Today's podcast episode is quite a rant, but it's also practical to help you improve your messaging significantly. In this episode, I want to discuss the difference between process-focused and outcome-focused messaging, and how to incorporate a strong balance in your messaging so that you're not leaning one way or the other.
I'm going to talk about the pros and cons of each and talk about some of the risks of being overly focused on one over the other. I'm also going to break down some agitation, admiration, and yucky marketing strategies, and we'll probably get ranty about some things in between.
Let's dive in!
I've noticed in recent years that there has been a big move towards outcome-focused messaging in the online business space. But I want to break down what outcome-focused messaging is and why I think that it's not a better alternative to existing messaging strategies, and in fact, it's just a small part of the messaging puzzle.
First and foremost, what is outcome-focused messaging and what's the alternative?
Outcome-focused messaging just talks about the results of working with you.
"My client got X result."
"I've earned X amount of money."
"When you learn this one secret, you'll 3x your income."
It's messaging that only talks about the results.
It might look like it's giving advice, but the advice is focused only on the result: "Once you sort your messaging, you'll attract super-motivated clients too."
The result is attracting super-motivated clients.
"When you finally give up your addiction to drama, you will magically manifest your soul mate."
It's couching that there's a tiny little secret thing that you need to do that you probably should have done by now that will get you these amazing results.
Getting the result is so simple and easy.
The messaging is overly focused on really looking at what that result is.
You'll see people who are overly focused on outcome messaging consistently sharing client results, their own results, and advice that tells you there's one secret thing that you need to do to get these extraordinary results.
That's what I mean by outcome-focused messaging.
The alternative to outcome-focused messaging is process-focused messaging.
Process-focused messaging is what you do with people. Explaining your work and your process.
It's the steps that you walk through when you work with your clients.
You talk about the steps that you do with people and why you do it that way. Talking about what's included when people work with you, the modules inside your programs, and why you've sequenced those modules in that way. The actions that people take when they work with you or when they're doing your program.
It's also what you get your clients to do as their homework to elicit change or get their results.
You're focused on your process - the process your clients undertake when they work with you.
You might think that I would be pushing you to one or the other.
Outcome-focused messaging can often look like snake oil (there are secret magic beans that make everything okay). It can sometimes be a little off-putting, because how do I know that what you teach me is actually going to work for me?
One of the biggest downfalls of outcome-oriented messaging is that because you're consistently talking about client results, you can often be pitching those to lead people to believe they are normal, expected results, and therefore, if people join and don't get that level of results, it leads to buyer's remorse, buyer dissatisfaction, complaints, refund requests and negative reviews.
We've also seen several court cases in recent years in Australia where it was successfully shown that a seller or a network marketing company has presented beyond or above-average results as typical results so consistently that a reasonable person would assume that they would get similar results, and therefore, when they haven't, they have been successful at a legal challenge of that provider.
We've also seen regulatory bodies successfully prosecute companies, and in particular, network marketing companies recently for those outcome-based claims being presented as typical results when they are not typical.
One of the big ones had disclaimers on their sales pages and in their new member sign-up kits that said 'these results are not typical'. But it was found in court that those disclaimers were not enough to counteract the heavy outcome-based marketing messaging that was used, and that it was very reasonable that people would assume those results were very achievable upon joining the network marketing company or upon completing the program because of the way that they were presented on social media and on sales webinars.
It's been really interesting to see some of those cases.
We don't have to go all the way down the legal pathway. I also think that from a values alignment perspective, leading people to believe that huge results are the norm and not talking about the process to get there can lead people to believe that there's not a lot of work involved between where they are and the results that they want to get.
We're going to talk about that in the downsides of outcome marketing. But in a nutshell, outcome marketing is so focused on results and outcomes and does not provide adequate information about how those results are generated, or the steps that you take people through to get those results.
Process-focused messaging, on the other hand, is about what you do with people.
That's the steps that you take people through.
You might, in your process-oriented messaging, be talking about the steps that people undertake when they work with you. What are some of the things people need to do when they work with you to move towards those results? What's included inside packages working with you or your courses and program offerings?
What modules do you have and why do you put them in that particular order? What are the actions that people will take when they join your program?
It's all about what you get your clients to do.
Outcome messaging just talks about the results. Process messaging just talks about the process or the actions that people take and that you take with your clients.
Ultimately, which is better?
I think it's clear that you need both.
Sometimes people are so shy talking about the results of working with them because they don't want to seem like a snake oil salesperson, that they don't talk about outcomes at all in their messaging.
The risk of doing that and being all process-oriented is that you're only talking about the work and you make it sound very hard.
There's no connection between doing that work with you and the result that is reasonable for people to expect from doing that work with you.
You might assume that it's more appropriate or consent-based to only talk about the process in your messaging. But actually, it's important that you connect the process to the outcomes.
We do that in a way where you're not presenting your top 1% of client results as typical. We do that in a way where you are speaking to what people can reasonably expect as a result of doing that work with you.
