I really love deconstructing the psychology of why service-based business owners get hired.

So what needs to be in place for someone to even begin contemplating hiring you?

I can boil it down to just 2 words

“URGENT CHANGE”

What I mean by this is that something in your potential client’s business or life needs to be enough of problem that they want it to be different NOW. Or perhaps they want something bad enough that they are willing to do something about it NOW.

• I like my shoes; and the heel broke off. I want that situation to change, so I go to a cobbler to get that fixed.
• I don’t like how I look in the mirror because I put on 15 pounds, so I go to a weight loss coach or a trainer because I want my appearance to change.
• I am sad and depressed and I feel so lost in my life. So I go to a therapist or a life purpose coach to help me with that.

Without a current urgent need, your potential clients will continue to be potential clients unless their problem becomes acute enough for them to want to do something about it.

There has to be a problem NOW.

I’ll give you an example. In Africa, malaria kills hundreds of thousands of children every year. It turns out that $6 bed nets, which prevent mosquitoes from biting kids while they sleep, is a great preventative measure. Yet, unless these bed nets are given out for free, they tend to not sell at all. On the other hand, once the child gets malaria, paren’ts do everything possible to obtain medicine to save their child’s life.

Why would an African paren’t not buy a $6 bed when that action could very well save their child’s life?

It is not because they don’t care about their child – because they ARE willing to invest hundreds of dollars on medicine once their child gets malaria.

Prevention is simply not enough of a motivator for someone to invest. There simply isn’t yet an urgent problem.

Here are just a few of the reasons why you will not get hired unless your potential client has a current urgent need:

• There’s not enough motivation for someone to even learn about something that is not yet an urgent problem; so people aren’t even in the position to seek out help.
• Taking action in order for something not to happen is not enough of motivator. You sleep under a bed net and you don’t get malaria. You eat right and you don’t get sick. You get liability insurance so that you can keep your money when you get sued.
• It’s easy to procrastinate when the need is not current. Yes, your service may sound interesting to your potential client, but unless there is a current need it’s just too easy to say “I will take care of it later.”

So the moral of this story – make sure you have identified an urgent problem that you are solving with your services, your packages and your products. And make sure to identify the result which people with that problem are really seeking. This is really the basis of your business. It is the shingle on your virtual store. Without this, success may be a bit elusive.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment below…