My buddy has a 3D printer. It’s pretty neat. Sometimes he tells me, “I can print anything for you if you see something you like!” Okay cool. But the problem is that I don’t scroll 3D printing websites in my free time; I’m never going to stumble across the perfect item for him to print.
I went to school the next day, and a kid was showing some things he had already printed. None of them were revolutionary. Some of them were pretty boring. But I immediately wanted one. Within a few hours, he had many orders.
Both people were selling the same thing: “I can print anything”. So what was different? Why did I buy a pretty generic item from the kid at school?
One kid was selling possibilities. The other kid was selling examples. In marketing, specificity beats possibility every time.
For generations, the concept for Lego was simple; a box of bricks with endless possibilities. But endless possibilities can be surprisingly hard to sell. Oftentimes people don’t know what to imagine. It was Lego sets that made the company successful. Each set has just one way of fitting together, and it’s guaranteed to make something nice. When you walk into a Lego store, you see pre-built castles, cars, and scenes.
The bricks never changed. The presentation did.
The same principle applies to anything you try to sell.
If you’re trying to sell custom paintings, don’t just say, “I’m an artist.”
Say, “I can paint family portraits, nature scenes, or anything else you can think of.”
If you’re trying to sell website design, don’t just say, “I make websites.”
Show them a website you’ve built that has doubled a client’s click-through rate.
Showing someone things you’ve done doesn’t limit their imagination. It just gives it a place to start.