HOW TO FIND A NEED TO FILL
by Herman Holtz

Find a need to fill--or create one! Yes, you can create a new need. It happens every day.

What is a new need? The TV created a new need. Of course, the need did not--could not--exist before something to satisfy that need existed. Every major new product or service creates new needs--needs for the product, for accessories and related products, and for services related to the product.

Of course, you and I are not likely to invent some major new product tomorrow. But that does not mean that we may not invent or create something new that customers will want. "New" is, after all, a relative term. Whatever you become aware of for the first time is new, even if others have known of it for a long time. Too, a new twist to something old may make it new. For example, freelance writers would work on a proposal for a client as quickly as they would write a sales letter or anything else a client wanted, but I went at this in reverse: I specialized in proposal writing, although I would handle other writing assignments. As far as I knew then or know now, I was the first proposal consultant. I offered clients a new idea. It hadn't occurred to them that there was someone with special knowledge and experience in writing winning proposals.

Young Montgomery Ward offered something new when he invented the unconditional guarantee: money back if you are not satisfied for any reason, a sensational marketing idea at the time. The late Joe Karbo offered something new when he originated the copy telling readers that he was bankrupt before he discovered the idea that made him a lot if money, and which he now offered to sell. In fact, he invented another new idea at the time, in including in his advertising a statement by his accountant certifying that everything in Karbo's claims was true.

These examples are closely related to the USP--Unique Selling Proposition--idea. They are innovations that are successful. They offer something different and, in many cases, offer also a benefit linked to the unique idea. When I offered a training seminar in proposal writing, I gave it several USPs, such as promising to reveal a method for appearing to be the low bidder, even when one is not, a way to avoid having contract disputes, a measure to assure being able to collect money due without bureaucratic difficulty, and several other items. Whether they were truly unique or not I do not know, for my competitors did not mention any of these in their literature. But that is what made these items unique for me: my clients did not see these mentioned anywhere else, so they quite properly inferred that these were my own exclusive trade secrets that I would reveal!

The principle is simple enough: Find the best features of what you offer that your competitors do not offer and feature these as new and unique ideas. But focus on the benefits they deliver to the customer, for that is what creates a new need, a need for that special thing you offer.

Searching for useful features already existing in your offer may not be enough. You may have to create features that deliver benefits that no one else promises. That new idea can be a new kind of guarantee (a la Montgomery Ward), a new kind of comfort for the prospect that you can and will deliver what you promise (a la Joe Karbo), a new product feature, or almost anything else that is new and offers some kind of benefit.

As simple an idea as a great headline or title can make the difference. A book titled FIVE ACRES was not doing well until famed copywriter Maxwell Sackheim was called in to help in marketing it. He had it retitled to FIVE ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE. That made the difference. "Five Acres" did not say anything; "Five Acres and Independence" said a mouthful!

Book publishing is a special case because every new book published is an effort to create a new need, a need for that book--or for what it promises to deliver. No business is more full of surprises than is book publishing. Publishers' opinions of what will and will not sell prove to be not much better than the guesses of any individual who knows nothing about publishing. But book publishing is not the only business in which every new product is a gamble that the public will see it as a new need to be filled. The garment industry, the toy industry, the automobile industry, and almost every other industry that produces new products to sell to the public at large is in that same boat. It is extremely difficult to anticipate how the public will react to a new offering of any kind. But, difficult though it is, we can certainly take a few steps to influence the fate of our offerings.

One step is to make the promise clear in the headline or title of whatever we sell. Remember that advertising and promotional materials generally are or ought to be offers, not announcements, and they must be offers to do something for the customer. Many people mistakenly believe that their offer is whatever service or product they want to sell. But it is not that product or service the customer truly wants: he customer truly wants to buy some benefit or reward. Let's suppose that you provide an editorial support service, for example--word processing, editing, proofreading, and other such services. Most in that business promise "expert" or "professional" skills and guaranteed service. Ho-hum. Almost everybody in that business makes that same representation, believing that they are making an offer. But what do your prospects really want? What can you offer them that strikes a responsive chord? Relief from tedious chores? Rescue from the danger of missing a scheduled deadline? The safety of freedom from embarrassing errors or amateurish mistakes in their copy?

Perhaps you believe that claiming professionalism, expertise, and error-free work convey those messages. It is unlikely. Most prospects will not translate your euphemisms into the practical terms of the direct benefit; you must do that yourself. Don't make claims about yourself; "professionalism" and "expertise" are about you, but the customer is not interested in you. The customer is interested only in solving his or her own problems or reaping whatever benefits are available to be reaped. Describe the benefits in those practical terms that few others use, rather than in tony euphemisms, if you want to create new needs. (In fact, your prospects may never have thought about their needs and problems in those exact terms. You may have done them a great service simply in articulating their concerns for the first time and also enabling them to understand that there are choices they hadn't thought about.

Creating a new need may therefore sometimes be only altering the perception of the customer by presenting a different, clearer view of the situation, the problems, the solutions, and the alternatives. You achieve this by empathy--understanding the customer's concerns and desires. And you do that by suppressing your own desires and interests in selling, and thinking entirely in terms of the customer's viewpoint and how you can satisfy customers' needs. But that is what marketing is.

(Herman Holtz is a regular columnist for the magazine Contract Professional and a veteran engineer-consultant-writer. He is also the author of the best-selling How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant. You can reach him at holtz@paltech.com, fax301-649-5745, and at his Web site http://www.bellicose.com/freelance/.)

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