, urgent motivation with Put an end to sweat marks. Add-to-cart actions rose 93%.
WikiJobAdded sober testimonials from people like the buyer, and sales rose 34%, because the buyer had been making a trust decision all along.
CareLoggerReplaced a convenience promise with a page that made the underlying pain vivid. Signups rose 31% on the reframing alone.
The IRI Gold CompanyStopped buying advertising and became the recommended provider inside about thirty financial newsletters — $300,000 to $500 million in two years.
HubSpotTurned education itself into its acquisition engine, so prospects arrived already understanding why and already trusting it.
The gemstone letterA discount list would not move thirty million dollars of gemstones; a letter naming what the company paid sold everything but the blue topaz.
Fathom AnalyticsSold privacy as the reason to switch, a claim Google Analytics could not honestly make, and monthly revenue growth tripled when regulators agreed.

What it solves

The words a business owner uses for this before anybody has told them the name of it. If one of these is a sentence you have said out loud, this is your strategy.

  • We list features and hope“Our materials describe what we do in detail and never once say why any of it matters.”The reason why written down and put first, so the client leads themselves to the conclusion instead of being argued toward it.
  • Our price needs defending“We spend the second half of every conversation justifying a number we were confident about in the first half.”The whole truth told out loud — what it costs you, why the number is what it is — which is what stopped a price list from being an argument.
  • We sound like the brochure“Everything we send out reads as though it were written by a committee that had never met a customer.”One line only you could honestly say, sharpened until no competitor could claim it, and then used everywhere a client meets you.
  • The team does not know why either“If I asked the people here why we do it this way, I would get the process rather than the reason.”The same question turned inward — the reason why they should do it differently, collaborate, want to be trained — which is where it also works.
  • Nobody remembers us“People are perfectly warm in the meeting and then nothing happens, and I do not know what failed to land.”A reason that survives the meeting, because what a client carries out of the room is why it mattered rather than what you listed.
  • The advisor's version“I ask a client why somebody should choose them and what I get back is a list of what they do.”A method for pulling a client's real reason out of them, so the answer stops being a list of what they do.

The challenge

Write the reason why, then put it first.

Take the offer that is in front of a buyer right now and write the reason why for each of its four claims — why this price and not a lower one, why now and not next quarter, why this guarantee, why you rather than the obvious alternative. Write them the way the gemstone letter was written: the whole truth, including what it costs you. Then put the price reason into the first thing a prospect reads from you in the next seven days and leave it there for a fortnight.

How you will know it is done Four reasons written, the price reason live in the first thing a prospect sees, and left there for a fortnight.

The AI layer · second pass

Once this is working, here is what to multiply

Improve the system first. Then multiply it. This panel is the second run at the strategy above, and it is deliberately useless until the first run is done.

Before you point anything at this You have written by hand why you do this and why a stranger should trust you.
What it multiplies Carrying the same reason into every place a client meets you, the confirmation email, the quote, the site's third page, and testing which telling of it moves people.
The trap Manufacturing a reason you do not have. The gemstone letter sold because every line of it was true, including the humiliating parts; a generated origin story reads as warmth with nobody standing behind it, which is exactly where the same tool damaged Coca-Cola.