What are the risks of using outcome-only messaging?
There is that sense that you're selling magic beans. No one understands what you'll actually do with them, and you've minimised what you do together so much that you may end up only attracting people who don't want to do any work - they're just looking for that get-rich-quick scheme.
It can attract people who are so fixated on the results that they're not willing to do some of that self-reflection, or they're not being honest about their starting point with you.
I've seen this happen to someone in the past, where they talk about helping people go from five-figure months to six-figure months, but they have a lot of people who buy from them who aren't having five-figure months yet. But because they don't know what the process is, they've decided that they want to go from their current four-figure months to six-figure months so they may as well leap over to that.
You have a lot of people join with unrealistic expectations, or people who aren't honest or upfront about their starting point. They like to think they're ready for what it is that you've got to offer, but they're not ready. They just want the outcome.
One of the other risks of using outcomes only is that it requires the agitation and admiration marketing approach to get those sales coming in.
You don't just talk about potential results or the outcomes your clients have.
You also need to agitate their current state.
A lot of the outcome-focused marketing and messaging is focused on making people feel uncomfortable with where they are and uncomfortable that they haven't figured it out yet.
It almost positions you as this expert - this keeper of the secret.
It really minimises the workload involved, but it also then relies on you speaking down to your audience and speaking to your audience from a space of the haves and the have-nots.
"I'm part of the haves because I've done this bit, and you're the have-nots because you haven't."
When it comes down to it, a lot of people who follow me who want to do that consent-based marketing and that heart-centered approach to sales and marketing don't feel comfortable with how they come across when they use admiration/agitation marketing. When they look back at what they've been sharing from a content perspective, it makes them feel a bit yucky.
Not only does it have the risk of attracting more refunds, more buyer dissatisfaction, and more people who don't actually want to do the work (because you're not talking about the work, you're only talking about the results), but it can also make you feel a bit yucky in the way that you have to do your messaging and marketing, and the way that you speak down to people.
A lot of people find it really challenging to consistently share that message, and they'll do it when someone tells them to for a little while, but then it starts to make them feel weird in the tummy.
We don't want to do outcome-only. But we don't want to do process-only either.
If you're focused only on your process, and you're only talking about the work that you do and the steps that you take people through, then you're not connecting it with the results. It's not motivating or incentivising anyone to pay you.
But it can also mean that most of your content feels like it's instructive. Most of your content is talking through the process and teaching others the process.
It can also mean that if that's all you're doing, it can feel like there's no reason to pay you. There's no reason to work with you, because you have already taught me the process, and you've already shown me the steps you take people through.
It gives people a lot more sense that they should try and do it on their own first.
I'm not saying that that's something you might not want to do. You might want to encourage people to try it out for themselves first, but it almost delays people from making a decision as to whether they buy from you to fast-track that process and fast-track those results from that process.
Pocess-only messaging can also have its downfalls.
When I work one-on-one with people on this process-oriented versus outcome-oriented messaging, the first thing I'll go and look at is their socials. Are you using process-oriented? Are using outcome-oriented? What's the balance here?
And what I see is that a lot of people struggle with marrying the two together.
They've learned how to talk about their process from one mentor, and they've learned outcome-focused marketing from another.
They just have a mix of the two. But it's not about just mixing it up. It's learning how to weave them together.
If you need some help with this, I recommend you check out my Core Messaging freebie.
In that freebie, we work on your value proposition table.
This is one way that I help you weave process and outcomes together. You're not just talking about the before and after, you're also talking about why that's valuable.
In the bridge messaging part of your core messaging document, we put together your messaging to demonstrate where people might have misdiagnosed what the process is that they need to follow, what their steps are, or what's between them and their goal. Then we help to facilitate that lightbulb moment.
There are more pieces to that messaging puzzle than simply explaining your process and telling everyone what results people get.
That form of messaging is very rudimentary.
It's the old school, very basic kind of marketing, and it doesn't particularly work effectively online, because it's what every random person who's dialling in their messaging shares.
"Here's the five steps of how we work together, here's the results you can expect, and here's how much it costs you."
It's not as simple as that, because in a lot of cases, your audience doesn't yet agree with you on what steps they need to be taking.
For example, when people come and follow me, they often think they need to reach more people online and grow their audience. But one of the big lightbulbs people have when they follow me is if they're not converting the audience they have, then growing their audience with new people is not going to grow their results.
If they want to grow their results, they need to get better at converting and looking after the audience they have. And the audience you have is your leverage point for growing your audience into new spaces.
That's a little rudimentary example of that lightbulb.
People realise that they have 42 followers on their Facebook page and they're making zero sales, so if they have 4,200 followers on their Facebook page, they'll still make zero sales because their problem is a conversion problem and they won't solve it with a reach solution.
If you want to dive into that core messaging piece and bring together process and outcome orientations of your messaging, I would highly recommend you grab that free resource: tashcorbin.com/coremessage
Use that Core Messaging freebie to help you round out your messaging and bring a little more balance.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.