The most elegant marketing framework ever

(2 min read) A powerful way to think about your business, regardless of what the model is or who your customers are.

Author

Avi Gandhi
May 21, 2024

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Nicole Burke, Creator of Gardenary, just walked me through her Three Beliefs marketing framework. It’s so elegant that I have to share it with you separately from her business breakdown (coming soon).

But first…

We have three things we want everybody that touches our brand to believe:

1. To believe in me - like my story, that it's real, that I'm not a fake.

2. To believe in the system that we have at Gardenary - that they work.

3. To believe in themselves.

I think any buyer for any company has to be convinced of those three things: the seller is authentic, the actual product works well, and they can do it.

Y’all, this is a powerful way to think about your business regardless of what the model is or who your customers are.

If you’re selling to a brand, you want them to believe that:

  • You’re going to do what you say

  • Your content is going to deliver the results that they want

  • They’re going to be able to get a deal done and work with you smoothly

If you’re selling a product to a customer, you want them to believe that

  • You or your company are legitimately qualified to make that product

  • The product is going to do what you’re saying it’s going to do

  • They are going to be able to use the product based on their current skill level, context, resources, etc.

Let’s look at some examples of how this framework might explain a failure to close:

  • Pricing too high leads to a failure in #3 (Belief in Themselves) - your customer can’t afford you which means they don’t believe they can use your product.

  • Getting “canceled” represents a failure in #1 (Belief in You) as your credibility / authenticity to prospective customers declines. It may also represent a failure in #3 (Belief in Themselves) if they feel that they might get in trouble for working with you, and thus cannot do so.

  • A no-refunds policy could lead to a failure of #2 (Belief in the Product), as potential customers could assume that whatever you're selling won’t perform the way they want it to and, worse, that you know it.

Personal Anecdote

My consulting business has had trouble closing clients lately. I suspect it is a pricing issue. We only hire seasoned contractors, who are more expensive, and we’ve been pitching large scopes of work early in our client relationships. As a result, the initial numbers prospective clients see are larger than they expected.

Ultimately, affordability is an issue with #3 (Belief in Themselves): most of my prospective clients are startups with limited funding, and they are worried about committing such large amounts so quickly because of the risk. They worry they can’t afford it.

The solution is to lower prices, but it’s not that simple. In order to bring our fees down, we will need to restructure our offerings - otherwise, we could end up losing money on labor costs. 

We’ll likely switch to a model where we start with a smaller, simpler offering that doesn’t require a ton of additional labor costs. After a few months of success, we would then aim to upsell additional services. This is known as a “land and expand” strategy where you 1) land the client for lower fees, then 2) expand the services over time as you prove yourself.

If you’re having potential issues closing partnerships or clients or product sales, try thinking about why through the lens of this Three Beliefs framework. It might help you identify what your challenge actually is and how you can better address it.

Poll

Where in the Three Beliefs framework does your biggest business challenge sit?

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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
powered by TheFutureParty

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