How to push the buttons that influence what others buy in an ethical way

Of course, you do the things you’re familiar with, why wouldn’t you? You wrote lengthy posts about how great your offer is and the benefits of your offer are just second to none. Just to get your creative juices flowing, you grabbed a few low-ticket content prompts (well, possibly every single one of them on the market) and wrote and wrote post after post. Short-form, long-form, connection, authority, engagement, viral and promo posts. You were well-chuffed to be able to churn out such great quality content.

And because you’re not a beginner, you were writing about benefits and good stuff, not just the basics. You did not fall for the generic mistake of putting out inspirational quotes and stuff that has absof****nglutely nothing to do with your offer or you. You did not discuss in detail the features. You were careful and spent considerate time writing and publishing/scheduling every piece of content.

You truly believe that your thing is the solution to a big problem for your prospect. And it is indeed. But they still don’t buy it. How dare they ignore the fact that your thing is the thing that would solve that issue they want to be solved?!

You just can’t get your head around it. Why didn’t they buy it?

You sit in front of your computer, overwhelmed and frustrated because you just spent the last 7 months crafting beautiful copy but got zero clients with it. To make this more annoying, people reached out to you to tell you how great the content is that you so carefully crafted. And still. You can show up nothing. Nada. Zero. Just your frustration and a bunch of posts.

Content marketing doesn’t work. Copywriting is a scam. Everyone is a scam and can do a favour. – OK, I get it, you are frustrated. Everyone would be in your shoes.

If I can have a wild guess, there are a few reasons behind your lack of sales. And it’s not that complicated. What are the possible reasons that no one jumped to purchase your thing you spent so much time, money energy and love to create?

- you’re not clear about what you’re selling
- people don’t understand what your offer ‘does’ to them and ‘how’ it’s going to help them get results
- your messaging is off or inauthentic
- you don’t push the buttons that are behind every single buying decision
- people don’t believe that you can deliver what you say you will
- people don’t believe this is for them or this can solve their issue
- your pricing is way off (it can be too cheap or too expensive)

I’m going to suppose that your offer IS the solution for your prospects’ pain and that you really know your stuff and can help them overcome whatever they need to overcome. And of course, you know them well, so you did not base your offer on a guess, rather than the things they want.

I could go on and talk about all possible scenarios of why they did not grab your awesome offer. But I picked one thing that will give you the key to every single buying decision because it’s behind all of them. There are only a few things you need to keep in mind but you need to trigger one or multiple of those ‘things’ if you want your copy to sell your offer.

Why people buy?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

You might have heard about Maslow’s pyramid which is a motivational theory in psychology that basically explains from the bottom to the top the needs we have. In a more scientific way; Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological (air, water, food and clothing), safety (job security, health, personal security), love and belonging needs (friendship, intimacy and connection), esteem (respect, status and freedom), and self-actualisation (morality, creativity and problem-solving). To aim for higher needs first the lower ones in the hierarchy needs need to be satisfied.

The main reasons people buy things

You guessed, to satisfy their needs. Duh, you knew this, so why do I mention it?

Because even though you knew this, most entrepreneurs do not, I repeat, do not link back their offer to the ‘evergeens’. The evergreens of what? The evergreens of purchasing anything.

So what are the evergreens that make people purchase something? What do people want?

They want to make or save money. They want to save time. They want to avoid effort. They want to get away from pain (physical and mental). They want comfort. They want health. They want prestige and praise. They want to feel loved.

If you’re going down on these evergreens you’ll see that you can link back everything to these and you can link back everything to Maslow’s pyramid.

Some people say there are only 3 main things people do buy stuff and those are; health, wealth and sex. This, of course, is not true because it misses the top of the hierarchy, the desire to become the most someone can be (self-actualisation).

How can you use this in your messaging to influence buyer decisions?

Most people go wrong that they assume that whatever they sell is so extremely needed that people will drop everything for it. Like it’s a physiological need. Except it’s not. And that’s why even though they write really great content, it just doesn’t push the buttons that make people buy.

When you have an offer you need to know what level of need will your thing satisfy/solve. Think through this as you need to ‘qualify’ your offer with a simple traffic light system.

Is your offer is something that changes their life immediately and IS urgent? If you would be in their shoes (your prospective client’s shoes) would you be dropping everything, literally, to solve that issue? If so, that’s a red light. When the red light switches on you drop everything and get things sorted. There’s a real immediate cost of delaying solving the problem.

If you’re offering emergency services, like crisis communication, or you’re a lawyer, a plumber, a vet, a private doctor or anything that people might need immediately with little to no notice, this is you. You can ethically use urgency in your communication because that matches the needs. Even if it’s just about prevention.

The red category is for basic needs (physiological and safety). This is about getting away from pain (mental or physical), this is about health and comfort. And this is what your offer should be linked back to. And if you’re selling to B2B, you can translate this in the same way, because it’s the same. Would the company go down, damage its reputation, etc without your offer? If yes, your offer is in this category.

The amber category is where most entrepreneurs sell their offers. And that aims mostly for the psychological needs (love, belonging and esteem). There’s a slight touch of safety needs (health, job and personal security) but here is more about improvement and prevention. These are important and motivating needs that do not require that level of urgency.

To see if your offer is in this category think through how quickly you’d want to solve the issue if you’d be in your prospect’s shoes. How important is your offer? I mean, I know your offer is important, but realistically, what happens if they don’t have your offer right now? Would their life go in the same way, with no real issue if they just buy your thing 6 months down the line? How’s their life going to be affected by not having your thing?

And do not link back to catastrophic scenarios or promote fake scarcity if there’s no real immediate cost of delaying solving the problem. That messes up your messaging.

If you’re offering services like marketing, branding, copywriting, coaching, or you’re a hypnotherapist, massage therapist, personal trainer, personal chef or anything similar to its nature, this is you. Your offer is needed and important but it’s not life or death to have it. This category is about making/saving money, saving time and avoiding efforts and feeling loved.

And when I say making/saving money I do not mean saving a company from going down. You don’t really want to work with people that see you as the last effort to save them. Why? Because if you’re not an expert on crisis situation and actively working with red offers (see above), these clients quite possibly will suck the life out of you. They’re desperate. They’ll argue your pricing, they bargain, they plea. And if things go in the wrong direction, even though you have no control over it, they’ll blame you. Of course, this doesn’t always happen and still, I need to repeat it, your offer in the amber category is not about saving someone.

The green category. Everything here is just nice to have and there’s no urgency. This could be for example an online painting course for beginners. It’s fun and can help relax and develop some skills, play around and increase creativity. But it’s not something that is ‘needed’, it’s something that people want. Big difference.

So if your offer is just to entertain people in any way (comedian, writer, theatre actor, etc) is kind of non-essential. I know it’s harsh but in the pandemic, we all heard that certain professions are classed as non-essential, even if we didn’t agree with what they said.

The funny thing is that for example, Netflix is a green offer. It’s absolutely not a necessity. But people keep it, even when they’re in financial difficulties because it is built into their everyday life. And now, for many, it’s become a basic need. From a ‘want to have’ to a ‘need to have’.

How to link everything together?

First, decide which category of the traffic light system your offer falls under. Second, find the needs of what your offer delivers and where they are now. And match it with the evergreens that make people purchase.

If you do this, and the rest of the reasons I bullet-pointed at the beginning are fine, your content now might just be much more powerful and hit home.

Of course, if you want my help with how to craft your content that will sell your offer, I can help you. We start with the Outstanding Gameplan to strengthen your uniqueness and leverage buyer psychology to increase your profit. Because we need to make sure that the rest of the bullet points are covered and work well. And once you become outstanding, we’ll find a way to increase your profit without working more.

And if you’re up for it, keep reading because I tell you how we’ll do it.

How will we do this?

First, we’ll look at your business, industry and your offer to understand why people buy from you and leverage buyer psychology to sign more clients. (I wrote a dissertation on the topic.) And we’ll find the unique essence of your offer that’ll put you above all similar offers to attract and impress your (prospective) clients.

And after that, we’ll do the math and your pricing to make sure your business can reach a very nice and comfortable high-profit margin revenue (a.k.a. your ambitious income goal), without working every hour under the sun. Yes, this means we’ll brainstorm ways to increase the value of your offer or reduce the time of delivery.

And if you’re a good fit and want to go further after the Outstanding Gameplan, you might grab one of the Profit Zone offers to progress further, which include the below steps and more.

We’ll find the best ways to grow your audience by checking on your existing results, resources & your personality. You can expect to work on your email marketing, social media & community-building activities.

We’ll put together a simple system & process that’ll help you increase your sales conversion & referral rate.

We’ll pinpoint your crystal clear & concise message & craft a few viral & engagement posts. You’ll write different posts following my proven method by leveraging buyer psychology to get the leads coming in. Then I review & critique your content.

We’ll optimise your sales process to increase your conversion rate, so you can enjoy better results with less work.

Together, we’ll create the simplest marketing plan on Earth for your business. And help you repurpose your content to be able to set and forget most of it.

By this point, your offer, your messaging, content & sales process basically lets people close themselves with very little effort on your side.

One of the versions of my Profit Zone method I used to help a client to go from making £9M in a year to over £20M in just 9 months. This method also helped me save 6 figures in a client’s marketing budget whilst increasing their business growth by 270%.

End result? You’ll be able to simplify your marketing, fine-tuning your marketing message and methodology so these won’t hold you back from rapid growth and peace in your business anymore.

No more working way too hard talking to the wrong people and presenting your offers in the wrong way.

Pretty simple, right? And very effective.

But this is not for everyone, so who's a good fit to work with me?

they want better quality leads and more clients but they don’t want the “busy work”, they want to focus on money-generating tasks and they need a clear method they can follow

their content doesn’t generate buzz and/or leads because it lacks the clarity and powerful, unambiguous positioning and messaging required to generate those leads

they already know their material is great but for some reason, they’re stuck under the frustrating income ceiling that they want to smash through now

they don’t want to change niche or your offer (tweaking is fine) because it works but they need to up their game

they’re confident in their ability to convert all their new leads into clients

Are you ready to scale your business to the next level?

How it works

Step 1

starts with the Outstanding Gameplan

The purpose of the session is to recognise the uniqueness of your business, so you can stand out of the sea of sameness. And once you become outstanding, we’ll find a way to increase your profit without working more.

All this in a 2,5 hours online session.

Step 2

let the ball roll with Profit Zone

The Outstanding Gameplan uncovers the unique essence of your offer that’ll put you above all similar offers. After that, with the Profit Zone, I’ll show you the simplified processes, crystal clear, concise messaging, content and the easiest marketing plan you need to sell NOW… If you don’t have the time to wait 3-6+ months to start making money.

All this in 1 or 3 days.

What people are saying

Who am I?

I’m Viki Thorbjorn, an ex-athlete turned award-winning marketer. I’ve helped clients to go from making £9M in a year to over £20M in just 9 months. Or to save 6 figures in a client’s marketing budget whilst increasing their business growth by 270%. And just in 2021 alone I helped thousands of people with their business and gained hundreds of customers – will you be the next?

And I designed the Outstanding Gameplan to reveal the very unique, authentic essence of your business, letting you tackle the goals you care about, no matter how complex or ambitious they might seem.